An open letter to mean girls everywhere

Hi there.

I'm the girl you hate.  I have mismatched socks.  I don't wear good fashion and I have dorky looking book bag probably because my parents don't have a lot of money to spend.  Additionally, I'm not that smart and I am having a hard time keeping my grades up.

You don't want to sit with me at lunch because I have mussed up hair that sticks out and you say I smell like pee.  I don't smell like pee but you say I do so that nobody else sits next to me.  My dad has a good job but he gets home late and leaves early in the morning and so I don't have a lot of chance to hang out with him.  Your dad is fun and plays catch with the older boys in front of the school while he helps kids get to the bus but my dad doesn't do that.  You say it's because my dad is stupid and poor and because he cleans toilets with his bare hands for a living.  He doesn't.

You are a cheerleader.  You are a soprano in choir.  You take voice lessons and acting lessons and you play soccer on the weekends and you are a lot stronger than me.  I'm already pretty clumsy and I'm not that good at carrying a lot of things at once so you trip me and tell me to have a nice fall.  Everyone laughs.

I'm not that good with numbers or money yet.  In class I get a lot of questions wrong and I can hear you hiss and giggle behind me.  I know it's you kicking my chair for no reason.  Remember that one time when we had to be partners in class and you just rolled your eyes and spent the whole period putting on lip gloss and texting messages to your friends about how stupid I was?  Remember that one time when you said that a cute boy liked me and so I talked to him and as soon as I did you and your friends burst out laughing behind me because he didn't know who I was?  Do you remember the time you pushed me into the dirt and you said it didn't matter because that's all that I was, was dirt, and how my clothes were probably stolen off of dead people anyways?  Do you remember all of that?

I do.

I cry a lot.  Sometimes you see me crying and you laugh at me because I'm a crybaby diaperbaby.  Sometimes I have to go to the office because I'm crying hysterically and all you can do is laugh at what a poopy pants diaper baby I am.  You thought I didn't hear you.  I heard you.

I'm the girl you hate.  I'm the girl you laugh at.  I'm the girl you spend endless hours avoiding and obsessing over with your friends at sleepovers as you try to come up with better ways to make me say or do something that you won't be able to help yourself but laugh at.

I could say that you just do it because you're jealous.  But you and I both know better.  There is nothing in my whole life that you envy.  There is not one single breath in my whole life that you think could be possibly better than one of yours.

I could say that you do it because you know that deep down I'm smarter and stronger than you.  But you and  I both know better.  I'm weak and I'm not as smart as you.   I can't run as fast or jump as high and I don't get nearly the good grades that you do.

I could say that you do it because this is the one time in your wretched little life that you'll have any power over anyone.  I could say that you do it because you, yourself, are too stupid to realize that human dignity is far more valuable than any app, any earring, any kiss from any boy anywhere.  I could say that you do it because you don't know what else to do.    But I'd be fooling myself to think that you'd understand what any of that means.  Because I don't even understand what any of that means.

I'm just the girl you hate.  I'm the simple-minded, clumsy girl in hand-me-down clothes.  I don't go to your church.  My dad works in a different place.  I live in a different part of town and my house is very very different from yours.

I'm the girl you hate. I'm different.  And you hate that.

And for the next six years of your life you will make me hate myself.  And for the next thirty years of my life I will have to re-learn what it means to be special in a good way.  For the next six years of your life, you will make me consider ending mine.

And I will hate you back.  For many years I will hate you with all the venom that my poor little frame can summon.

And for many years I will have to justify to myself every time I try to forgive you or let you go from that hateful place in my heart.

And ultimately, I will wish you the best.  Because as a grown up, I have changed.  And I will hope like hell that you have too.

And if you are lucky enough to get a second chance to be my friend...  I have no idea how that is going to go.

Neither will you.

But it doesn't matter because all you know now is that I'm the girl you hate.

and all you need to know is that it doesn't matter how much you hate me first...  I'll hate me worse later on.
and I'll hate you most because of that.