I have referenced a few times here that I didn’t exactly have a delightful junior high experience. Who really says they did, right? Even the gorgeous peeps of the world, the Julia Roberts types, all seem to be quoted somewhere saying they were a dork in junior high. So yes, junior high is hell for most people. But I think it's probably a relative hell.
Junior high was especially hellish for me. I have never really put it into words. But think now is the time.
I was bullied.
Big time.
The back story is that I was a geeky, awkward kid with unruly curly hair, two left feet, no athletic skill in a school district that valued athletics above many things, braces and bad asthma.
At the beginning of seventh grade, during combined 7th/8th grade gym class, we were playing a game of organized dodgeball (yeah, no good stories ever start with dodgeball, do they?) And my best friend, we’ll call her Kara, was also in gym with me.
She was a dancer, cute as could be. And it was clear she was on the trajectory to being a cool kid (she succeeded). I was on the trajectory to having another asthma attack, missing more school, taking more prednisone, getting a puffier face, and generally just not being a cool kid.
For this day’s game, Kara and I were put on opposing teams. And there was an 8th grader on my team who took on the role of captain. We’ll call her Sheri. After the game, walking back to the locker room, Sheri made a passing comment to our team that she thought the other team was cheating. I met back up with Kara at our lockers and, for whatever reason, I mentioned Sheri's passing comment.
Very quickly she was gone. I think she might have even bolted before putting her shirt back on. I realized in seconds just why. She had hightailed it over to Sarah (and yes, that is her name) who was one of the cutest, blondest, most popular, 8th grade girls, with the most incredible Betty Boop voice ever. Over the top of the locker bays I heard that Betty Boop voice boom (if voices like that can boom), “So I hear little Molly thinks we are cheaters.” Followed by peals of laughter from the girls who I now lovingly refer to as her "Cronies." They were all straight out of the movie "Heathers."
Yes, in an attempt to earn points and hasten her trajectory to popularity, Kara had thrown me under the (school) bus.
For whatever reason this was a defining moment. Sarah and her friends decided that I would be the focus of their evil 13-year-old girl ways for the next year.
Every day I got on the bus, (where I had been told by them in no uncertain terms, that I had to sit in the front) they would walk by and spit on me or throw things at me. From the back of the bus, they would heckle me and tease me until my stop finally arrived.
I would walk down the hall and they would imitate and mock me to the great delight of others around them.
The egged my house. So badly that is ruined the siding and my parents had to re-side the house.
And they made sure that their efforts were widely known so that even after they left the next year for the high school, there were plenty of people in my own grade to continue the pattern. And they had succeeded. In the minds of others, and perhaps more importantly, in my own mind, they had established me as a lesser person.
I got through it. I went to high school. I carved my own path. But every time I saw her in the halls I would find a way to walk the other way. And even now, as some of the Cronies have sent Friend requests to me on Facebook (I lovingly refer to those people "Friend Collectors") I find I get a pit in my stomach on seeing their name pop up in my email box.
This absolutely affected who I am today. Even in recent weeks, I have found myself in conversations referring to “feeling like a 12-year-old girl" again.
It planted a seed of self-doubt. A feeling that rises up from time to time. One where it feels like everyone else is having a party and I am standing outside looking in.
And now, even as I sit here as a 35-year-old woman, there is still a part of me that is that 12-year-old girl.
I am generally pretty strong and confident now. But that 12-year-old girl is still inside me. She is still a part of me.
I share this for two reasons. First, it's a part of who I am, and I have never really taken the time to write it down. But now felt like the right time. So when I have those crazy little self-doubt, feeling like an outsider in an insider world moments, I know where they are coming from.
And second, because I don't know if Sarah's parents ever had any idea what she was doing. And I don't really know if they would have cared. Maybe she wasn't ever taught any better. And therefore, I don't think (about to turn the other cheek here a bit) that Sarah really even knew the extent of what she and her friends were doing. In high school, when I'd see her and then try to dart the other way, she usually would look at me with a blank look in her eyes. As if to say she either didn't care what they'd done, didn't remember, or perhaps didn't realize the impact of it.
My kids know this story. And they know, as much as 8- and 6-year-olds can, the affect it had on me and who I am today. I hope they learn from it.
I was bullied.
