iRegret.net

Sometimes I regret that those girls taught me cruelty — taught me that it’s in all of us. I had been the queen bee and then they dethroned me. I had been unkind myself but not rigorously or systematically. I hadn’t understood consequences. Soon I did and kept on understanding, knowing what it is to be belittled all the time, over and over. In public. They took their fear of not belonging out on me, for two years. In ninth grade I had to be sent to private school. My mother couldn’t take it any longer. Have I forgiven them? I think so; they are not those girls anymore or most of them are not (one girl named Beth exalted too much in her prosecution to be anything but off mentally and morally and likely for good) but then I look for them in others, in situations. I am mindful not to be too pretty (or not to lead with just that) or appear too successful; I rarely boast or say, look at me or not often. I don’t often make demands of anyone but me, and I worry when I do. I’m careful of when and how I belong to any group. I am an advocate of the underdog. I value feelings and words more than I do things. (Things on their own can rarely rescue a body.) I do speak up even when what I have to say might be unpopular. I may have been this way regardless of what happened when I was 12, 13, and 14, but some of it has its roots there. I don’t know whether to regret this or to think it all self-protection, humility, the way it goes. I suppose there are gifts in everything if you look hard enough or that’s what so many people will rush to tell you and perhaps that is so… And if anyone has endured something similar or is enduring it, it is what you make of it, right? Scars, permanent or otherwise, are worth one’s love and respect. Matters improve, change. It takes patience, stamina. I never had much of the former but the latter’s required me to learn it.

Submitted by: Not so small