They wronged you.

But they’re trying to survive, too.

I remember very clearly that moment: I was nine years old, wearing a crimped top with spaghetti straps, it was a hot summer day, probably very close to the summer vacation, during recess. I felt carefree, pretty, girly, in my cute top. One of my male classmates looked at me, pointed at my armpit fat by the straps, laughed, and said, “Haha, you’re fat!” (picture Nelson in your head)

This was the first time I ever felt embarrassed, self-conscious, and wronged.

I looked around, and other girls had armpit fat, but yet he had decided to single me out. Me. Why? What had I done? What had I done to him?

At nine years old my doctor told me to exercise more despite the fact that I was already doing ballet, gymnastics and judo, on top of school P.E. classes, because I was supposedly borderline obese (which was bullshit, since you know I had no problem being active and all). So basically I was already active at least four days a week, and she wanted me to do more. Ever since that offhand comment I’ve been very defensive when people tell me I should exercise more. Like my sister, who pats my belly fat every time she sees me and prods me very invitingly with, “Why don’t you join my dance group, you used to love dancing.”

In grade six I was the class reject. Apparently being smart isn’t cool. Or at least wasn’t, back then. I don’t know.

I wasn’t always a class reject. In grade five being smart wasn’t so bad. In grade three I won my class’s spelling bee for my team and people freaking praised me. Before grade six people asked you for help and maybe sometimes used you, but for some reason in grade six everything changed and my best friend left me for greener pastures and people avoided me like the plague. All of a sudden. I was absolutely stumped.

I wondered if I’d done something. If I hadn’t been humble (not really; if I finished schoolwork early my teachers would usually just give me extra work). If I’d pissed off someone. If if if.

I cried at home every day or so that year. For god’s sake, I even cried at my family’s Christmas or New Year’s dinner (I forget) when my mother wished my sisters and I good things in the next year.

My pre-teen world was in shambles and I still had to go to school everyday with my head down. I realized then and there that depression was a thing and I had it. And it’s been hitting me up pretty regularly since. Yay. Besties?

My first job out of university was at a national newspaper group: they owned about 20 or so small regional newspaper around the province. I was over-qualified and under-paid and knew it, but desperately wanted experience because no one else wanted to hire someone without experience.

I did good work, good ads and good copywriting/editing once in a while, had Wednesdays off, my supervisor was mean but it was… a job in my field.

One day I walked into the office to the news that one of the newest employees on my team was going to be promoted to co-supervisor. She had a high school diploma.

I saw red.

Where my Korean co-workers and students often commented on my weight, skin or shape, I felt much better about myself than I ever had before. I didn’t give a damn that my co-workers gifted me skin serums. I didn’t care that my students poked my pudgy belly. I didn’t care that my students gifted me whitening BB creams because I had a tan and I looked “black” (lol okay).

For the first time in my life since all those issues started popping up at a young age, I was absolutely confident in my own skin, knowing that I looked better than ever.

Eventually, the smell of poop does get noticed…

Goodness gracious, I realized after a month or two that I needed to go. Yet I stayed for three years because, as my mother put it, “you should like it, it’s in your field, you’re getting experience” (let me just point out that my mother has been a housewife for 35 years and values longevity over mental state). You should be thankful you have a job.

I vented up a storm to my boyfriend every evening after work on my drive home. I had panic attacks on Sundays. I had insomnia every night for my first two years (the third year I had bouts but mostly told myself not to bring work home). Sometimes I stayed up and talked critically about my days and explained myself to an invisible audience while my boyfriend worked night shifts. I sang my head off in the car to cheer myself up, yet walked in with an invisible weight on my shoulders that mysteriously disappeared once I left work.

It was excruciating. My physical and mental health took nosedives. But I wasn’t alone. I had colleagues who felt the same, experienced the same disillusion. At least I had support. We talked a lot.

And at least I had my dreams. But they kept me up, too. They haunted me.

One day, one day, one day. It was exhausting.

For all those situations I just described, nowadays I try to remember them with a grain of salt. They were indeed rotten moments in my life, they made me bawl my eyes out and hate the world and my life, I sometimes even contemplated suicide because I felt I couldn’t take more . Yet now I have taken certain distance from them. They are memories. They shaped me into who I am. Anyone who dares to criticize me for being who I am or my choices can truly fuck off.

I take the liberty to ignore the fuck out of people who do nothing but walk all over people in the name of opportunity. I’m sorry, but once you’ve lived in my shoes you don’t give a shit about people like that. People like that have wronged me and I certainly do not care to make them feel precious and loved.

I can, however, appreciate that they are trying to survive. I don’t condone it, but now I do recognize it for what it is.

At the tender age of nine, kids are starting to be brainwashed into thinking that any body fat should be shamed. Adults and the media teach them that. I was never fat in the sense of not fitting on a bus or airplane seat. And yet present society dictates that any loose skin is reprehensible. So now I understand that classmate who pointed and laughed at my armpit fat. He was just doing what society does.

I now understand that the kids who rejected me in grade six only wanted to be popular, to reflect all those high school movies we were being fed by Hollywood. Sometimes I pity them, who they were. Sometimes I wonder where they are now, what they do, if they remember, what they remember, how they remember it. And why. Maybe one day I’ll message one of them and ask, but for now I’m just content knowing they didn’t necessarily want to be evil, but only wanted to survive in the popular sphere.

I now understand that the new co-worker with the quick promotion got it because she had befriended my supervisor, something that I couldn’t bring myself to do due to constantly being called “the anglo” (as in, the French Quebecker who’s fluent in English) by her. I survived later on by flying to South Korea and teaching English for two years, something that none of my co-workers then could have ever hoped to do due to, you know, not speaking English.

Koreans are, by nature and nurture, extremely critical of appearance. That is why the cosmetic industry is huge there for both men and women. If you look tired, be ready to hear about it. If you like the sun, be ready to hear “dirty” from students. If you’re even slightly chubby, be ready to hear about diets. If you have rogue pimples, be ready to welcome skin cleansing creams presented as gifts. I knew all about it before jumping on the plane, and so when I presented myself at the job on the first day I was prepared for the storm, and developed a devil-may-care attitude about it. It was refreshing to not care what people think of me for the first time in a while. It stuck with me, largely.

I now understand that I got fired because of my mistakes. I get it. The company needed to survive, and I was sort of a liability. I pushed a draft live before it got approved, even though I had gotten verbal approval…

I now understand that the following job I held was a glorified dog-eat-dog world. Psychological battles of the fittest. Judgemental about others’ ways of doing things. Drama queens. Throwing others under the bus. Occasional mistakes meaning the absolute end of the world. I obviously didn’t fit in. I stuck through because I wanted to survive outside of the office (i.e. pay rent and food), but I was misguided in thinking I should stick with it for the experience. It was a bad experience. Learned helplessness is a shitty habit.

They wronged me. I now understand they were just doing what they could to survive.

Was it right? No. Definitely not.

Was it wrong? I guess not. Society condones survival of the fittest after all.

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