I am so glad I am not you (standard:Creative non-fiction, 1024 words)
Author: kathyg	Added: Jun 15 2015	Views/Reads: 4067/2353	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
I have heard this sentence many times in my life. It is not easy to hear but it has made me stronger for proving people wrong about me. A true personal account of how to cope with "friends" that stab you in the back and how to find your voice.

I am not ordinary by any means! I have heard the sentence, "I am so glad
I am not you",  so many times it makes my head spin! 

Friends are very important to me but I have been double crossed so many
times that I am reluctant to keep many.  Let me give you a few examples 
to help you understand me. 

I believe I was a well adjusted kid until I hit about 4th grade. I had a
run in with a nun who stopped me cold in the cafeteria because she 
thought I was chewing gum. She grabbed me and demanded I spit out the 
gum into the garbage can. I said I had no gum and then she grabbed me, 
spun me upside down and threw me in the garbage can along with the 
imaginary gum I was chewing! Later on, in religion class, she made me 
stand up while she proclaimed I was the biggest liar she ever met and 
that I swallowed the gum!"   The whole class was laughing at me and I 
took my books and left, humiliated. I walked home and told my mother 
who actually believed me! She took me out of that school and from that 
day forward. I was a public school kid (at least for a few more years). 


I walked around leary of metal garbage cans and nuns. Before that I
liked nuns but that nun was rogue. 

At public school, I knew two kids from my neighborhood and we used to
play together before but when I went to public school everything 
changed!  These two former friends started to play tricks on me and 
give me the silent treatment, start dumb rumors about me to get the 
other kids to hate me too. The more they rejected me, the more I tried 
harder to be their friend. I brought candy, games, etc., but it made me 
the bigger fool. Whatever they were telling the other kids I didn't 
have a clue but it worked. I had no friends. I was miserable and shy. 

The one thing I did have was spunk! No matter how much they pushed me
down, I picked myself up somehow! One day I wrote a song and asked the 
teacher if I could sing it in front of the class. She said ok so I 
started singing! I have a good voice but the kids laughed at me. I kept 
singing. I did not care. I like to sing. 

A week later one kid said, "I am so glad I am not you. Nobody likes you
but you do sing well." 

I asked, "Do you want to be my friend?" 

"No." 

My life was mostly lonely after that. I went to junior high running home
from school, chased by kids that hated me, being thrown in my locker, 
having my bra snapped in gym class, you name it, they did it. I never 
fought back and I don't know why. I lost my will and my voice. 

One boy called me "skinks" what ever that means. He said I had no
personality. He shouted it everytime I walked down the hall. 

I could hear kids whisper, "I am so glad I am not her." 

Public school turned out to be the same as Catholic school. Rotten! 

My catholic school closed and all the brats that attended there showed
up at the public school.  I recognized a few in my English class. I was 
getting straight A's in all my subjects because the work was so easy! 
One day this girl named Debbie put a note on my desk. 

It read: "Everyone hates you! I am so glad I am not you!" 

I got my books, walked out of class to the guidance office with the
note. 

They sent me to another section and things went better for a while. My
father wanted to send me to a private school but by then my anxiety of 
school in general was so great I hardly ever left the house. My turning 
point was art class where I was able to express my frustration with the 
human race in painting. I was also able to write my feeling out in 
words. 

These same words, "I am so glad I am not you", burn in my heart and mind


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