“When you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what this storm’s all about.”
— Haruki Murakami
We glean our most valuable lessons from some of our worst days. It’s just how life works. While in the middle of it all, it seems as though we won’t survive, but we do. We survive because the hard times force us to evolve. They make us become more than we were before but only if we view them as springboards for growth.
Most of the time, we can’t pinpoint where our changes begin. The struggles of life are happening and, before we know it, we have a new understanding and are better for it. For me, one very specific event set me on a course for the rest of my life. One terrible day of middle school sparked my understanding of how, even after the worst experiences, life goes on. We determine how we allow the experience to affect us.
This is the tale of what happened to me that day.
The Unfortunate Tale of the Halloween Socks
Fall has always been my favorite season for many reasons, Halloween topping the list. I distinctly remember my dad dragging out the lifeless body of his Halloween tote, filled with costumes, props, makeup, and every other knickknack we needed to assemble the perfect Halloween costume. The smells of latex masks and random adhesives conjure memories of previous costumes and nights filled with mischief, pranks, and endless possibilities.
Halloween gives us the chance to become anything we’ve ever wanted. We aren’t limited to the social norms of the rest of the year. Any dreams and desires to become something more are permitted and accepted by everyone. You can be a hero, a villain, and anything in between, then get up and go to work the next day.
Let’s Test the Waters
As I entered middle school, struggling with the usual adolescent insecurities, Halloween seemed the perfect time to break out of my shell and show others a bit of my personality. Halloween allowed me an excuse to be different and to test the waters of new friendships. I had a plan and the most subtle, nuanced bit of weirdness to share.
The plan began to take shape when my dad brought home some Halloween socks for me and my brothers. Where he found these things, I honestly can’t remember, but they were nothing short of miraculous to my middle school mind. Like a vampire at sunrise, though, they seem to be lost to the ages. I can’t track down anything close to the ones I wore that dreadful afternoon.
Like Dress Socks … but SPOOKY
These socks were ghoulishly fun. Imagine dress socks that were just short of calf-high, depicting werewolves, ghosts, and pumpkins, depending on which pair you got. The icing on this Halloween cake was the fact that they all had little speakers in them that would play creepy sounds with the push of a button. They were simple and, I thought, the perfect way to be a little weird without being full-on Freddy.
I felt good but nervous the morning of this tragic day. I was up early and ready for school, excited to show off these tricky treats. The first person I had to show was my neighbor, Brad. We had been best friends for years, growing up sharing a fence line. He was a couple years older than me and obviously could guide me as to what was cool and what wasn’t. With his stamp of approval, I was on top of the world. What could go wrong as a 6th grader … wearing socks decorated with ghosts … and capable of sounding like a successful seance?
I’ve Made a Huge Mistake
I began to doubt my life choices when I got the courage to show some friends in homeroom. My friend, Daniel, did not have the reaction I thought he would. Daniel laughed and pointed them out to the rest of homeroom. Others said things like, “Oh, wow. … ” Somewhere, I had made a gross miscalculation. That little voice inside every teenager’s head was now screaming at me for being so stupid. Not to worry, I reminded myself. This is why I wore something I could hide from others.
It was social studies, with Mr. Smith, that would be my undoing.
Ghosts and Social Studies Don’t Mix
Mr. Smith was our 6th grade Social Studies teacher and everyone’s favorite. He wasn’t what I would call old, looking back on it now, but he was oldish. I remember a white spot of hair on the back of his head that he claimed was from being struck by lightning (I still don’t know if it was true). His stories and his enthusiasm for his subject kept the entire class enthralled. Mr. Smith was a teacher who loved what he did and everyone could tell. His ability to draw his students into the lecture, combined with an ever-present bad habit I had formed, was the formula of my demise.
I could never get comfortable in the tiny, plastic, suffocatingly small vessels we were forced to sit in at school. There were a few different positions that would satisfy me for a little while, but my go-to move was to sit with one foot underneath my ass until it went numb, then swap. I’d done it for as long as I could remember. So much, it earned me the “Indian name” of Sitting Bull in 1st grade.
Mr. Smith dug into his lecture, lulling us all with his words, and before I knew what was going on, the sounds of ghosts haunted the classroom. The heat from blood vessels burned in my face as the blood rushed in. My girlfriend at the time stared at me, wide-eyed, while she turned a similar shade. She hadn’t been impressed when I flashed her the digs in homeroom. I admitted to Mr. Smith it was my socks and apologized, but he already far too angry. He informed me that further interruptions would land me in the principal’s office.
Murphy’s Law Is Oh So Cruel
By now, my palms were sweating, my heart racing, and all I could think about was making sure to not sit on my damn foot. “How the fuck is this 50-minute class still going?” I thought. It felt like an eternity.
Slowly, everyone stopped giggling and we were able to get back to the lesson. There were one or two people who would peak and snicker, here and there, but most had gone back to listening to Mr. Smith. Eventually, my adrenaline wore off and I was fully invested in the lesson again.
Then, it happened. Without thinking, I went to reposition myself in the desk, foot headed for its favorite spot. I thought I had caught myself in time, but it was too late. The ghosts were back for a second haunting. The classroom exploded with laughter.
Why Won’t It Stop?!
I was mortified. Not only did I trip the speaker in my socks, but it malfunctioned and began repeating on an endless loop. Every time it got back to the beginning of the loop, the ghastly chorus would begin again. Mr. Smith was fuming and every next loop he would turn back around glaring, then threatening a write-up, then telling me I had better make that noise stop immediately. I pleaded that I couldn’t make it stop. Each time it got back to the beginning of the loop, I made deals with the devil, I talked to God; I would have done anything to make it stop.
What I actually did was bury my head into my arms and cry in front of the entire class and my girlfriend. I wanted to turn into one of the ghosts on my socks and disappear. When would I wake up from this nightmare that had become my reality?
Finally, Mr. Smith excused me to the bathroom, where I immediately ripped the howling sound box out of my socks and beat it to smithereens before slamming it, with as much anger as I could muster, into the trashcan. The rest of the school day was spent avoiding eye contact and counting down the minutes until I could go home and forget about the first worst day of my life.
As I look back now, I can laugh at the ridiculousness of the day and how I just knew I would never live it down. But, as things do, life went back to normal. School was school. Kids continued to gossip and show off. Classes came and went. Grades were posted, report cards were signed, life went on.
You Live and Grow Through Life’s Experiences
I doubt anyone remembers my Halloween socks, but that day is one I can look back on and know forced my personal growth. I’ve evolved past being the nerdy middle-schooler, trying to find where I belong in the world. Bad days don’t affect me the way they used to because I know there will be better days to come. I’m comfortable now with how much weird I bring to the table. All of these understandings started with the day I wore those socks.
There’s only so much bad that can happen before something good replaces it.
How Will You Decide to Live?
Everyone’s life will have days that are truly terrible. While the terrible is happening, it’s easy to be fooled into thinking it will always be that way, but all storms are temporary.
The decision we have is whether we let the bad times break us down or decide to build ourselves up as a result. We decide what we’re going to do with what life’s storms throw at us. For me, I decide to live for the good days and grow from the bad ones. How will you weather your storms?
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A version of this post was previously published on GoFindYourHappy and is republished here with permission from author.
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Photo credit: istockphoto