"You're getting fat."

/

August 2001, just before the seventh grade, my mom had a heart attack. She had to have several surgeries, and having to stay in bed made her more volatile than usual towards me.

One day I was trying to eat dinner with her, and she said, "You should stop eating so much. You're getting fat."

I was stunned that she would say that to me. She was far from thin, while I couldn't keep a size 3 in Levi's from falling off my hips.

This comment clung to me so tightly that, eight years later on my R&R from my Afghanistan deployment, I sat and cried in a changing room when I realized that I was a size 4.
 

Panda Ears

/

One day when I was 15, I was walking to school wearing my awesome panda ear headphones. It was very early, the sun was just barely rising, and a guy who was walking towards me stopped me and said, "I have something for you." Confused, I asked what. 

Out if his pocket, he pulled out a panda pin and said, "I just found this. I'm guessing it either belongs to you, or that I am meant to give it to you." 

I'm not sure why, but this made my entire day. I graciously took it and pinned it on my sweater. 

Years later, I still think about that morning, and it still makes me smile. :)
 

"I can show you the way home."

/

My father is my best friend, and has been since I was in middle school. 

When I went to college five hours away, we would call each other multiple times a day. I would make sure he was taking his prescriptions, and he would offer me a laugh and make sure I was going to class. 

I've battled depression for most of my life, and my father is no stranger to it. I pulled away from him during one of my darkest times, the closest I'd come to actually killing myself. I stopped calling him. 

He gave me a couple days, and then left me a voicemail. 

"You're lost somewhere, I know. I'm just calling to remind you I'm here, looking for you. And can show you the way home."

I still have that voicemail.
 

"You'll never be raped."

/

My boyfriend and I were staying alone together one night, something we rarely got to do since he went to college about 5 hours away. Needless to say, it was a supposed to be a special night.

We'd been having sex for a year by then, but it was starting to hurt. I didn't know what was wrong, but I knew that I physically could no longer have sex. And I honestly wasn't in the mood to do anything sexual because I was feeling so depressed about not being able to do it. 

That didn't seem to deter him.

He kept kissing me and it got to a point where it felt like we were fighting. It almost seemed like a game to him. It took me hitting, kicking, and biting him until he nearly bled for him to stop.

He lay down next to me while I curled into the fetal position, fighting back tears.

He said, "Well at least I know you'll never be raped!" Then he chuckled and went to sleep like nothing had happened. 

It still haunts me how close he came to succeeding, and how painful it would have been if he had.

Turns out I had a condition that makes sex very painful and I'm having surgery this week to remedy it.

He didn't believe me and thought he'd take advantage of the situation.

Screw that, I'd kick his ass every time.

"Why would he have a crush on her?"

/

I was a late bloomer.

When I was a senior in high school, I was hanging out with my best friend and one of our guy friends. This guy friend revealed to us that one of his friends had a crush on me, and that this friend wouldn't stop talking about me.

His friend was never really on my radar, but I felt so flattered and special and amazing just to have someone have a crush on me.

But right after our guy friend told us this, my best friend laughed and said, "Wait, why would he have a crush on her?"

We both called her out and told her that that was an extremely rude thing to say to me.

She laughed and said, "Sorry, sorry." She paused and looked me up and down. "But like actually, why? I don't get it." 

She didn't say this in a mean, mocking way. She said it as if it was obvious that one would be baffled that someone would have a crush on me, and that we were all on the same team of cracking the case of why anyone could possibly consider me attractive. 

I wish I could say that after this interaction we immediately stopped being friends, but that didn't happen.

We both went to college. I eventually got a boyfriend. She got a thousand boyfriends, like always. And we gradually drifted apart. That's how it goes, I suppose.

"We could braid our hair!"

/

I went to a small country school growing up. It was sheltered and isolated, much like my childhood and thoughts. Everything was so innocent and candid. 

One day in first grade, three college students (two male and one female) came to speak to us about drugs. 

The put us into groups, and all of the girls were place with the female college student.

She didn't have any hair. At that age, I didn't know what things like cancer or alopecia were. 

She asked us what we could do with our friends at a sleepover instead of doing drugs. Without thinking, I raised my hand and said, "We could braid our hair!" 

I realized what I said a second too late and saw the look on her face. Never had I felt so stupid, so inconsiderate, so ashamed. Nothing will ever take away how loathsome I felt that day.

I'm 22 years old now. That memory stick will me and will never go away.