one thing I will say though is that interacting with middle schoolers really brings my insecurities into focus for myself. what I've realized these past two days is that there's a part of me that still feels like the ugly, weird little kid who no one liked. and it definitely impacts my capacity as a teaching artist because as ridiculous as it sounds, I get awkward and embarrassed around the "cool" middle school kids--the girls who sit in a big group and are always giggling to each other....the boys who talk back to the teacher and have a mean joke about everything.......I keep expecting to be targeted, as if I'm still that age and could still be bullied. and that feeling is so incongruous with how I'm actually received by the classes. like today when I approached the big group of girls at the front of the class to check on their progress, they were all so excited to get my attention and one of them told me, wide eyed, "miss, you're really pretty" without any provocation, at which point another girl chimed in to the same affect. the rude boys who sassed the teacher and the other teaching artists listened to me and did their work. the weird loner kids who refused to read out loud all went out of their way to show me their work. several kids specifically requested that I be the artist assigned to their school next term. and I guess it's just??? hard to realize that things have changed since middle school??? like obviously things have changed in all these years alive, and I know that. but somehow I guess I've always felt like I'm still ugly and awkward and that the only difference in how I'm treated is that people my age are less shitty about it now than when we were 12. like they're just nicer and that's why they don't call me ugly and make fun of my speech patterns and my intense interests and my social ineptitude. and that feeling impacts my interactions with adults too, not just with middle schoolers. I always think people are lying when they call me pretty, or they just haven't looked properly; I always feel like people hate being around me and are just being polite. so it's just so fucking weird to be looked up to and complimented by kids who would probably have bullied and excluded me had we all been 12 at the same time. except maybe that's all in my head and these kids are just really nice kids who don't bully anyone. idk. it's just. really weird for me. clearly I have to work through some feelings from my childhood and early adolescence before I can fully handle working in this position and/or be a mentally healthy adult who is secure in her own flesh
