Slushies anyone?

Right now, my favorite show on tv is Glee. I didn't watch it until it was halfway through the first season. I don't watch a lot of tv, so it didn't occur to me that it might be something I would be interested in. Another teenage tv show on primetime...whoopee.

However, that show takes me back about 16 years ago when I was 15 years old and in the Glee Club. While I would never ever in a million years want to go back and relive high school, it is fun to see that Glee is still around.

So many times in life, I feel like the kids from Glee, getting a slushie thrown in my face by the "popular" kids. Getting made fun of, told I am a loser, etc. Seems to me like some situations are just like high school. People out to be #1 in some phantom popularity contest. People who will beg, borrow and steal to get a glimpse of what's it's like to be popular. Not me. I never played that game. I was popular in my own group. The band kids, the glee kids....and that was pretty much it. But I also didn't sit around and make fun of others to win at some stupid popularity game either.

I walk into situations all the time when substitute teaching where it is sad to me to see certain kids made fun of, called losers, nerds, geeks, whatever, just because of their choices of activities. It breaks my heart to see a band kid walk down the hall and the football jocks and cheerleaders are trying to trip the band kid to make them drop their instrument. They don't see the real person, they see the stereotype. He/She is a band kid, so they must be nerds, He/She is in the glee club, they must be losers. He/She is a cheerleader/football player so they must be so cool.

Stereotyping goes on outside of school too. Even as a 31 year old adult, I find myself in situations on occasion where I am the on the outside looking in on the cliques. I feel like I have walked into HS again where the football jocks and cheerleaders are standing there and I am the kid from Glee just anticipating the slushie getting ready to be thrown in my face. Some people won't even talk to me sometimes because they automatically think I am some stuck up snot because I am quiet. What they don't see is that there is a wall between me and them and if they are willing to ge tto know the real me and start chipping away at the wall, they may actually see that the person inside the wall is actually a pretty nice person. :) Now, ask me my opinion, no matter how tall the wall is around me and you will get an honest answer, but there is always a wall.

Being an outsider isn't fun. I have been an outsider too many times and can tell you how it hurts. I was the kid with no siblings, which was deemed weird. I was the kid who read all the time, which they deemed me a nerd. I was the kid with hand me down clothes, so I was deemed poor. I was the band kid and glee kid, so they deemed me a loser. I was the girl who got pregnant Senior year, so they called me a slut. And it hurt. If they had just stopped and talked to me, instead of making their judgements about me, they woudl have been able to see that I am not that bad of a person to get along with.

So next time you start to look at a person, whether you know them or not, whether you knew them for years, then didn't see them for a while and then saw them again, whether they have been friends with you before but the friendship drifted apart for some reason, don't automatically give them a title. Don't judge them before you know the season of life that they are in. Don't sit there and call them losers, nerds, sluts, mean, or dorks. They say walk a mile in someone's shoes to see the real person. I say walk a mile with that person and get to know them. Don't jump to conclusions about them, because you never know, they may just be your next best friend. :)

Don't throw a slushie....drink it.