Totally Fulfilled
squeaky voiced, friendless, and until that point, being in a special reading class due to trouble in English all through middle school, and you can see my school life wasn’t great. Being small most of my life made me very shy, so making new friends was never easy. It didn’t help that among a certain seg- ment of kids I earned the nickname “Rocky.” Not after the pugnacious boxer in the movies, but the squirrel from “The Rocky and Bullwinkle” cartoon. Girls thought I was cute but not dateable. Kids that would be friends with me during class would ignore me at lunch or recess. I could deal with that. But then the all time trag- edy hit, swimming class in gym. After swimming class, everyone hit the showers and threw their suits in the basket, showered and got a towel. I was the only one in 10th grade whose head was the only place on their body with hair. You can imagine what hap- pened with that ordeal. Let’s just say that “hairless” and “squirrel” were tossed around. Before I go further, I have to say that this is not a “poor me” story. I know there are so many people that have it much worse off than I did and I am sorry for that. I share this story and other events because they helped me become who I am today. I was able to use these challenges to propel me forward and not hold me back. I am hoping you will be able to relate to even one part of my experiences, and you can turn a past situation from an anchor to the wind in your sails. Back to the story. My parents always told me, “You’re a late bloomer. Don’t worry about it.” My mom, dad and my gram always tried to encourage me, telling me I was a great person. If people couldn’t see that then it was their loss. They would tell me to be true to myself and in the end I would be the winner. Absolutely amazing advice—except hard for a 10th grader to value—especially after the shower incident. But after 10th grade …You can turn a past situation from an anchor to the wind in your sails.
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