I was in 4th grade when I was told for the first time that I was fat. I was told that I would never amount to anything because of it. I never had thought about the word "fat" being bad until this point.
It was only a week after my birthday in 5th grade when I was told that I couldn't sing. I was told that my voice sounded like a cat going through the washing machine. Everyone had always complemented me on my singing ability growing up. I never thought that these words could affect me so much.
I was the new kid in 6th grade. We moved from Pennsylvania to Texas. To graduate middle school, we had to have 3 years of a fine art. The choices were either Band, Choir, Theater, or Art. I remembered what was said to me in 4th grade, so I signed up for Band.
Band kids are always told that they cannot sing because they are in Band, that's the reason my many of them joined. They couldn't draw, sing, or act. The talent show was coming up, and a few of my friends wanted to audition playing a piece from our show. They didn't make it into the show.
I told them that I wanted to audition, and my friends told me that the teacher was biased, and would only take people who sang. I simply said "Okay" and went off into the tryouts.
I took my clarinet into the room with me and the teacher and the rest of the "council" looked at me weird. I heard one of them say: "Great, here we go again." That ruined me.
I sat my clarinet case down and looked them all straight into their eyes. They wanted singing, I would give them singing. I started to put my instrument together, just to mess with them. When I was finished, I stood up and said: "My name is Alexis, and I will be preforming a song called 'Butterflies', please enjoy."
I put my clarinet down on the seat next to me, and started to sing the song that I had written when I was in 4th grade. Right after those bullies told me that I couldn't sing. I sang my heart out, and I wouldn't let them interrupt me. So I just sang.
The first thing the teacher said to me when I was finished was "Wow." They proceeded to ask me why they had never heard me sing before, and I pointed out that I was in band. The biased teacher looked at me, then back at my friends who were waiting for me outside, and told me something. "Darling, you can be a singer if you want, and they can be musicians. All I know is that I want all of you in my show."
I single handedly made this teacher believe that we were more than Band kids and Choir kids. I made her believe that we were all equals.
