welcome_to_my_life

I can’t say I have fond memories of my school days. That’s for sure. Especially junior school – those days were tough. I remember being nervous when I first went to school. There were so many new people – people who could say hurtful things to me if they wanted to. And then I made my first friend. Her name was Sara*. She was beautiful, blonde and sweet – like a little angel. She was my first grade angel.

But the following year, Sara and I were put into different second grade classes. I was distraught. I was put into a class with a wonderful teacher, but how would I get through the year without my blonde angel? I think I must have begged my mom to ask the school to have Sara moved into my class. But instead, I got moved into Sara’s class – with the evil Miss Cock*. Shortly after my move, Sara’s mom moved her to another school. (Sara’s mom had a habit of regularly moving Sara to different schools.) And there I was, stranded, all alone, in the evil Miss Cock’s class.

Miss Cock was not a very warm, friendly person. In fact, she was exactly the opposite. And I got a distinct feeling from early on that she didn’t like me very much. I don’t know why. But I managed to toe the line and attempted to please her by doing my best in class. Then one day, as a joke, I decided to hide one of my classmates’ pencil cases, with the intention of giving it back to her later after she had searched around a bit. It became a bit of a scene, with the girl becoming very upset and telling Miss Cock that her pencil case had gone missing. I think a few of us that were in on my joke may have giggled a bit. Miss Cock shouted, demanding to know who had taken the pencil case. I don’t know if I admitted to it or if someone else ratted me out, but suddenly all eyes were on me. I said in a shaky voice, “Miss Cock, it was just a joke.” But she didn’t see the humour in this. Instead she boomed at me, “Anonymous, this is JUST what I expected from you.”  I remember blushing in front of the class, and feeling like the worst person in the whole world – like the dirtiest criminal who had been hiding his true sinful nature from everybody only to have it revealed now. I felt like, for that second, everybody saw me for the disgusting criminal I was. The one she knew I was all along.

There were 3 of us at that school who lived in the same neighborhood. So our parents decided it would be a good idea to form a lift club and take turns lifting us to and from school. I remember me and the one girl, Jane*, lived in the same cul-de-sac and used to visit each other after school. Her mom had a bakery in the garage, and Jane would always smell like that delicious baked-cake smell. So would their house, and there were always delicious cupcakes and cake crusts and biscuits to be nibbled when we felt like it. It was lovely. The third girl in the lift club didn’t seem to like me very much though. Sometimes she would say degrading things about me. Once I asked her if I could have a sip of juice from her juice bottle and she said to me “Yuck, I don’t want you putting your fat lips on my juice bottle.” And she laughed and said she was only joking, but it hurt me. Soon enough she and Jane became friends and I would never visit Jane much after that. It was almost like Jane didn’t like me anymore. I never quite knew why or what it was I had done. This girl’s mom was also a character I grew to dislike. When it was her day to fetch us from school she would smoke cigarettes in the car. One day I told her, really in a very well-meaning way, “Do you know that cigarettes are very bad for you and you shouldn’t smoke?” She looked at me harshly and replied, “Well sweets are bad for you too, but you eat them.” I didn’t know what to say. I felt like a stupid idiot, and immediately knew I had said something inappropriate.

 At first I used to sit at break times with Jane and the lift club girls and their friends. But somehow I never really felt like one of them. One of the things I clearly remember was how at lunch time they would all open their lunch boxes and have the most delicious things in there, like twinkies or little chocolates, or sweets, and then they would swap with each other. I never had things like that in my lunch box. My lunch was a peanut butter sandwich or a marmite sandwich, and some juice in a plastic juice bottle. So I couldn’t join in with that one. But then they also seemed to have the latest toys and the latest gadgets, which I didn’t, and all-in-all I just ended up feeling inferior to them in every way. I remember being invited to their birthday parties and going, dressed in my best dresses and playing all the games, but somehow still never feeling part of the group.

Sometimes I think I would just sit alone and eat my lunch, and they would call me over. But it just made the rift bigger and bigger. Anyway, gradually my lunch times became occupied with general knowledge meetings, extra flute practices, student council meetings and other things, but I still worried on the odd days free who I was going to sit with. Then I found a solution – I became a library monitor. This seemed like the perfect way to spend my lunch times - sorting books in the library by the Dewey decimal system. Eventually I worked my way up to Head Librarian by the time I was in 7^th grade. I was the biggest nerd in the school. Not that I was a spectacles/braces-wearing socially-inept type, but I was quiet and withdrawn, getting some of the highest school marks, spending lunch in the library sorting books. I also had a thick fringe (bangs) on my face and by grade 7 I knew nothing about boys and had the hairiest legs in the school because I wasn’t shaving like everyone else or interacting socially outside of school. Some people would still invite me to sit with them. Even lovely girls like perfect Anne* with the double-barelled surname. But I didn’t feel good enough to sit with Anne, and I was sure she was just inviting me to sit with her because she felt sorry for me. Working in the library was great. It was so much easier to say, “No thanks, I am on library duty,” rather than “No thanks, I don’t want to be a pity case.”

