She was never cool. From the moment kids were old enough to understand physical appearance, she was left out. She smelled funny, she was socially awkward, and she wasn't as pretty as the other girls. Her only friends were others like her. In this small town, that meant the other poor girls from working-class families. They didn't think of it in terms like that - she was simply not popular. But at the end of the day she wasn't liked because of who her parents were and what she represented to a small-town culture that valued the American dream.
She had so many dreams, so much she wanted to accomplish. But the harsh reality of her disadvantages meant that she floated through life post-high school from job to job. At times she struggled to find work. She tried to make a life of her own, and failed over and over again. She looked to men to solve her problems, to take care of her. Only by sheer fortune did she escape pregnancy. The rest avoided her. She represented failure to them, and so she was consigned to the same social rank her parents came from: "bottom of the barrel."
They hated her. They made all sorts of judgments about her. She was the ostracized. She was judged on the basis of things over which she had no control. Before she was even old enough to drive a car she had been consigned to an almost certain future. The rest judged her, forgetting that they were also the product of their environment.
They grew up in well-to-do middle class families with social standing in their small community. They were athletic, good looking, and knew the right way to dress, speak, and act. They belonged. They took these privileges and turned them into moral attributes that they found lacking in their ostracized classmate.
The most she could hope for in life was their worst nightmare. And they faulted her for it. They felt justified in their judgement by their successes, which were really not successes at all - just the result of their privilege.
God, forgive us.
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