The Fart Story

One would think after thirteen years, an embarrassing moment would simply fade away from the conscious mind into obscurity. But that’s just not how the human mind works – in fact, on a random day, you could be hit with a sudden wave of cringe. The feeling of wanting to hide under a rock and disappear from the face of the Earth. My experience left a scar for life etched in my brain. I have never told a single soul, nobody, I mean nobody knows, its top secret. Just the fact that I am talking about it now is almost inducing an anxiety attack. All these emotions are rushing to the surface now, but it’s time to tell my story because, I mean, why not? So here it goes. It’s time to tell the world the fart story… I low-key hope no one reads this, fingers crossed.

Thirteen years ago, I was in seventh grade. I was not the popular kid; I was the painfully shy and introverted quiet little girl, whose only dream was to one day be an actress in some show on the Disney channel. I remember it like it was yesterday. I was in language arts class, writing an expository essay on the celebrity that we admire the most. I recall not feeling well that day, my stomach was hurting a lot and was full of gas. I didn’t think anyone would hear my fart, you know, the difference between the silent farts and the loud ones? Well, I assumed in all my years of experience that it was the silent one, and boy was I wrong. It was loud. The whole class turned around, my face turned red hot like burning lava and I wanted to be swallowed by the ground. In the aftermath, I didn’t know what to do, all eyes were on me! My classmates asked me ‘’Did you just fart?’’ I said ‘’yeahhhhhh’’ awkwardly – now just imagine the girl from Legally Blonde’s voice saying that. My instinct was to react with yes. I don’t know why I didn’t deny it, maybe I thought by me admitting that I farted they would have reacted a different way. After I said yes, the kids burst into a thunderous laughter and began making fun of me. Ever since that day, I was never the same again. I wanted to be the class clown for once, but it turned out to be my worst nightmare. From that single moment, I became the joke of my middle school – just because I let out gas, like everyone else does. I mean, all humans fart, its normal. Now tell that to a bunch of middle schoolers, its daunting. After that day, the kids would not leave me alone. I would come across a classmate and they would say ‘”yeahhh’’ in the Legally blonde voice. They would mimic me, find other flaws in me and call me fat, dumb and flat face. Kids can be cruel. Things my classmates would tell me really got under my skin. I even tried to convince my parents to let me switch schools entirely. I counted the days, hours, minutes, and seconds for my middle school years to be over. I just didn’t want to be me anymore. I would make up reasons to not go to school. To this day, I can say my middle school days were my darkest days. I was insecure and felt out of place. I never was the type of person to defend myself. I would just stay quiet in silence, not saying one word. I also felt like no one cared, not the teachers, not the students, not anybody – because they were aware of the bullying but never stood up for me. I felt voiceless and hopeless. The thing is that I am sensitive, and I take things extremely personally. I know it’s a bad thing, but I feel like it’s something I have to cope with. But it’s funny how the world is, because the kid that would make fun of me the most asked me to dance with him at a school dance in high school, I said no. It’s not that I hold grudges, I just never looked at him the same after the trauma that the incident caused me. Have I moved on from this? Yes, I have I forgiven those that hurt me in my past, but I will never forget. It’s one of the things that never leaves your subconscious mind. Like sure, I can move on from this, but I can never forget the pain that I went through. Writing about this makes me feel good, because I am releasing all the hurt I have inside me, all the pain that I experienced. It’s cathartic. I am using this as a learning experience to not let people get to me. Also, I feel like things would have been different if I would have stood up for myself, but I am not going to dwell on the past. All I can do is acknowledge what was done to me and grow from it. I can say that this made me stronger as a person. I mean it’s just a fart, right? But it was more than just a fart. It’s was a fart that caused me great pain. Now I can finally release it to the Universe and say it no longer serves me to carry this pain.

And so, it is.