When I was fourteen years old, I believed a simple, one syllable, three letter word defined who I was. And thanks to the constant reminders, I could never forget who I was. I was “fat.”

Faded echos of ‘oinks’ and ‘moos’ whispered in my ears as I tried to learn the importance of semicolons. I held in salty tears when teachers said “group project” and then proceeded to put me with kids who thought of me as the “big girl.” I used baggy clothes like parachutes to hide any curve.
   

How could I look forward to high school? There’s five times more students--five times more people to look at me and see nothing but...“fat.” These thoughts rushed through my head as I walked past the rows of glimmering students at eighth grade graduation.

   I dreaded high school. And when my alarm rang on the first day, I rolled over and dug my head into my pillow. Today starts four years of hell.

   But as I walked through the doors of my school for the first time, I felt as though maybe things would be different. A sense of unity shook me as the phrase “One Team” projected through the loudspeakers at the first school assembly.
 

 One Team is what my school has done to fight bullying. One Team is the motto we proudly print on the back of our T-Shirts. And One Team is what we are.
 

 Teammates don’t disrespect one another. And that’s exactly why in my four years of attending my highschool, I was never called or looked at as “the fat girl.”

   We don’t all have the same talents. We don’t look the same. But we are all on the same team.
 

 So I know for a fact that when I walk past the rows of glimmering students at graduation in a couple months...I will once again be sad. But not because I am dreading the future, or because I hated high school. Instead, I will be sad because I know when I walk past the Class of 2015, I will be walking past my teammates. The teammates that taught me that I am not defined by that one syllable, three lettered word.