When did I start to care? I wonder, eyes cast down, my brown hair frizzy. When did I begin to filter through my thoughts - to walk the halls of my middle school with my only intent being not to trip?  Perhaps I had begun to be molded with the intent of fitting into the off brand fetid middle school of mine at a very young age when I was first put into a pink dress and taken to disneyland. Perhaps, I wonder as I now cling to my plain pink backpack, it was when I first chose my clothes for the 6th grade year - when I told my mom with a face set in a childish pout, that no, she would not in fact be buying the shirt printed with the Justice logo all across the front she had held up before her. Perhaps, I pondered as I sat in math, a head full of facts that would be forever forgotten the moment that I left the small clustered confines of the grey painted classroom, it was when I began this year as a freshman. Now halfway through my first year of high school the question still haunts me. When did I start to care? The answer, to my dismay did not come clear as soon as I wrote those words down upon this page at the start of the story, and I now firmly believe that my lack of originality and independence was, like everyone else's, a slow build up.  For the simple sake of this story, we will say that there was never what most hormonal and dramatic teens would call a breaking point.

You may have already picked up on the fact that 6th grade was for me, like all other 10 year olds, absolute hell and nothing but. For the first half of the year I did not in fact hold my head high as I walked the halls that were ruthlessly stapled with nothing but mesmerizing messages such as “ You can do it! Join the mathletes!” Instead of talking and learning the names of my hundred or so fellow peers within the first few weeks or so like most other “Ordinary kids” had I had instead opted upon a different route. A route filled with me walking into each and every one of my rather reeking and small classrooms, sitting down at an empty desk and saying only a few simple questions such as  “ Hey do you have a pencil? Or What date is it? It took me nearly the entire 6th grade year just to learn the names of everyone, even that of those i despised, and even when I had known the name of every bratty scrawny boy in my gym class to every blonde girl in my art, I still did not speak.

It wasn’t that people didn’t try to talk to me, that they weren't nice or that I hadn’t found a few friends, it was simply that I wasn’t myself. But doesnt the story go that the minute you change yourself, the minute you stop saying stupid stuff and dress in that pretty pink dress, people begin to like you?  You may ask. Yes, that is indeed how the story goes…. For princesses that is, and i, well, in case you haven’t noticed, i’m no princess. I had continued not to talk well into 7th grade, traded in my black and white heart shaped backpack, for a more basic black one, began to listen to music from all the stations such as “Today's top Hits” and “Pop wonders”, and began to wear those basic black leggings. Like the pokemon the kids in my class obsessed religiously over, I was evolving.

The posters on the wall went away, or for a better way of saying it, i stopped looking. I still read - at home. I still walked my dog, but only in my neighborhood and it’s quiet cozy streets. I still spoke to my best friend - only to my best friend. It was as if I had hit rock bottom without even feeling the fall. Then eighth grade happened.

For the first time  in a long time I woke up without a care in the world, knowing damn well whatever plan i had for becoming popular was never going to work. Instead, of caring, instead of trying, I went to class with wild wavy hair, and dressed in jeans and my soccer sweatshirt. I looked less like the popular girls and more like bob ross, more like me. Hell, you could even call me homeless. Why should i continue to care? I had thought, Walking into school with nothing but mascara and a “only one year left kind of attitude” why bother when I had craved nothing but  to disappear back into my book when I had got home. What’s the issue? You may ask. Well, the issue was that I still had seven hours of the day left. Like every good white girl, I was tempted to roll my eyes at the idea of strolling through those halls once again, but as the bell tolled 7:20 am, I had pushed open those dented doors nonetheless and walked right into the unconditioned air of the eighth grade hallway. Greeted with the sight of a long row of red lockers and smudged white floor, I was disappointed in the lack of change when it came to the place i had rather righteously called hell, but the sight of my best friend seemed to ease every eye roll. The dumb blonde I had been lucky enough to have known was waiting for me at the end of the hall. I would have been more than happy to walk over to her, to whine about the new school year and compare classes if not for a small fact, and I mean small. A girl, short with nearly black hair and the same soccer sweatshirt as me had stood beside her. The girl wasnt new and it wasn’t like I didn't know her, but we sure were not friends. “ Hey.” I said, waving slightly as I walked up to them. “ You are on the older team right?” I asked the girl  who I had towered over ever so slightly.

“ Ya. “ We just got back from a tournament in Phoenix, but of course alexa made us lose.”

Now, while the girl who spoke I hadn’t known that well, alexa, a tall red head who towered even above i, was to my dismay, someone i did in fact know. Alexa was a know it all and was snarky to everyone unfortunate enough to cross her path.  I crinkled my nose at the sound of my nemesis name.

“ What you don't like her?” The girl, also known as Dannon, asked.

“ No.” I said, putting it simply.

Dannon gave nothing but a small smile for a moment as the bell ran once again and we began to walk dreadfully down the hall in a straight line of three. “Me neither.”  

Dannon becoming one of my best friends was only the beginning. Not a month after her Rachel and I made an inside joke so inappropriate i wouldn't dare repeat it. Skyler, Branigan and Sawyer took me in and not only was sent to the office for the first time for watching apparently “shameful” vines at a supposedly “ungodly volume”, but you could even say that I was possibly popular.

Eighth grade wasn't revolutionary, it wasn’t out of this world special, or unordinary by any means, but that final middle school year taught me one thing. You can care to much. You can walk the halls with your head down or you can stumble down the stairs only to laugh about it a moment later. I might never be able to truly tell you how it feels to have the judging eyes of others no longer cause you to stagger your steps. I might never be able to help people like you, the girls and boys blended into the mass of the bleak school body. I might never be able to pinpoint the moment in which I truly began to care about what other people thought and I might never stop caring completely for even I still wear those basic black leggings and on quite a few occasions, even uggs, but there is one thing that I can do. I can sure as hell tell the tale of how I stopped caring…. Well for the most part that is.