People Will Judge You Unfairly

Growing up this was a hard lesson to learn, especially going through school. I remember being teased and picked on for not being perfect by people who barely knew the first thing about me or who I really was. It hurt more times than not and it caused me to be a bit guarded as a result.

I was a very private person in High School and I didn't openly date. As a result I was labeled a 'lesbian' and it wasn't until my 10 year High School Reunion that I was made aware of this rumor. How shocked was I when my classmates were like 'Omg, you have two children? And you're divorced? I thought you were gay in High School.'

Looking back it certainly made allot of sense all of a sudden why people seemed to shun themselves away from me in social situations, why it seemed impossible for me to date anyone at my school and why people were always whispering around me. I figured it was just because it was something I was doing wrong. Nope, its because someone had at some point assumed something wrong about me and spread it around school as a truth. And everyone believed them instead of asking me firsthand, but hey, its High School, what ya gonna do?

Even now as an adult and as a mother I find that occasionally I am dealing with situations and judgments I perceive as a harsh both personally and second hand with my children but the thing I tell my oldest, because her little sister still isn't attending school yet, is that sometimes people talk about you, for no reason other than to have something to say. Its sucks and you just have to let it roll off your back.

Learning NOT to care what other people thought of me and to just live my life the best way I saw fit was something I didn't learn to do until my mid to late twenties and I think I could've saved myself a many sleepless nights if I'd learned it earlier.

In Middle School and High School girls label each others almost immediately and often with no basis for the comforts of being in a group and not having to go through the years as 'the loner'. Girls especially are very social creatures and they learn how to do this in their last 7 years of school. Any small infraction of your personality, apperance, social status etc. will be put on display and left out in the open for all to judge you and form opinions about and sometimes what we're perceived as isn't even close to who we really are. That's life.

If you have sex, you're labeled a whore. If you go to church you're labeled a Jesus freak. If you like to play in the band, you're a band geek. Kids like to categorize each other and separate themselves in an us vs. some imaginary war for social acceptance. Some kids are able to adapt and be the floaters, going from one group to the other, back and forth on a daily basis without making waves but most are stuck in their group until graduation, but the one thing my mother didn't teach me was that once you got into the real world that group you were placed in during High School will be worth less than a hand full of beans.

When you start a career, no one will care if you were 'weirdo loner kid' in High School. No one will care if you were 'the slut' in Middle School. No one will care if you were part of 'the stoner' group in the 10th grade. All those things that you let define you in school, no longer matter. And the one thing I tell my kids is this: "if its not going to matter 10 years from now, why does it matter now?"

That was a hard lesson to put into practice going through my early twenties. If I broke up with a lover, I had to teach myself that crying myself to sleep for days on end, killing myself over the what if's was pointless and a waste of energy. Not to make light of heart break, its normal to vent, rant, cry and spend sometime being unhappy, its how we heal but I learned that when it first happened I wasn't going to die overnight because some man left me or vice versa.

I learned that what people in High School thought about me had absolutely no merit on who I became when I grew up so I stopped caring. Living in a somewhat small town with a somewhat tightly knit community, other people's judgments of me have come back to bite me in the butt a few times during arguments and the things I've heard, things being said about me, lies or harsh judgments of truths hurt, but at the end of the day I don't really care who thinks what about me. Who cares if so and so knows I slept with so and so 3 years ago, or if I used to have financial struggles, it's old news and I don't have to explain myself to anyone.

It won't matter in 10 years, so why does it matter now?

People are going to judge you unfairly based on often half truths or flat out exaggerations of 5th hand information. The only people's opinions that matter are mine and that of the people who truly know me and they know the lies from the truth anyway...