Rose and Her Roses
So here I am, just when I thought things couldn’t get any worse. I have been sent to my Aunt Belle, in Charleston, South Carolina. After leaving Manhattan, it was a culture shock. I sat in the car staring at the old Victorian, it was snow white and plants surrounding it, as if it was guarding the massive house from an unknown intruder. I still hadn’t worked the nerve up to go inside so I was sitting where my mother left me. In the rental car that smelled of stale cigars.
I am condemned to this place because of something my parents think is a big deal, but it’s not. My friends and I decided we needed to lose some weight, I tried diet pills, working out more, but I still wasn’t to my goal, “runway model skinny”. At least that’s what we were calling it amongst ourselves. I ended up getting a stomach virus and I lost four pounds. After I got better I was excited, because I was still eating I just had to throw it up, like when I had the stomach virus.
At school one day, I fainted and fell and hit my head. So the school called an ambulance and I was off to the hospital. I woke up, with my parents angry. I guess the doctors told them, I am 20 pounds under weight and stuff in my blood isn’t right. Which I knew wasn’t right, because Kylie Jenner is way skinnier than me, and she wasn’t even “runway model skinny”. They made me promise to stop what I was doing to lose weight, and I did. I lied. After I was home and back into my normal routine for about a week, my Dad caught me before I was about to go to school and had a scale in his hand and laid it on the floor and told me to step on it. I knew he would flip that I hadn’t gained weight, but I got on the scale under his watchful gaze and I had lost three pounds since I had been home. That was the moment my life was to change forever.
My Mom decided I was exposed to unrealistic “thinness”, whatever that means. So she brought me here, to Aunt Belle. I remember Aunt Belle from a few holidays that she came to. She was a stern looking woman, who I guess had married some rich guy a long time ago and he had died. So it was just her in this giant house. In this prison that I was now sentenced to, “for the foreseeable future”, is what my Dad said.
I saw my Mom come out, with a very stern looking Aunt Belle. I sat in the passenger seat having already made up my mind I wasn’t getting out. My Mom opened the door and kissed my forehead and said, “I love you.” Then I was yanked out by my evil Aunt Belle. I looked her into her eyes as I straightened myself up, ready to tell her what I thought. But, the look in her eyes, a soulless abyss, I thought better. My Mom pulled away and I was left with, her.
The first few weeks were awful. She watched me eat, followed me to the bathroom. Only one bathroom was accessible as all the others were nailed shut. She started letting me walk the neighborhood of old creepy mansions. Seriously, this would be heaven for Tim Burton. One day I found a sad little puppy, cowering underneath a car parked on the picturesque street. It was shaking and looked so sad and skinny. After about an hour I was able to coax it out, and it licked me all over my face. As if it was saying, "Thank you for rescuing me, I trust you now." I scooped it up and walked straight back to Aunt Belle’s house. I was preparing my argument to keep the puppy the entire way there.
I was caught off guard when I turn to go up the walk and she was standing there. As I looked her in the eye, caught off guard, I saw something. It was as if there was a small light at the bottom of the soulless abyss. I clutched the little ball of fur tighter. For some reason, I was drawn to this little life form. I needed the puppy as much as it needed me.
She eyed the puppy, “What do you have there?”
I thought for a second that I saw compassion in those soulless eyes, “I found him, and I want to keep him.”
She simply nodded.
“Seriously?” I was shocked, I never had a dog before. Maybe I was wrong about who Aunt Belle was.
“Well you will have to figure out a name, and we will have to get a collar, and the other supplies,” she almost looked pleased with herself.
I thought hard for a moment,” I think I will call him George.”
She laughed, and it sounded musical, almost like bells. A sound reserved for angels, not her. It hit me that I hadn’t heard Aunt Belle laugh before. It was then I started to wonder to myself, if I had been wrong about Aunt Belle. Maybe it wasn't a soulless abyss in her eyes, maybe it was something else.
