It may take a long time, but it gets better.

I haven't actually watched any of the "It Gets Better" videos. I should. But now that I don't have Flash on my work computer and am very rarely online anywhere else, I just haven't made the time. I think these videos are a great idea, and it's sad that so many young people had to take their own lives for the world to take notice.

I just read Patton Oswalt's "It Gets Better" blog. What he said really resonated with me, mainly because I have been on both sides of the fence, just as he was. I really don't like to talk about the hot button issues in most cases. I'm not very eloquent, and I am led completely by emotion, so I tend to get heated or upset when I talk about things that I feel any sort of passion for. But bullying is something that really strikes a chord with me. It's something that has followed me as long as I can remember.

My life was pretty normal until about the age of 9. I had endured slight teasing from relatives as a child (their way of showing that they "cared"), but I had a happy childhood up until that point. Then my uncle died in a car accident and everything changed. Mainly, I see my life as two parts at this point: before Ace died, and after. After he died, I changed because everything around me changed. Fifth grade was just awkward. I got glasses, I was going through a lot of physical changes, and I was trying to fit in at school as well as dealing with my family's massive grief. When I went to sixth grade, I made a lot of new friends. But I was hanging out with people who did things I didn't do: curse, smoke, do drugs, have sex. I felt really out of place. I learned how to use my words at that point. Most of the words I used were to make me sound tougher, saltier. I became acquainted with one of my dearest friends to this day, sarcasm, and I threw around curse words like nobody's business. Boys started paying attention to me at that point. Or maybe it was I who started paying attention to them. I often used sarcasm, and still do, as a defense mechanism. I'm sure at some point I hurt someone else by doing this, because I used my sarcasm to deflect the insults of others. My avoidance of pain likely caused some pain of its own.

Middle school was when things started to get harder. I was playing sports and trying to do things to make me seem cooler, but on the inside I was completely insecure. Some of the people I befriended used me. They saw how sweet and naive I was and would be my friend when it was convenient for them, then run and talk about me behind my back (this I found out after the fact). Our lockers were arranged by grade, then alphabetically, so I was privileged to be in the presence of someone who made my life miserable for two years. Ben insulted me because he liked me, but I took it all to heart. He called me Big Riggs (which in retrospect is hilarious because he was probably three times my size, though I was smaller then), he would close my locker while I was trying to get in it; he would run up behind me after math class and kick me in the ass, then run away laughing. I hated him. One morning at our lockers he harassed me so heavily that I broke down into tears and slapped him to get him to go away.

Middle school was also when my unique interests began to blossom. I had always been into pop culture, especially classic film and television, for as long as I could remember. It all grew out of the influences of my parents' interests, but my interests took on a life of their own. By freshman year of high school, I was a full-blown weirdsmobile. (I spent lunches my eighth grade year discussing the virtues of Bette Midler and Meryl Streep, and talked a friend of mine into taking home the new Bette Midler album Bathhouse Betty, which she called weird.) One of my main torturers in high school was someone that was in my circle of friends, a highly intelligent girl who had no ambition or drive, and was still struggling through community college last I heard. Meghann and I were in choir together, both first sopranos so we were around each other a lot, especially our freshman and sophomore years. She confided her sexual exploits in me (and probably anyone who would listen, honestly), and I thought she was my friend. But she insulted me constantly, and also insulted celebrities I had an affinity for just because she knew it bothered me. Sometimes even one of my best friends would jump in on this one. Meghann would throw out these insults and then laugh about it right in front of my face. I had never done anything to her to deserve this treatment. Even though I thought she was a disgusting fat pig with no moral standards, I respected her enough to let her live her life the way she chose without ever offering my own commentary or advice. Meghann made me feel awful about myself. I was worse than dirt to her. And when my friends were around her, she rubbed off on them, and they worked to make me feel like shit too. Although it was my quirks that people mocked me for, the humiliation I felt only made me seclude myself more.

Thankfully, it was life after high school that freed me. I had a few saving graces in high school (my tried and true friend Jade, who has always been there for me; chorus; Mrs. Vivian Elder, my senior English teacher, who was the first adult to treat me with the respect of a peer and to show me that my opinions had value), but it was being out in the adult world that really allowed me to be myself unabashedly. I got a job, where I was surrounded by women of different ages who all valued me, and I them. I was accepted into the University of Kentucky and moved to Lexington, which was like starting life all over again. And each year of my life since high school has been better and better. I've met so many wonderful people who not only accept me for who I am, but embrace my strangeness. Some have even liked me more simply because of my uniqueness, which is something I only dreamed of in high school. Although I am still plagued by insecurities I developed growing up, I have changed considerably, and I know that with each year I become more confident in my own abilities.

Life is only what you make it. Things get better if you let them. There are people out there who will love you for who you are. It may take a while to find them, but they're out there. Self-expression is so important to maintain your sanity. Find something that you can find joy in, and if that's the only thing you have, cling to it. Youth is all about survival, and if you can make it out with your sanity, no matter how you have to maintain it, then that's what's important. The rest will follow.