I really felt like an inferior creature. I saw myself as a stooped over, too-thin, hairy-legged, underdeveloped (in the female department), bad-breathed, ugly duckling, little nerd. I was far too scared to talk to the “cool” people, and even stopped interacting too much with the teachers in class as I had done in my earlier school days. I knew I was using the library as a place to hide from social contact. I wished I could be outgoing, confident, beautiful, desirable and picture perfect like some of the other girls. Sometimes when I had nothing to do at lunch and no library duty I would go to the lesser-used bathrooms in the school, close myself in an empty toilet cubicle, put down the toilet seat, sit there and just cry. This became more and more frequent, until the sight of my brown school shoes against the white porcelein toilet stem became like a comforting friend to me. I cried silently, the tears just pouring down my cheeks, until the bell rang to signal the end of lunch time, and then I would go back to class. I don’t think anyone noticed. Now when I think back to junior school I always think of toilet cubicles.

Even some of the friends I had had in Grades 4 and 5 had by Grade 7 decided I was too nerdy to hang out with. Here I am referring to Nicole Tullen*. Although I think other things I had unwittingly done had upset her too. Things like correcting her English when she spoke, or her addition, and generally making her feel stupid I guess. Not that I meant to, but I could see that I did it sometimes. Maybe it was just that I felt my intelligence was my only real talent and I had to show it off. I don’t know. But her parents must have picked it up too. Her dad used to tease me and say that one day my first boyfriend’s name will be Matthew because I love maths so much. (I didn’t really love maths, but that was my label.) But the times me and Nicole spent together in childhood were some of the most fun I had. Her parents owned a river rafting company and we would go on trips with them along the Breede river and the Orange River. We took our camping gear and we had weekends of swimming in rivers, braaing til late at night, and camping under the stars. My family also took Nicole with on some of the holidays we had, like camping at the Cedarberg, where we also swam and played games to our hearts content.

At some point, Nicole became friends with some girls in the “cool” group at school and our friendship ended. I remember once, in Grade 7 or 8, long after our friendship was over, I was thinking back to all the good times we had shared and feeling very sad about it. I phoned her up to chat and try to see if there was a chance of meeting up again sometime. It was weird and awkward though; she didn’t seem keen to meet up again, and I don’t think I ever tried again.      

I planned to reinvent myself in high school – to no longer be the nerd; to have confidence; to make friends. This seemed like a possibility to me when I managed to win an academic scholarship to a different school. I pinned back most of my thick fringe, leaving a few “stylish” whispy strands, started waxing my legs, and was determined to be “cool”. Little did I know, winning an academic scholarship and having my junior school photo in newspaper articles and school paper articles citing “the scholarship winner” who was Head Librarian and member of the General Knowledge team were not a good start to being cool! From the day I arrived I could see the eyes on me – ogling me out as “the brainy scholarship winner,” wondering just how brainy I was, and maybe just how nerdy. I tried to “act cool” and sit at the back of classes, definitely trying not to seem “keen” in class or answer all the questions. But as the test marks flowed in I couldn’t fly under the radar for long. Classmates would see my big 98% on the front of my tests, and the teasing began. “Ooooh Anonymous, shame poor you, you only got 98% and not 100%. You must be SO upset!” Then they would all laugh. I knew some people were just jealous. “Cool” people who secretly wanted to do very well. But the “coolest” thing you could do at that school was act like you didn’t care about marks and that you had been too busy socialising and going to parties to study for tests, but you still passed - even if you just scraped by. I hated it. I hated being condemned by my peers for getting high marks and actually caring about my future. It seemed so stupid; so childish. It was kind of ironic though, as from early on I knew I wanted to be an actress or TV presenter, and when classmates used to tell me I would probably be a doctor, I would pull a face and say I thought that was the most boring job and something I would NEVER want to do. I knew they didn’t really think I could be an actress; doctor definitely fitted brainy nerdy Anonymous much more. And now I am one. A doctor with thespian aspirations. 

