Reflections - a more vulnerable side

It was September 21st, 2021 on a flight home from Seattle that I sat and thought about creating a blog. I occasionally wrote sad poems and different writings but this had felt different. With this I wanted small excerpts of life, my life. Lessons, information, updates, silly stuff. I wanted to write about it all.

I sat in the back row of a Southwest airplane reflecting on my life in that moment, but as it does most times my thoughts seem to get the best of me. I am 20 years old, traveling back to Ohio, home to my boyfriend and my two dogs, to my full-time job and school where i’ll graduate in December of 2021.. Here I sit reflecting as I people watch. There is a woman standing in the aisle rolling her eyes because both restrooms are occupied as she turns to the woman behind her and mumbles “don’t worry, i’ll actually be fast.” annoyed at the fact that she has to wait. Mean.. for what reason? it was in this moment my mind seems to shift to a memory from my freshman year of high school and all I can think is “Mean girls turn into mean adults.” The summer going into my freshman year I took a vacation with my best friend at the time. We were young, we were stupid and most of all.. We had cell phones. With cellphones came photos and lots of them. Selfies on the beach, selfies in the car, selfies on the plane. Selfies, Selfies, Selfies. More absorbed with the idea of taking photos of myself and my friend on vacation than I had been in the actual vacation itself. But it is one photo that had been taken that still “haunts” me to this day. But, it’s not necessarily the photo itself, it’s the comments that came with this photo.

In the photo pictured below you’ll see two girls, about age 15 staring out at the beach.

You probably don’t think much of this do you? Well, others do. Others did. Little freshman me, had her photo sent around with a message stating “If she posts this in public, I wonder what she sends in private” WHAT! I was FIFTEEN. That comment still haunts me to this day, they thought I was terrible because of a photo they saw. They judged a 15 year-old girl that they barely knew off of a photo at the beach with her friend. Fast forward two years later, I was working at the local park and the woman whom had made the comment ordered at the concession stand I was working at. She didn’t recognize me. She didn’t recognize the 15 year old in the picture she spoke so poorly about and sent around to other adult women, one whom had happened to be a relative (…but that’s another story). and here is where my self reflection came in to play almost 6 years later during a late night on a Southwest airplane.

To the woman who spoke so poorly of me over a beach photo.. first off, your daughter posted the same photo two weeks ago (LOL). I am now 20 years old. I am graduating college with my bachelors degree in Communications a year and a half early. SURPRISE, i’m NOT pregnant like you probably assumed I would be. I work a full-time job, a part-time job, and attend school full-time. I have a loving boyfriend (whom i’ll probably marry - trust me) , and two dogs. I am not who you thought i’d become. But, with that being said.. your comment still haunts me. Almost 6 years later, I am still bothered by the fact that you expected me to do poorly in life based off of a photo of a young girl that you barely knew.

Mean girls turn into mean adults.

I have a younger sister, she is 12. I can only hope she does not endure the pain and insecurities adults like you have caused me to face and grow up with by speaking poorly of me at such a young age. I can only hope she chooses to rise above the poor comments made by others, because as stated previously: MEAN GIRLS TURN INTO MEAN ADULTS.