Beautiful loser

I am telling myself that this thought does not need to be immortalized on open diary, but for some reason I feel compelled to write it.

Life is just weird and the seven degrees of separation thing is true, as is the fact that sometimes you run into someone that made a difference in your life, and you get to TELL them they made a difference in your life.

That happened to me today.

The start of high school can be rough. You want to fit in and have a boyfriend and friends, but you are definitely not confident or comfortable in your own skin as a 14 year old girl.

And what’s worse than being a freshman?

Being a freshman that has to ride the school bus, that’s what.

The first day I had to climb up the steps and sit among a bunch of high schoolers, after having only ever been on the primary school bus, was petrifying.

My dad always bought me new clothes to start school and my mom always let me get my haircut in the latest style, but all I wanted to do was blend in.

But a girl named Jackie made sure I did NOT.

She was mean. Relentlessly mean. She was from a dairy farming family and they were well off. That still happens in the Midwest believe it or not, and she had everything money could buy except apparently a car, because bitch was riding the bus as a senior.

Every day she would file past me and hit me on the head with her history book. It hurt like a fucker and I think I still have neck damage. It hurt so bad I had to bite my tongue to keep from crying and it was a shock each time she did it…came out of nowhere and I never knew when she was gonna strike.

There was another girl on the bus and her name was Dawn. She was from a very modest family but she had something Jackie did not. She. Was. Beautiful.

She had brown feathered hair with blonde highlights like Farrah Fawcett and shiny glossed lips. She was petite and soft spoken and she dressed well. She always had a leather jacket and perfect makeup and she was very shy and introverted.

But boys adored her and clamored for her attention and all the girls wanted to be around Dawn, because that’s where the boys were.

Shy, quiet, beautiful Dawn had high school clout and a pure heart, and I know this because of what she did for me.

Jackie had been torturing me for weeks but the day she wiped a big blob of vaseline petroleum jelly in my hair was the most humiliating day of my young life.

I didn’t go to school. When I got off the bus, I walked to the seven eleven store in town and used the payphone to call my dad. He drove home 20 miles to take me home to wash my hair. I couldn’t get it out no matter how many times I washed it and finally my dad used go-jo automotive hand cleaner to strip it out.

And he was furious. He said that he was going to take care of it by going to Jackie’s dad, Jack. Growing up in a small town, everyone knows one another and my dad knew Jack. I begged and pleaded with him NOT to, as it was certain to be social suicide for me if he did.

He said he wouldn’t go to her dad, but I’d have to stick up for myself and stand up to my bus bully. His exact words were “it’s time you cleaned her clock.”

So the next day when she stabbed me in the head with an open safety pin, I followed his orders and I shoved her down the bus stairs and straight onto her wicked little ass. She was aghast, for lack of a better word.

I got kicked off the bus for one week and my dad told me he was proud of me and that I always needed to stand up for myself regardless of the consequences. And then he drove me to school every morning for that week of suspension. And he even bought me McDonald’s breakfast.

I had no classes with mean Jackie so it wasn’t until I got back on the bus that she began to plot her revenge.

But this time she needed help. There is safety in numbers and it is easy to be tough with a gang by your side.

So Jackie enlisted the help of several girls to beat me up.

But one girl refused. Not only did she refuse to participate in hurting me, but she told Jackie she was all but DONE with watching her hit me and stab me and ruin my hair.

It was beautiful Dawn. All four foot eleven inches of her tiny frame stood there brazenly  protecting my dignity.

Mean Jackie never looked my way again, for the Queen Bee had spoken, and called her off, effectively too, I might add. Mean Jackie knew if she went against beautiful Dawn she’d pay the price with isolation and unpopularity, brought upon by Dawn’s disapproval of her actions.

They were not friends, Dawn and Jackie.

Dawn had gone out on a limb for me.

She was so pretty and popular that I was too in awe of her to even mutter a thank you. All I remember is her glossy, slight smile and her courage. And then she graduated and was gone.

Her life was not good after she finished school. Her husband left her for his own sister in law and Dawn ended up a single mom working at the party store, with a food card and a drinking problem

And stage four breast cancer.

There were canisters around town and we collected money for her treatment and in a small town what you do is pray, pray the illness away like any good German Catholic.  Several years went by and I wondered how she had fared. I didn’t hear any updates,  but I always hoped she was well. With cancer though, that is rarely the outcome.

Fast forward to today, about two o clock this afternoon. I was in line to pay for my gas and there was a tiny old lady in line in front of me. I stared at the back of her head as I waited my turn to pay the attendant, noticing its steely gray color and her perfect but outdated feathered hair. She was carrying a 24 pack of beer and she struggled to balance it against her small frame.

She paid for her beer and turned to leave and our eyes met. Her face was lined with deep wrinkles and her skin looked like leather. Her eyes held a sadness that belied her faded beauty.

It was beautiful Dawn. Fate has been unkind to her and she is now formerly beautiful Dawn but it was definitely her and I put my arm out gently to block her path out and I said “Do you remember me?”

She said “yes” and then she called me by name.

Before she could say another word I said “Do you remember the girl that tortured me on the bus? You confronted her and told her to stop hurting me and you put an end to her constant harassment and I just want to say thank you for that. Your kindness made a huge difference to a 14 year old band nerd with glasses. You saved me from what would have been certain misery my first year in high school.”

She just stared at me for a second and her eyes filled with tears and she looked overcome with emotion. She put the case of beer on the floor and she held her arms out to me and we embraced for longer than the average quick “hello” hug and then she said “thank you.”

I went home and looked on facebook and all over Dawn’s page were well wishers and congratulatory messages, celebrating the fact that she has been cancer free for five years now.

Apparently, my words touched her in a way that made me glad I had thanked her.

I would like to think karma blessed Dawn with recovery for her kindness towards me as a frightened teenager. I would like to think what she did earned her cosmic favor with the universe.

Truth is, she just got lucky. Cuz fate is what you make it and karma is just a pipe dream.

But I learned something important from that experience.

Jackie was wealthy.

Dawn was not.

But kindness is a gift everyone can afford.