Everything is up to you.

I was born into a beautiful family with my Mom, Dad and sister. Home is heaven. My family and I never fight. Never.  My sister and I get along perfectly and only rarely do we get upset with each other. Mom and I have the best relationship ever we are like best friends who are always talk about cloths, boys and girly things.  But nothing compares to the relationship I have with my Dad.  Sometimes we act like little kids, sometimes we act like grown mature people and sometimes we just go thru a love-hate type of relationship. My life in school was also kind of cool. I go to the best school in all of Mexico called ASFM and have the best friends I could ever ask for.  All of my teachers are so nice and I barley have homework. Elementary was awesome. There was no need to stress about how you looked, what you said, If he liked you or not, and all that drama. Everything was perfect.  I loved my life. Up until I got to middle school.  Everything changed, for the worst.

“WHY ME?!” I yelled to myself in the mirror of my bathroom. The yellow light in the celling was burning down my eyes. Tears were rolling down and down my face. Mascara was smeared all under my eyes and I was devastated. I hit my back towards the sandy walls and fell down towards the ground.

“WHY CAN´T I BE PRETTY?”  I screamed again. “NOBODY LIKES ME! I am useless!”  Barley able to breath I grabbed my phone from ground and called my best friend, Andrea. I had known her for as long as I can remember. We used to play in kindergarten and were best friends since. She was a very short type of girl. Her body was really small and she was very skinny. Her hair is short a little past her shoulders the color of mud, in a good way. She had always had un expected beauty. She was always herself no matter who she was with and did not care what language she used or the way she spoke. She was herself. I admired her for that. I on the other hand was the complete opposite. I have always been really tall since I was little. My hair is like goldilocks but the brunette version. I had always been known as the risk taker, or the step out there and do whatever you want type of girl, and it was true I was really out going. I do not care what people think of me I just did things if I like them. And I think lots of people admired me for that. In other words I stood out of the crowd , this is a good thing to its limits, but sometimes standing out means getting judged and getting peoples opinions thrown  at you. 

“Hey! What’s up?”  She answered. I sniffed my nose and breathed out loud. Clearly that was a giveaway that I was crying.

“Paloma! What´s wrong? “ I stood there in silence. Its not that I didn’t want to tell her what I was crying about, I just couldn’t bring myself to speak. All of my words were suddenly gone. I didn’t want to speak or tell Andrea my problems. I just wanted to have someone there for me. I was alone. I had been, for a very long time. 

We stayed there in silence in the shadows of my bathroom.

For a very long time I had been getting bullied by some older girls in my school. It all started one a day in lunch.

“Hurray up! I´m hungry,”  I yelled to my friends.

“Were going!” they all laughed. My friends and me always sat and ate together at lunch. We were basically inseparable. Today was different. I felt happy! I felt like laughing, joking, smiling.  I felt plain old happy. It was nice. We walked towards the cafeteria filled with distressed teenagers, and dull round tables together and joked around. Immediately when we turned around the corner I felt some eyes layer on me.  I turned my head fast in search to wear those eyes were. I stopped when I looked at a table of girls. They were older girls. Stares. Eyes. Laughs. Was all I felt that second. Suddenly all of my happiness and joy from the second before vanished. Gone.  I was drowned in worry. “Why are they looking at me? Do they like my outfit? Are they criticizing me? Am I ugly?” I started to think in my head repeatedly.  I gave them one last glance to confirm that they were in fact looking at me.  They were.  I breathed in one time and continued to walk towards my friends.

“What happened? Who are they? Why are they staring at you? What did you do to them? Do they hate you?”  My friends had noticed that the girls were talking about me and staring.  Me standing in the middle of the cafeteria in shock getting everything processed was a clear giveaway that something was wrong.  I did not know what to respond. Everything felt so uncomfortable. I didn’t want to be there, answering questions that I didn’t know the answer to, but mostly I didn´t want to be stared at and criticized at in my face.

