High School and the Fine Art of Giving No Fucks

It's amazing, you know?

It blows my mind sometimes, the way minor, yet arguably shitty, incidents and experiences can take you to a place you thought you'd left behind. Habits formed from self-preservation remain in play long after the threat has dissipated.

A 34-year-old mother of two, with a job and a mortgage and responsibilities can be reduced to an anxious, self-conscious adolescent in a matter of seconds, just from the sound of a giggling teenaged girl.

The high-schoolers have infiltrated the YMCA.  My mornings spent getting ready for work after my morning swim used to mean running into a few elderly women and occasionally one of my co-workers.  That was pretty much it.

But now there are high-schoolers. 

I hear their voices and laughter bouncing off the ceramic tile, muffled by the sound of the not-quite-hot-enough showers and my shoulders hunch up and my eyes, like magnets, are drawn to the ground.  I adjust my towel, just a little more tightly, as this body of mine, the one that not 20 minutes earlier had been gliding gracefully through the water now feels preposterous - all sagging, scarred, bumpy-fat flesh.  Taking up space.  Too much space.

"For the love of Gord.  You're 34 years old.  Woman the hell up already," I tell myself and sigh.  So many years gone by and I'm still affected.

I like to say that high school was a breeze, a lot of fun. 

(aside from grade nine.  aside from gym class.  aside from the girls who threatened me with violence because they thought I was "looking" at them.  in the change room.  I stopped looking up, ever.)

I tell people that high school was the time I ran out of fucks to give.  I learned to relax.  A little.  It was the time I tell people (and I tell myself)  that I learned to not care what people thought of me.

(I cared.  I just didn't let on.  It was safer if people thought they couldn't get to you.)

I practiced not giving a shit.  More accurately, I became practiced in the fine art of appearing to be all out of fucks to give. 

I learned to sneer at people, especially girls, I felt thought they were better than me.  Prettier, richer, more desirable.  The ones who had their shit together.  Brick by brick, I built walls of 'giving no fucks' to encase myself in and I told myself that they were nothing, of no consequence.

The most relatable character in this film, from my perspective. - SOURCE

My mother told me, "Hold your head high."

I held my head high.

But even now, hearing these voices echoing off tile, voices that exude the confidence of knowing the world is at your feet, sets my face to utter stoicism.  Instinctively, I still brace myself for mockery, setting my expression to one of utter neutrality, as I gauge the risk of making eye contact, or drawing attention to myself.

(go ahead.  Laugh at this fat, spotty, scarred body.  see if I care)

But of course, no one says anything.  Because this isn't high school, dammit.  I'm a 34 year old woman in the YMCA changeroom and I am about as incidental to these kids as any stranger on the street.