My 25th high school reunion is coming up in the spring. Twenty-five years! I have no idea where the time went.
My heart broke when I was speaking to another fellow classmate and asked her if she was going to attend it. She replied, “No way am I going back to see those awful people. They were so mean!”
Why are woman so mean to each other? Why are we carrying these ill feelings around with us after all these years? We all worry about the weight on the scale as we contemplate one tiny indulgence of cake at a party, but the one weight we can get rid of with a sigh, is a grudge.
My daughter is now sixteen and completely into the entire, “feel-good, flashback movies of the eighties.” She's giggled over Pretty In Pink and The Breakfast Club and feels she relates to all the tragedy of the eighties teen.
I was that eighties teen and felt that these movies provided the soundtrack to my existence. I lived them until the cassette tape was so stretched out it finally broke in half, making me groan out, “NOOOOOO!” with my fellow girlfriends.
We all related to those movies, just as our kids do now. John Hughes put all of our angst out there on the big screen.
In every one of his films, there was a character that we related to. There was the beauty queen, the loser, the joker, the geek, and always the one who felt like a piece of cellophane floating down the halls.
Whichever one you saw yourself as, each of us had our moment where we slipped outside ourselves and into someone else’s shoes. The sun shone on us for even just a moment, and we stood a little taller—or the opposite—that we felt like we were standing on a chair at a party screaming at the top of our lungs and the chatter continued without reprieve.
Every one of us has their own cross to bear. We all have issues that nobody knows about. We all have skeletons in our closet that will happily hang up our robe for us at the end of the day. To quote another favorite eighties classic, “Life is pain princess, and anybody who tells you differently is selling you something.”
Maybe instead of judging each other, we should think and listen. Maybe instead of cluck-clucking to our girlfriends about how someone has gained weight, we could take a minute to ask them how they are doing? Perhaps they have a health issue, or are just sad with an event going on in their lives. The person you tease for that new twenty pounds might be in a bad relationship and drown their sorrows in a tub of ice cream. Just like the other woman who gets sneered at for being so thin might get ignored by her husband, which has made her feel so insecure about her appearance she hasn’t eaten in days.
We all have our hurt, we all have our buttons, but the biggest truth is that when we are loved all the ugly scales of hurt fall to the ground and are forgotten.
What would happen if we all let our guard down? Is there ever a possibility that we could all take our cards and throw them on the floor, ugly side up for the world to see?
Is there something about human nature that prevents us for putting our hearts on our sleeves? I know I have had mine stabbed, poked, and dragged across the dusty, graveled road many times. I have spent many nights watching the lights of passing cars dance across my bedroom ceiling wondering why I got hurt yet again. Why I had decided to give my heart so easily.
All the pain of our teen years is written all over us.
All of us as adults have stood judging our reflections, still hearing the negative words of our youth whispered in our heads. Maybe there was a seed of truth to some of it, or perhaps none at all. Each whisper has slowly ripened into a scream that we have now painfully scribed with elegent backwards script on our bodies so we can read it every day in the mirror.
We can cover those scripted words with the most beautiful clothes, but the words burn underneath and we are confronted with them every time we catch our reflection. Ugly, fat, stupid, slut, bitch, loser.
Woman are amazing creatures. Nobody can bring us higher and feel more loved than our fellow woman. On the same token, no other creature can make us feel lower and unworthy.
What would happen if for just a day we changed the pattern?
What if for one day, each of us praised and complimented each other.
“Good job on that presentation, you are really on your game today!”
“You look so wonderful in that blouse. The colour really makes your eyes pop!”
“Thank you for helping me with this. You are such a great friend.”
If each of us did this, maybe the words branded on us would fade. Perhaps by the end of the day, each of us would stand taller and like who we are. Would it work like a ripple of kindness and wash to the shores cleansing our souls with love and kindness?
There are always those that go out of their way to never compliment, never say thank you, and never feed your soul. They may have words etched on to them that can’t allow them to make you feel good. They need to keep you down in the trenches with them.
Tall Poppy Syndrome is when people who should receive genuine merit are resented, criticized, or cut down because their achievements distinguish or elevate them above their peers.
Have we all become poppies that cannot stand to see other poppies succeed? We can’t stand to see people look wonderful, do well at their job, and be happy in their marriage?
Loved people love, and hurt people hurt.
For one day, let's all let down our guard, and start a new script to erase the words on our bodies. Let’s start a ripple that makes people stand taller; make hearts grow and change the reflection of themselves woman see.
Let woman see themselves and think, “Loved, smart, kind, hardworking, great friend, mother, and partner.”
Imagine what kind of world that would be.
It all starts with one, and then the ripple flows.
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