2009-12-15
Digging out.
Not much to report. I am in the thick of the holidays, and catching feral kittens. Three are now in either foster homes or with new owners.
People have been asking about NaNoWriMo and what I've written. So, okay. It's memoir, it's about my experiences with being bullied, both by girls and -- later -- by my addiction. I feel odd about going to the next level with it...editing and maybe trying to shop it around. There's this feeling of "Who CARES?" There is still a...not a stigma, exactly...but the idea that "kids will be kids" and that having been bullied during one's formative years is something that you have to take in stride and shrug off.
I happen to disagree.
No child should be bullied, and no child should be driven to bully others. Because I understand, now, that kids bully out of fear. And make no mistake -- the repercussions of bullying, on BOTH sides, are felt for a long time. Years. Decades.
So I am sharing a passage with you. It's the first time I've opened this document since November 30. I still need to let it sit before I can go back and really dig through it.
Names have been changed and blah blah blah.
I truly did expect my transfer into the public junior high school to be a solid gold opportunity for reinvention. I could roam its huge halls in relative anonymity for a few days, and savor the experience of being barely noticed. And then I would start making friends. I didn't want to be popular. I knew that this was too much to ask for, and I knew that it was impossible. I was not wired for popularity. I couldn't get the hang of "cool," and I didn't especially want to. It would have meant eschewing the things that made me happy, like my parents' old comedy records.
No, I didn't want to be popular. I just wanted to have some friends.
As I dressed for the first day I marveled at getting to pick out my own clothes. I didn't have to wear the uniform that had caused such a furor back in September. I wadded it up, stuffed it into a paper bag and shoved the unseemly bundle in the back of my closet. I knew I couldn't throw it away, as my younger sister would be needing it in a year or two, provided she stayed there.
I got pretty much what I wanted, that first day.
But back at my old school, there was tumult. It was announced that I had left, that I wasn't coming back, that I had gone to the junior high school where I was certain to quickly unlearn all those solid values one could only come by with a non-public-school education.
Unfortunately for me, some of Laurie's sycophants knew some girls in my new school. It only took a couple of phone calls to these girls to ensure that I would not get even a few more days of the obscurity I so craved.
"More of the same" arrived that second day at my new school in the form of a girl named Debbie. Debbie had been charged with the job of letting everyone know why I was REALLY there. "She got ragged on a wicked lot at her old school, because she's a loser." She pronounced this "loosah." She spelled it that way, too, as I would discover later in the day when I walked into my History class and saw this scrawled across a desk: "Lisa McColgan is a LOOSAH."
My initial reaction was to be perplexed at its spelling. Why would anyone spell anything wrong, ever?
My next reaction was horror, followed by a palpable, heavy sadness. Why couldn't they just leave me alone? Why was it not enough to remove myself from their immediate firing range? Why did they have to go and hire sharpshooters?
More importantly, why did THESE girls, whom I'd never seen before in my life, even care?
I went home that night and cried, alone in my room, after everyone had gone to bed. I couldn't let anyone know that nothing had changed except the fact that there was one less tuition to pay.
The experiment had failed.
lisamcc at 8:13 a.m.
3 comments so far
voodoo
2009-12-15 16:43:48
I'm not sure if bullies feel bad later on but I agree with the rest
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Kristin Currier
2009-12-16 20:12:39
Oh girl, I understand completely. But, of course, you knew that. What's more is I understand --in sad, head nodding fashion-- the part about "Who CARES?" How often have I told myself (and having been told by others) to just "Get over it". As if you just completely forget the disgusting cruelty of people you were literally forced to spend 80% of your waking hours with through your entire childhood. It's what keeps me from writing about it myself. Part of me really believes no one cares. Part of me just doesn't want to give it any more attention than it has already stolen from me. It's why I'm private on Facebook. And why I get so angry reading about what happens to other children in the newspapers. Funny thing happened to me the other weekend in the Keys. We stopped at a restaurant and who but the meanest, nastiest chick in Hull, MA who hated my guts and made my life a hell was my waitress? Yep. I wasn't sure if it was. I looked her in the eye, smiled, asked for my beer and burger, and was nice as pie, reasoning it just couldn't be her. But I found out later it was. Somewhere out there the miserable pissant who beat up Bill Gates is washing cars for a living. There's a lot of kids (and adults) who do care. Thanks for sharing your wonderful writing, I hope you post more.
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Tina
2009-12-17 00:29:48
You know, I look back at the teachers (both in the private AND public schools we attended) and I wonder 'Where the f*ck were the adults?' It is so sad to know what you went through, and why I am vigilant about how my kids are treated at that same school. If it is any consolation, school adminstrators (at least in my school in Braintree) are more on top of it. I witnessed a shit-ass 8th grader look across the room at one of 'my' guys and, while holding his nose, mouthed "You SMELL!" He had no idea that I saw him and I nearly lost my shit on him. The offender got 20 demerits (when they add up to 22, it's 2 days suspension), was out of social studies for 2 days, and had lunch detention for a week. It's not perfect, but it's a hell of lot more than they did in Hingham (then still considered a great school system) 20+ years ago.
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Stumble It!
