Smile If You Love Me, Baby

I've been at a new school for the past 1.5 years, with a network that I didn't think I'd ever work for. One of the most surprising pieces of this puzzle was that I originally came on-board as a Middle School teacher. I had sworn that I would never teach middle school because it would bring up too many painful memories.

Middle School /midl skool/ (n.): that time in a person's life that they try very hard to wipe out of their memory, as it is too hard to imagine someone loving them through it due to the painful level of awkward and uncomfortable.

It was an amazing year in the classroom, where I learned to embrace all the awkward and be extra embarrassing for kids. This year I'm now overseeing a program that has elementary and middle school aged students. While the elementary students are definitely more adorable than the middle schoolers, I do have a special place in my heart for them and their dramatics.

I would like to formally apologize to all my teachers, and especially my parents, for all that I put them through during my teen years. Thank you for loving me through such a horrendous life phase. When I was in middle school, I was your typical, insecure, hypersensitive, blossoming tween. (If you think I'm dramatic now, multiply that by 10 and add a dash of delusional and you've got 13-year-old Ms. Walker.) I was at my wonderful, tiny school, where I was 1 of 5 girls in my grade. In the entire middle school, we had 23 girls total, out of 70(ish) students. A small audience for my endless dramatic performance titled "Puberty: The (Seemingly) Never Ending Train Wreck"

I feel as though everyone has at least 1 vivid memory (if not many) from their developing years, where they were at their most awkward. Tweens not only have changing bodies and hormones, but they aren't even considered full teenagers yet, so the confusion around "growing up" is amplified by the fact that you're supposed to still act like a young child. This often results in painful attempts at flirting. C'mon, I know you have a memory tucked away some where of the first time you thought you were being slick and flirtatious but you really looked like you were suffering from severe constipation and a personality disorder. No? Just me?

It was the second week of 7th grade, and this was the time for the annual Middle School Camping Trip. I had loved it the year before, and had wonderful memories of completing ropes courses, hiking, and playing fun campfire games. So, naturally, I thought I was the bomb-diggity walking up in that cabin as an experienced 7th grader. To top it off, I had just gotten myself some boobs (oh, puberty) and a straightening iron, so I pretty much believed my Grandpa when he said I looked like Brooke Shields (mind you, he called me that because of my dark and well defined eyebrows, NOT my itty-bitty-boobies and frizzy straight hair). This confidence was also inflated by the 7th and 8th grade boys hormone levels, which caused them to say nice things to me and talk to my breasts instead of my face. This may have also been due to the fact that I was 5'8" in 7th grade, and most of the boys were 5'5" or below... you do the math on where their eyes lined up.

After a long day of hiking, ropes courses, trust falls, and dinner, it was time for us to do our campfire games. The entire middle school (all 70 of us) sat in a big circle with our teachers lining the edge of the dining hall. We played games, sang songs, and told stories. One of the games we played was a new game, and I knew I liked it from the moment I heard the name of it: "Smile if you love me, baby." I have always been a pretty jovial person, and with my banging' new tween bod I was feeling more smiley than usual. How the game goes is that the first person goes in the middle, picks someone that they think will "smile". They then walk over to that person and say, "Smile if you love me, baby." Following this, the person has to reply, "I love you, baby, but I just can't smile" with a straight face. If they smile while responding, they are then in the middle. If they don't, the "asker" must go find another person and repeat the quote until they can get someone to smile. I couldn't WAIT to see who would come up to me. I was a natural target, because I smiled and laughed ALL the time, and was looking forward to walking right up to one of the 8th grade boys. 

My moment came when my friend CB walked up to me and said, "Smile if you love me, baby!" in a very dramatic tone while laying on the floor in front of me. I burst out laughing, partly because it was actually funny and partly because I was so nervous. Either way, I obviously ended up in the middle. I then fake-looked around for who I was going to pick, because I couldn't act so obvious that I was going to walk up to this 8th grade boy that I was crushing on... Then, after 3 full turns, I couldn't contain myself and nearly bolted over to him. I kneeled down, leaned forward, and with my best Playboy Bunny impression said very smoothly, "Smile if you love me... baby...." 

That's when he looked right back at me, and with a slight tone of disgust said, "I love you, baby, but I just can't smile..." Then looked at his friend (also cute) and shook his head.

Ok, the reality of what happened (according to a friend who was sitting nearby), was that I pretty much twirled around in the middle a few times looking like I was trying to morph into Captain Planet, and then ran over to The Boy, slid onto my knees, made a face that resembled someone who got kneed in the balls, and sounded like Minnie Mouse when I spoke.

My heart was crushed. However, we ended up dating briefly a few years later, after I had survived my tweens.