Setting my heart free

Driving to the store, I saw all the kids who were let out from their high school, all walking to their respective homes.  It made me think about my teenage years.  You couldn't pay me enough money to ever go back to being a teenager.  But I see these kids, the girls mainly, and see how confident they seem.  For me, it sucked being a teenager.  I was so awkward, such a nerd and not even a cool nerd at that.  I went to an all girls Catholic high school.  We were required to wear uniforms, blue skirts, walking shorts or pants, white shirts, blue sweaters, penny loafers or oxfords.  What distinguished each class were the color ties we wore.  Depending on the incoming class, you wore either a red, green, gold (yellow) or blue tie.  My class were the green ties.  Go Green ties!!!  Anyway, my way of rebelling, breaking away from my nerddom, was to be out of uniform in some fashion, whether wearing non uniform shoes, taking my backpack into class, etc.  I lost my green tie the second week of school.  I have absolutely no idea where it went.  And since it was part of the uniform, if you were seen not wearing it, you'd get written up.  And I got written up plenty.  I refused to buy a new one.  One, I couldn't afford another one and two, I refused to conform to the rules set before me.  So, I went the whole freshman year without wearing a tie.  I just pulled my pullover sweater so high that one assumed I had my green tie on.  But during finals, they did a uniform check.  We weren't allowed to take our finals without being inspected and I freaked the fuck out.  Still refusing to buy a new tie, I found an old green skirt my mom stopped wearing an cut a length of fabric from it, tied it in such a way that it looked as if I were wearing a green tie.  Passed muster and was able to take my finals.

Cut to sophomore year.  Got another tie, finally, but lost that too.  Go figure w/ me and ties.  Good grief.  So, we green ties were now sophomores, the gold (yellow) ties were the incoming freshman, the blue ties were juniors and the seniors were red ties.  So, I'm walking in the hallway one day, on my way to one of my classes, sans tie,and this senior stops me and asks me where my tie was.  I told her I'd misplaced it and she wrote me up.  It's the seniors duty to hand out the write ups.  This particular senior was a Nigerian as well.  I'll put that heifer on blast.  Her name is Adaeze Agu.  Bitch.  And she knew I was a Nigerian and made it her mission to write me up every time I was out of uniform.  She even went as far as telling the other red ties to keep an eye out for me and write me up as well.  See, Bitch.  So, how I found out was I was friends with one of the red ties cause we took the bus to and from school together.  She let me in on the deal.  So, found that old raggedy cloth and did my deal.  So the next time Adaeze saw me, I was in complete uniform.

An aside, about two years ago, Adaeze got married.  She married this lovely looking dude.  Nigerian from Britain, lovely British accent and all.  They now live in New York.  She may not remember me, but i'll always remember her.  Not cause she was beautiful, cause she was, but because she was mean and unnecessarily so and knowing that I too was a Nigerian, that fueled her on even more, somehow.

Before I end, my crowing achievement, was being named in our yearbook MOST OUT OF UNIFORM.  I know that's not something to write home about, but for a nerd who probably would've gone unrecognized in my school, I was on the map.  lol.