We forfeit three-fourths of ourselves to be like other people.
I am weird.
Since elementary school, I have been taunted and tormented by my classmates because I am different.
This continues now, in high school, but I am no longer as isolated as I was in my small, semi-rural elementary school.
In recent years, I’ve met others who are different, who do not judge others by the number of visible designer clothing tags.
However, in elementary school, I was not as self-assured as I am now.
In the third grade, all the girls read ‘Sweet Valley Twins’ books.
I thought they were a little silly, and continued to read my fantasy and science fiction books on the playground at recess.
One Friday, the teasing by these girls grew particularly cruel.
I nearly cried when they threw my book into the mud.
They told me how they were so much better than me because they read "real" books about "real" people, because they were "normal" and I was "weird."
As tears burned in my eyes, I thought to myself that, if I tried, I could be just as normal as them.
Better at it, even.
I got up early the next Saturday morning and dragged my mother down to the library.
For three solid hours, I sat in the children’s room.
I read two dozen ‘Sweet Valley Twins’ books that afternoon.
Monday morning I walked into school wearing, not my normal tee-shirt and jeans, but a purple skirt with a white shirt and even stockings, which I had deemed torturous but necessary.
As I walked to my seat, I was careful to grab a small stack of the plain yellow drawing paper the teacher left out.
While the teacher droned on about times tables that morning, the "Purple Unicorn Club" was born.
By lunch, every girl in the class wanted to be a member.
I, of course, was the President, and personally overlooked each application for entrance.
At recess I was even invited to jump rope with some of the girls.
I thought it was great.
By Friday, I was bored to death with the jump rope, sat miserably in my green and purple dress, and wanted desperately to find a decent book to read.
Watching the other girls chirp to each other about who was or was not a Purple Unicorn, I knew it was over.
I couldn’t take it anymore.
When the popular girls saw me walk in on Monday, as plain old Renee insteadof the President of the Purple Unicorns, I could tell by the looks on their faces that the experiment had not succeeded.
They hadn’t learned anything.
When I tried to call the Purple Unicorn Club to order, they ignored me.
At recess, I took my latest fantasy novel outside to read, under the trees.
A pack of them descended upon me almost immediately, tearing apart my clothes and habits with their sharp words.
It was then I realized that the experiment was a success after all, though not in the way I had planned.
The kids in my class would still tease me, sure.
But it didn’t bother me.
Only by forfeiting a large part of my personality did I learn that I valued myself more than I valued popularity.
Since then, I have been nothing but my whole self, and I have rarely been what others expected of me.
Many others face this same pressure to conform, to be "normal" and "cool," whatever that means.
A lot of them give in, and become what others want them to be.
They give up their clothes, hobbies, grades, and even their health and future, to be like everyone else.
It’s not good for the youth or society, but it is easy for both.
That’s why it goes on.
But what does it mean to be like everyone else?
It means jump rope at recess, purple and green dresses, and ‘Sweet Valley Twins’ books.
Isn’t that a fair trade for three-fourths of yourself?
by Raye