Valentine’s
Day was a thrill in school. We all
waited at the bus stop with our envelopes of lick sealed envelopes all carefully
selected valentines bought from the local grocery store. It was something new in an otherwise predictable
routine. Our Valentines, as pictured
were not commercial save for maybe Peanuts and Snoopy. In those days, they were created out of the
minds of graphic designers with their own unique animal characters coupled with
want to be advertisers who thought of the corny quips that made you smile. In each pack of bought Valentines, there were
a few “big” ones, you gave to your favorite friends, some medium ones, and then
the small ones left over like those fat sugary black licorice jellybeans that
settled on the bottom of your Easter basket in-between the fake plastic grass,
the last to be eaten in desperation of sugar and lack of any chocolate.
Each
valentine had little origami folds in order to fit in the standard size mini
envelopes. The night before we “were
allowed” to bring them in we would sit at the kitchen table, like Scrooge
himself, counting out our “currency”, who would get what Valentine based on how
much of a friend they were. Then you would write their first name and last initial
on the back of the Valentine, and again on the envelope. You felt important with all that new paper,
colorful cards and decisions to make. You did this in your own world without
any adults telling you what to do.
We would
finally have the “party” towards the end of the day. You hand your “money” to the banker…the
teacher who would then read the names out loud. Here’s the cruel part…in those days we did NOT
have to give everyone a Valentine, (nice way to show love). No,
we were allowed to portray a real census of who was popular and who was
not. Obviously, the person who received
the most was the most popular… childhood logic right? I myself “ran out of” Valentines but to be
sure, I made sure the most popular or the cutest kids were covered first. In due time,I looked at my desk and counted
them, I was in the middle of the class if you were solely counting the number
of Valentines received. I even got a few
“big” ones. I was OK but sitting next to
me was a kid named “Moses.” He didn’t
speak very much English, might have been gruff to mask the constant
rejection. We, as a group, would walk up
to him and tell him he was NOT supposed to have the name “Moses” not very Catholic and besides that name was
reserved for the real Moses, the one with the tablets and the 10 commandments….who
was HE trying to be walking around with such a
name. That day, he didn’t get ANY Valentines. He tried to hold it together but then couldn’t
contain the embarrassment and he burst into tears.
I regret I didn’t write a Valentine to him, not even a small one. I participated in a classroom rejection. I wasn’t sad, honestly only relived it wasn’t
me as I stared as the audience of classmates did and watched him experience rejection during this Valentine's Day "party." The most popular girl, Pammy, who
wore long pigtail braids to class every day with matching ribbons, was still
opening her Valentines after everyone realized what was happening. I do remember that Pammy, who also did not
give him a fresh Valentine, scribbled off her name from one of her Valentines and
gave it to him. He stopped crying and
ended up with 2…used Valentines(the small kind), not bad considering one of them was from Pammy. He never lived this down. Even months later, if you got in an argument with him, you had the Excalibur sword of "Who do you think you are? You didn't even get any Valentines." I
participated in being the one to add to somebody else’s sadness and rejection.
Years later, I would get a taste of my own medicine.
Fast forward
to eighth grade, new student to yet another school to an already long line of changed
schools due to constant moving. It wasn’t
Valentine’s Day rejection, we “outgrew” that ritual. Instead a girl, I’ll call her Marie, had a
super large birthday party with EVERYONE invited to it except me and to my
amazement, the prettiest girl, Carine.
