How My Former Bullies Are Doing Now

Halloween 2015

We weren’t friends.  I knew her since elementary school because we rode the bus together.  I distinctly remember her bullying me a time or two.

In high school, she left me alone.  I don’t think we ever had a real conversation.

She friended me on Facebook, and I accepted.  Since then, she’s been open about her struggle with depression, which makes sense in light of my memories of her and what I know now about the link between depression and anger in kids.

A few years ago, I posted pictures of a Halloween party I had when I was 10 on Facebook.  Recently, this girl commented on the photo that she remembered the party and that she had such a good time.

I am positive that she was not there.

I have no doubt that she remembers being there.  It’s clear to me that she wants to belong, is seeking out positive memories to help her get through the day.  My first thought was to argue with her and let her know that she wasn’t there; I like to be “right” sometimes too.

But then I thought about it and wondered why I should spoil a good memory she has, even if she’s not correct.  She’s not a bully anymore.  She’s a person struggling to live her life as best as she can.  So, why should it matter to me if she has good memories of a party she wasn’t invited to?

I wasn’t a popular kid.  I was a weird kid, who was usually too buried in books or my own imagination to notice how not popular I was.  The only time I gave it much thought was when people picked on me.

It makes me wonder, if in some way, this girl wanted to be my friend.  Because honestly, I wouldn’t have noticed that either.  But whether she was someone who picked on me because she was unhappy, or someone who picked on me because she wanted me to notice her, it doesn’t much matter to me.  It’s all long since forgiven.

As a side note, I’ve had a few people who bullied me as a kid end up friending me on Facebook.  And I find it interesting that all of them struggle with depression.  They all talk about not wanting to be judged for their struggles.

Keep that in mind next time you hear about a kid who’s bullying someone else.  I know that most of us react that we want to slap that bully down and put them in their place.  But is that really the best approach for everyone involved?

I’m not scarred from the bullying that happened to me.  It also wasn’t that bad, overall.  Not compared to what you hear about nowadays.  And I didn’t have to deal with cyberbullying because it didn’t exist back then.  So I’m not saying that bullying can’t be quite bad and scarring.  But in my case, I believe that it made me stronger, less reactive.  I have thick skin, but I also try to be understanding of people who don’t.  Because I’ve been there.

Have you ever been bullied?  Have you reconnected with any of your bullies?  Did it change your thoughts about them in any way?

G is for Grandparents

Sorry this is so late today. Through a glitch, I thought it was scheduled to be posted earlier. And by glitch, I mean user error.

My grandparents were and still are some of the most important people in my life. My grandmother died when I was 16, and my grandfather when I was 29. I was lucky enough to have them as long as I did, but every life event I’ve had, I think about them, and how much I wish they were there for it.

I’ve always loved to read, but my grandma is the one who taught me to love stories. The first book I remember loving, Orange Oliver: The Kitten Who Wore Glasses, by Robert Lasson, sat on a bookshelf in the hallway entry to her home. I read it every time I went over there until I “outgrew” it. Obviously I never did, if I still remember it all these years later.

My parents both worked, and they read me stories at bedtime, but it was my grandma who told me about The Little Match Girl, Snow White and Rose Red, and strangely, Liberace. She watched Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory with me. She encouraged me to tell stories to her, and she listened, nurturing the storyteller in me.

She drew numbers and told me to make pictures out of the numbers. I knew even then that I wasn’t a good artist. Not only were my drawings not very good, but they weren’t very creative. I learned that I’m good with words, less so with any visual arts. I don’t remember whether she told me that my drawings were good when I told her I didn’t think they were, but I do remember her encouraging me to draw anyway. I wouldn’t understand the lesson for years, but it was there. It didn’t matter if I was good at it or not; if I liked it, I should do it.

My grandpa could be gruff, but not with me. With me, he was patient. He liked to teach me about antiques and baking. He loved to laugh, and could be silly when I didn’t expect it. One time I put a spoon on the end of my nose, and straight faced, he did it too. One of my favorite memories of him was when I made some comment about not being sure if he knew how to use the voicemail on his cell phone. He said something like, “Of course I know how to use my voicemail. It’s my phone, isn’t it?” I retold that story as just a funny story for years, until I realized that I learned a lesson from it. If you own it, know how to use it.

Although I lost them way too young, I learned many important things from them, and I still miss them. They say you can’t pick your family, and that’s true. But if I had to pick, I couldn’t have done better than the people who were gifted to me.

