When a former classmate is shown in the suggestion box on Facebook and you think to yourself, "Ew, I do NOT like that person!"
Meanwhile...
The same former classmate sees your picture in the suggestion box on Facebook and thinks, "Ew, I do NOT like her!"
...
Actually, that really did happen. At least in terms of my seeing a former classmate in the suggestion box on Facebook, thinking "ewwwww!" and wondering if she was likewise thinking the same about me. Though I certainly think I've just cause of going, "ewwww!" considering how much time she spent making my life miserable back in school.
It was the sixth grade, hardly the first or the last year of school misery for me, but it was an amazingly difficult year that certainly stands out. I was having a hard time getting used to the parental divorce, a remarriage and subsequent impending move. All of which was followed by a bout of the lowest of low self-esteem and nothing I did, or wore, said, read, ate, whatever, seemed right in my classmates' eyes.
Flashback: I very distinctly remember standing at the lockers and this boy turning to me to say, "Do you ever wear anything without an animal on it?" While I thought how much his head resembled a Cabbage Patch Doll's head.
Looking back it's little wonder this girl found it necessary to make my life miserable, her life was in absolute shambles. At least, according to school rumor, and let's face it, school rumors are about as trustworthy as The Enquirer. Unfortunately, the more miserable I was made to feel by not just her but many, the more I went completely against typical character and struck out. Enough so that I did a flurry of injustices about the school. (If anyone was wondering who locked all the girls' bathroom stalls back in sixth grade one day, that was me. Excuse me while I chuckle on that one.) Unfortunately, I took this occasion to find my own poor soul on which to exact my fury over the injustices that I couldn't control in my life. A timid, dark-haired new girl. Oh, I was terrible as I unleashed a furiously unfair brigade of meanness upon her. Again, completely against my nature. It wasn't like me to be mean to anyone. Except for kids who had the nerve to pick on my younger brother. Oh, I made those kids pay!
I dont' recall everything I did to this poor girl, though the last straw for her was my sticking a sign to her back. I don't remember what it said but I felt very smug and satisfied to have elicited positive attention from the other kids. My typical tormentors.
Of course, my stomach dropped to my kneecaps when my shenanigans were reported to the teacher. Which led to my being taken out to the hall. Two of us were taken out to the hall if I remember correctly. I don't even remember who the other person was, maybe it was my own antagonist? Whatever, or whichever the case, the teacher reprimanded us thoroughly and I was so ashamed.
Then the teacher said something very odd. I can't get the words quite right, after all, it's been twenty-[INCOHERENT MUMBLING] years, but it was a statement directed to me, about how if I went to a new school I'd more than likely be fine in a new environment. That I was a survivor. While my accomplice wouldn't be so fortunate. In other words, my teacher had a pretty good idea of what I'd already been through and while I didn't find myself so particularly strong, she did, and that I was better than my antagonizers.
I carried that statement with me for years. Whenever a situation became exceptionally painful I'd flash back to that moment in the school hallway. But, like all things, how it was said, what precisely was said has long since been lost in my notoriously and horrendously poor memory. It gets jumbled up with other memories, such as how everyone picked on me for the pink high-top shoes I wore to school one day. And I loved those things but never wore them again after that... or how I was made fun of for how I drunk a can of Pepsi. It was my first, as a matter of fact, and some other girl had serious issues with how I was drinking it.
Such silly little nuances, injustices and childish pettiness that so made up my school years.
Wasn't I supposed to be busy learning?
Oh well, if I'd a time machine I'd probably spend all my time running people over with it. (*Points!) It doesn't really matter now, though I really wish I could tell that girl I picked on back in sixth grade, (I think it was sixth grade, anyway.) that I'm sorry... I'd hate to think of my photo popping up on Facebook friend suggestions and her thinking all kinds of horrendous things about me.
Which leads me to wonder if my former classmate antagonist in the Facebook suggestion box thinks the same thing? That she's sorry for picking on me.
...
Hmmmm, not sure I want that answered, she still looks mean.
HA!
*running people over for points!










