rough draft

The Assimilation and De-individualization That Led Me to Find Myself

“The easiest thing to be in the world is you. The most difficult thing to be is what other people want you to be. Don't let them put you in that position.”

― Leo Buscaglia

Major Stages In My Life

California: Born & Raised

As a child I have always been a unique spirit who marched to the beat of my own drum. Growing up in Southern California was a perfect environment for a curious and open-minded little girl. I was always told that California is the land of fruits and nuts, but I never really understood what people meant by that, because the only fruit I ever saw was being sold by immigrants on the side of the road and I never saw that many peanuts around besides at LA Dodgers games. I was always creative and did things the way that I wanted to do them. I never thought to be ashamed of being a little unique; on the contrary, these traits were positively reinforced by my parents who found these to be desirable qualities for a child to have. Growing up and having your unique personality and quirky characteristics praised was a really positive experience. It helped me develop a strong self-esteem and I felt pretty good about myself. Living in Southern California for the beginning of my life you can understand that other children around me were very different themselves and we were raised in an environment where our differences were celebrated. Hardly any of my classmates looked like me and I was not bothered at all by this. This is how most people would want their children to be raised.

I did things like most little girls anywhere growing up would do like playing little league sports and going to birthday parties of kids in my class (sometimes my mom would be one of the few English speaking parents there!) and developing hobbies like collecting a ridiculous amount of Beanie Babies and horseback riding.

(insert picture of me on a horse as a kid, still need to scan)

As I got older and into my preteens I did normal things like getting overdressed and going to the local mall with a group of girls every weekend and seeing movies. Some of the things that I did that not every kid got to was go to Disney Land every other weekend or get dropped off at Santa Monica Pier for the day and run around with my friends playing carnival games or about a mile away from there take a walk down Venice Beach and looking at random Hippy shops and watch the street performers.

The Move To Suburban Ohio

So during the beginning of puberty when I was starting the awful awkward stages of becoming a young adult, my dad had to change jobs and move us into suburban Ohio. I was in a stage of my life where I would be excited for something new. My older sister who was going to be a sophomore in high school was completely horrified by the idea of leaving her friends and going somewhere completely new but I was excited for a new experience. It wasn’t that I didn’t love my school and my friends but I was thrilled to try something new. I did not have a doubt in my mind that I was going to love my new school and everyone was going to love me.

First Day of School

The first day of school was a reality check for me. I was going into the 8^th grade at Nagel middle school in Cincinnati Ohio and we still weren’t completely moved into my house. I had spent a sleepless night on a bean-bag chair in my basement going over and over difference scenarios that could happen. I still remember the exact outfit I picked out. My idea was to look casual and cool, not like someone who is trying way too hard. It’s a funny concept we have, to spend so much time and energy on making sure to look like you did not spend time or energy on yourself. So here I am waking up before the sun rises wearing ripped jeans, vans sneakers that I had colored on and decorated myself, and my favorite zipup jacket with the batman logo on the front standing at the bus stop and anticipating my first encounter with these people that I could potentially call my new friends. The second I walked on there were miserable sleepy faces looking back at me with little to no interest. In my situation I played out in my head I imagined there would be a friendly-faced stranger who would offer me a seat next to them. Instead I sat in an empty seat and sat silently. I noticed that the only people talking were the kids sitting in the back and you could tell that they were a close knit group of people. The bus continued on to the rest of the stops and not a word was spoken to me so instead of chatting people up and introducing myself I looked out the window upon unfamiliar landscapes that I would be calling my new home of Anderson Township. We finally pull into the school parking lot and my hands were shaking. I look out to see all the students and realizing that this was not the whole school’s population but just one grade of it! This school had to be 3 times bigger than my old one. I remembered being told to line up with my homeroom and that these would be the people I had classes with all year. I was looking around at these kids that I would be would be spending the rest of the year with and wondering how things were going to turn out. We sit down in our homeroom and when taking attendance the teacher called my name and I stood up and announced that I was new to Ohio like I had seen people do on TV when they went to a new school. The teacher blinked and stared at me and all finally responded by saying “Good for you.” I was horrified and slunk into my desk and she continued on with a long speech of what we do in homeroom.  As the teacher is talking and talking I try to make funny side comments or ask them questions to try and make conversations with the people around me. People looked at me as is if it had physically caused them harm that I had spoken to them. I had found this extremely strange because I knew that I was not completely social incompatible with other human beings because this is how I made friends easily when I switched to a different school in California. I was completely confused and horrified that I had received such a reaction. Well that class ended and I was grateful to get out of that awkward environment. The next class I walk to I sat down to a group of some of some people that were in my homeroom but I had not tried to talk to yet. Instead of starting conversation, this time I decided to play it cool. As were sitting there not doing anything a kid leans over to me and says “Hey I like your jacket”. I blinked at him and said nothing for a split second because I didn’t know if I had heard correctly. This was the first thing that a student had said to be and it was a compliment! I was thrilled. The day went on and I had decided to lay low and keep to myself and sat at lunch with a group of misfit girls and eventually survived the day. I got onto the bus to go home and noticed that people were a little more wary of me the second time around but still, to prevent myself from saying anything stupid I sat quietly and processed the day silently.

Becoming more than just the “new girl”

Once the week of being the new girl was over with and people were more aware of my presence I started to realize that there was something I really did not like about this school. First of all it seemed like there were two large groups of people who seemed very close and didn’t talk to anyone besides the select members of these groups. Second of all the kids that I thought were funny and would have been considered really cool at my old school were made fun of by the students who sat in class and said nothing but a few words to only each other. I couldn’t tell if this school was particularly mean spirited or if this was just how middle school was. Either way I was terrified to think that people could be saying these things about me. Also there were a lot of fights that would break out at lunch or in the hallways, a lot of which being between girls. To make things worse, the girls who started the fights were in my classes and started to take notice of me and invited me to hang out with them. I really did not want to associate myself with them but out of fear of offending them I would occasionally hang out with them. This is when I noticed that being so quiet and overly friendly had made myself seem weak because these girls loved to boss me around and would try to dictate the people I talked to and the things I did. I was really starting to hate this school and to make matters worse, the second time I had worn my batman jacket to school the boy and his group of friends came up to me at lunch and started making fun of it, which to my horror I realized that he had never liked in the first place, he had been making fun of me to my face and I never realized it. I realized then that I had to change whether I liked it or not if I was going to make it through living here.

The Assimilation and loss of my “self”

Clothing

            all the girls dressed the same in ways that I never saw anyone dress for school unless you were an athlete. They would all wear a middle school team hoody with some tacky nickname as the name on the back with bright colored soccer shorts and soccer flip flops with tall soccer socks (even though most of them didn’t even play soccer), their hair perfectly straightened and pulled back into a pony tail and they all had little plastic bows from the toddlers department in Target on. The part I think I hated the most was the Vera Bradlys that they all wore. I thought these things were hideous and that only grandmas would wear them. But people the way that people looked at my old torn up chucks with mismatching shoe laces and the comments they would make about my corduroy backpack I realized I needed to make some changes.

Personality/ Demeanor

Things that I like

Circle of Friends

Reestablishing the “self”

Going Somewhere New

Meeting the Right People

Learning to love myself

 Conclusion