It is 1955. My mother is crying in her hospital bed after giving birth to me. She is only 18 years old and feeling scared and alone. A nurse comes in and says, "Why are you crying? You are a lucky woman. You have the most beautiful baby in the nursery." My mother stops crying to wonder, "Is this true? Or does the nurse say this to all new mothers?"
Fast forward 5 years. I am a quiet and painfully shy little girl in the first grade. I skipped kindergarten and have rarely been away from my mother. I look across the desks to see a lovely girl with white skin, dark hair, and delicately shaped brows. “She looks like Show White,” I think to myself. I stare because she is so pretty. Our eyes meet and she turns away. At recess I see her playing four square. I walk tentatively toward her group. She calls out, “You can’t play, Karin!” Stunned, I walk away. Later in the day, I make a mistake during art class and the teacher admonishes me for working on the wrong drawing. A boy next to me whispers, “You nincompoop!” When the day is finally over, I clutch my drawing in my hands and can barely hold back tears until I can get off the school bus and run into my mother’s arms.
Sobbing, I tell her, "I never want to go back to school. The kids don’t like me and my teacher is mad at me."
"Of course the children like you! Of course your teacher isn’t mad!" my mother exclaims. "Why on earth wouldn’t everyone like you? You are a wonderful child."
I do not believe my mother. During recess the next day I walk the playground alone. I keep my eyes on my shoes and kick a stone around. I hope that if I look miserable enough someone will come and rescue me. No one does. I continue this pattern day after day and spend much of my first grade year alone, feeling sorry for myself, and dreading recess. Each day after school, I throw myself on my bed and cry desperately. My mother tries to soothe me but I am inconsolable. I don’t know what to do to make things better. My first grade year feels like it will never end.
My family lives out in the country on a little farm. I sit alone on the long school bus ride before and after school and weave elaborate fantasies in my head. I see myself as popular and the winner of prizes. I think these are idle wishes but they are not. My daydreams will summon a new set of experiences into my life.
By second grade things get somewhat better. The Snow White girl moves away and I am included on the playground. I often play tag with my classmates. We call our favorite games “Girls Chase the Boys,” and “Boys Chase the Girls.” I am still extremely quiet, but at least I am a part of the group. My social life improves even more in third grade when I make my first best friend! My new friend’s name is Dawn. I am very happy but I will always remember what it felt like when I didn’t have a single friend.
My world is about to change even more dramatically. After scrimping, saving, lucky investing, and some extremely hard work (my Dad has 2 full time jobs and 2 side businesses) my parents can finally buy some property. We won’t be renters anymore! We will own our own home! To save money, my Dad builds most of our house himself. The land has a pretty little lake for swimming and a picturesque creek for fishing. Our new place makes me very happy. My happiness is attractive to others. By the time I am in 6th grade, I have lots of girl friends. My grandmother sews me pretty dresses and I go to school feeling like a princess. I can hardly believe it when 6 boys in my class tell their friends to tell me that they like me. How did I become so popular? Can this be real?
I am surprised to find that even with all this attention, I feel pretty much the same inside as I did in first grade. I still think I am boring. I don’t understand why anyone would like me. When I try to figure out why I went from invisibility to popularity I decide my new social success is because of two circumstances outside of my control. One, my family moved at the beginning of 6th grade. I decide being the new girl made me the center of attention for awhile.
The other factor has to do with my appearance. I am blonde, slim, and have blue eyes. I decide my classmates like me because of my looks. I see my appearance as an accident of nature that doesn’t really belong to me. I don’t feel I’ve done anything to deserve my friends because my looks did it all for me. I am glad for the chance to get over some of my shyness, but I wish I could be like my friend Margo. Margo is so much fun and has personality oozing out of every pore. If I lose my looks, my popularity will go away, but people will always love Margo no matter what she looks like. I wish I could earn friendship the way she does.
In eighth grade my grandmother teaches me to sew. A family friend gives me big boxes of free fabric from his store. My family doesn’t have much money for extras, but with these gifts of fabric, I can wear the clothes of my dreams. Now I have friends and can sew a beautiful wardrobe. I thumb through fashion magazines and pick out the styles I like as I blissfully create many new outfits. I go to school with even more confidence. In high school I become student council president, captain of the pom squad, a member of the National Honor Society, and the Betty Crocker future homemaker of tomorrow. Can you believe I overcome my shyness enough to win leading roles in the class plays? But the biggest surprise is yet to come. My senior year I am amazed when they announce my name as the new prom queen.
What do I learn after my shift from grade school rejection to middle and high school popularity? I learn that being popular does not take away my insecurity, empty feelings or loneliness. Strangely, being prom queen doesn’t make me feel loved. Instead I feel isolated and alone – set apart and different. No one seems to know what to say when they crown me queen, and I don’t know how to act. I still wonder if anyone really likes me.
This pattern of experiencing extreme opposites will repeat itself many times in my life. Each time I complete two completely opposite experiences I answer some questions from the previous stage of life, and raise new questions to answer in the next.
- Being seen as pretty can help me have new and interesting experiences but I am still the same person inside.
- Even when I am popular I still feel lonely and that I am somehow not good enough.
- It is fun and possible to reach for my dreams.
- When I am reaching for my dreams I feel happy and satisfied.