The "Marlin" in My Life

 
There are many obstacles in life that we all must face. Some seem vague and there may be so many obstacles that you may not remember all of them. There are the problems we have as human beings that test us and we must find the solutions to each problem to survive. My obstacle is something I face everyday. But I will tell you what happened one day when I was in shame and could not overcome it completely. Then I will tell you of another day when I did overcome it. Therefore, because I did overcome it, I can walk with pride. Honestly, I believe it is an obstacle we all live through everyday. The obstacle of being different.....

I was a goody-two-shoes in school and a troublemaker at home. I had straight A's in elementary school and was a well-behaved girl. I was four foot nine with high cheek bones and an OK complexion. I never cared for my looks and my hair was always in a tight ponytail. I just thought I was an OK looking girl with an OK self-esteem, but grew into a girl with an extremely low self-esteem. A girl with no favorite color and breakable glasses. A girl who preferred to just do her work than gossip like her female classmates. A girl who kept all her feelings locked up and was a huge crybaby, just not in front of people outside her family. A girl who complimented many and only teased a few people. A person who cared for others. But...that changed. Nothing but great comments came from each teachers' mouths when they spoke of me. Of course I knew the real me and how naughty or sneaky I truly was. I was just doing my job as a student. A job, my parents had explained, that I was not allowed to fail at. I was never acknowledged for my hard work, not by teachers nor my parents because it was expected of me. There were just small comments and some "Congratulations." It started to anger me when my own classmates became surprised by my angry outbursts or my violent ways. As a young student, Kindergarten to Second Grade, my friends were a bunch of boys. Girls were no fun and never ran around to play during recess. I had my violent side, but I chose to be quiet and secretive. A good girl, in short. Then I met some girls that became my "friends," but I realized that they only became my friends because I was different than them. These girls realized that the only reason I played the way I did was because I was active and unlike them. In the end, they became jealous of how awesome I was (just kidding here) and how I interacted with different people, especially boys.They noticed I was alienated from them, but it wasn't my fault. I was...different.

When I was in Fourth Grade, obviously in elementary school, I was "bullied." If you consider being called-"4 Eyes," and "Nerd," and "Ugly Girl," and "Geek,"- names a form of bullying. I did not know it was bullying and I still do not consider it. It was just torture and a sort of suffering that I thought every kid had to endure. There were several girls who liked to push me, some of them were my so-called friends. They tempted me and called me "LESBIAN." This was never true. I tried to act "girlier," but I could not change myself. How I acted and what I thought were part of my personality. It wasn't my fault. I did not think I was all that different from these girls. They called me an ugly girl and that I was stupid because I did not date. I wished I was like them, but in my heart and mind I knew that this "dating" thing was not something my parents would approve of. Additionally I believed it to be quite childish. Both boys and girls wanted to grow up too soon and did not (still don't) know the meaning of love. People are people. Some kids just did not understand this and some chose not to. I could tell that they were only nice to me because I was a gullible and sweet little girl. The thing was that I was so blind about my want of friends that I did not realize that I did not need these friends.

When one of the many idiot, girly, and rude girls started to make up more names, I went up to her to make her stop. I was a young girl, a 10 year old, who did not believe in violence with the outside world, no matter how far a "bully" pushed me. So I asked her kindly, unbeknownst to me was her true intention. She started to threaten me by saying that we should fight and that I thought I was "all that" because I had straight A's. Her intention was to get me into HUGE trouble. I accepted, but I was forced to back out. I started to see that the other girls did not like my behavior, but refused to comment. Once I was in Fifth Grade, it started up again and this time they literally tried to change my appearance. They told me to wear skirts and wear the "girl colors," as they called it. I was not a fortunate girl with wealth, but I was OK with that. These girls made fun of me and boys started to make fun of my clothing. Some of those boys had also been my "friends." I saw that I could not trust any of them and I longed to no longer be UGLY and NERDY, but to be pretty and beautiful. I wanted to change and be like them. I had never told my parents my troubles and I had confessed it to them by then. I could not take it anymore.

I was not afraid of them, I had a lot of courage, but it hurt my fragile heart. The pain that came with being the outsider, the different one and having no "real" friend. But my mom was better than a "friend or best friend," I took refuge at her lap. She explained that it was the price for being different and for not giving in to their peer pressure. At the time I did not know what "LESBIAN" was, so I asked her. She explained and I cried. I cried like the crybaby I was. She asked for the whole story and I told her.

In the end, my "marlin" was my being different and those who went against it. I stood in the way of my moving forward. I was the obstacle because I let them torture me. I did not tell anyone and I did not ignore their dense and violent comments. Then there was the irrational way I was handling things. Crying was not going to solve things and trusting a bunch of imbecilic children (who I still see, sometimes). I had to grow up and accept that these people were not my friends, just a bunch of acquaintances. This situation symbolized a new step I had to take. I had to learn to accept myself. But I did not choose to lift my self-esteem, instead I am so traumatized that I accept the fact that I am a ugly and different girl. I did not fully overcome this obstacle. I stood up to these girls and abandoned them. I treated everyone similarly, but did not consider them friends. I was different, just like everyone is different. This obstacle led to this next one.

This next obstacle was easier. I am into K POP as you all know. K POP is a genre of music, Korean pop. Well, what led to this was my obsession with Pokemon, Dragon Ball Z, and Yu-Gi-Oh as a kid. I found out there were mangas, comic books, that I could read. My sister started to watch Anime with me on TV. We also started to read mangas and were hooked. I loved it and books with pictures made it easy to read. I never told anyone for fear of some misunderstanding. I did not want to go through another set of people mocking me. The opening songs were in Japanese and the translation was on the screen. I fell in love with the characters and the songs. I am a music person and I love it, so when I say "it's good," it is good. So, I would watch the videos and it led to these K POP songs. My sister showed me the videos and we both fell in love with the beautiful music. My thing was always piano music, I love it, so one of the first K POP songs had a piano intro. Fiction by BEAST/B2ST was my favorite, plus their voices were AMAZING. Additionally, the guys were not that bad to look at.(LOL) Hello by SHINee was my favorite as well and I also loved the complicated dances. I did not tell anyone because I did not want to judged. But I started to see that there were other people with similar interests, so I slowly started to talk about my favorite things. I started to talk so much that a girl that is close to me got bored one time (we are a pair, friends, a real "friend"). I felt really bad, but I explained a little to her and she is one of the only ones who accepts me for who I am. This obstacle was the same, just shrunken in size, my different interests compared to many people. I feel confident, as I entered high school, that I have no problem anymore. I even presented it to my English class. I am a strange girl, but who cares?

 I no longer care for idiots or chase after them. I am mean now and tough because of my obstacles. I don't have to take any garbage. I grew mature and I grew to accept myself. Any obstacle that is here is because I let it be in front of me. I just have to overcome it. It was always my decision on whether or not I would have obstacles, my decision is to overcome them. I still talked to the "bullies," but I didn't take their garbage after this and we graduated elementary school together.This started to form my heart of stone. I became stronger after this obstacle. I am much more sure of myself than I was as a child. I know my opinion and I stick by it. I know the person I want to be. I am sure this obstacle happens to you, hopefully you will learn from it as well. There is hope that you will understand others that are different from you as well. I do....