One day in high school I was standing around with a bunch of other freshman girls. A boy came over and tapped me on the shoulder and said, “Hey my friend wants to talk to you,” and pointed at a group of boys sitting farther off, pretending not to be paying attention. Before I could respond, another girl in our group said, “If he wants to talk to me, he can come over here.” The boy looked at me once more and then walked off, confused. 

Garnering up what little confidence I had in myself at that age, I said, “I’m pretty sure he was talking to me, actually.” All my friend did was laugh. And once she started laughing, all the other girls started laughing too, like I’d said the funniest thing in the world. 

So it wasn’t a particular comment that’s stuck with me all these years, just the sound of their laughter. 

I realized a long time ago that the whole situation spoke to their own lack of self-esteem instead of mine. 

I was always really into acting and singing as a kid. Performing was my favorite thing in the whole entire world, and I constantly dreamed of one day being on Broadway.

A new girl moved to my town in elementary school. I thought she was really cool because she wore Limited Too and spoke with authority.

One day she made an offhanded comment about how theater is lame, and it’s not ok to do theater. As an impressionable ten year old desperate to be this girl’s best friend, I agreed with her.

By the end of high school I finally realized that I had allowed this notion to be completely ingrained into my entire existence. Theater was clearly really bad, and it was not something that was okay for me to like. I actually believed this. It wasn’t until I was able to acknowledge how much her fleeting comment affected me that I could start to gradually pursue performing again. 

When I was in 5th grade, our teacher (who to this day is one of my favorite I’ve had) filled out end of the year individual memory pages for each of us. I remember on mine, he wrote “you have the rare ability to balance seriousness with sillyness, which is unique and amazing quality. Never lose this." 

15 years later, I still think back to that compliment and advice, and I still strive to maintain that balance :)

One morning in high school, I was running late and I didn’t have time to straighten my hair like I did every other morning. When I got to homeroom, a girl I didn’t really know asked if I let my hair dry naturally that day, and I said yes. She said, simply, “It looks really nice like that." 

For some reason, that comment meant everything to me, and after that day I started wearing my hair curly and crushing on that random girl in homeroom.

In middle school, I received a dreaded 3 way phone call from my friends, and they lectured me about all of the things I needed to change about myself to be less annoying. I hung up, determined to change the way I talked, dressed, and interacted with others. 

I realized a couple of years later that I didn’t need to change myself, I needed new friends. While I have since grown up and embraced my flaws, I still think to this day about the things that made me “annoying” and sometimes wonder if I had changed them, if I would have had a different life…

My mother said to me, “You’ll never get a boyfriend if you don’t lose weight.”

I was 12 years old, 120 pounds and 5'2.

While our relationship has become exponentially better, I still cringe every time I think about it. And I still have issues with food and weight.

Hearing my older sister refer to my younger brother as being “so stable,” and having a “good head on his shoulders” really stuck with me. Mostly because I’ve never heard her say the same for me–the artist in the family without sustainable income. It made me feel misunderstood and sad. 

My mom complained about how “fat” she was and related that to so many insecure moments in her life when I was a teenager. It made me afraid that the same thing would happen to me and I would be just as unhappy if I ended up in her shoes in that way. 

So when one day she mentioned my butt looked bigger, it really stuck with me, tipped me over the edge so to speak. 

I still get scared of those kinds of observations now.