Memoirous

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...

6 th grade I look into the frame of this picture. I’m wearing a dress. In elementary school the best I could do was shorts under my dress. There were so many times while on the jungle gym on the playground that I would realize I’d forgotten to put on shorts and that boys could look up and see my underpants. I always had to remember before swinging on the monkey bars, and tuck the hem of my dress into my shorts so that while hanging upside down my stomach didn’t show. It wouldn’t be until middle school that we were allowed to wear slacks, dress pants. Though certain girls wore jeans. Hithergreen Middle School was a whole other animal compared to elementary school. I attended an open school, meaning there were no classroom walls. We’d meet in pods to go over lessons. Sixth, seventh, and eighth grades fuzzily blended together. There weren’t textbooks per se, but packets that we worked on at our own pace. I was a self-motivated learner and was allowed to explore subjects a...