She looks at herself in the mirror and measures her figure from head to toe. Natalie from math class has c cups already, and she has yet to fully fill out an A cup. She eyes the toilet paper and her mother’s bra that was left on the bathroom floor. Decisions. Decisions. Just as she reaches for the bra, her grandmother calls from the kitchen in her heavy accent, "breakfast is ready". Maybe another time, she says, and she pulls her shirt down just enough to show the curvature of her late bloomers. School starts off one of two ways; she is able to make it to class without bits of paper thrown in her hair or she is able to make it to class with a few new names added to her list. As the day goes by, she is finding herself to be deaf. She knows that she can hear the noises of the other children laughing and having absolutely no cares on their shoulders, but to a particular bunch, she cannot hear. All she can do is feel. The bell rings for the end of the school day and she dishes her unwanted books into her locker and runs toward the bus. This was always the worst part of the day. In the morning, that particular bunch would always miss the bus because they couldn’t wake up in time. But now, there was no way to get home, so they all had to catch the bus. She chooses the first seat she sees, right beside her best friends, and holds onto her backpack. They were always the first ones on the bus, so they waited until the doors closed and avoided looking at who got on. Almost always, their hopes would be crushed as each member made their way.

Everyone avoids eye contact until it was too late, this group would circle in on the small group of girls and question their every move. Every breath, every ignored question would constitute a punch in the arm or a smack on the head – then they’d have to answer. No one was safe, in a way that no one could fight back. Each and every day, it would repeat itself. And each and every day, she would come home with more reasons to run away.

On some days, a memory would resurface to where I was in my middle school. It may be a horrible memory or a great one, I was never sure. I couldn’t be sure because of a group of girls who tormented my friends and I. We would try to stay strong, but none of us knew what to say to the other. There was more of them, than there were of us. And so we dealt with it. We accepted the bullying. We accepted it even when we screamed at them to leave us alone or to “try me.” We were never sure of what we were challenging until our faces were in the dirt.

Times were hard, however, we never thought to reach out to anyone. We felt that if we didn’t fight back, eventually, they would stop. And eventually they did, once high school came around, or if some of us moved. But those girls were never stopped by the hands of the principal or a parent or even our peers. Everyone knew who they were. And everyone stayed out of their way.

There comes a time where I should have accepted who I was and stood up for myself. The moments where I threw threats, should have been the moment where I ignored them. The moments that I ignored them should have been the moments that I calmly replied. Should. Should. Should.

Should does not change the past.

If I focused on the past so much, who would I be today?

At twelve years old, I would tell myself to talk to an adult. I would tell myself to embrace who I am and love my features. I would tell myself that everything gets better and I would tell myself that being popular in that school is not cool.

I would be myself. And I would tell myself to hold on to my true identity, because you never really find yourself until you go out into the world and experience it. After high school, it is a major jump and that is the true moment when you discover who you are and what you want for yourself.

This is only an obstacle that God had put to challenge you and to grow.