“I don´t know! “ I screamed to them. “ I don´t know why I froze, why they are looking at me in that way, and I don’t know what I did to them. “ they knew I was confused and a little angry. I wasn’t just a little confused and angry I was very confused and angry. I couldn´t see why those girls didn’t like me. I tried hard but couldn’t find any reason.   Suddenly I looked at them and saw that two girls from their table were getting up and walking my way.  My heart started beating like never before.  It was something I had never experienced.

“Hey!”  One of the girls said. She was a very, very skinny girl. Her wavy hair was up to her belly button and was like the color of tree trunks. She had a lollipop in her mouth that made her talk with a lisp.   All of my friends looked at me and then at the girls.

“Hi” I said cheerfully. I somehow seemed to have calmed myself and act like nothing was wrong.  They looked at each other weirdly as if they weren’t expecting my response.

“We have a question for you” said the other girl who was quite tall and skinny as well. She had her hair in a messy top not and a juicy couture sweater on with some old jeans and toms. From the looks of her outfit she did not care about school and would much rather be at home watching movies.  They both laughed out loud. I on the other hand did not know what was all the laughter was about.

“Shure, what´s your question?”

“Why do you wear so much makeup?” one girl said laughing. Suddenly my calmness went away. I did not know what to respond, ironically I do not care about people knowing I wear makeup at such a young age, but something about the way the girl said it did not feel good.  My heart started to race again. I had to get out of there and fast.
“ I – I don’t know.” They both laughed and I new they had noticed my stutter. I stood up quickly, looked around to see were I could go, seeing nothing I and started to walk away quickly.  One of the girls grabbed a hold of my backpack and pulled me back. I fell on the dirtiest ground I have ever seen with my backpack flat and my head bouncing hitting the floor.

“Are you a little baby? Trying to run away? We want to know why! Is it because you are a wanabee? “ I tried to stand up but couldn’t my head hurt to much.  My friends came to help me and started to shout rude things to the girls but I couldn’t seem to hear them. Tears rolled down my face as I started to move my head a little. I stood up slowly and walked towards the unwanted bathroom alone.  It seemed as if everybody was looking at me as if no one liked me or cared. For the first time ever I was alone, and at the time I wanted to be alone.

All the rest of the day went awful; I couldn’t seem to concentrate on anything and my heard kept hurting. When I got home I looked at my food and gaged, I was not hungry, so I went to my room. The only safe place I could be.  I climbed up onto my huge bed that is as soft as a marshmallow, rolled into a small ball and cried, a lot. I stared at my ginormous makeup cabinet wondering if I should through it away or keep it. That night was spent over thinking what had happened today. I didn’t know weather to tell my mom or keep it a secret. Everything was so confusing. It was as if in one second my life had changed, I suddenly fell more confused than ever, sad, angry, all these emotions I don’t know how to control came at me at once. It was as if I was at war, with the girls, and myself and. The next day I decided to put on a smile and go to school. I acted as if nothing had happened so that the girls would know that they don’t affect me. At lunch I ignored them and they ignored me. Everything was as if nothing had happened. I still wore makeup and they still sat next to us in the cafeteria. I was still a hundred percent confident. I had somehow managed to win a war in less than twenty - four hours. The war with the girls was gone. Forgotten in five seconds. The war with myself was overcome, I was more confident than ever.  I was me.

How could I have managed to win two wars in less than twenty – four hours? I don’t even know the answer to that. But what I do know is that I am really glad that I brought myself up for a fight that I never new I could have won.  I could have let myself cry and get depressed because of some girls. But I didn’t, instead I put on a happy face and walked as if they were my slaves and I was their queen. I talked as if I were giving a speech to all of the presidents in the world. I was confident. I never let those girls get into my soul and crush it. I still wore makeup. I even wore more. I did not care what those girls said, because at the end of the day it’s their opinion if they think you are ugly. Their opinion is one in a hundred. You should not care. You should be you.  If you feel confident in what you wear, do, say, feel, then you have already won at life. You have already discovered its true meaning, and that is to always, always be you. And no matter what that will always bring you happiness and joy back.    .