Finding Chaz

With my Dad standing above six feet tall and my mom being above average height for a woman-- I was told by everyone that I'd be tall when I got older. And, having a love for basketball, this made me excited. I was always average height through elementary school and during my fifth grade year I got really excited when I learned that it was  time for my body to start growing and changing. I think I was the only student in the whole school who walked out of the maturation program with an excitement for the future!

Puberty is the thing that dreams are made of!

My sixth grade year came and this was it, this was the beginning of becoming a man. On my first day of school and I saw tons of changes -- facial hair, 6 inch growth spurts, body odor and cracking voices were abundant among my classmates. Only, none of these changes applied to me. I stood the same height as the previous year -- a firm 5 feet tall, scrawny and squeaky, I basked in all my unchanged glory.

In fact, I grew a whopping three inches from sixth grade year, until my junior year in high school. It was absolutely awful – but it was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. I learned a lot by being the butt of every joke, the punching bag of my peers and called names by my friends and strangers at school... and being endlessly harassed by an old man at church who wanted me to sit on a pillow while I drove my car. Claiming, he couldn't see me over the steering wheel. Anyway, I learned a lot from this LONG period of my life.

This is my, "you think I'm kidding... but I'm not" face.

When it was time to start seventh grade, I showed no signs of getting taller.  Most people had grown taller than me, at least by a couple inches, and apparently my body was in no rush to keep up. I was smaller than pretty much everybody. This is when the teasing and names began. “Shorty” and “smalls” were two of the more creative names that people used to make fun of me. It was the first time I experienced bullying, and I wasn’t big enough to do anything about it. Like the time in kindergarten when I shoved a kid to the ground because he insisted on walking around and bopping the girls on the head. But that was before the dark times… before the hormones.

One day in seventh grade, I was walking to art class, and a big tall Mexican came walking through the door. As we passed, I felt a great big fist ram into my stomach. I let out a gasp of air as I folded in half and dropped my binder. The Mexican then kicked my binder down the hall, luckily I had it zipped shut, and laughed at me as she strutted down the hall. Yes, you read that right, SHE. This  encounter with a bully was a huge Mexican girl. And she had just socked me -- right in the gut.

I realize this is a horrible drawing... I'm not trying to be racist. I just don't feel I owe this girl enough to do a good job depicting her.

I picked up my binder and went and sat in my seat by the teachers desk and put my head down. Tears began to well in my eyes as I wondered, “Why did she do that? I don’t even know her. Why would she do that to me?” I sat there, embarrassed, confused, upset and most of all, angry. I heard two of the teachers whispering. One of the teachers whispered the name of my attacker, which caused me to eavesdrop. My feeling of anger diminished as I overheard them talk about the rough life she had. By the time the bell rang to begin class, my emotions had changed from contempt and anger, to compassion and heartache for the girl. Even though I was only in seventh grade, I gained a small understanding of the girl and why she had felt a compulsion to sock somebody. She was just treating me the way she was treated.

The next day I walked to art class nervously -- fighting the urge to slip my binder up my shirt...you know...for padding. I was nervous because I had made up my mind to simply smile and say hello to her. When we passed I let out a nervous, "hello," and waited to be pummeled. She just looked at me and then walked by without any further acknowledgment. I did this everyday. After a few days she began to say hello back. After a while she began to smile at me as we passed.

 That experience opened my eyes, and showed me many people have a much more difficult claim to life than I do. As often as I can, I try to put myself in other people’s shoes, so I can try and understand them.

Forgiveness is perhaps one the most difficult tasks we are asked to do as human beings. When somebody wrongs you, you want vengeance -- or at least karma to catch up and punch them in the throat. But, that doesn't always happen...in fact, it rarely does.

When I was in 8th grade, on a cold and wintry day, I stayed after school to do homework with one of my teachers. When I was done, I went to my locker, put on my coat and began to walk outside to wait for my mom. Okay, so my coat... it was new... and puffy... I mean, really, really puffy! When I put it on I turned into at hybrid of the Michelin Man and Baymax from Big Hero 6. The coat made me a little self conscious. Each day I would wear my coat onto the bus, then as soon as I was at school, I'd stuff it in my locker and wear my hoodie the rest of the day. As I walked by a group of older students to meet my mom, one of them pointed at me and said, "look, a fat little hobbit!" They all laughed and continued making hobbit jokes as I walked out of the school red faced and embarrassed.