A is for Antiques

April is the annual blogging A to Z Challenge, where I blog a different letter of the alphabet daily.  Click the link if you’d like to learn more about it.

I’ve decided to stick to a theme this month, and it’s going to be Things I Love.

Bench in garden, Pennsylvania
Photo Credit: Doree Weller

When I was a child, I spent a lot of time traveling with my grandparents, who sold antiques for a living.  I knew what a hatpin holder and an oyster plate while I was still in elementary school.

We would drive to dusty old flea markets in their van, and before we could sleep for the night, we had to unload all the boxes full of fragile things.  My grandfather and I would set up his tent (a metal structure with a tarp bungee corded to protect us).  My grandpa told me that people would be more likely to stop by if we had something to protect them from the rain and the sun.

We set up tables and put tablecloths over them to make them look nice.  Ink stained my fingers as we unwrapped the newspaper protecting tea sets and dolls and candlesticks and iron coin banks.

I grew up loving old things.  Whenever I walk into an old junk store and inhale the smell of dust and mustiness, I feel like I’m home again.  Going to a flea market feels like visiting an old friend.

Many of my best memories are tied up with flea markets, antiques, and my grandparents.  Things that might be old and forgotten by the time you get to them were once loved by someone.  Next time you come across an antique, don’t just wonder what it’s worth.  Instead, close your eyes… and feel the history.

Things That Make Me Happy

Flowers! I love flowers too!

I’m a firm believer that the best things in life aren’t things, and the happiest people are the people who are happy for stuff other than things.  Things can’t make you happy long term.  Things break, get lost, don’t work as well as they used to, and aren’t the latest and greatest after a minute.  Things are not the key to happiness.  Being grateful for the little stuff is they key to happiness.

What makes me happy, in no particular order:

1.  Thunderstorms- I love the flash bang, and I love the sounds of rain.  One of my best memories is sitting on a porch in a rainstorm with my feet on the railing getting wet, and a laptop on my lap while I wrote a story.

2.  Music- Sometimes it’s Mogwai, sometimes it’s the Beatles or Enya or Tiffany.  But no matter what, I love surrounding myself with music.  I love creating playlists of all the random stuff I like for all different times.  I may not sing well, but that doesn’t mean I don’t know all the words.  Or that I don’t sing them.  Because if I have headphones on, I’m not the one that has to hear it, am I?

3.  My dogs- They’re always happy to see me and give unconditional love.  Without them, who would paint my laptop screen with nose smudges?

4.  Books-  Okay, yes, they’re things, but it’s not the books themselves that make me happy; it’s the stories.  I don’t go buying first edition hardbacks; I actually prefer used books, and if they have personality in the way of marks on pages or even better, something written in them, I’m thrilled.  Nothing I like better than finding a secret treasure in a book.  A receipt, a name, a message… it’s a link to someone else who loved that book too.

5.  My laptop- Another thing, yes.  But I hate hand writing things, primarily because my hands hurt when I write too much (like anything more than a sentence).  So I need my laptop so I can write.  Because I can’t be happy if I don’t tell stories.

6.  Friends- I have a few friends who I consider “lifetime” friends.  I think I’m lucky to have a small group of people who I can be my real self with, and who can be their real selves with me.

7.  Quotes!-  I love quotes!  I have a notebook full of them, and I keep as many of them in my brain as possible.  Maybe some people get sick of me quoting things, that that’s just too bad.  It’s my way of spreading love and joy.

8.  Windchimes and prisms-  Another thing, yes, and two things in fact.  But they go together so well.  I don’t love them because they’re stuff; I love them because they make rainbows and soft noises.  How can you not love things that jingle and make rainbows?

9.  Hiking-  When I was a kid, I used to just go walking in the woods behind my house.  Then I’d just find a clearing, put my back against a tree, and read or write.  These days, I still love walking through someplace that hasn’t been tamed yet.  The desert here in AZ, back to cliffs and forest when I move to TX.

10.  Skating- There’s nothing quite like the feeling of skating.  It’s almost like flying.  For me, in-lines almost feel like an extension of my feet.

The thing is… what makes you happy is up to you.  You can always wish for the newest, latest, greatest, shiniest, brightest, but when the shine fades and it’s not the newest anymore, the happiness wears off.  Happiness doesn’t wear off love or memories.    They may end up tempered with sadness or melancholy, but that doesn’t change what was.

“The best things in life aren’t things.”

