Floating Through Life ✔️

Chapter 2

It must've been her twentieth time around the room when she allowed herself to reminisce again. When she closed her eyes, she saw herself on the ground sobbing. It was when she was going through puberty: the pimples, braces, and the uncomfortableness in her own body. Her red hair flared as she cried in recognition of what she was. A nerd. Her heart wrenched as her breath shortened; she felt confined, and she was indeed constricted within a stereotype.

Before, it was easier for her. Before, she wasn't in middle school. Before, she wasn't so broken. But then, her world revolved around her looks and her social abilities, and both were rolling downhill in a fast motion that taunted her with every bump down the way. If she were to be asked of the most difficult time in her life she would say middle school through high school, but she would be lying. A tear slid down her cheek as she brushed away the second memory. She was then on her twenty-fifth lap around the room. She wondered when she would get tired.

She made five more laps, drowning in remembrance of her middle school days. All the bashing into lockers, the tripping in the hallways, the freckles that were her insecurity shining brightly on her face. She thought that whether she liked that or not, it all is a part of her.  Without the bullying she went through, or the making fun that still rang loudly in her ears, she wouldn't be what she had become. She wouldn't be the executive director of a multimillionaire company if she wasn't bullied into becoming something better. She laughed a little at the thought, because in spite of the years that passed since the beginning of her misery in middle school, she still felt affected.

Bullying is such a funny word, she thought. When you hear it you think a couple of kids fighting. You think injustice done to a teenager that she or he will eventually get over. You think, a hard time indeed, but it will pass. What you don't think is how twelve years later, someone that's been a victim of it will still suffer from it. It was not loud, it's not in the form of panic attacks or late night breakdowns, however it did live with her. It nibbled at her very soul, eating away at whatever person she could've been. 

It was how she made sure her foundation covered all her freckles every morning. It was how she dyed her hair a darker shade than it originally is, and how she never showed anywhere with the roots uncolored. It was how her adrenaline would rise, and her fear levels would heighten when someone big and bulky, jock-style to put it in simpler words, would pass her by. It was her putting all her will power into unflinching. And she wouldn't. She woke up everyday to go to a job where she was truly feared, but admired. Where people respected her. Where people looked at her as a successful business holder rather than a little girl with bruises.

Her legs felt a bit heavy, and her heart fell a little at the thought of her insecurities, but it was her truth. She wasn't as successful as people thought, rather she was a fraud, an imposter of the image of a strong independent woman, when really she wasn't anyone. She hadn't any interests or hobbies, for the part of her brain that was supposed to be in business with that was too busy concentrating on her past.  Her job was not the sort that allowed her to have time for activities anyways. Beyond her disability to be someone, she didn't have anyone either. Her parents, she didn't wanted to burden any more, and her background never really encouraged her to pursue friendships for all of them were fake. So, in the midst of all her money and recognition, she felt empty. So she blamed herself for locking her mind in the past. She blamed the people that once scarred her in thought that it wasn't a big deal. She blamed the world for its injustice.