Heather Toe: The Beginning

My name is Heather. For the purposes of this blog, I will call myself Heather Toe, which will be explained soon. I am a 30-year old housewife with three kids. Wait! Don't stop reading! I know, boooooring, right?! Well, maybe sometimes, but it can be pretty hectic, too. However, before you stop reading because you think this blog will be a waste of time, read at least the rest of this post to see if what I have to say can be of some help to you at all...or will at least provide you with some good laughs at my expense! I can make it easier for you, though. Let me just do something to help you quickly decide if you should keep reading or go somewhere else for what you're looking for. Here's a little quiz:

1. Doyou (did you if you're older than high school) feel bullied, left out, or somehow estranged from your peers at school?

2. Do you feel awkward in social situations?

3. Do you have a hard time making friends or keeping friends?

4. Do you have a low self-esteem?

5. Are you looking for some answers or some good discussion/ideas about how to be happier, how to be optimistic, how to make friends, get over worrying about what people think about you, etc?

6. Do you often feel lonely, depressed, angry, hopeless, maybe suicidal or want to sometimes hurt yourself?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, I think you could gain a lot from following this blog. I'm not going to make you spend any of your time reading about my life right now. Instead, this blog is all about my awkward preteen and teenage years. I will call myself Heather Toe, and I will let you in on all of the horribly awkward, embarrassing, and often depressing and lonely moments of my youth. I will show you how I went from a confident elementary school kid with plenty of friends to a lonely, depressed, and often bitter teenager who didn't have much hope for the future. You will see the many different awful hairstyles and outfits I experimented with (oh, you're gonna laugh, cringe, or cry while your laughing and cringing at the same time when you see some of my old pictures and videos!). I will show you what it felt like to go through all 12 years of public education being looked at as weird, stupid, awkward, and different. I will talk to you about how all of my best friends left me high and dry for no apparent reason after elementary school and never came back. I will tell you about constantly comparing myself to the popular kids and not being able to get the guts to compete against them for school plays (even though I KNEW I could sing better than those popular twin girls that got rave reviews), spots on the yearbook staff, a column in the school newspaper, or a certain boy (or ANY boy) to take me to the dance. And, I will tell you about the nights I spent curled up in a ball on my bed crying for hours after work because I just didn't feel good enough, pretty enough, smart enough, confident enough, or...whatever enough. Just not....enough. I'll tell you it all.

I don't want to claim that I have all the answers about how to make all of your difficult adolescent experiences go away or how to get the popular people to like you (that, sadly, was my main goal all through school, since the popular people in high school were my best friends in elementary school). I still struggle tremendously with self confidence issues, feeling ugly or overweight, and falling into bouts of depression...yes, even as an OLD lady! But I do have SOME helpful insights, some good (I hope) ideas (maybe even some GREAT ideas), and a hope that as more and more people read this blog, we can all start discussing with one another. I want to hear YOUR ideas! Boy, could I have used a friend in junior high and high school who understood me and what I was going through but, at the same time, had good ideas for me rather than being sad and depressed and lonely just like me. I want us to all help each other. So, after a small little bio on me, I will close this post as Heather, the old mommy, and open the next as Heather Toe. As you read, feel free to point at your computer or phone or iPad or whatever and laugh at me. I can't see you, so it's not gonna hurt me (unless you post a comment about it later, which...I think I'm still ok with). And maybe you'll make yourself feel better...even if just for a minute. If you don't care about who I am now, don't read the rest of this post. Just stop reading now and wait for the next one. :)

I grew up in southwestern Missouri, where my three siblings and I moved with our mom after our parents divorced. I always had issues with my hair because it is frizzy and curly and my mom had NO IDEA what to do with it (or, rather her ideas were not so great...sorry mom. I love you, but let's be honest. Go back and look at some of my pictures). Oh it was bad. You will see. I had no sense of fashion. I never wore makeup. And I had/have a hairy back, which really isn't relevant but I just thought I'd mention it! :) I had plenty of friends in elementary school, but was teased by some. Anyway, I'll get more into that as we go, but just to make it short, I HATED junior high and high school. I still have nightmares of those days. Ugh. But on to who I am now. I am a mother of three so cute boys who constantly drive me crazy (good thing they're cute). I've been married to a wonderful, loving man for almost 8 years who tells me multiple times every day that I'm beautiful and that he loves me and always wants to spend time with me. I am mostly happy. I have my days - everyone does - and still struggle to really connect with people because of my school experiences (and also stemming from my parents' divorce), but I'm trying and I'm hopeful. People tell me that the only thing standing in the way of me making friends is me...because I look so confident that no one thinks I need friends....WHAT?! Yeah, multiple people have told me that (I was a little desperate and broke down to ask a few people why they didn't like me....awkward, yes), so I think it must have some truth to it. I like singing, piano, reading, my iPhone (I'm way to obsessed with it), and my family and friends. I'm searching still for a lot of answers, but I'm hopeful I can find them and I want to help others in any way I can.

