A Bus Tale, and graduation photos

When the final bell rang and school was out, every kid was happy to get to the school bus and head for home. There were so many buses that we had to leave at intervals and I sat nervously waiting for our bus to be called. I wasn't anxious because I was itching to leave, though that was true. I needed to get to the bus as quickly as possible for reasons that had nothing to do with getting the hell out of Dodge.

If I got on the bus when it was even as much as half full, I faced a gauntlet of humiliation. I needed to reach it before all of the empty seats were gone. It was also preferable that I got a seat as close to the front as possible. If I had to walk past many occupied seats, I would receive "the disease" treatment. Each person who I walked by would shout, "(Shari's) germs, I quit!" This would be passed up and down all occupied seats until every single person on the bus had pronounced their inoculation from incidental contact with the space I occupied. A seat in the front spared me this echo chamber announcing my diseased status.

If all of the seats were partially occupied, there was an added layer abasement. Each single occupant of the seat would scoot over to the edge to block me from sitting with him or her. It was only after I stood helplessly unable to sit because all seats were full or blocked that the bus driver would demand someone move over and allow me to sit with him or her. This part would cram himself or herself up against the window and squirm throughout the ride. Sometimes, he or she would also theatrically hold their breath as if they were in the sphere of contagion. My relief didn't come until enough kids got off so that I could move and sit alone.

My disease was being fat. Every single day, I spent 45 minutes on the bus to school and 45 minutes on the bus home being ridiculed, bullied, and treated as if I were the most disgusting creature on earth. It was unrelenting. Is it any wonder I stopped viewing myself as human?

When I was ready to let Tito know what I had been before he got to know me, I sent him the two pictures below. I referred to them as "before" and "after" my weight loss, but the truth was that they were when I saw myself as subhuman and when I saw myself as human. The way I was treated throughout high school and elementary school never shamed me into changing. It filled me with so much pain and trashed my self-esteem such that I had no energy to deal with my body. I also saw myself as a walking pile of trash. It was only after Seanna became my mentor in college and treated me as worthy of respect and possessing value that I was able to muster the ability to take care of myself and see myself as worthy of care. Shaming me only made things worse.