Then one day at school I met a sheep in wolf’s clothing. Her name was Jody*, but once I got to know her I ended up thinking of her as Jo the Ho. Anyway, Jo the Ho was a typical product of a forced Catholic school education – atheist, non-conformist, sexually promiscuis, and a master of deception. She came across as a lazy, ditzy blonde with big voluptuous breasts who was more interested in painting her nails in class and planning for her next party or rendezvous with some shady guy than paying any attention at school. But Jo the Ho was as sharp as a knife. I could see it the moment I spoke to her – she was extremely well-read, with excellent general knowledge, and she was as street wise as they come.  Maybe that’s why she liked hanging out with me – we matched each other in wit and intelligence, and I was a shy and willing side-kick that would relish the opportunity to be around such a picture of “coolness.” It was almost idol-worship with me and Jo. Just going to such a cool person’s house was amazing for me. Seeing her room with walls covered in pictures of scary rock bands like Nine Inch Nails and Alice in Chains and Metallica, dreamcatchers hanging from her roof, hearing her heavy dark music full of swear words and talk of suicide and death, seeing her amazing wardrobe with sexy dresses and skirts my mother would never let me be caught dead in…Wow. I knew that if I could be like Jo I would be cool. So I hung out with her as much as I could. Luckily for me she lived in the same suburb, so we could even walk to each other’s houses. Soon my walls were covered in cut-out magazine pictures of rock groups I’d never even listened to and pictures of “cool” celebrities, and a few skimpy skirts hung in my wardrobe. Soon we were catching the train and taxis to meet up with Jody’s surfer boyfriends in Muizenberg, or to hang out at Greenmarket square, or other “cool” places in the city centre, like the Greenhouse Effect coffee shop, where dagga tea and other hemp items were illegally sold (while a police-spotter stood just outside the door). Soon I was telling my mom I was sleeping over at Jody’s house and we were heading out to night clubs in town at the age of 14 – me wearing one of Jo’s outfits - the skimpier the better to increase the chances of being let in by bouncers. My heart would be racing as they asked me for ID and I would say “I left it at home” or some stupid excuse, waiting to see if they would accept it and let me in. It helped going in with people who were 24. I think my first alcoholic drink was a Hunters cider. It made my head spin a bit. It was all so exciting. And a bit scary – I remember always worrying about police raids and that I would be carted away in the back of a police van to spend the night in a jail cell and have to phone my mom and tell her what I’d done and just how deceitful I was. Inside the club I kept wondering if all the people around me were staring at me thinking how young I must be. Once a girl shouted “Go back to the Socials!” (Socials were school-organised parties, where high school girls and boys could have a disco in a school hall with no alcohol and be supervised by teachers.) 

Me and Jo did go to our share of school socials. I remember being completely petrified of boys. At one social a boy asked me to slow dance, and I reluctantly agreed, stiff as a board the whole time, my heart pounding and wondering when the song would be over, and if I could just move away or if he was going to try to put his tongue in my mouth! Luckily we both moved off afterwards. What a relief!

But it felt good that a boy had asked me to dance. Usually going out with Jo made me feel like the ugly ducking. All the guys we would meet would be so interested in the sexy, blonde Jo and practically ignore, or perhaps give a polite nod to, her shy, mousy-brown haired, flat-chested side-kick (me).  It didn’t feel good. I wished I could be desirable too.

There were time, though, with Jo, when I would understand that being desirable had its problems too. Oh, sigh… too many men, too little time. The solution: having two boyfriends at one time. The problem: when the boys are best friends and neighbours. Or should we say were. I think Jo must have caused a lot of fights in her day. It’s funny thinking back to how naïve I was in those days. I could never have imagined that Jo was actually having sex with those guys. At the age of 14! I think I cottoned on to it one day when I walked into her room and she was outside on the lawn sitting on top of her boyfriend and seemed to jump up and pull her panties on when she saw me walk into her room! I think part of me didn’t even want to believe it. Ruled by my Christian morals I was wrecked with guilt at the fact that I had given my first boyfriend a hand job and once even put his penis in my mouth! (You couldn’t really call it a blow job, as I had absolutely no clue what I was doing and must have half bitten and half blown it.) Needless to say it only happened once in our one and a half year relationship.

I had fun with Jo, but I’m sure it couldn’t have been great for her having a friend she couldn’t relate to about everything she was really doing. And in Grade 9 Dee came on the scene. I could see my days with Jo were numbered. Dee joined our class because she had failed grade 9. This made her especially “cool.” (This and the the fact that she arrived at school with huge bandages around her wrists where she had obviously attempted suicide.) I definitely didn’t feel “cool” enough to talk to Dee. Even though Jo was mostly hanging out with Dee she would still invite me to her house some days. But I felt “dumped” – thrown out as her best friend and replaced. So I stopped hanging out with Jo. I think when she asked me about it once I even snapped at her in a fit of jealousy. And that was it. Back to the nerds I went. And on with my own problems. 

At some point in grade 9 I developed some issues with eating. I decided that I didn’t deserve to eat and that it was a good idea to starve myself, and if I absolutely had to eat I would put my finger down my throat and throw the food up. I don’t think I had bulimia. I really don’t remember doing this for very long. But somehow at school one of my friends noticed and told me that either I must stop this or she was going to go straight to the school principal and tell her, so that she would force me to go and get professional help. I think I did stop at that stage, purely out of the fear of confrontation with the school principal. Then there was the arm-cutting. This continued at school, generally using a mathematics set compass. When this wasn’t the best way of punishing myself, I would occasionally bang my head into the classroom door. My poems of self-loathing filled the pages of my school diaries. And the teasing over my high marks continued. I started to see school as an awful prison I had to go to every day, and I felt like I would never ever get out of my miserable situation. I thought about suicide a lot in those days. But somehow I think the penny dropped with my mom, and she let me move schools. (I must say that despite all my problems with my mom at that stage, I really did appreciate the fact that she had let me give up a full academic scholarship to a high school to leave half way through and go to a school where she was going to have to pay tuition.) I don’t know what reason my mom gave the school for my leaving, but I vaguely remember agreeing with her that I wasn’t feeling challenged and that the school didn’t seem focused on academic excellence. I think people judged my mom badly for this. On the day I left I remember crying as I said goodbye to my French teacher, and from comments she and other people made I could see they felt I was being pushed to move by my mom so I would be at a school where I could be more challenged academically.