“You might want to pick a girl’s name, because she is a girl, or you can call her George if you want,” she smiled as I blushed.
George became Rose, because she loved to smell the roses that engulfed the backyard. I had spent months with Aunt Belle and her homeschooling ways, but for the first time I felt happy and content. We would sit on the porch in the evenings drinking sweet tea, and watching Rose smell all the roses. Since the roses meant so much to Rose, I asked Aunt Belle to show me how to raise roses. I wanted to make sure I could make Rose happy, whatever that took.
We would walk the yard and she would talk varieties, the care, what to do, what not to do. I noticed one day that there were a few roses shorter than the others.
“Why are these shorter than all the others? Am I doing something wrong?” I was worried as I had really taken a liking to the roses.
She smiled her patient smile I had grown to love and admire. “No, the roses know what they are supposed to do. All you have to do, is make sure they have the right things to get there.”
I looked around at all the colors and shapes and heights, I had never really noticed that they were all different, because I had been so blinded by their beauty. I would look at them individually and not compare to the next plant.
“We are the only ones that deem beauty by comparing to others. The roses know their beauty, and they don’t compare to figure out what that is.” She looked at me knowing.
It was then I saw the severity in my obsession to be “runway model thin”. I needed to know my own beauty, not by comparing to the beauty of others. We were all individuals, and not a mass to be compared. We are shouldn’t judge others including ourselves.
I wanted to stay with Aunt Belle in Charleston to finish school and maybe even go to college here. After much persuasion, my parents agreed. Yet, I had one thing left to do. I explained my plans to Aunt Belle and she agreed thinking it an important plan. She helped me put everything together and we were off to Manhattan.
When I thought of the plan, I wasn’t nearly as nervous as I was watching the auditorium of my old high school fill up with familiar and unfamiliar faces. After my old principal got everyone quiet, he motioned for me to go on the stage. I could feel my heartbeat in my neck as I climbed the stage steps and made my way to the lonely microphone positioned for me.
“Hi, some of you may remember me, some of you may not. I was a student here, and I have come back to tell you something.” I swallowed hard and saw my Aunt sitting in the front row with my parents. She gave me a thumbs up and a smile, while my parents looked confused. “I wanted to be thinner, like a runway model, and that put me on a path that I developed an eating disorder to get to my goal. I realize now, that as I got thinner, I would have never been thin enough. My parents found out about my eating disorder and sent me to stay with my Aunt for a while. While I was there I found out, that only we judge our own beauty by comparing to others.” It was then that I heard the curtain behind me pull and everyone gasp.
The stage was covered in roses and Rose was sitting in rose petals. “This is Rose, and she knows she is beautiful, without judging.” I grabbed a rose, “This is a rose, and it doesn’t compare to know its beauty.” I was still nervous, but knowing my family was there and Rose was there, gave me the needed strength to finish my story.
“I learned this isn’t just about eating disorders, this is about how we live. Girls want to be thinner and naturally have an airbrushed look that the models have in the magazines. I know it’s true because I did it, I believed it. It’s about valuing yourself without comparing. Whether you’re short or tall, or thin or not thin. It’s not about the biggest muscles or the most fashionable clothes. Or if your straight, gay, bisexual or transgender. It’s about not comparing, it’s about valuing each of us, and embracing our differences. It's those differences that makes us all beautiful.”
The auditorium was silent and still and I couldn’t decide if I was doing well or if I wasn’t. “I am asking all of you to join me, and value ourselves and each other, for the things that make us unique. Not to take uniqueness and turn it into something ugly, but really see the beauty in it, and not compare.”
I waited for some sort of response and my Aunt shot up, “I’m beautiful and I won’t compare!” I felt tears sting my eyes. Then my parents and then other people until everyone was standing and chanting, “I’m beautiful and I won’t compare!” It was then I felt I had been heard, that we aren’t any different than the roses. We are all beautiful, not for our similarities but for our differences, but we won’t compare.