As you read and get to know Heather Toe, feel free to ask her ANYTHING about her life, thoughts, feelings, etc. So, here we go. Let's talk!


P.S. If you decide to follow this blog, I recommend that your parents know you visit this site just so they are aware of what it's all about.


P.P.S The dates on these posts are going to be out of order and won't make sense because the only way I know how to put them in the order I want them in is to mess with the dates, so...until I figure out a different way, the dates will be screwy. :)


Also, take a look at my side bar. There are links to a few pages of things that may help you feel better about life now and have hope for your future.

Hairstyle Woes

So, this is a picture I drew once of the different hairstyles I had growing up...except the one that says "Dinosaur Skills" underneath it. That was drawn by my 5-year old who thought it would be pretty funny to give me yet another horrible hairstyle! :) I'll talk about each of these hairstyles, and probably some more as times goes by. I will also willingly post actual pictures of how my hair really looked. Oh! And you may notice that I have one big nostril and one slightly smaller nostril in each drawing. That was done on purpose, because yet another of my physical flaws that drove me crazy as a teenager (and that I like to point out to people and laugh about now) is that my right nostril is bigger than my left nostril! Hey, at least you don't have that problem, right?! :)

Heather Toe: The day I got the nickname

One of the worst days of elementary school for me was when I got the nickname "Heather Toe." Looking back on it now, it's not a big deal at all and it's actually kind of funny to me, but back then, it was embarrassing and all of the kids in class laughed at me. The funny thing is, the nickname didn't stick. No one at school ever called me that again (although my older sister thought it was funny and cute and so still calls me Heather Toe to this day - as well as a few other embarrassing things that I will keep between her and me), but it stuck in my mind and it was the beginning of me looking at myself as different than all of the other kids. It happened like this:


It was third grade. My teacher had us pass our papers to someone else in the room to grade. After we finished grading, she had us read aloud the name of the person's paper that we graded AND tell her what their grade was. I think it's illegal to do that nowadays, but back then, in the dark ages, I guess it was ok. ? Anyway, I guess the way I wrote my name was a little confusing to the boy who graded my paper (I wrote "Heather" and then a "T" with a big circle next to it for a period), because when it was his turn to declare whose paper he had graded, he said, "Um....Heather.....T...Toe?" Everyone in the class laughed, including the teacher. Some of the kids in class already called me "Heather Feather," which back then I thought was so mean. I could feel my cheeks getting red with embarrassment. I sunk down in my seat as low as I could and put my head down on my desk. I couldn't bear to hear the kids laughing and, in my mind, I imagined them all looking at me, pointing, and repeating "Heather Toe, Heather Toe" over and over. 


How I could have handled that situation differently?

Back then, even a silly little name like "Heather Toe" or "Heather Feather" hurt my feelings. I know some of you out there probably have heard much more damaging words attached to your names. Kids can come up with some of the meanest nicknames! When I had my third boy, I really wanted to name him "Tucker" but my husband wouldn't let me. He said that kids would make fun of him and call him "Tucker F$&*er," which I hadn't even thought about! So, we chose another name! It's just sad that kids will do that to each other, don't you think?

Well, I've had quite a few more nicknames since my Heather Toe and Heather Feather days, some good ones and others not so nice! But I don't let them bother me anymore. I hope, too, that if you are going through something like this that you can find a way to not let it bother you, to rise above it. So, what could I have done differently to not let these silly names bother me?

- I could have laughed along with the class, which I think would have given them the impression that their name-calling didn't bother me at all. A lot of times, just the fact that kids can see that you're bothered by something they do or say gives them the feeling that they have some kind of power over you, which makes them feel superior to you and encourages them to do more. Don't give them that power! Keep it for yourself!

- I could have just ignored the laughing like it didn't bother me- again, you keep the power in this situation.

- I could have made up nicknames for other kids in the class and laughed at them, but that probably would have made things worse for myself. I would have made some enemies and probably would have provoked further teasing from them. I don't recommend you do something like this!

- I could have gone home and told my mom about it or talked to one of my friends or other family members that I trusted about it. Sometimes just talking things like this through with someone can really help you feel better and get some good ideas about how to deal with it.


I think one important thing we all need to realize is that we often think in our minds that situations are worse than they really are. I don't think the kids in my class were really pointing fingers at me, and I didn't hear anyone chanting "Heather Toe, Heather Toe," so I had made it worse and more embarrassing for myself than it really needed to be. At the same time, I know, and have seen, that there really are situations where some kids are made fun of, pointed at, laughed at, and called mean names. Those are serious situations and need to be addressed as soon as possible. 

Do any of you have some ideas about how you can handle a situation like this one?