after reading Jess’ post on being an outcast, it got me thinking. and while jess may have considered herself an outcast, looking back, i consider my former self to be a fake.

i guess it has to do with my need to feel accepted.   i’m a sagittarius – which means i’m a people pleaser, amiable, and uber fun.   growing up i wanted to be freakin kelly kapowski (i was obsessed with saved by the bell) — cool, popular, and pretty.  but going to an all-girls catholic high school did some  crazy things to my self-esteem.

i was hated on.  BIG TIME. catholic school girls are CATTY LIKE A MUTHAFUCKA.  and not only was my school small (400 students total) but we had nothing better to do than to talk shit about each other.  for one reason or another, wether it be my ex bf, my current bf, my style,  my intelligence…  girls hated me.   and i hated being hated.   

 so then i wanted for them to like me, but i tried too hard.   when all the girls wore Lugz, i couldnt afford em.  and i didnt wanna ask my parents to buy em for me cuz they was already payin $5000/year for tuition.   so i saved my allowance and bought me the next best thing — sketchers.   but i still wasnt cool enough.  not in the least. 

 i wanted to be everything i wasnt….  so i lost a little weight, grew my hair out, got my braces off and became everything i swore i would never be.

i became a hater.   the thing about being an upperclassman, is that you ALWAYS had the lower classmen to pick on.   i musta made numerous girls cry….   u know that girl who talks about your outfit within earshot?   that was me.  (wait, that still is me, fml)

i became everything my “girlfriends” were.   i started doing the things they did, wearing the things they wore.  pretending to be someone i wasnt was becoming easy… until it wasnt.  it became hard to fake the funk.   i did what i wanted and then turned around and lied to my friends about it for fear of their reaction.   i was afraid of what they thought of me., of what they would say.  i was TERRIFIED of being real.  (how sad is that?!)

it may have been my delusional view on our friendship (maybe they didnt care what i did, but u coulda fooled me from all the shit talking they did about it), or maybe it was just me tryna break away from it all.   but it all caught up to me….  i couldnt fake it.  and i had faked myself for so long that i didnt even know how to go back to being REAL.

and when all my “friends” decided they didnt wanna be friends anymore and i had no one left to judge me but myself, i spent a long long long time searching my soul and figuring ME out.   i dont blame them, i wouldnt have wanted to be my friend either.  they taught me a lot about myself, about who i wanted to be, and about how (not) to be a friend.   cant be mad at that.

and now that i’ve manifested a strong sense of identity, and now that i can say “thats my shit” and mean it… i look around and realize that i have become more than my former self wanted to be.  MY LIFE IS FUCKING GRAND. cuz real talk, the real me is going farther than the fake me ever dreamed about.