Spectacular.

Sitting on a bus, headphones drowning out all sound, I sit and watch.  Other people are sitting with their headphones on - some are staring and others have their head back and their eyes closed. I see people on the phone, some smiling and others with their eyebrows tightened together. Others are laughing and some are just staring in stony silence. People from all different walks of life, all strangers to me, and this is the only place I don't feel alone. 

By the time I entered high school, I dreamed of becoming something huge. I wanted to be something spectacular or have something spectacular happen to me. I hoped and prayed that I'd be splashed on all the newspapers and CNN and Fox News would broadcast me everywhere. That all the people in my life who made me feel so small, would see me as the next big thing.  I thought to feel content and happy with myself I had to be something far more than who I was.

I will never understand the inherent need of human beings to judge the person across from us. If they wear weird clothes, if they don't shave, if they do, if they lack athletic skills or they're "too" in to sports. If they are gay, or straight, or somewhere in between. If they prefer video games over social interaction or if they go to church once a week and not twice a week. I get that it's something we do. I've done it, you've done it and the Pope has done it. It's an instinct that we can't necessarily help, but what we do with those judgements? That can be helped. 

All those times growing up that I was taunted, made fun of, disliked - they added up. In 2nd grade, when I picked my nose and the kid next to me shouted it out to the whole room and I was so embarrassed I never wanted to go back to school again. When I went to a friends house in 4th grade, for a sleep over, and she wrote in her diary (that admittedly I shouldn't have read) and said how she only had me over cause her mom felt bad for me. I still remember reading that and my heart drop, because she was supposed to be my friend and she didn't even like me. I still remember her asking me to play in the water and me sitting there just so sad - going home heartbroken over being betrayed by this girl.  Or the time in 6th grade when the guy I was crushing on hard asked me out. I was so flattered and happy, because no one ever paid attention to me that way. Two weeks later to find out that it was a bet to see if I would say yes. Jokes on me. They had no idea that I went home and cried myself to sleep for two weeks. Because finally, finally someone thought I was pretty enough to be with - despite all the times at home I was called ugly. Or in 7th grade when I decided I was going to wear a short skirt to school, because everyone made fun of me for years for wearing long skirts, just to receive sideways glances and the "there she is" snickers in the hallway.  The amount of times I was made fun of, because it took me 13 minutes to run "The Mile," in gym class. I was the drama queen, as everyone called me in school, because I took everything to heart. But they had no idea the pain I went through day in and day out. No I was never bullied physically in school, but that didn't make it any less real. I was unhappy, and it wasn't because of any single event in my life - but all of them. 

You see, we never know what the person across from us is going through. They never knew I went home to my own personal hell. They never knew the pain or agony I felt inside. The amount of times I tried to end it all. And how much I wanted to be someone, anyone else. I read books instead of joining sports, because I could escape into a new world. I wished so hard to turn into something so spectacular they would feel bad for all the things they did to me.

Then I grew up.

Most of those people have no idea what pain they caused me. Most of them have no idea what consequences their actions could incur. I have weeped for those who have ended their lives, because of careless words and actions. I truly hope they have found their peace. But to those people who made me feel so small without possibly even knowing it, thank you. Because through you I have found something so much better. All that time I wished and hoped to become something spectacular to blow the minds of all the people who would hear of me, wasn't in vain. Maybe I don't blow minds, and maybe people don't shout and jump for my signature when I walk by, but I am something completely unique and spectacular and wonderful. I am me, fully and completely. That is something I will never allow another human being to take from me. 

Until the day I die, I will reach out and show more love and more respect than was ever shown me. That is how we breed unity, and one day I hope - peace.