One of my favorite things about high school was learning to write poetry. I've since published several poetry books and currently have a 3-book poetry publication project underway with a small indie poetry publisher.

I've even published my first poem as an NFT this year! (link if you want to check it out: https://opensea.io/collection/beautifully-imperfect-humans-poetry)

While I still love some of my poems from high school, I think I'm writing more that are of a high caliber, these days. All that extra life experience :)

Last year, I wrote this poem, thinking about myself in the present as I continue to evolve and grow as a human, and reflecting upon who I was in high school. I hope you enjoy, and wonder how you view your high school experiences and if there is any facet of yourself you have similarly lost, and since set out to rediscover or reclaim.

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Title: Sweater Lady
By Dr. Alice Vo Edwards

In high school
They called me the sweater lady
And I was ashamed.

Ashamed that my immigrant mother
Was so busy working
She didn’t have time or money
To take me shopping
For new, fashionable clothing.

Ashamed that because I’d been bounced
From house to house,
School to school,
I had no close friends to learn gossip with,
To learn how to look beautiful
On the outside.

Ashamed of the growing female curves
That drew attention in ways I wasn’t
Quite sure how to handle,
So it was easier to cover them up
Than learn how to deal with it.

And so, I let them call me "the sweater lady"
And ignored them
And surfed the wider world
Writing and sharing poetry
Exploring people and cultures
People and places
Where no one cared
That back home
They called me "the sweater lady."

More than 20 years have passed
And what was once a nickname
That shamed and embarrassed me
I now embrace with joy
If not for the same reasons it was
Originally bestowed or intended.

I realize now that those
Who called me “the sweater lady”
Were still figuring out life, too
And at that time
Only knew to care more about fashion
And external beauty
Than the quality of my spirit and friendship.

They noticed only my awkward dressing
Perhaps my shyness
And lack of outgoing social skills
(I was admittedly quite a nerd).

They did not care
About the many hours I spent
Volunteering As a peer assisted leader;

The times I spent
Sitting on the bathroom floor at school
Consoling a hurt friend
Where having a cozy sweater on
Surely was a benefit for soaking up tears;

Or that in dealing with the grief
Of my best friend dying
I simply had no mental energy left
To worry or care
About
What
The
Hell
I happened to be wearing.

20 years later
I am a late bloomer
Finally coming into myself.

Like a gangly teenager
Takes years to grow
Into their physical body
It’s taken me a long time
To grow into
The spiritual shape
And fullness of myself --
And I know I still have
Much more growing to do.

But these days
I can embrace being "the sweater lady"
In fact I WANT to be "the sweater lady."
I want to be the kind of mother or lover
That my loved ones
Want to come cuddle and snuggle with -
Perhaps precisely because
I’m wearing
A cozy
Cuddly
Sweater.

Professionally
I want to be admired and respected
Not for whether I have the perfect physique
Or I have applied my makeup
With flawless skill
But for the quality and caring
Of my work and ethics.

So if I wear sweaters enough
To still deserve the nickname "the sweater lady"
I’ll take it with gratitude and pleasure.

I am grateful that the world
Has not been able to change me enough
To keep me from being the kind of person
Who would sit on the floor
In a bathroom stall with a crying friend
Not worrying about
What either of us were wearing.

The kind of friend
Who would throw on a sweater
And grudgingly get out of bed
At some ungodly hour of the morning
To drive a friend in need somewhere they had to go.

So, yes,
I am grateful
To still be that person.
And perhaps to even grown
To earn the title even more.
I am grateful to still be
And hope to always remain
"the sweater lady."

— Dedicated to my best friend who loved me even before they nicknamed me the sweater lady in high school Courtney (Choco) Wilson.