The Pretty Girl...
It is 1981 and it is my first year in junior high school. It is early September in the first few days of the new school year. My school is the Joseph Pulitzer Intermediate School #145. It is known more commonly as I.S. 145. I am standing in the cafeteria lunch line with a friend. I am pretending to be cool; when in reality my stomach is in knots.
Just last year I was in 5th grade and in the oldest grade of the school. Now I am in 6th grade and in the youngest grade. The word freshman keeps circulating around me. The word is said like it is a bad thing.
Kids that are just one or two years older than I am now tower over me. They are not exactly friendly. My school is in one the NYC’s five boroughs and, by default, completely overcrowded. In the crowds I get lost or become part of the pattern.
The lunch line is run as if we are a herd of animals. It forms and remains orderly by lining us up in rows separated by aluminum bars bolted to the floor like the rides at Great Adventure. I am trying hard to pretend I am cool. I am leaning back on one of the bars on my elbows, casually chatting with a friend. I am wearing jeans over a tight teal blue bodysuit. Bodysuits were big back then. My hair is long and wavy. It is shiny with youthfulness. It reaches my middle back. My dad, the barber, has cut nice layers into it for me. I weigh all of 90 pounds.
One boy, a senior my friend tells me later, is a few people behind us in line.
I hear: “Hey, Brooke Shields. You’re looking pretty today.” My friend jabs me hard in the ribs and with a coy, flirty look I have never seen on her, she whispers: “He means you.” I am simultaneously terrified and ecstatic. Inside my belly is all a flutter. I can feel the lining trembling. Brooke Shields is all the rage theses days! She is beautiful and sexy. Her jean ads for Calvin Klein Jeans during television of the 1980s have every girl wishing to be her. And this boy – this senior classman – just called me Brooke?
I was on Cloud 9 for the rest of the week. Young girls are so perceptive to things like that. We gauge our worth by what a boy says to us, or about us. We do not know it at the time, but later in life, we will make all the right or wrong decisions regarding men based upon the feelings we get from these compliments or insults.
Pretty is good. I got that.
Not long after that good day, I will get sick. The illness will manifest itself in many ways. However, to me the worst thing it does is make me unpretty. In a matter of weeks, my appeal vanishes. For the next 30 (and counting) years of my life, I will morph into many forms, none as appealing as the Brooke phase.
For the next 30 (and counting) years of my life, I will not be the pretty girl that gets all the boys. My weight will fluctuate dramatically. Acne will plague me more than most. My hair will get thin and begin to fall out. My clothes won't fill properly. I will become obsessed with finding the next great outfit to camouflage the flaws. I still do that today. I will spend thousands camouflaging myself when really all I want to do is hide completely. I will now see the flaws all the time. From every angle, I will criticize myself. From my point of view, I will pick out the negatives because the positives are invisible. I will see each flaw each time I look in the mirror. I try to avoid the mirror. I run away from all cameras. I abstain from being subject for pictures for a very long time.
I will stand next to a friend, or classmate, or cousin or coworker and I will simply disappear into the background. The pretty girl is next to me and she is being acknowledged, addressed and admired. I will stand there dismissed, disillusioned and disappearing. I am part of the scenery or I am invisible. I long for the cute boy to speak to me first, if at all. However, the cute boy is busy speaking to the pretty girl. She giggles sweetly at the words that he says to her. I have no sweetness in me to share. Bitterness is traveling like hot lava through my insides.
I stand beside them both and I am quiet. I am forcing a smile, but inside my spirit is dying.
Just last year I was in 5th grade and in the oldest grade of the school. Now I am in 6th grade and in the youngest grade. The word freshman keeps circulating around me. The word is said like it is a bad thing.
Kids that are just one or two years older than I am now tower over me. They are not exactly friendly. My school is in one the NYC’s five boroughs and, by default, completely overcrowded. In the crowds I get lost or become part of the pattern.
The lunch line is run as if we are a herd of animals. It forms and remains orderly by lining us up in rows separated by aluminum bars bolted to the floor like the rides at Great Adventure. I am trying hard to pretend I am cool. I am leaning back on one of the bars on my elbows, casually chatting with a friend. I am wearing jeans over a tight teal blue bodysuit. Bodysuits were big back then. My hair is long and wavy. It is shiny with youthfulness. It reaches my middle back. My dad, the barber, has cut nice layers into it for me. I weigh all of 90 pounds.
One boy, a senior my friend tells me later, is a few people behind us in line.
I hear: “Hey, Brooke Shields. You’re looking pretty today.” My friend jabs me hard in the ribs and with a coy, flirty look I have never seen on her, she whispers: “He means you.” I am simultaneously terrified and ecstatic. Inside my belly is all a flutter. I can feel the lining trembling. Brooke Shields is all the rage theses days! She is beautiful and sexy. Her jean ads for Calvin Klein Jeans during television of the 1980s have every girl wishing to be her. And this boy – this senior classman – just called me Brooke?
I was on Cloud 9 for the rest of the week. Young girls are so perceptive to things like that. We gauge our worth by what a boy says to us, or about us. We do not know it at the time, but later in life, we will make all the right or wrong decisions regarding men based upon the feelings we get from these compliments or insults.
Pretty is good. I got that.
Not long after that good day, I will get sick. The illness will manifest itself in many ways. However, to me the worst thing it does is make me unpretty. In a matter of weeks, my appeal vanishes. For the next 30 (and counting) years of my life, I will morph into many forms, none as appealing as the Brooke phase.
For the next 30 (and counting) years of my life, I will not be the pretty girl that gets all the boys. My weight will fluctuate dramatically. Acne will plague me more than most. My hair will get thin and begin to fall out. My clothes won't fill properly. I will become obsessed with finding the next great outfit to camouflage the flaws. I still do that today. I will spend thousands camouflaging myself when really all I want to do is hide completely. I will now see the flaws all the time. From every angle, I will criticize myself. From my point of view, I will pick out the negatives because the positives are invisible. I will see each flaw each time I look in the mirror. I try to avoid the mirror. I run away from all cameras. I abstain from being subject for pictures for a very long time.
I will stand next to a friend, or classmate, or cousin or coworker and I will simply disappear into the background. The pretty girl is next to me and she is being acknowledged, addressed and admired. I will stand there dismissed, disillusioned and disappearing. I am part of the scenery or I am invisible. I long for the cute boy to speak to me first, if at all. However, the cute boy is busy speaking to the pretty girl. She giggles sweetly at the words that he says to her. I have no sweetness in me to share. Bitterness is traveling like hot lava through my insides.
I stand beside them both and I am quiet. I am forcing a smile, but inside my spirit is dying.
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