So here I am, just when I thought things couldn’t get any worse. I have been sent to my Aunt Belle, in Charleston, South Carolina. After leaving Manhattan, it was a culture shock. I sat in the car staring at the old Victorian, it was snow white and plants surrounding it, as if it was guarding the massive house from an unknown intruder. I still hadn’t worked the nerve up to go inside so I was sitting where my mother left me. In the rental car that smelled of stale cigars.
I am condemned to this place because of something my parents think is a big deal, but it’s not. My friends and I decided we needed to lose some weight, I tried diet pills, working out more, but I still wasn’t to my goal, “runway model skinny”. At least that’s what we were calling it amongst ourselves. I ended up getting a stomach virus and I lost four pounds. After I got better I was excited, because I was still eating I just had to throw it up, like when I had the stomach virus.
At school one day, I fainted and fell and hit my head. So the school called an ambulance and I was off to the hospital. I woke up, with my parents angry. I guess the doctors told them, I am 20 pounds under weight and stuff in my blood isn’t right. Which I knew wasn’t right, because Kylie Jenner is way skinnier than me, and she wasn’t even “runway model skinny”. They made me promise to stop what I was doing to lose weight, and I did. I lied. After I was home and back into my normal routine for about a week, my Dad caught me before I was about to go to school and had a scale in his hand and laid it on the floor and told me to step on it. I knew he would flip that I hadn’t gained weight, but I got on the scale under his watchful gaze and I had lost three pounds since I had been home. That was the moment my life was to change forever.
My Mom decided I was exposed to unrealistic “thinness”, whatever that means. So she brought me here, to Aunt Belle. I remember Aunt Belle from a few holidays that she came to. She was a stern looking woman, who I guess had married some rich guy a long time ago and he had died. So it was just her in this giant house. In this prison that I was now sentenced to, “for the foreseeable future”, is what my Dad said.
I saw my Mom come out, with a very stern looking Aunt Belle. I sat in the passenger seat having already made up my mind I wasn’t getting out. My Mom opened the door and kissed my forehead and said, “I love you.” Then I was yanked out by my evil Aunt Belle. I looked her into her eyes as I straightened myself up, ready to tell her what I thought. But, the look in her eyes, a soulless abyss, I thought better. My Mom pulled away and I was left with, her.
The first few weeks were awful. She watched me eat, followed me to the bathroom. Only one bathroom was accessible as all the others were nailed shut. She started letting me walk the neighborhood of old creepy mansions. Seriously, this would be heaven for Tim Burton. One day I found a sad little puppy, cowering underneath a car parked on the picturesque street. It was shaking and looked so sad and skinny. After about an hour I was able to coax it out, and it licked me all over my face. As if it was saying, "Thank you for rescuing me, I trust you now." I scooped it up and walked straight back to Aunt Belle’s house. I was preparing my argument to keep the puppy the entire way there.
I was caught off guard when I turn to go up the walk and she was standing there. As I looked her in the eye, caught off guard, I saw something. It was as if there was a small light at the bottom of the soulless abyss. I clutched the little ball of fur tighter. For some reason, I was drawn to this little life form. I needed the puppy as much as it needed me.
She eyed the puppy, “What do you have there?”
I thought for a second that I saw compassion in those soulless eyes, “I found him, and I want to keep him.”
She simply nodded.
“Seriously?” I was shocked, I never had a dog before. Maybe I was wrong about who Aunt Belle was.
“Well you will have to figure out a name, and we will have to get a collar, and the other supplies,” she almost looked pleased with herself.
I thought hard for a moment,” I think I will call him George.”
She laughed, and it sounded musical, almost like bells. A sound reserved for angels, not her. It hit me that I hadn’t heard Aunt Belle laugh before. It was then I started to wonder to myself, if I had been wrong about Aunt Belle. Maybe it wasn't a soulless abyss in her eyes, maybe it was something else.
