I grew up with a variety of schooling. I’ve had public school, homeschool, & private school. I wasn’t a bad kid; I think my parents were indecisive. I attended a private school in high school. It was very small so we all knew each other pretty well. You knew who the slackers were, who the jocks were, & who the popular kids were.
There was a girl who made life hard for me. I never understood why. I kept to myself & did my thing. But she seemed incessant about making me miserable from Day 1. She wasn’t the bully that slammed me into the lockers or flushed my head down the toilet. No, she would spread rumors about me & be cruel to me. It got to the point where she wasn’t even trying to hide it. She would openly mock me about my insecurities. Unless I avoided her, she was mean to me almost every day. It’s painful at any age but especially in high school.
One of my strong memories is crying on the way to school, begging my mom to not drop me off. I was tired of this girl making fun of the way I dressed. She would make fun of me for wearing the same 2-3 dresses. Dresses were required once a week so they were in my rotation a lot. She would dump salt into my lunch, not knowing it might be the only meal I was looking forward to that day. And yes, I ate it. It’s that or nothing.
You see, she didn’t know we didn’t have money. She didn’t know my dresses were from Walmart & on sale. She didn’t know all extra money went to my schooling. She didn’t know my dad didn’t have a job. Even if she did, would it change anything? Or would she mock for that as well?
She later apologized (as we were in adulthood) for being horrible to me. She told me she was miserable in high school & seemed hell-bent on making others miserable as well. I told her I forgave her & I wished her the best. We’re not Faceboook friends or anything as I don’t think that would bode well for me. 🙂 Karma has already acted & I have no desire to seek revenge. If anything, it reminds me that kids can be cruel & we need to teach them to treat others with kindness.
finding my truth 
This was a touching story. Bullying is such a bad thing always and your story reminds me others who have dealt with the same thing. I remember, shamefully, that I once just looked the other way to bullying. But eventually, I helped a friend of mine get out of bullying from his peer. Thank you for sharing this with the world.
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Thank you for your kind words. You’d think after all of these years that it would get easier but sometimes it still hurts.
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