How Invisible Girl Discovered Her Powers
- ktweeddale
- Jan 3, 2016
- 3 min read
I am living proof that teenage angst is good for something. Forget that first pimple, the hormone-induced greasy hair, and all the lumps and bumps sprouting in all the wrong places. Without a life-changing dose of mortification, I would never have discovered that I had super hero powers. Imagine a painfully shy eighth-grade girl hiding behind unremarkable long hair, fixated on maintaining a 4.0 grade point average. Being a late-bloomer, I definitely hadn’t blossomed, yet; although I was slowly feeling the early effects of a spring thaw thanks to a major crush on the ninth-grade student body president. Need I remind you of how awkward meets coming of age with the blushing in the hallway when your paths cross; going out of my way to become a sports fan to capture a glimpse of my object of infatuation; and writing secretly in my diary “I saw him today. He looked cute.” Let me be clear, I wasn’t one of those silly, giggling girls hanging on a boy’s every word. I had backbone. I just hadn’t found a reason to straighten up and use it.
That is, until the first junior high dance in the cafeteria. It was a wall-flower's dream, no boy-asks-girl or girl-asks-boy protocol, just a bunch of awkward teenagers showing up and trying not to make eye contact as the live band played on. (Yes, we always had a live band – deejays and recorded music was considered second rate.) The popular kids would amble onto the same dance floor that just a few hours prior was smeared with mashed potatoes and brown gravy and beam at the rest of us sideliners who were desperately seeking escape or ascension. And yes, you guessed it. The object of my desire was one of the popular kids. He was Mr. Everything-I-Wanted-But-Could-Not-Have.
After watching Mr. Everything-I-Wanted-But-Could-Not-Have dance with every girl that asked him, and growing weary of shifting my weight from one foot to the other for exactly forty-two and a half minutes, I calculated my odds, bolstered my courage and asked the object of my desire to dance. Have you ever taken your pet to the vet in one of those pet carriers and watched your furry best friend look frantically to the left and then the right wondering how in God’s name they could escape this certain tortuous fate, eventually ending with a soul searching pupil-to-pupil “Why are you doing this to me” look? Well that was Mr. Everything-I-Wanted-But-Could-Not-Have’s preamble to a rather lame, but still major rejection. If I remember right it was something about having to certain "presidential" duties to attend to and then having to leave. I sidled back to my sideline position, and used my powers of observation to watch him dance every remaining dance with the popular girls. I could feel my power rising within me. I was invisible.
Fast forward, two years later. Invisible Girl had blossomed. Much like Spiderman, I experimented with my powers finding how to turn my presence on and off. When I was aloof, I was accepted by the stoners; when I became visible invited to join the popular kids, and when I wanted just to think, I'd hang out with the geeks. I became a chameleon. And eventually, I stole the Mr. Everything-I-Wanted-But Could-Not-Have's (now the high school quarterback and valedictorian) heart. One night, as we were surrounded by sweaty car windows as he lusted to eliminate my virginity, I whispered in his ear, “Remember that girl that asked you to dance in junior high?” And there it was again, that frantic glance to the left and then the right wondering how in God’s name he could escape, eventually ending with that all too familiar soul searching pupil-to-pupil “Why are you doing this to me” look? And all I could think was, "Because, I can."
Don’t tell me invisibility isn’t a super hero power. What we don't see, can still be heard. Even many years later.