Lea's necklace: a childhood tale

   Today i again saw Wolverine and man, is it still a good movie.  I still get all heart tingly when--well...you'll see.  I know i should talk about Alaska i knoooowwwwww buuuuttttt i don't want to right now because instead, i have a story for you.  All of this is in fact true and a bit embarrassing but yall seem to love that so, onward to my lengthy childhood!  
    As a kid, i was a tomboy.  In fact, i was such a tomboy, the word dress made me cringe, the thought of make-up made (and still does make) me curl away, and frivolous activities such as patty-cake were never

The best part of recess

learned and were discarded from my mind.  This phase lasted for quite a while.  Because of this attitude, i met Nick and the boy which really did shape my life.  When i talk more about Pokemon in other posts, you'll see just how much that humble beginning shaped my whole world.  Every recess i played Pokemon or Codename: Kids Next Door, Superheroes (namely, one named Go-girl, who had ever power imaginable.  Yaaaaaaaa.......) or sometimes even Yu-Gi-Oh, but not with cards, with my imagination.  The lot of us would run around and imagine stories and act them out, like a LARP everyday!  This continued at my second elementary school growing to include things like fantasy, science fiction, the expansive possibilities of love triangles and dragons, ray guns and Pokemon!
   However, the days of play ground fun ended when i moved into middle school.  Middle school was different.  There was REAL homework with REAL consequences.  There were instruments to learn that weren't just recorders in a general music class.  There were "magnets", or rather, career based classes you could take.  Life became less straight lines and filling down the hallway to scrambling through a sea of bodies all the way across the school alone.  What's worse, i went to one out of my elementary school's district, meaning almost all of my friends i had made in the past 2 years at my new school were lost. This phase caused me to shift from light-hearted and tomboyish, to cold and judgmental.  I had trouble finding friends.  I didn't want to be friends with girls seeing as i had only had 2 or 3 close female friends in elementary school and i figured the same rules applied.  I was very wrong.  I became isolated and ended up only making one good friend through Pokemon (which shall be addressed in a later post and is in fact, she and i saw Wolverine together today).  Other friends came and went and weren't as close to me as others had been.  I got teased, picked on, hated by other people.  I was that girl people hated being paired with.  I was a know it all, i was a jerk, and the worst part was, i didn't know it. This tormenting from other girls and the guys i wanted to be friends with made me shut off more and more until that fateful year when i fell in love with my Wolverine.  I finally found my bearing in 8th grade when talk of a Wolverine movie began.  I suddenly had another obsession, one that i had no idea how i knew so much about.  I for some unexplainable reason knew everything about X-Men and specifically, Logan.  8th grade finally gave me personality again.  I talked, i was loud, i went to dances and laughed, and although i didn't know it at the time, made a lot of friends for high school.  I had never understood why my friend from elementary school hung pictures of Orlando Bloom in her room or why she fantasised over movie characters, but i finally let myself accept that i loved Wolverine in a strange, fantastical way and became a spazz.
   High school however, loomed over head.  I feared that this new found personality would get me hurt just like my old one had.  I had finally found myself and worried i would be lost all over again, hated by people all over again.  This is why my mther bought me a necklace.  A very special necklace.  I used to wear fun

jewelry as a kid, even in my tomboy state, but this necklace stopped that.  I wear it and only it.  My mother told me this necklace would help me in high school.  That it would protect me from pain and it was like i had her always.  This necklace instantly found it's way into my safest world, the world of the X-Men, where i was accepted for being a spazz and a nerd and that would never change.  In that world, Logan gave the necklace to Lea to protect her, for all the same reasons.  This gave this necklace infinite purpose to me.  And what's more?  The necklace had only a single word on it:  "peace."  On the reverse, it had the Japanese writing for the very same word.  I wore the necklace every single day.  It made me have inspiration to re-write my Lea tory, to not give up that persona i created.  At first, everything was going perfectly.  I met friends, i was doing well, until one "friend" turned on me.  I was suddenly in another hate spiral and i didn't know why.  She hated me and i couldn't understand but this time, Logan was there.  Logan was holding me up fighting against her.  Unlike every other time i'd been called stupid, i'd been tormented, i'd been crushed, i finally was able to stand up.  Sure...i cried.  I cried that year alone more than any other in my life.  Some days, i would go into my room and clutch it so tightly my knuckles were white and just repeat the word over and over again or tell myself Logan was there, my Kuzuri, just to try to get my mind off my own world.  People were scared of the personality i'd invented, but instead of throwing it away, conforming, giving up, i fought back.
    All this was good and dandy for a while, until a tragedy struck.  My necklace, my source of power, was lost.  The chain had snapped and the small, irreplaceable pendant was lost,  I searched the shop where my mother bought it and discovered it was the only one.  I never found another like it.  I blamed my inability to

get a boyfriend on my lost pendant.  I blamed not getting into the plays on it.  I had lost my luck.  My one lucky item.  My mother tried to buy new necklaces to replace it but i refused to wear any of them.  This last year, i gave in.  I accepted it's fate and bought a new necklace that i would always wear that also fit Lea's character.  I tried to wear it as religiously, but i just wouldn't.  I tried wearing an Assassin necklace as well.  Both necklaces had the same fate:  a string on them snapped, making wearing them a risk and an oddity as strings dangled down.  I even bought a pair of dogtags from Hot Topic for my Wolverine cosplay that i was going to use instead, but those too, disappeared.
   Then, news of the new Wolverine movie arose and i gathered my things.  I accepted the loss of my pendant long ago, even though i still remember every detail.  I drew that symbol so many times.  As i put on my boots and muscle shirt last month to go see it for the first time, my mother came to me.  She held out her hand and i saw something.

                  

My pendant.  Hidden somewhere deep in the cushions of some car, we found my one and only pendant.  My Wolverine was back just in time.  My mother even said she is willing to buy an expensive and sturdy chain for this one pendant.  I don't want diamonds, golden chains, flashy jewels--i just want peace.  The magical pendant that pushed me through that first, horrid year, is now going to push me through the last.  Fate?  Magic?  Luck?  They might not be real, they might not be true, but either way, i'm back.  Lea is back.

   So that's it!  Sorry that was a long one.  You got quite a bit of my childhood just to talk about a pendant huh?  I hope you all enjoyed this revealing story about me.  It's a bit depressing isn't it?  But the truth is, if i wasn't bullied in middle school and those first years of HS, i wouldn't be Lea.  I wouldn't be the reason you all come back to read this.  Nooowwww that was heavy wasn't it?  Geez!  Do you like it when i get serious or would you like more perky, or do you just like the general mix?  Go ahead and shoot me a comment in the section below.  +1 this!  Share it with your friends.  Do you have an inspiring story?  I'd love to hear it!  You guys are so distant, literally and figuratively.  I would like to hear that this....all this story telling and pouring my heart out isnt just for me to see myself typing, but to encourage others!  Make them try new things, whether it's games, movies, confidence, or even just looking at life from a new angle.  I love you guys and i love that you read this ridiculously long post.  I'll see you all tomorrow!!!!  <3    

Since it got so heavy, have a video of a tortoise eating a tomato