thirty days of thirty years: thirteen

Year thirteen, age twelve and grade seven: September 1994-1995.

Age twelve is one that I will still reference every now and then because that is when I pretty much stopped growing. It might be hard to tell from some of my coming-of-age pictures but I was a pretty big kid. It's hard to notice until you see a picture of me next to another kid about my age, and I was towering over her. Parents of some of my friends told me later in life that, based on my size as a child, they expected me to be a much bigger woman. But once I hit twelve, I just stopped growing. I still wear the same ski bibs that my dad got for me from Burlington Coat Factory that year, even though that is a major fashion faux pas in the ski resort town where I live now. Sometimes it still takes me off guard when someone makes a reference to me being small, because for so long I was used to being big. 

Around the beginning of my seventh grade year I was allowed to get contact lenses. I was really excited about this, for obvious reasons. The only down side was that I wore hard contacts-- to try to slow the decline of my vision-- and they made my eyes very dry and red. So it was a common occurrence for me to be in public and have a stranger, usually a middle school boy, come and ask me if I was high. I would typically reply, "yeah, I'm high," and roll my eyes and walk away. 

With the combination of reaching full physical maturity-- although I am still waiting for my boobs to come in--and losing the glasses, I started to get a much different kind of attention than I was used to, especially from boys. Really cute boys that I would meet at camp or the mall or amusement parks would want me to be their girlfriend, which we all know meant nothing at that age. But I took relationships seriously and I was very loyal, so I would say no or mull over the decision for quite a while until I was ready to make that kind of commitment. 

I remember this one day that I was in the school cafeteria, taking my turn sweeping and wiping down tables, when this little girl in third grade approached me and said, "you are one of the prettiest girls in school." I looked at her and then looked behind me to my left, then to my right, then back at her and said, "are you talking to me?" She confirmed that she was and then I realized she was being quite honest because she said that I was actually the second or third prettiest girl, and proceeded to name the other, prettier girls. It didn't bother me that she was a third-grader or that I wasn't the prettiest, that was the first time I remember anyone calling me pretty. When I was younger my sister, Suzanne,  used to call me Cutsie-pie but then one day I asked her why she stopped calling me that and she said, "because you aren't cute anymore." I knew she was right. So when this third-grader called me pretty it whispered something to me that every girl's soul longs to hear.

This was a unique year because I was starting to grow up, but I was still very much a kid. I would still secretly play with Barbies at home and at school I preferred to play soccer during recess with the boys than stand around in circles and gossip with the girls.

During the Spring of 1995 my Popo took my sister, Becky, and me to Disney World. Seventh grade was the perfect time to do Disney because I was still young enough to soak in the magic and yet tall enough to ride all the rides.

The two of them went out a few days before me to visit my grandpa's brother while I was still in school, and I flew out to meet them. That was my first time on an airplane and I was nervous but I had been prepped. Plus, this was a pre-nine-eleven world and airports were much less intimidating then. The only thing I wasn't prepared for was to get off the plane in a strange city and not see my family there. They were running late and my plane landed early and no one had cell phones then, so I felt completely lost and alone and all I could do was cry. I soon explained my situation to an airline employee and they took me back into some sort of lounge where I watched TV episodes of the Golden Girls-- which made me wonder if people in Florida just watched TV shows based in Florida--  while my family made their way to me.

My grandpa had wanted to take me to Disney because I always liked to make a big deal of the fact that the rest of my family went there when I was a baby and left me back at home with Aunt Lora. He was super supportive of me and I always felt like he wanted to make every one of my dreams come true, so that is why he planned this trip and that is why he rented a convertible for that week, instead of an economy car.

Growing up I had my dad and I had my grandpa (and eventually my brother) to show me what it was to be loved and adored by a strong, loving man. So even though there came a time when I started getting a certain amount of attention from boys, it was pretty hard to truly impress me.