Carine was naturally beautiful long straight blond hair, down to her
waist, pretty clothes, the bluest eyes you ever saw, but surprisingly not much self-confidence. I think that I had more than she did and I
had to overcome the fact that this was a super “Ugly Betty” year for me. Puberty, bad haircut, blond getting “dirty
dishwater blond” braces everywhere, not allowed to shave my legs yet or pluck
my eyebrows. If I wanted to put the
cherry on the top to show that I just couldn’t pull it together, I would march
up to the schoolyard with brown eye makeup overdone and in all the wrong places
to a point where people would ask “What happened to you?” Just trying to cope, leave me alone, but in
all of it I had learned to develop and stick with a few close friends. Suddenly, here I was coupled in some freak
rejection with the most beautiful girl in the class. Gee, would that mean we might be friends or
would she talk to me? Talk to me she did
only to ask if I was going to Marie’s party. “No,” I didn’t care I was going to
sleep over another friend’s house from another school. That was more fun than a party where I wasn’t
wanted. I didn’t mind being uninvited, I
told myself already bracing for the inevitable,, only that; “It was NOT
justified.” I never had words with her,
she simply did it to embarrass me and single me out.….with Carine :)
Who could be that mad when the rejection earned some weird popularity
points by association? If we were
rejected together it would boost my already low status and lack of any
popularity points and chip away at her overabundance of pretty popularity points.
It was the talk of the schoolyard. The dirty deed was done and the following Monday,
I was to hear that Carine “crashed” Marie’s party and showed up anyways. There go my weird bonus points.
Low. Marie walks
up to me in the schoolyard after her “BIG” party. She had a “BIG” cake, “BIG” presents,..heck,
Marie was “BIG” herself. She walks up to
me with her stupid entourage; she was nowhere near as pretty and popular as Carine. Turns out her little plan backfired on her
during her “BIG” party. Supposedly, as
the party wore on and Carine showed up and was not asked to leave, rumor got out that she specifically now
excluded one classmate, peer pressure and guilt settled in. Then her mother found out. She walks up to me and says “Hi” with her “supportive” friends
who wished the whole thing never happened.
She continued somewhat annoyed; “My mother told me to apologize to you because what I did was
mean.” Really? Don’t go around saying things like that to “Ugly
Betty” scorned and embarrassed with nothing to lose. “Well,” I retorted, “Aren’t you old enough to
say your own words? Why are you still
listening to everything you mother tells you to do? Besides you don’t even say it like you mean
it.” Fierce little “Ugly Betty” with her bad hemmed school skirt doesn’t care now that she was getting a pathetic halfhearted, guilt driven
apology you don’t even mean just to look “not so bad.” But Marie needed to hear those words...uncoated and real. Classmates for previous weeks, would ask on
my behalf to invite me to no avail. Now it’s
her time to cry, and my rejection had reached my desired result. They were my words, my feelings, my solution;
my mother didn’t even know about the entire party, this was something I had to
resolve my way. I did get into trouble
by “making her cry” until the teachers found out the whole story. None of their business, we needed to resolve
our own problems our own way, without adult interference as we were soon to be
adults ourselves. We would be making our
own decisions with consequences and accountability.
These are
the lessons we learned by our own actions and decisions, right or wrong we
needed to learn from them. How to cope
with the teacher that was going to “ride you’re a**” all year, just because or personality
differences, you just forged through that year, no analysis was given. You had to cope and manage.
In the real
work world, you would have some previous experience to draw upon so I do not
miss those lessons and they are treasured as stepping stones. I was a resilient, wiry fighter, who knew
that in eighth grade, there wasn’t any use in trying to compete for being in
the top half of the class. Some kind of
freedom in that too, the pressure with being popular if that you have to walk around
like a politician pleasing people all the time, comb your hair so as not to
have it out of place, not saying exactly what you want to say for you might be
brought down a few precious pegs.
Carine was
not as resilient as I was and I don’t know if through the years, she ever found
the right balance of confidence to match her natural beauty. I was to find out later she died in her early
forties from cirrhosis
of the liver from too much drinking. I remember
feeling sad when I found out the news. I
had so wanted to be her once upon a time, the time right before we really
stretched our wings, the cusp of adulthood. The dear little soul has left us and the
party really didn’t matter much then, I took care of it, but I wonder was that
uninvitation rejection for Carine soon to precede many more, that she wasn’t
equipped to handle. One more unnecessary
shove into the bottom of a glass. We do
these things to feel important when in reality we are not special when we push people who are
on the rejection line. I’ve been on both
sides of that line and in looking back, it was so cruel. Life will hand you the lessons, the unfair situations,
and in looking at what some people face on a daily basis my “party rejection”
was so tiny and insignificant. Did you
hear that Marie?
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