Here's another appreciation/ acknowledgement post as promised/ warned.
These two people shall remain nameless, as I think it is better for them that way.
As a teen, I, along with pretty much every teenager that ever was or is, was feeling very, very self conscious. However I, like some others, found it went a little deeper.
I hated myself. I wasn't good enough. I was too fat, I was ugly, I wasn't smart enough, I was too poor etc etc.
I knew this to be true. People constantly told me so. Time and again. I mean why would they lie about that stuff? This was not just in my teenage years but ever since I started school in the UK, and even some of the teachers would join in. It even continued into my adult life. It was all around me.
This constant negative chatter from others, helped me build a very negative view of myself.
Then two totally trivial conversations gave me a glimpse that not everyone saw me the way others saw me, or the way I saw myself. That someone might actually be interested in me.
The first conversation I overheard by accident. It was CDT (metalwork) at Mandeville. I was standing at my desk making something and two girls were in front of me, sitting down doing their write up (as they had finished way before me). I was fixated on a shield/badge I was making (I have no idea why I was making this) and wasn't paying any attention to them. Until I heard my name!
This simple sentence was what I heard.
"What about Paul Adams? I think he is is pretty!"
Okay admittedly my teenage masculinity (if I even had any that is) questioned the word "pretty" but more importantly there was a possibility that someone ACTUALLY thought that! Even if the other girl shook her head lol.
They didn't know I had heard, at least I don't think they did, but hearing that shocked me. I mean my ego loved it, but I had no idea that anyone could find me "pretty". It was not something I was used to hearing, and it played on my mind for many different reasons.
Shortly after that, I was late coming in to school; this was pretty much my baseline for my 3 and half years at Mandeville and - come to think of it - any job I ever had!
I bumped into a girl from my class as she was coming back from taking the register to the office. We had been at Oak Green together but we never had a conversation.
While we were waiting to be let back into the tower block, she started to ask questions about me. It was just small talk of course. What I liked to do in my spare time, questions about my family, about being American. This made me nervous!
Why was she asking these things? Did she have some kind of agenda? Had she planned to use the information against me? Anyone would think I'd been smoking crack if they knew my paranoia, but I hadn't!
I realised later of course that it was just small talk - although writing this now it does make it sound like she may have been inerested romantically (which I am sure she wasn't) so to save her any possible embarrassment, I choose to respect her anonymity, and leave her nameless.
That conversation and that throwaway comment, were well and truly caught by me, and would later became significant on my 15th birthday. One of my worst and equally best days of my life! A story for another time.
I desperately needed to hear something positive about me, and they provided exactly what I needed, although I didn't realise that until later.
So thank you girls or perhaps I should say ladies as we are so much older now. You gave me something I desperately needed, even though you probably never even knew I needed it!
It goes to show that every small action, every small conversation, can have significantly positive (and negative) impact on others.
I'm setting the challenge for you all to lean into your vulnerability and give appreciation to someone else, if this is something you feel you cannot do but want to!
Have a great day and I'll be back with another name soon x
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