7th Grade

7^th Grade

The back of the picture says “Janie, 13 yrs old.” Yet I look twelve or younger. Certainly nothing like a thirteen year old today. I’d lost weight, so likely was not wearing chubby girl clothes. In 6^th grade I’d discovered running—a solitary sport. It started innocently enough (it might have been a punishment) the Phys Ed teacher sent the class consisting of 6 – 8^th graders on a one-mile run. We left the school and wound through back streets. Again, no one would be allowed to do this today without a drone or security camera following. I remember passing 8^th grade boys who looked like men until finally there was no one ahead of me. I remember thinking: This is crazy; I can’t be this good. I expected to die of exhaustion. But I kept going and ran back into the front parking lot of the school.

If middle school is hell then 7^th grade was the absolute inner ring. I suddenly had no friends. They were too busy having sex or illicitly drinking or smoking or doing drugs or talking about all of the above. I wasn’t impressed—and so an outlier. I kept trying to persuade my old friends that it was stupid, pretentious, and actually immature. But to them it was I who was immature for not going along.

I spent a lot of time reading and writing in my journal. I read the book The Outsiders and it was as if my head snapped off my shoulders. This was real, a story that I wished I had written.

It was a difficult time. I was too fat, too small, too smart, not smart enough, kinda cute, but not pretty. Definitely nerdy before nerdy was a thing. I kept a calendar of bad days and good ones and by the end of the year had accumulated many more bad than good. If I were to name the worst time in my school life it would be seventh grade.