Day One Hundred and Ninety Eight!!!!!!!

Emerald’s story


If you asked her mother, ever since Emerald was born she was hungry; a hungry baby, hungry toddler, hungry kid. She ate her dinner without complaint and was praised for it because her brother was the fussiest kid about food, Emeralds eagerness to gobble up what was placed in front of her was considered a gift, for a time.


Emerald was cute with a round face, blonde hair, and bubbly personality. She was outgoing and quirky and when she felt her brother had wronged her she would throw him from his chair! 


As Emerald grew older however, her appearance was praised less and less and she noticed that statements changed from, “you are so pretty!” to eventually “you have a pretty face!” The change in this statement seems minuscule, but Emerald picked up on it each and every time as she did with every whisper, glance, and sneer thrown her way. Her peers at school would constantly ridicule her for her weight and when she tried to stand up for herself it only became worse, so Emerald stopped talking. At one point in time she hadn’t said a word at school for several days and when she was standing in line with the other rowdy kids waiting to go outside the teacher told everyone to stop talking and someone blamed the rowdiness on Emerald which the teacher mistakenly replied, “of course it wasn’t, Emerald can’t talk!” 


As Emerald grew more and more silent her peers grew louder. The silence gave them permission to speak to and treat her poorly. Even when asking the teachers for help they would turn away, tell her to ignore it, or they would ignore her. They were right in some respect, as they continued to ignore Emerald she eventually stopped asking for help, their problem went away. Unfortunately Emerald’s didn’t. 


Of course school wasn’t the only culprit for Emeralds lack of self esteem and self worth. As supportive as her direct family tried to be her extended family had a different way of motivating Emerald to lose the weight. Every time Emerald visited her grandparents they would make passive aggressive remarks about her body. Being only ten years old Emerald asked where the heart is in the body and her grandfather replied to her, “don’t worry, if it stops we will send you to the hospital.” The comments grew more direct as time passed, “people at your weight die. You don’t have a boyfriend because you need to lose weight.” and of course Emeralds favourite, “I will give you 50 dollars if you lose 50 pounds.” 


It wasn’t until Emerald went to high school that she eventually met people who didn’t constantly badger her about her body. She met people who thought she was smart, interesting, and funny. She eventually found out that she could bounce from group to group, clique to clique, and be accepted because she no longer felt the fear of rejection for she had been rejected time and time again for years. She took her funny bone by the horns and started performing stand up at her schools coffee house’s and eventually in front of her whole school. Everyone respected, and quite possibly admired Emerald, and when she spoke people listened! 


Emerald found her sense of self again, she is bubbly, outgoing, and when the occasion calls for it; is perfectly capable of throwing wrong doers from chairs.