Mean Girls

Many of you know the beautiful, sincere and amazing Morgan of Let Me Help You Help Me . Today Morgan received her very first hate comment...and she responded with class, dignity and respect for herself.

I began talking to Summer about "mean girls", and we both realized that we have our own experiences in this area, and while they were painful, stressful and frustrating at the time, they shaped who we both have become today.

“For beautiful eyes, look for the good in others; for beautiful lips, speak only words of kindness; and for poise, walk with the knowledge that you are never alone.”
Audrey Hepburn
When I was in college I belonged to a sorority. I made some amazing friends among that group of women. I have countless memories of us staying up late, laughing, making prank phone calls, watching Sex in the City and eating an insane amount of food that was bad for us. My three years in that house were wonderful. I never wanted to come home on the weekends and I loved spending time there.
My senior year things changed....and to this day i'm not sure what instigated it. one-by-one girls started laughing at me. They would make fun of the things I said, they would be whispering and then stop when I walked into a room, they would do things just to make me mad and tell me to my face. This one girl who was very mean came into my room once and sat there all night long making fun of me and getting in my way as I was trying to do homework. She said she was hanging out with my roommate, and not me, so she had a right to be there. Later when she was drunk she admitted she did it just to annoy me and see how I would react, and thought it was hilarious how uncomfortable I seemed to be.

These girls slowly began making my life miserable. The whispering behind the back stopped... and they just began saying it out loud. The ridiculed me for absolutely everything! My clothes, my ideals, the way I talked, I way I handled myself... nothing was free from their comments and sarcasm. Slowly the group grew even bigger, because as the saying goes... "misery loves company"... No one stood up them, and those that did were thrown into the deep end with me and made fun of just the same.

Spencer came into my life at this time, and I remember crying to him on multiple occasions. He would try to comfort me and tell me that they were just being jealous and that there wasn't a mean bone in my body to bring all of this on. But I couldn't believe him and would keep saying that there simply had to be something wrong with me. Something I had done, said, or insinuated. That if so many people hated me then it had to be my fault! That I had to be a mean person, and I just didn't realize it.... that maybe I was one of those girls who thought I was funny, but really I was just inappropriate and rude...

As graduation got closer it only got worse. At one point I was excited and put a countdown on the wipe-off board on the door to my room. There were a handful of us (about 5) graduating and each day someone would change the number without me having to. One night my roommate was writing something on the board. She didn't see me walk up behind her and when I got close enough to hear her she was saying "Jenni is so *** rude! No one *** cares that she is *** graduating!" The girl she was speaking to got really big eyes, and she quickly realized her mistake and discovered me standing right behind her. I walked past her into the room and she followed me in yelling at me about how I should take her feelings into consideration that maybe she was sad that 2 of her friends were graduating and would be moving away and she was sick of me "rubbing my graduation in her face!" (we don't really talk anymore....)

"Jealousy is nothing more than a fear of abandonment."
After graduation I moved home. I did a lot of soul-searching and self-reflection. I looked at myself, and the way I had been in the past year. Wether I had been mean to these girls, what I had said and tried to find a reason for the hateful attitudes. It weighed on me for about 2 years. I would be having a wonderful time, and then when I pulled out my computer and opened up facebook I would get a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. The horrible memories would come flooding back to me, and at the same time I would become upset as I saw dinners, weddings and parties that all of these girls had gone to together. I missed having girlfriends.
Spencer was very supportive through all of it. He knew I was broken, and it would take some time for me to heal. He truly hated these girls and would tell me on multiple occasions that he felt they just didn't have any "substance".
As time passed I became proud of myself. I got an excellent job, I made friends, I fell more in love with Spencer, I got my very first apartment, Spencer moved in, we would go to the farmers market/cook meals together/watch movies with a glass of wine...I grew as a person.

This past summer it had been 2 years since I had spoken to most of those girls. Spencer and I bought our home and I felt truly blessed. I began posting photos on Facebook of my life, my home, my puppies...and some of these girls came back into the picture asking how things were going. As they told me about their lives and where they are now I felt sad for them. Still single, working horrible dead-end jobs, going out and getting drunk, spending multiple weekends going back to our college town and hanging out with young girls and hooking up with young boys.

I had my housewarming party a few months ago and my friend Katie came. She was one of the few great girls from that time in my life that has stayed in it. She told me, and the few others there, that she had gone to one of those "mean girls" parties recently. That no one had shown up, and that the few that had spent the entire time making fun of girls who weren't present (and one girl who went to the bathroom and while she was in there they spent the time ridiculing everything from her intelligence to the way she laughed.)

Looking back at it all now, I realize that maybe Spencer was right all along. These girls made fun of me to make themselves feel better. They pushed me down and focused on hating me, because they couldn't stand to think about themselves and evaluate their own lives. I was the perfect target...I was well-liked on campus, had good grades, was graduating on time, just started a wonderful relationship with a very supportive, sweet guy...and according to spencer... "I was WAY more attractive" (his words, not mine!) I really hope these girls find a life that makes them happy (but I would be lying if I didn't say it gave me a little twinge of vindication...)

Ever since I put these girls out of my life, I don't have drama. I have relaxed and learned to appreciate a good conversation over a cup of coffee. I take delight in exercise, cooking, spending time with my family or reading a good book. I have changed for the better, and I now truly appreciate the people in my life who are there for the right reasons. The people who don't make me feel bad about myself after spending a night out with them. The people that hold me up, and make me love being there in that moment.

"We grow neither better or worse as we grow old, but more like ourselves."

"If you're walking down the right path and you're willing to keep walking, eventually you'll make progress. " Barrack Obama

March on, and fear not the thorns, or the sharp stones on life's path. Kahlil Gibran

If you don't like how things are, change it! You're not a tree. Jim Rohn

You've got a lot of choices. If getting out of bed in the morning is a chore and you're not smiling on a regular basis, try another choice. Steven D. Woodhull

~ &hearts ~
Jenni