From Powerless to Powerful

Then, she awakened in the middle of the night inside the platform tent. The flaps were down, but not tied to anything, leaving the corners and the front free to undulate with the nighttime breeze. For a moment she was confused. Not sure where she was. Her eyes adjusted to the dark and she remembered. Alone in a tent full of other girls. All alone. She pulled her sleeping bag around her and tried to catch a whiff of home, where she wanted to be. Not at this place, surrounded by girls who did not seem to see her. She was invisible. Closing her eyes, she lay back down and tried to unhear the sounds of the night. The crunching of leaves, the skitter of creatures, the whispers of hateful girls.

"That was her, snoring," she heard, with the emphasis on her. Soft giggles and snorts. How could she have been snoring when she'd barely been asleep?

"I think she farted." Followed by, "She's so gross."

Tears trickled and she counted the minutes until the sun would come up and at least she could get away from them, to be alone in a bigger group of people.

The dining hall filled with smiling counselors and multiple groups of chitty chatty girls, scrambling for tables and not inviting her to take the last seat. She avoided eye contact, fearful of her gut response.

She sat alone and the camp director joined her.

"Are you having fun?"

Nodding and frowning, she whispers, "Sure," without looking up.

The camp director was delighted. She wasn’t listening.

The eggs were cold, and the milk was warm. They had to sing. She

couldn’t sing. They had to build fires. She was afraid of fires. They had to

hike. She did not bring hiking shoes. They had to canoe in the lake. The lake

filled with fish and slime. She couldn’t swim.

The canoe was wobbly as she sat down, gripping the edges with frightened, rigid fingers. Her life jacket choked her. Her fear choked her more. Her partner taunted and laughed.

“Are you scared? Like the way you’re scared at night?” The girl began to rock, and the canoe tipped. “Can’t swim? No better time to learn.”

The laughter echoed through the hollow and bounced off the water banging her on the head. In the heart. The water wasn’t deep, and she stood in mud, feeling the nips of tiny fish on her ankles and feet. Her salty tears splashed into the water.

And finally, someone noticed and helped her out. An older girl.

“Don’t listen to them,” the girl said as she wrapped a towel around her shoulders. “They are just a tiny blip in your life. Look at you. Smart, strong, trying these things you clearly are not cut out for.”

The aching in her heart eased just a little as the girl’s words traveled from her ears to her brain. A friend. Someone to sit with.

She wasn’t sure if she could stand four more days of this. But at least she’d made a friend. And she made it.

Now, she walks into the packed hall and makes her way through the crowd of beautiful people. Lovely women showing off their designer dresses and shoes, diamonds dangling from their ears and wrists, hair held in impossible styles on the heads of all these strangers. She is alone in a massive group of people. Surrounded and alone. Again.

Tears prickle at her eyes as she continues toward the one empty spot in the room. Her table, the place no one else will sit, but her chosen few. She avoids eye contact, fearful of her gut response.

Three women approach her, gushing and sparkling. "Do you remember us?" Their garish lips and flashy tennis bracelets are meant to intimidate. She remembered them.

"Didn't we have so much fun that summer?" The women are trying to crawl into her skin. And she remembers that night. The tent flaps undulating. The whispers. The tears.

They try to hug her, to spark some kind of response from her. Something positive. Like they were friends. They were not friends. She feels the all too familiar desperate need to be liked by them. To have been liked by them. She realizes that her arms are rising to accept a hug. From them. Then something awakens in her. Like a fire lights a dark night, she had clarity.

She refuses to look at them. No satisfaction for them. And she turns a shoulder and pushes past them, heart racing, and leaves them behind. Their gloved hands trail down her arms, grabbing at her, not wanting to let her go. She can hear the whining, the wishing.

“Why won’t you talk to us?”

“Why won’t she talk to us?”

She stands taller when she sees her table, only a few feet away. She shakes off the past and finds her safety waiting for her. The rumble and roar of the crowd increases and the three women stand, motionless, defeated, disappointed.

The sound system comes to life and the crowd hushes as a tall, handsome man says, "Welcome all. And may I introduce to you the first woman to hold the office of President of the United States of America, my wife." He stands aside and welcomes her with a sweeping gesture and a proud smile.

She stands in her four-inch heels and walks easily to the podium, her legs strong, her mind stronger. They will be a part of her forever, but they will never know just how

important their roles were in making her who she was to be.

Her chin is high, and her voice is powerful.

“Thank you. All of you. It is my great honor and pleasure to serve you. But before we get started, I’d like to share a story with you. A story about a week at a summer camp. A time in my life that I doubted myself and allowed myself to be doubted by others. There are a few women here, tonight, you know who you are, who contributed significantly to my growth journey that summer.”

The crowd was silent, listening, waiting. With a graceful turn of her head, their eyes met.

“You laughed when I cried. You laughed when I failed. You encouraged all around you to laugh, which they did.”

The three women shrunk in the crowd, trying to slink out without being noticed. She watches them with narrowed eyes.

Someone shouts, “That must be them!” And suddenly all eyes are watching them hurry to the exit, sparkling bracelets shining over their ears as they try to cover the cacophony.

“Leave them alone,” she says, grace and class oozing from her. “They helped create me, and for that I am grateful. But I am most grateful for the one person who stood up for me that summer. She reminded me that I wasn’t nothing. And I see her in my mind with every step I take.”

Her eyes sweep the crowd, searching and she saw her. Unassuming and glowing with humility. The look is acknowledged with a slight nod. Empowered, she turned back toward her audience and was rewarded with cheers.

When the speech was finished, she was ushered back through the crowd, deflecting shouts of love and joy, smiling and exhausted. Then she saw them. Standing in the back of the hall, all alone in a massive group of people.

And she kept right on walking.