People want two things at once, in my experience. They want to stand out, get noticed, leave a mark on the world. But they'd also like to stay close enough to the herd that they don't get picked off by predators.

People want to be recognized. But they also want to make sure they don't stick their heads up too high.

Fewer points in a person's life rival this weird contradiction better than the experience of middle school. It's that feeling of wanting everyone to know your name but not wanting any of the reasons they know it to stem from the fact that you wear hand-me-downs or that you’re the last one in the locker room to reach puberty.

Middle school exists, I think, to teach us humility. The lessons we learn there are burned so deeply into us that we're conditioned for the rest of our lives to pick up the scent of potential embarrassment like a bomb-sniffing police dog at a fireworks factory.

My family moved into a bigger house across town the summer before my sixth-grade year. As the oldest of four children, a place with my own bedroom sounded like heaven. I've never had a bedroom that was just mine since. I could put up my own posters. In the middle of the night, I'd trip over stuff that belonged only to me. I was pretty excited.

But my excitement was tempered by the knowledge that we'd be changing school districts and I'd be with all new kids. I wouldn't know anybody.

We didn't have the same breakdown in grades as today. Grade school went from kindergarten to sixth grade. Middle school was seventh, eighth, and ninth. So, I had a whole year in sixth grade to try to make friends before I had to start riding the bus to school with teenagers.

And to be totally honest, I didn't have much success. I knew some faces and names, but I didn't really have many friends—except a couple of kids from my new neighborhood who most of the people I considered cool thought were weirdos.

Before beginning seventh grade, my parents were given a list of things I needed. Nothing exciting. All the usual stuff: notebooks, pencils, erasers. You know, the stuff on every back-to-school list since people still bought inkwells and slide rulers.

However, something on that list escaped my attention until my mom showed up with a bag of school supplies. I started pulling stuff out and felt my hand grab hold of something soft. I pulled this mystery out of the bag to discover that I held a pair of blue gym shorts and a white t-shirt, both emblazoned with the school's name and mascot.

Very cool!

My mom noticed my excitement and said, "The list they sent home said that you'll have to dress for gym, and this is the uniform you have to wear. Everyone has to."

Awesome!

I threw everything back in the bag and promptly forgot about it until the day before school. My mom told me to try everything on before she washed them.

So, I got my new gym uniform out of the bag. I put on the shirt. Perfect! But when I unfolded the shorts, they looked like one of those American flags that fly over truck stops off the interstate. The ones that look like they can be seen from space. I peered over them at my mom, who could immediately see the problem.

"Are these supposed to be for Dad?"

Defensive, my mom said, "No. I didn't know what your size was anymore. You've grown so fast this summer. I told the bookstore clerk how tall you were and how much you weighed. This is what he gave me.”

I couldn't believe it. "What did you tell him? That I'm the same size as Andre the Giant? I only weigh 104 lbs. for crying out loud!"

"I don't understand. The clerk said these would fit."

"Yeah, well, guess what? The clerk was wrong."