P was the kind of friend everyone wanted--popular, beautiful, smart and tough. She could protect you, if she had a mind to. And thankfully, she had a mind to be my friend and so she was my protector who gave me a way to live among the giants--the athletes, the cheerleaders, the student government leaders, even the yearbook staff. I got to be a part of all of those communities---athlete, cheerleader, student representative, yearbook staff, even the band playing the clarinet, first chair. And I was one of the smart ones. Somehow I got to be smart and popular, too. That didn't happen all the time. You could be Geek smart. Or you could be one of the Beautiful People who everyone knew. But you rarely got to be both. P helped initiate me into both. At first glance, one might think I was following in the footsteps of my sisters who went before me. But I wasn't. I wanted to be cooler than that. And so P became my role model. She was worldly, knowing, in ways I wasn't as a country girl from the farm. But my relationship with her was at the center of my shaping. I had no idea who I would become but between P and the two Ds, I morphed into a saucy sassy smart young woman. I've continued to try to remember what all that meant and to shape into it as this grown woman that I am. My story, my life is "the shape of which I have no idea."
© Valerie Bridgeman
Wednesday
March 27, 2013
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