Junior High Blues

     My youngest sister headed off to junior high this year, she's officially a seventh grader. I called her after her first day of school and we began discussing how her day went. She told me of her possible fav-teachers-to-be and that she got lucky in getting "A lunch" instead of B or C. All of this junior high talk started to take my mind down an awkward and miserable path that I hate to remember in the slightest bit.

     Junior high was awful. We had moved that summer and I was forced to say adios to my old friends and enter into a brand new school with kids that had already formed their little clics from attending elementary together. I was on the outside looking in. I still remember with a vivid mental image how happy and excited all the other children looked to be in a "big" school were a teacher no longer escorted you from one class to the next.  I on the other hand was not happy; I was crying and screaming on the inside. When my mom's car pulled up she said, "Okay have a good day, I love you!". I desperately asked her why she wasn't walking me in and she replied that I was too old for that and had to go on my own.

     I'm laughing as I write this now but back then it felt like what a baby bird might feel if a mother bird were to kick her out of the nest and she had no skills in flying and was tumbling to the ground sure to face death. Once I made it inside it was apparent that I had no friends and had to stand against a wall by myself until the first bell rang. It continued on this same way every day for what seemed like an eternity, but were probably just a couple of weeks. Then one day in dreaded P.E. our coach wanted us to play basketball and picked two girls to pick their own team-mates at random. Yep, we've all witnessed this scene in movies and TV but until your actually living in it you really don't know the humiliation and horror.

     So, here I was lined up against the cold brick wall while two pretty, popular girls went back and forth calling out everyone's name but mine. Thank goodness this is when the Lord decided to throw me a friend and her name was Vanessa.  I will never forget it because we were the last two girls standing and waiting to be picked. We began to talk and laugh about how embarrassed we were and became friends quickly; after that junior high wasn't so unbearable.

     My whole reason for writing this though was because now that I am an adult I'm wondering why the heck that coach suggested picking teams like that in the first place? She had to have known that at the age of 13 children aren't picking team-mates based on their skills in basketball. It was solely based on popularity and friends. The whole awful moment could have been easily avoided if the coach would have numbered us all 1 and 2 like they did in elementary and then we would have been separated evenly into two teams with no conflict. Did the coach want to see the loners suffer or was she thinking that this rejection process was something that all kids have to go through at some point? In my opinion it's as if there is a junior high staff meeting being held each year where the teachers discuss the different ways to "help" us kids get ready for high school.

     Maybe I am being melodramatic but I had to put that thought out there. I am praying that my sons will not have to suffer as I did. Hopefully they'll get their Dad's good luck in school and have tons of great buddies...but just in case the process of rejection is still around I will be quick to remind them to help out the new kid and give them a spot on their team first.