Loser
That’s the word that came to me last week while working through the shadow workshop.
“I am a loser” is my shadow phrase.
Here are a few things before I get comments or emails about me not being a loser. First and foremost, I know EVERYONE at some point in their life has felt like a loser. We can’t be the all-star of every team. Your team isn’t always going to win. The perfect job may end up not so perfect, and we leave or get fired. We aren’t always going to get a date with THE person of our lives. I.e. life is life. You win some you lose some. I get that, this runs deeper.
Over the last 5 years, as I’ve been redefining myself after leaving my ego pleasing career behind, I’ve often felt like a loser. Why? On the surface you’d say because I’ve taken on easy jobs in hospitality. While they are physically demanding, they are not intellectually. Which in my family, a job isn’t “real” unless it’s intellectually strenuous. After all it is the main thing, we all got going for us. We may be quiet, I’m speaking for the rest of my family, but we can hold our own in a room full of academics, physicist, and doctors. Thus, when I left my career in academia for a less conventional family pursuit, I was happier no doubt, but I also felt like I was a loser.
This persona didn’t evolve when I left Marine Science. No, to be a shadow, it’s always been there lingering just below the surface of my personality. Even in Marine Science, I often felt like a loser. We were all a bunch of nerds who really cared about the ocean, yet we still had clicks. No matter where I went, there was always one group of colleagues who were besties. I was never in that group. I always found friends on the fringe. I was never lonely. I always had friends in the “it” group, sometimes becoming close with one or two of their members. But overall, I wasn’t a part of the clan. Thus, always feeling slightly rejected by my peers.
The rejection within my field grew roughly 2 years into my career. I was at my second job within the field, my first big girl job, i.e. benefits, 401k, and PTO. While I enjoyed the job, it involved a lot of travel. I was constantly on the go, and I knew burn out wasn’t far of fin my future. Thus, after fulfilling the year my contract required, I started investigating next steps. Either a different job pursuit or graduate school.
I applied to about 50 jobs over the course of 2 years while sending out roughly 15 letters to potential graduate professors. I heard back from 3 graduate professors. The first, interested in me, but wasn’t studying sharks like my little heart was dead set on doing. Thus, it was up to me to further communications. I politely turned down his work with salmon, minnows, and sturgeon. The second was always interested in me, yet his university that did not financially support graduate students. Thus, he deterred me from joining. The third became my M.S. professor. Most don’t believe me, but I did not receive a single job interview or interest. Also, those jobs were not like the jobs I apply to now where I simply send in my resume and say “fuck it” to the cover letter unless I’m seriously interested. I spent time on each cover letter, agonizing over the verbiage thinking if I made it just right, if I crafted perfect the cover letter, they’d give me a chance. No chance was ever given.
That hurt. Over the last 5 years, post graduate school, I’ve applied for multiple jobs. Probably closer to 100 within the last year. I have not had a single interview. I have not had a single email of interest to set up an interview. All I receive are the:
Thank you for your time. We will be moving forward with other applicants.
Granted I spend less time on applications these days. Most jobs I simply send in a resume and forget about it. Having a M.S. degree, I’m overqualified for the majority of them. Regardless if they are in my field of study or not. The cover letters I do send are usually me trying to convince them managing a lab of 20 students while attending graduate school does equal to the 2-5 years of managerial experience they are requiring.
This hurts. This continues the loser persona. But it didn’t start here. Everything we feel now, every characteristic we exhibit, every limiting belief, started between the age of 0-14. Some may have started from 14-21, but I’ve found, they didn’t start then. They started earlier and were simply nailed into my persona from 14-21.
Sooooooo….
Where does the word come from for me?
Why does it hold meaning?
Why does it cause such a startling reaction with my inner child?
The main event started when I was 9, the 4th grade. Realizing I was only 9 when I lost my sense of self. When I started allowing the thoughts and opinions of others shape me makes me tear up for that little 9-year-old tomboy.
The year prior in 3rd grade, I’d made friends. I made lots of friends. I felt like I was a part of a group within my grade. That year held a lot of very fond memories for me. Going into the 4th grade I thought things would only get better because for 4th grade we had a single teacher. We weren’t split into two different groups. Thus, we spent all day with everyone in our grade, not simply recess. I would get to spend all day with my friends!
The scenario quickly turned into my demise. I’m not sure when it started, how far into the school year we were. It could’ve been from day one, it could’ve been mid-year. I really don’t recall. All I remember is by my birthday in March, I was a complete outcast.
It started with all my friends running away from me on the playground. In the beginning, I thought it was some kind of mean game. A game that would be over at the end of recess. The end of recess turned into the end of the week. Turned into me always doing things alone throughout that grade. Sure, I sat next to them in the cafeteria, at the end with no one sitting across from me. I would sit there overhearing their conversation, or trying to so I could be a part of it, while I ate my lunch alone. If I walked into the bathroom, they would laugh and run out. This occurred so frequently, I was afraid of going to the bathroom. I would do my best to not have to use it the whole day. So, I wouldn’t have to face the humiliation of being left out and laughed at.
I was. I was the outcast. I was a loser.
The behavior continued through 5th grade as well. Luckily that year we went back to 2 classrooms, and all the major bullies were in the other class. I didn’t have to sit next to them in every day. I only had to face them on the playground.
To this day, I don’t know why this happened. Maybe I did something mean, said something wrong? Maybe I was too friendly with the boys they liked, being the main tomboy in class? Maybe because I was smarter? Maybe because one thought I was prettier? Maybe because I was too nice making me an easy target? Sincerely, I don’t recall what I did.
I do recall struggling with my grades that year. I went from being the smartest in the class to being average. Making my first and only C of grade school.
I remember telling my mom, and her responding with “They are simply jealous of you.” Hindsight, my mother was probably right at the time. I came from a good middle class home in a school where many of my peers lived in trailers. I never NEEDED anything. I always brought packed lunch. My parents always dropped us off and picked us up from school. Yet, when you’re the only girl in your class without friends none of those things matter. I was the one that didn’t have friends. In my mind, what did I have to be jealous of?
I was the loser of my class.
While the torcher was over after 5th grade due to joining up to a larger middle school in 6th, the damage was done. From that point on throughout my life I’ve never been a part of the group. I’ve made plenty of strong connections. I have a bunch of friends strung across the country, I’m forever grateful for, yet a part of me will always be that little rejected girl in 4th grade. The one no one wanted to talk to. The one no one wanted to play with. The one with the bleeding heart no one heard.
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