#TheSW30: Day 17, You Are Worth More Than A Waistline

Day 17: If you could have a conversation with yourself in high school, what would you say?

"You are worth more than who you f**k. You are worth more than a waistline. You are worth more than beer bottles displayed like drunken artifacts. You are worth more than any naked body could proclaim in the shadows. More than a man's whim or your father's mistake. You are no less valuable as a size 16 than a size 4, You are no less valuable as a 32a than a 36c."

To answer this question, I'd play my high school self Mary Lambert's "Body Love."  I remember that spoken word piece stopping me dead in my tracks when she opened for Matt Nathanson this summer.  Had I heard those words, back then maybe things would've been a lot different for me.

If you listen to our show, you know I'm incredibly quirky and possibly a bit nerdy at times.  It shouldn't surprise you that I was never one of the popular or pretty girls in high school.

A lot of those kids grew up in my neighborhood though and riding the bus with them felt like torture day in and day out.  They always had something to pick on me about.  They picked on me for being smart.  They told people I was smoking in the 8th grade because my family's garage door opener looked like a pack of cigarettes.  They teased me because they found out that I had a crush on one of the popular boys who would never even give me a second look.  But the one thing that really wrecked my self-esteem was being called fat. For some reason I internalized that one and blamed it for why no boys found me attractive and why I couldn't be popular.  So, I was going to change that before I started my freshman year of High School.

I dropped a radical amount of weight the summer before I started High School.  I think the adults around me thought it was because I really put a lot of effort into training for Cross Country over the summer trying to make the varsity team as a freshman.  I would go to practice, eat an envelope of Lipton Chicken Noodle Soup for lunch and conveniently not be home when it was time for dinner.  When school started, I'd eat something small out of my lunch and throw the rest of it away.

Eventually I reached my goal weight of 90 pounds.  That meant I was pretty and popular now, right?  Wrong.  Those kids on my bus were still awful and boys were not lining up to ask me to Homecoming.  I was still miserable and now my body started to fail me in meets.  I was passing out at track meets and DNFing on my favorite courses.

Luckily my best friend thought something was up and would keep slipping into conversation with other people that all I ate is soup.  My distance coach caught on too.  With some encouragement from the right people, I got my lifestyle back on track and started putting on weight to the point where I looked healthy by junior year.  So, the first thing I would tell high school me is that being rail thin doesn't make you pretty and make people like you.  Be proud of what your body can achieve when it's healthy and well taken care of.  (BTW high school Michelle, you've gained over 40 pounds since then and people still call you tiny.)

I'd also tell high school Michelle don't define your worth by which guys dated you, wouldn't date you or broke your heart.  You were always insecure about your looks, but I wish you knew that you were going to grow out of that awkward phase.  Back then you didn't know that so when a boy found you attractive, you would do just about anything to be what he wanted you to be so that you felt worthy.

When it ended, you were devastated and thought it was because you weren't pretty or skinny enough.  It simply wasn't true. Unfortunately falling into that attitude at a young age set you up for what you went through with the salesman and several other situationships in your twenties.  You were talented in track, XC, the school television network and orchestra. If you ever doubted your worth the plaques on your bedroom wall, trophies on your dresser and ribbons in your scrapbook should have helped your self esteem.  You should've held you head up higher.  You set yourself up for success and would meet some really great people in Idaho who you would do some really big things with at your first full time job.  None of those boys from high school contributed to your success and to be honest, you won't even care what any of them are doing now.

I really wonder how radically different my life would be if I could go back in time and be as strong in high school as I feel the past few weeks taking this blog challenge but there's no way of knowing.  My only hope is that if someone in High School reads this and shares a lot of the feelings I did growing up, that they realize there is life after high school.  The friends (save a few) and relationships you had back then won't mean much to you in the future.

Grown-up ladies, what conversation do you wish you could've had with your HS self?  Tweet me with your responses at @michelleonkiss!