— Art Buchwald

Leaving A Mark

Before I left for my vacation, a friend and I were discussing picture taking.  He commented, “Oh, don’t worry about it.  I’m sure there are a million photos out there of whatever you want a picture of.”  Maybe that’s true.  But they wouldn’t be my photos.  One of the things I like about pictures, much like writing, is that they allow a glimpse inside another person’s perception.  Maybe there are a million glacier photos, but in that moment, I saw it differently than other people did.  No one can see it exactly the way I do.  Maybe others have better pictures, but it’s a view through someone else’s eyes, which is exactly what I don’t want for my vacation photos.

Humans always have the urge to mark things that they’ve touched.  Bathroom graffiti, hieroglyphics, art, tattoos, architecture.  These are all ways of saying, “hey, I was here!” Even Mother Nature leaves a mark.  Water wears away at rock until the marks can’t be erased.

Cruising to Tracy Arm Glacier.

 

Although perhaps my photos aren’t important to others, being able to snap that picture in that moment is important to me.  No one wants to look at all 3000 pictures I took on my vacation, but there will be times I’ll enjoy looking back at them as a way of remembering.

I’m awful about picture taking.  I see something interesting and snap.  Then snap again.  And snap some more.  The great thing about digital photos is that I don’t have to take just one or two pictures and hope they turned out okay.  I can see immediately if they did or didn’t, but I can also just keep snapping.

The fact that I just owned up to taking 3000 pictures on vacation may lead you to believe that I was glued to my camera, but I swear, I wasn’t.  I like to hold my camera up to snap, but look at what I’m looking at through my own eyes.  That’s why many of my pictures might not be centered correctly or might be crooked.  I don’t always look at what I’m snapping.   Yes, I want it “on film,” but I also want to see it firsthand.  After all, I want to live it.

 

Holding On To A Moment

None of us stand still, which is both a good thing and a bad thing.  We all have those perfect times, whether they’re a moment, a week, a month, or an event that we’d like to freeze forever and never let go.

I know that for some people, high school or college have their perfect moments, when they felt that all was right with the world.  While I did have some good times, I always felt out of place, as if I was trying to force myself to be something or someone I wasn’t.  I was known for being different, and not caring that I was different, and while that was true, of course there was a part of me that yearned to learn the secret that everyone else seemed to know.  Other people got invited to parties, talked to strangers, and laughed over stuff I didn’t find remotely funny.  I just didn’t get it.

For me, my moments of perfection mostly come in snatches of time.  I’m in my yard, birds are singing, and the air has a sweet hint of growing things.  I’m sitting in front of my laptop, and the writing goes well.  I’m in the bathtub, reading a book, and the water is the perfect temperature.  I’m hanging out with friends at a backyard BBQ, and for a little while, I know that I’m okay to be who I am.

I can’t freeze and hold those moments forever, and I probably wouldn’t appreciate them if I could.  What’s your perfect moment?

The Attic

I’ve always loved attics, and I’m not entirely sure why.  I love the secrets they hold.  I love the clutter and jumble of things forgotten, waiting for someone to rediscover them.  I don’t have an attic out here in Arizona.  We have a crawlspace, and it can’t really be used for storing things.

Recently I was back in Pennsylvania, helping my parents clean out their attic.  It was such fun to go through boxes and decide what to keep and what to get rid of.  It was hard, too.  Everything that went up in the attic had been loved at one time, and the fact that it was up there, forgotten, was kind of sad.  These days, when I no longer want something, I send it immediately to Goodwill in order to avoid the clutter.  Which is both good and bad.

Of all the things in the attic, one of the hardest things for me to get rid of were books.  I had more boxes of books up there than I know what to do with, and I wanted to keep them all.  I ended up keeping a bunch of books that brought back good memories, like Orange Oliver by Robert Lasson, Anne of Green Gables by LM Mongomery, and the Watcher in the Mist by Norma Johnston, just to name a few.

I found old report cards, old love letters, and favorite discarded clothing.  I found pictures and postcards and dusty games.  When I was in the attic, I wondered why I kept everything, and what made me decide to box things up and take them upstairs.  Walking through the attic, I could almost see my younger self pouting at me, wondering why I wasn’t keeping everything.

Sometimes it’s just time to say goodbye, to close a chapter, and move on to what’s next.

“I often think that could we creep behind the actor’s eyes, we would find an attic of forgotten toys and a copy of the Domesday Book.”   -Laurence Olivier