Paper Mache and Pennies: The Day The Turtle Grew Her Shell

 

It's funny to think about the fact that I am not the same person I once was. It is interesting to look back and find the twists and turns of your life and realize what they have done for you and who they made you. Taking a middle school education class for the last couple months is making me focus on young Ashley. Who was she? What was she? And how did she morph into me?

Oh young Ashley, she was quite a shy and introverted person. When she was about ten years old her life changed. She went from this happy-go-lucky girl to her own personal level of Hell. Her best friend who she was friends with since kindergarten didn't want to be her friend anymore. To Young Ashley, this was the upmost betrayal, an act of pure treason. 

It started innocent enough. Ashley wasn't invited to her friend, Rachel's birthday party. Soon after, she realized that every other girl in her class was. She was devastated. And for the first time in her life, she was heart broken. She was like a baby turtle, fighting tooth and nail for a place to belong and a way to call home. Too soft to be taken seriously and too innocent to know better. 

She was a misfit, someone that needed a shell that wasn't truly a part of her. She looked around desperate to find a way to survive. The friends all turned on her one by one after that party. Young Ashley did the only thing she could do, she learned how to be alone. She stopped fighting her way into life, she stopped trying to make friends. In the next few years she had her favorite teacher again for a second time and learned to turn to books to experience life as her's, she just wasn't ready for.

Seventh grade was much a repeat of sixth but with worse teachers and in a scary violent school. Middle school was a bit of a shock for young Ashley. It was almost like she grew up in this white picket fence suburban community, to be thrown years too early, into a middle school that was in a violent, ghetto place where no one mattered. By eighth grade, young Ashley was depressed, unsure of how to clear the murk out of her mind and couldn't figure out what was wrong with her. Why she couldn't be the strength that she saw all around her. She had school friends all these years, but that's all they ever were. What she wanted more than anything was a boyfriend, a friend, someone to turn to. But in her mind, it was never a thought to anyone else. She thrived on the popularity of her "friends" and third wheeled just to feel included. She wanted to be older, different, prettier, louder, more fun, more exciting, more wanted, more cared for, more loved. 

By fourteen years old she met a guy, they didn't agree on a thing but that was why she liked him. He was bold to her meak, strong to her weak. He wasn't religious, he was sure of himself. He wasn't cooperative, he was defiant. And next thing she knew, she fell in love. She started to know who "she" was. She was HIS girlfriend, hanging out with HIS friends. Being someone she wasn't at all, but to Young Ashley that was good enough a definition as any. She molded, adapted, changed. She became someone she thought people would like. She was Badass Ashley: the strong, the confident, the defiant.

By fifteen years old, she didn't take anyone's crap. She swore, she stayed out late, she watched her friends steal, she saw the cops get called and called again. Because the kids were being kids shooting off paintball guns and stepping on the neighbors lawn. She enjoyed who she was. She cared about herself. She loved herself. And so did they. Her friends, her boyfriend and she loved their little misfit family and found a way to fit in when it felt like all they ever did was stand out.

Then a few months later, the boyfriend was expelled from school for starting a race war and "disrupting the learning environment." By fifteen years old, she was under death threats and couldn't walk in the halls with everyone else as the school feared for her life. She watched as teachers put her into that "Just right" seat so if a bullet came through a window, she wouldn't be hit. The students throwing pennies her way, casting glances when they could, throwing remarks all the time. She was petrified and horrified.

But that made her stronger. That made the paper mache armor she plastered herself with everyday grow layers. Overnight that paper mache turned into a hard-ironed cast. The weak and scared turtle grew her very own turtle shell overnight. 

Everyone was against them, Romeo and Juliet fighting against the world. Standing up for themselves, not the essay, not the words. She'd never support what he wrote. But to live, to survive, she stood up for him. She grew a backbone and a turtle shell out of paper mache and pennies she saved and had thrown into the wishing well.

For years she wore that shell, slammed through doors and opened new windows. She pushed and shoved her way into this life and vowed to be the strong one despite more heartbreak. This shell became Ashley the day Badass Ashley was born.

But strength doesn't last forever. And one day after years of holding the shell in front of her, using it as a weapon rather than a shield. She learned to take a step back. She learned how to meld the shell and the turtle together, she learned how to be the meak and easy ten year old and the defiant and strong badass she learned to be. And now? Now she had a turtle shell to survive the life she has and a sweet underside to cherish every minute.