Swimming

5th grade was a difficult year for all my girls,

It’s hard to be 10/11.

5th grade was the hardest grade for me too,

It’s hard to not see that when I watch Claire walk into school each day.

Wondering what it’s like for her.

She joined the swim team this week.

She loves swimming and has been wanting to for a while.

Maybe I subconsciously put it off.

I was on a swim team in 5th grade too.

I don’t remember much about it.

I was scared to dive in, never went to competitions and the most memorable thing about the whole experience is something I have carried around with me my whole life. A comment made by someone I didn’t know.

“If I were as fat as her I’d kill myself.”

I remember sitting there in my bathing suit and hearing it. I remember turning around and looking. I remember not saying a word. I remember how much it hurt. I remember dying a little inside. I remember being too ashamed to tell anyone. And I remember not having anyone to tell.

I was always a chubby kid, it got worse in 5th grade. My parents were divorcing, I Iived with my dad at my grandparents house and he decided not to have me move schools yet so he and my grandma drove me 45 minutes away back and forth to school every day.

There was so much uncertainity. Everyone was getting ready to go to different middle schools. We were in a gifted program that bussed everyone to the same elementary and we’d been with the same class since 2nd grade. So because of where everyone lived middle school would be different.

I didn’t know where I was going to end up. There was always the promise of a house. A place to live. But I needed was a home. Security. Safety. Somewhere that was mine and ours and stable and dependable. Not a bed in the dining room at my grandparents.

Friends started being mean to me and calling me a liar because I would say I was going to one school based on where I heard we might be moving, but then that would always change.

I felt like I had no one. I was lonely.

That’s when food became my friend.