Day 44: Bullying

I was not popular growing up. I know, I know…you are all thoroughly shocked to hear this, seeing as how you find me witty and charming and charismatic, with a winning disposition. ;)

But no, I wasn’t popular. It’s funny (and by “funny” I mean “sad”), but I had one friend every year in elementary school. And it was never the SAME friend. After the summer was over and we’d all go back to school, I would find that my “best friend” from the year before was now part of the popular group. Second grade, Maggie McCauley and I were great friends. Her family was rich (she’s the granddaughter of the Owens Sausage guy), and I was constantly hanging out at her big house and going out with her family. One night, we ate dinner in the restaurant on top of Reunion Tower. Yeah. It was awesome!! =)

But in my third grade year, she was with Maddie Franklin and Ivy Hopkins and Whitney Hamiter: the trifecta of evil that was the head of the popular group. It never failed. If I had a friend, they were snatched up the next year. I was teased and shunned. I was even pushed off of the swing sets and told to get out of the big concrete tunnels on the playground because that was where secret club meetings were held, and Lord knows I wasn’t invited to any of THOSE.

Luckily, junior high brought an end to being picked on. I still wasn’t popular, but I was politely ignored through my junior high and high school years. I gathered a small group of friends, and was content with that.

Kids are cruel, and I learned that the hard way. To this day my parents think I exaggerate about how miserable I was at school as a kid, so you can imagine why I never went to them as a kid. I hope to be there for my kids should they ever fall victim to mean kids; and they’re bound to, it’s tough to escape some kind of criticism these days. You hear about teenagers committing suicide from bullying on the news all the time now, and it makes me sad for them. And often times, the parents had no idea. I was never teased to that point, and I can’t imagine the torment that was so bad they thought death was the only way to make it stop…

I wish I could say being so unpopular as a kid gave me thick skin, but that just isn’t true. I am still super sensitive about a lot of things. But that’s okay, it doesn’t bother ME. ;) It DID cause me to not go after anyone in that manner, though. It’s obviously part of who I am today, and I LIKE who I am today. =)