What made me more upset than anything was that they used the term, "hobbit" to make fun of me. I had recently read The Lord of the Rings books and loved them. Kinda added insult to injury.

Actually, all throughout high school, I loved to read. It gave me an escape, a way to let my mind wander. I LOVED to read. I read at least a book a week through high school. In my reading class one year I read the most pages out of anybody in the entire trimester. Yup, I’m awesome. I read every Michael Crichton book available, read, re-read, and then re-re-read the Harry Potter series and loved any book about Native Americans, mountain men and the civil war.

NO FRIENDS= tons of spare time

Reading was a great outlet for me. It gave me a chance to get away from the negative for a bit, and just  unwind. However, nothing, and I mean NOTHING, gave me quite as much joy as reading Calvin and Hobbes did. That was my go to literature. If I just couldn’t take it anymore, I read Calvin and Hobbes. I would read strip after strip. I loved Calvin, and I really identified with the situations he was placed in. He was awesome unto himself, but misunderstood by his peers. Especially by the bully Moe -- stinking Moe!

After my first week of my sophomore year...this is exactly how I felt. This ^^ was actually a really common occurrence.

My sophomore year I tried out for the basketball team and I was cut. I was one of the last to try out that was cut, and the coach told me it was because I was just too small. About a week after I had been cut from the basketball team, my sophomore year, I was sick of not being able to accomplish as much as I thought I could if I were taller. I thought if I were taller I’d be on the basketball team and I could finally find friends that didn’t constantly tease and punch me... and the group of high school seniors, that I didn't even know, that thought it was hilarious to throw me up against the lockers, punch me in the arm or gut every time they saw me in the hallway, would just leave me alone.

I guess this coulda worked

This one speaks more to the truth

I believe in God. I believe that we are his children and that he loves us and wants the best for us. That being said, one night I was angry and upset because it was the end of my sophomore year and I still hadn’t changed a bit... not only that, but I missed my best friend Tyler, who had moved to Arizona the year before. I thought about how things would be different if I was only taller. I shared a room with my brother, and I just felt like I needed to communicate verbally my frustrations with my Heavenly Father. So I went downstairs and knelt down on the couch and began to pray. I pleaded with God, I asked him to let me grow and to help me find people that were not just nice to me, but truly my friends. I prayed (cried) for over an hour. When I finished my prayer, I sat there and waited...

I waited, kneeling on the couch, head down, eyes closed in the moonlit room, waiting for an answer from God. When, suddenly, I heard the words, "everything will be okay." Instantly, I felt an awesome sense of peace overcome me. All my concerns and sadness seamed to evaporate, and the words, "everything will be okay," assured me things would eventually get better.

From that point on I learned to be okay with who I was. I was short, super friend-able with the ladies and a dang good three point shooter. A lot of the bullying and teasing eventually stopped, simply because, I stopped caring. I didn’t let it phase me anymore. When I decided that I was okay with who I was, suddenly, most people were okay with who I was too. And if they weren't...oh well.

 My junior year started just like every other year. Same height...same everything. I found "school friends" but I really didn't have any close friends. I was a group hopper and a gym rat. I'd sit next to my "school friends" while I ate lunch and then would go and play basketball in the gym with my "lunch time basketball friends." I had made peace with the fact that I never went anywhere or really did anything with people in my grade outside of school.

Then, some of my classmates invited me to go paint-balling with them, and I went. And man, I'm so glad I did. Because, during the summer between my Junior and Senior year, that's when everything changed for me. It didn't matter that I had finally started to grow, but, I had found a group of friends that reached out to me and accepted me as I was.

And now, 9 years later, everything is okay.

No matter what trials or difficulties that trip me up as I stagger through this life, I have faith that there is a plan. I believe there is a reason that we go through certain trials at different times in our lives. I've seen this so strongly through the friends that have come into my life. I love them all so much. Things don't always work out the way we think we want it to. Or the way that we think is the best in that moment, but, I firmly believe that, if we trust in God, our Heavenly Father, "everything will be okay." Through trials and happy days -- this group of people has been one of the ultimate blessings in my life. And through marriages, babies and other means...the love just keeps a growing.

                                                                  ***Disclaimer***
I know that some of you that read this will wonder if I've forgotten about you and our friendship. That's a no. But I couldn't very well write about my entire youth. I just hand selected some of the most difficult times of my youth and events that shaped and changed my life. I had so many wonderful friends, church leaders and parents growing up... freak, I even got to be in a band, The Wannabees for a while. You are not forgotten.