The person I was at 13 was a much different person at 19. I probably grew more as a person during those seven years than I did during any other seven-year period in my life.
At 13, I was extremely self-conscience and had a very low self-esteem. As an example, my freshman yearbook has no signatures in it. I got it a day late, and then I didn’t want to ask anyone to sign it, because I didn’t want them to notice that they were the first one to do so. No one approached me to sign theirs, so I now have a blank yearbook. Those were an awful three days of trying to disappear and avoid being embarrassed.
Seventh, eighth, and ninth grade were the most miserable times in my life. They were the most valuable and lesson-learning times as well. I was always a well-liked kid growing up in elementary school. I was athletic and easy-going and had lots of friends. I didn’t think too much about relationships or how my actions affected other people. In sixth grade I actually bullied the kid who sat in front of me in class. I didn’t think too much about what I was doing to poor Jack, but I enjoyed lording my power over him. We attended a small K-6 grade school. The next year, all of the small and large K-6 schools merged into one very large 7th-8th grade school. This senior elementary school then fed into the single 9-12 high school. In sixth grade, I was one of the tallest and fastest kids in my class. However, many of my classmates started to grow pubic hair and by the end of the eighth grade, I was still under 100 pounds and was chosen in PE class to run in the “small-man relay.” I also wanted so bad to have Levi’s jeans, white socks, and a double-pleated corduroy coat, like all of the popular kids. However, all I managed was a pair of Sears jeans, red socks, and black horn-rimmed glasses. I went from being a big bully and king of a small pond to being the one who got bullied in the big vast ocean. It was the worst and best thing that ever happened to me.
In the spring of my freshman year in high school, I joined the swim team. I had been swimming AAU since I was eight years old, so I was one of the fastest on the team. I started to come out of my shell and made some friends and started to gain a little self-confidence. Our swim coach also invited some of us to play water polo on a regional water polo team.
I turned sixteen on January 2, of my sophomore year, and I had my driver’s license, a car, and my freedom by the 3rd of January. My junior year, I had a strong group of friends and my self-confidence was starting to develop. I started dating once I had my license. I also started working in the men’s department of a department store in the brand new shopping mall.
I had a fun time my junior and senior years of high school. I was a leader of the water polo and the swim teams. Our teams were doing well, and the football team wasn’t winning. We felt our popularity in school went up when we were able to get the cheerleaders to come cheer at our packed water polo games. We went undefeated during my junior and senior years, the first two years of the program.
The fun and self-confidence continued to grow as I went to college. I left Stockton and attended Southern Oregon College in Ashland. I remember during my car ride from Stockton to Ashland for the first time. I realized that I could be anyone I chose to be. I didn’t have to be shy and self-conscience. I could shed that shell. I decided to put myself out there…just be me. It was easy to make friends. I was recruited to be on the swim team, and the coach had arranged to have all of his freshman swimmers live together on the same dorm floor. It was nice to have a built-in group of friends already assembled.
As is probably typical, I went through a lot of changes during my teenage years. I evolved from a broken and bullied victim who avoided human contact and kept his gaze to the ground, to being a confident leader who looked forward to meeting new people and situations. I carry both versions of myself within me. When I catch myself being that reclusive thirteen-year-old, I try to shake it off with a vision of being the confident nineteen-year-old.
Swagerty-Aldrich Family Web Site 