Describe something you learned in high school.
I’m a bit of a nostalgic hoarder. I have multiple stunning storage boxes containing a whole collection of random things from my life.
From every single student ID, to the receipt for the Filofax I bought myself when I got my first article published to folded hand written letters from besties, boys and pen pals (yes kids, the internet didn’t exist as it does now when I was in Highschool), the boxes are a strange time capsule of my life completed only by the matching book of crisis journals.
As an adult, you choose to only remember snippets of your Highschool experience. It’s probably your brain protecting you from the trauma of adolescence. For some reason though, only the negative memories from Highschool come to the surface when I try to remember that time but the memory box is a study in the opposite of that. It’s only full of the positive moments.
I both loved and loathed Highschool. I was a full nerd and couldn’t get enough of learning. I was focused and determined to “get out” of what I (at the time) considered to be a small, sleepy town and in some ways be “better” than the folks around me. I might not have been pretty or cute but I was determined to be “smarter” to make up for it.
I didn’t care what I did. I just had a real chip on my shoulder and had something to prove to everyone. I floated between wanting to be a doctor, a lawyer, a veterinarian. At one point I wanted to be a maritime engineer on an oil rig. I still don’t 100% know what that job entails! Mostly I wanted to be Scully on the X-Files.
I played a lot of netball up until my final year of school. I wanted to be the best. I was competitive and focused. I loved to run and felt strong in the more active positions like centre and wing attack. But I hated my body.
I’m not sure when it started. The hatred.
As Halsey would later sing, I wanted to cut some parts off with some scissors. I felt like a stranger in my own body, uncomfortable in my space, disconnected, ashamed and embarrassed.
I don’t know where it came from, I’m sure partly from comments made by real life people (that I’ve been repeating to myself for 20 years) and partly from the filth of teenage 1990’s girly magazines like Cleo and Cosmo.
No matter my size I felt “fat”. I went from not eating, to eating so many carrots my GP told me it was turning my skin yellow to binging on anything I could find.
My weight and confidence fluctuated and seemingly fused together.
It feels like a tale as old as time.
I wish I could say that Highschool taught me about working hard (it did) and the importance of friendship (it did) but it also engrained in me an ideal that skinny was better.
I’d love to say I grew out of it, but like the positive things I learnt in Highschool, it’s a little voice that seems to always be there.
Now 20 plus years later, it’s “you look so fit”.
That simple phrase evokes the same response in my suppressed adolescent heart. It doesn’t matter who says it, I don’t discriminate, or how they say it, the flutter of approval runs deep.
I think this phrase is meant to suggest you look like you have done the training, whatever that means. It’s that preconceived idea that “fit” people look a certain way, despite the overwhelming evidence at races that successful trail and ultra runners come in all shapes and sizes. That person who you judge doesn’t look as fit as you, will probably cross the finish line before you.
Sometimes when I see someone I haven’t seen in a while, the absence of that comment, “you look so fit” leaves me wanting, causing a brain spiral of self questioning and body analysis.
I learnt many things in Highschool that I’ve never needed. My constant desire for body approval is high on that list along with the super useful skill of long division by hand.
I see kids now and thank god I didn’t grow up with social media but I also see them reclaiming the body narrative a lot more than I ever did. I wonder if they are fighting the same battles and are just doing better at it.
I’m not the biggest fan of inspirational quotes, but I did see somewhere on the internet to teach your kids not to comment on anyone’s body unless it’s something that can be changed in less than a minute, like green crap stuck in their teeth or a random hair sticking up all on its own.
I wish I was better at this, for the people around me but mostly for myself.
So I guess the moral of the story that I’m trying to teach myself is to stop judging your own book by its cover, and focus on getting to that finish line before all the other folks who are also doing their best to silence that same voice.
MelMac Runs 