The Girl who chased Butterflies

I was an awkward child, to say the least. 

I mean, how could I not be? My teeth made me look like a little beaver, and I could have passed off as a child from Dehli with a mole right on the center of my forehead. I preferred to be outside playing with neighborhood kids instead of inviting a girl friend to come over and play in my little mint green room packed full of creepy porcelain dolls (now it makes perfect sense why I didn't like being in there).

I had far more insecurities as a 10-year-old than I do now as a 17 and a half-year-old. All of these insecurities came from my Mother. She made me feel like a piece of shit before I even knew what that meant. As a child, my favorite food was mac'n'cheese. So what if that's all I ate, and I liked to wash it down with two glasses of milk, causing me to not poop for days? (my glory days). Well apparently it was an issue, because it made my stomach bloated. Who cares? She did. So she enrolled me into all kinds of athletics to help me trim down, but I quit all of them after about two months. Did it really matter to you that I liked to wear flower clips in my hair, and gaucho pants, and crocs? That's what my chubby little body liked to wear, so you didn't have to bitch every time I dressed myself. Just because I talked back to you, it didn't give you the right to hit me. Dad never hit me.

In first grade, the other kids made fun of me. I didn't have any friends. I was the weird one, the odd one out. Nobody hardly ever invited me to play games with them on the playground, so I chased butterflies in the grassy field all by myself. The reason nobody ever talked to me was because I didn't talk to them. I was afraid that if I opened my mouth, they wouldn't like what I had to say, just like Mom did. The next year, I became more sociable at school, and the rest is history.

My Mom never gave me confidence. I had to search for it myself. When I was twelve, she left our family, and even though I'm still bitter about it, at least now I don't have to walk on eggshells in my own home. I can be who I am, I don't have to pretend or feel discouraged anymore. In some ways it's sort of sick that I'm more confident now then I've ever been. If I could go back 10 years ago, I would go to the little girl with buck teeth crying in her ugly room to hang in there, and that life will eventually become happy.

Some people wish they could relive childhood. I do not.