“You might want to pick a girl’s name, because she is a girl, or you can call her George if you want,” she smiled as I blushed.
George became Rose, because she loved to smell the roses that engulfed the backyard. I had spent months with Aunt Belle and her homeschooling ways, but for the first time I felt happy and content. We would sit on the porch in the evenings drinking sweet tea, and watching Rose smell all the roses. Since the roses meant so much to Rose, I asked Aunt Belle to show me how to raise roses. I wanted to make sure I could make Rose happy, whatever that took.
We would walk the yard and she would talk varieties, the care, what to do, what not to do. I noticed one day that there were a few roses shorter than the others.
“Why are these shorter than all the others? Am I doing something wrong?” I was worried as I had really taken a liking to the roses.
She smiled her patient smile I had grown to love and admire. “No, the roses know what they are supposed to do. All you have to do, is make sure they have the right things to get there.”
I looked around at all the colors and shapes and heights, I had never really noticed that they were all different, because I had been so blinded by their beauty. I would look at them individually and not compare to the next plant.
“We are the only ones that deem beauty by comparing to others. The roses know their beauty, and they don’t compare to figure out what that is.” She looked at me knowing.
It was then I saw the severity in my obsession to be “runway model thin”. I needed to know my own beauty, not by comparing to the beauty of others. We were all individuals, and not a mass to be compared. We are shouldn’t judge others including ourselves.
I wanted to stay with Aunt Belle in Charleston to finish school and maybe even go to college here. After much persuasion, my parents agreed. Yet, I had one thing left to do. I explained my plans to Aunt Belle and she agreed thinking it an important plan. She helped me put everything together and we were off to Manhattan.
When I thought of the plan, I wasn’t nearly as nervous as I was watching the auditorium of my old high school fill up with familiar and unfamiliar faces. After my old principal got everyone quiet, he motioned for me to go on the stage. I could feel my heartbeat in my neck as I climbed the stage steps and made my way to the lonely microphone positioned for me.
“Hi, some of you may remember me, some of you may not. I was a student here, and I have come back to tell you something.” I swallowed hard and saw my Aunt sitting in the front row with my parents. She gave me a thumbs up and a smile, while my parents looked confused. “I wanted to be thinner, like a runway model, and that put me on a path that I developed an eating disorder to get to my goal. I realize now, that as I got thinner, I would have never been thin enough. My parents found out about my eating disorder and sent me to stay with my Aunt for a while. While I was there I found out, that only we judge our own beauty by comparing to others.” It was then that I heard the curtain behind me pull and everyone gasp.
The stage was covered in roses and Rose was sitting in rose petals. “This is Rose, and she knows she is beautiful, without judging.” I grabbed a rose, “This is a rose, and it doesn’t compare to know its beauty.” I was still nervous, but knowing my family was there and Rose was there, gave me the needed strength to finish my story.
“I learned this isn’t just about eating disorders, this is about how we live. Girls want to be thinner and naturally have an airbrushed look that the models have in the magazines. I know it’s true because I did it, I believed it. It’s about valuing yourself without comparing. Whether you’re short or tall, or thin or not thin. It’s not about the biggest muscles or the most fashionable clothes. Or if your straight, gay, bisexual or transgender. It’s about not comparing, it’s about valuing each of us, and embracing our differences. It's those differences that makes us all beautiful.”
The auditorium was silent and still and I couldn’t decide if I was doing well or if I wasn’t. “I am asking all of you to join me, and value ourselves and each other, for the things that make us unique. Not to take uniqueness and turn it into something ugly, but really see the beauty in it, and not compare.”
I waited for some sort of response and my Aunt shot up, “I’m beautiful and I won’t compare!” I felt tears sting my eyes. Then my parents and then other people until everyone was standing and chanting, “I’m beautiful and I won’t compare!” It was then I felt I had been heard, that we aren’t any different than the roses. We are all beautiful, not for our similarities but for our differences, but we won’t compare.
