“One's dignity may be assaulted, vandalized and cruelly mocked, but it can never be taken away unless it is surrendered.”

One’s dignity can be assaulted.  One may be vandalized like a wall, black until they don’t see a patch of hope.  Mockery is always welcome.  But in reality we can all have the potential to never surrender, never back down, and never lose hope. 

I wore a yellow and white blouse, blue skinny jeans (that I did not fill all the way), and my hair was curled in an elegant way.  It fell almost to my belly button and caressed my oval shaped face, I was ready for the first day. Walking into the teeny middle school, I felt that year would be my year. That and the fact that the school smelled like febreeze with a hint of body odor.  Weeks passed and time flew, before I knew it I was into the third month of school.  An announcement came to my attention.  There would be an overnight school trip to jekyll in a month or so.  Fear and excitement coursed through me.  Little did I know that this field trip would be one of those, “Oh yeah and this happened” kind of thing.  A trip that would change how I felt and who I was.  The day of the trip came.  I made four friends that I absolutely looked up to and adored. They cared for me, laughed with me, and complimented me. I remember taking fun pictures in the fall and remembering how happy I was.  I was so joyful at the fact that I had people who cared for me.  Things started to slowly change.  When I began hanging out with new friends more, my situation quickly turned into a bullying epidemic.  The bullying experience wasn’t as severe as those Netflix originals where the girl pretty much gets bashed.  I was simply called names, pushed once or twice, and heard very hurtful rumors.  I was that girl they called a “monster”.  The one that wore too much makeup that she became ugly. The one that was too short and thin.   “If you were to be left in a hole one day, no one would realize it.” A remark made by a boy in my class simply told me that I wasn’t worth anything and I might as well die.  Even though this boy may have been joking around,  I still took it seriously because of what everyone else had been saying about me.  

I stepped out of my car, darted for the house and stood near the newly painted, front door.  The smell sprouted through my nose and into my thoughts.  The smell of new paint slowly made me think of my situation.  Strong and painful.  Paint has its own smell and whether it’s obvious or not, the smell told me it was something different. 

Being the curious and eager little person that I was, I reached out to certain people in my life. I moved schools and made new friends.  I became a happy little person that only wanted to live to make others happy and live a life worth anything and everything. I recognized not only did I give up instantly on myself but somewhat on my whole future.  This gave me a lack of light, a lack of wanting to live. Now that I look back at what happened and who I was I am inconceivably grateful for what I got out of my seventh grade experience and all the things I learned over the past few years and months. I saw that not only is one’s life is so incredibly important but I also found the value in the way we respond to the hate and vandalization. 

I remember that I was in a rough situation at the time but it did not last.  No matter how cliché it may sound, we as people can choose to live a life of suffrage and discomfort because we let someone get to us too soon and start to believe everything they say, or we can wear the carefree spirits out of our impeccable bodies.  But whatever we do, we can not surrender.