"You're good, but not great."

I'm a singer.

I've been singing since third grade, and I'm pursuing a career in vocal music education after high school.

In eighth grade, I was dating my first boyfriend. He and I had met in choir class. One day at the end of the year, we were texting, just speculating about high school and all, and got up the courage to ask him whether or not he thought I would make the top choir in high school.

I'll never forget his response.

"Maybe. I mean you're good, but not great, so I really don't know." 

It wasn't just the fact that he was supposed to be a supportive boyfriend to me and he wasn't, but he basically shot down everything I loved and believed about myself.

I broke up with him a few months later. 

Two years after that, I finally started to take voice lessons. The next year, I finally made it into the top choir, as a junior.

This year, I'm auditioning for six colleges, and I still haven't forgotten what he said to me when I was fourteen.

I don't know if I'm good enough. No matter how much my private lesson teacher reaffirms that I am good and I am ready to sing in college, I can't believe her.

I am here.

I was standing in the kitchen at my boyfriend's house, telling him about my plans to go to Oregon State for physical therapy. He laughed and said, "Okay, when you drop out because it's too hard, you can come live with me."

Three years later, I am now in my freshman year as a kinesiology major at Oregon State. I graduated from high school with an honors diploma, and I am loving college.

For almost two years after he and I broke up, I struggled with feeling useless and stupid, because he put me down so often and so subtly that it snuck into every part of my life.

Today, I say look at me now. I am here.

"She'll order the most expensive thing."

When I was ten, my dad took my older sister and me to visit our other sister and her husband in California.

My sister and her husband took us out to eat, and as I was perusing the menu (which was full of unfamiliar items), I heard my one sister whisper to the other, "Watch: she'll order the most expensive thing."

Which I then unintentionally proceeded to do, because I could no longer see the menu through the tears in my eyes.

I am now fifty years old, and that story pretty much sums up the relationship I have with my much older sisters.

"I don't care what they say!"

Last year I was dumped by someone I was madly in love with. I was sure he was my soulmate and we'd end up married.

After he broke up with me, I fell into a deep depression and I messed with my hair. I turned my long brown curly locks into a turquoise mohawk. 

Everyone told me I looked ridiculous. No one knew why I was depressed or that I even was depressed, so they didn't understand why I'd done it.

One day in the car, my mom was going on and on about how bad it looked. Suddenly, my four-year-old old niece looked up at me and said, "Well I don't care what they say! I think you look cute!" 

I almost cried on the spot.

"He said that you were annoying."

When I was in eighth grade, there was a seventh grade boy I considered to be my best friend. He was widely popular, so I'm sure lots of people considered him their best friend, but with me, it was different. He was so, so sweet to me and helped me through really tough times in my life. 

The year was drawing to a close, my grades were poor, and I really didn't feel I was ready for high school, so I was considering having myself held back for another year. This would mean my friend and I would be in the same grade! I couldn't wait to tell him.

But before I got the chance to tell him I might be staying another year, a mutual friend of ours told me that she had already told him herself.

"Oh? What did he say?" I eagerly asked.

She looked down at her seat. She knew how close to him I was.

"Well...he wasn't very happy about it."

Thinking he was disappointed in me for staying back a grade, I laughed and asked why not.

She looked me right in the eyes and said, "He...he said you were annoying."

It felt like my whole world was collapsing around me. He was all I had.

Later when I texted him about it, his only response was, "We were never really friends in the first place."

I didn't end up getting held back because my test scores were too high, but I still replay this memory over and over. 

 

Surprise Lisp.

Freshman year of high school, I was super nervous about meeting new friends.

At lunchtime, I introduced myself to a cute boy.

I said "Hey I'm Kristen" and, instead of introducing himself to me, he mocked me by saying, "You're Krithten?"

I didn't even know I had a lisp until that moment.

Now I am acutely aware of and very self conscious of the way I sound when I talk.

Maybe that's why I don't talk often.

Horse Girl.

Anyone who knows me knows I love horses. A lot. I tell everyone. I'm you're typical equine obsessed girl. (Well, woman now)

The other obvious thing about me is I have big front teeth with an overbite. About an inch over at least. Its not like I can't close my lips together, but I do have to put slight effort into it. 

When I was in middle school and high school, people would call me a horse. 

"You look like a horse!" 

"You have horse teeth!"

Some people would neigh at me.

It was to the point that if someone said "horse" loud enough, I'd instinctively turn to see if someone was calling me. 

After a while, all I could do was take it as a compliment. I had no other option. They were calling me what I loved, after all. Why wouldn't I want to be a horse? I do. If I could actually be one, I'd be happier than being here. 

So I would just smile and nod, or neigh back. It always hurt. It never stops hurting. But ever since I stopped taking it as an offense and learned to think of it as a pathetic compliment, it's been easier to cope with.

"Too fat for food."

When I was in middle school, I got bullied a lot for being on the heavy side.

On the first day of 8th grade, I was sitting by myself at lunch when a group of girls came up to me and told me I was too fat for food, and they threw my food away.

"You should shave your mustache"

I was born with really dark hair and had not yet discovered the luxury of waxing or bleaching.

There was this one guy I had a crush on in middle school, and we would IM back and forth after school sometimes.

He randomly said to me one day, "You have a mustache. You should shave it."

I did. And to this day, it's still one of my biggest insecurities.

"Welcome to this life."

My mom has always had mental health issues. I've stopped her multiple times from committing suicide. I was always supportive and caring.

One day when I was around 13, I spilled my heart out to my mom. I told her everything I was feeling. I told her of incidents in the past that really took a toll on me. I told her things that happened to me that I was too ashamed to talk about, and how my world was just falling down around me.

I NEVER cry in front of people. But at that moment I did. I cried in front of my mom because I was at such a loss. 

his time, for the first time, I was the one who needed support. 

She didn't console me. She didn't kiss my booboos. She didn't pat me on the back and tell me everything would be okay. 

She kind of rolled her eyes and said, "Welcome to depression. Welcome to this life. How do you think I feel? Now you know what it's like." And that was it.

I am now the COMPLETE opposite with my child.

Children don't ask to be here. You bring them here. The least you can do is show unconditional love.