Reflection:
I decided to write a short story to help send the message that we really need to stop being judgmental of other people for their differences. As a society we tend to look at differences as a negative thing, when in all actuality it is a positive thing. It's the differences in how people think and view things, that give us our medical breakthroughs, it's the point of teamwork, and it is what makes us all valuable. Having an eating disorder, like the character in my story, or another issue in self worth is difficult to overcome. I decided if I was to discuss the subject matter and it's difficulties, I needed to make it difficult for me to accomplish. So I chose to write a short story with all the main characters being female, and writing from the perspective of a female teenager with an eating disorder. I learned a lot as this was a topic I have no personal experience with, and doing some research so I could write like a teenage girl and an obsession with being dangerously thin, was upsetting. It really showed that a lot of people deem their self-worth based on the comparison and judgement of how they compare to other people. I wanted to show that some of the things most people admire for their beauty, don't compare to others for the reassurance that they are in fact beautiful.
Having read so many articles, watched videos, and done the readings, I found I learned more about the effect of how we think everyone should be, by searching for the personal stories. I found a lot of stories about how people are treated when they are different, or what they are doing to their bodies to obtain an image that can only get there by computerized enhancements. The most concerning part is how it is affecting the younger generations, as it compromises their view and love of themselves. One of the things that has stuck with me, is this years Superbowl commercial https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3GpXgFwWmk . In the commercial they ask people to show what it's like to throw like a girl or run like a girl among other things. The older group, mainly teenagers, make it look insulting. They then asked a younger group, they didn't demonstrate anything that would be viewed as weaker. The point of the commercial is that a young girl's confidence plummets during puberty. I thought about that commercial a lot during this project, and how I don't think being a girl should give anyone the right to view them as weaker or as an excuse to not do well in something. That's why I had my main character go back to address the student body at her previous school and tell her story. I wanted to show her strength in not only overcoming an eating disorder, but by being strong. Not because she is a girl, but because she was herself.
I decided to write a short story to help send the message that we really need to stop being judgmental of other people for their differences. As a society we tend to look at differences as a negative thing, when in all actuality it is a positive thing. It's the differences in how people think and view things, that give us our medical breakthroughs, it's the point of teamwork, and it is what makes us all valuable. Having an eating disorder, like the character in my story, or another issue in self worth is difficult to overcome. I decided if I was to discuss the subject matter and it's difficulties, I needed to make it difficult for me to accomplish. So I chose to write a short story with all the main characters being female, and writing from the perspective of a female teenager with an eating disorder. I learned a lot as this was a topic I have no personal experience with, and doing some research so I could write like a teenage girl and an obsession with being dangerously thin, was upsetting. It really showed that a lot of people deem their self-worth based on the comparison and judgement of how they compare to other people. I wanted to show that some of the things most people admire for their beauty, don't compare to others for the reassurance that they are in fact beautiful.
Having read so many articles, watched videos, and done the readings, I found I learned more about the effect of how we think everyone should be, by searching for the personal stories. I found a lot of stories about how people are treated when they are different, or what they are doing to their bodies to obtain an image that can only get there by computerized enhancements. The most concerning part is how it is affecting the younger generations, as it compromises their view and love of themselves. One of the things that has stuck with me, is this years Superbowl commercial https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3GpXgFwWmk . In the commercial they ask people to show what it's like to throw like a girl or run like a girl among other things. The older group, mainly teenagers, make it look insulting. They then asked a younger group, they didn't demonstrate anything that would be viewed as weaker. The point of the commercial is that a young girl's confidence plummets during puberty. I thought about that commercial a lot during this project, and how I don't think being a girl should give anyone the right to view them as weaker or as an excuse to not do well in something. That's why I had my main character go back to address the student body at her previous school and tell her story. I wanted to show her strength in not only overcoming an eating disorder, but by being strong. Not because she is a girl, but because she was herself.