Kids will be kids. Boys will be boys. I didn’t mean anything by it. I was just messing around. He knew I was just joking. She knew I was just kidding. Awe, come on. Lighten up. Where’s your sense of humor? Whatever.
I’m tired. Relentless bullies. Hurtful words. Violence. On the Internet. On the news. In the hallway. The negativity compiles and compresses. I feel my spirit weaken, and honestly, sometimes I feel like giving up. But doing what’s right is rarely easy, and I don’t believe that any of us were put on this planet just to give up. If I’m anything, I’m an idealist. I’m not naive, but I do believe that we are meant to strive for a higher standard--one in which kindness is absolute and bullying isn’t accepted as part of the norm.
Thoreau said, "How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live." I think about that most nights when I settle into my chair to write. Who am I to write about anything? I can’t tell you. I’m a terrible speller. I know little about sports, or math, and my parenting skills are most accurately surmised as a meld of good intentions, trial, error, and countless prayers. And writing, well, when it comes down to it, all I can say with certainty is this, I tell the truth.
The truth, dear friends, is this: Bullies still exist. Oh how I wish I could weave a fairy tale in which bullies roamed, confined to the sunlit hills of a land long ago, in the past tense, far far FAR away.
A friend tells me the truth in love: bullies still exist, they do, and they will forever. We can fight, and we will, but there will always be bullies. All we can do is ensure that there will be bully fighters too. Wouldn’t it be easier to just say, Enough is enough. This is wrong. This can’t continue. Yes. Of course. And while I appreciate the truth, it’s painful. It’s painful to know that the cycle of oppressor and oppressed, persecutor and persecuted, bully and victim exists and will continue to exist, perpetually. It hurts, of course, because it’s personal. Isn’t it? Isn’t it?
My son, tackled from behind. His hat, his shoes ripped off. The knees of his jeans stained. His heart? It’s no big deal? My heart: wounded for him. You have to stand up for yourself! You can’t hit your sister. You shouldn’t call people names. You know better than to treat people that way. But you, YOU can’t let someone do THAT to YOU….mixed messages. Love. Protection. Humiliation? Where does kindness end? When do self-defense, self-respect, self-protection begin? When does turning the other cheek become asking for it, welcoming it, advertising weakness? When is it EVER okay to touch someone else without their permission?
I used to be one. I remember the feeling of elitism--feeling, believing even, that I was superior and that, therefore, someone else was lesser. I know, I already want to throw up the shame. When fitting in matters, and suddenly you’re on the inside of the in crowd just where you’ve always wanted to be, when you have the opportunity to be the bully instead of the bullied, sometimes you take it, because sometimes kids make mistakes, big mistakes. Mistakes that can’t be erased, can’t be taken back, can’t be undone. Mistakes that can only become lessons.
There was the boy who never wore the right clothes. The right clothes? The guy whose R’s sounded different, because he could never fully form the rrrrrrrrrr, kind of like my daughter’s R’s, now that I think of it….It was never about lunch money or lockers or trash cans. It was always about being cool...as lame, as despicable, as evil as that is.
And I knew better. I went to Sunday school. My parents taught me better, raised me right….but there was the girl on the bus, the one who stabbed me in the forehead with a pencil when I wouldn’t slide over, the one who slapped the back of my head day after day week after week because no one told her she couldn’t. There was the boy who made fun of my nose, my ears, my feet. So why shouldn’t I? They did this to ME so why shouldn’t I do it to THEM? What right? What right did any of us have? None. There is no right in so much wrong.
If there are two of us and only one of us is laughing, whatever it is, probably isn’t funny. If you’re enjoying it, but someone else isn’t smiling, laughing, and especially if they’re crying...you shouldn’t be doing it. I’ve been told most of my life that I need to loosen up. That’s fine. Relax. Whatever. I do have a sense of humor, just not at someone else’s expense. Not any more. No more. I was a bully. And today, someone, maybe several someones, thinks of that word and their memory recalls my face, just as my mind recalls the face of the girl on the bus, the other girl on the bus, and the boy who never said anything that wasn’t mean….
I wonder how I can experience enough in this brief life so that when I write it means something? How can I live standing up and survive long enough to write it all down? I'd like to ask Thoreau that.
Oh, how I embrace the paradoxically terrifying and liberating forces of human identity and individuality. Maybe this is why I feel so compelled to protect those who risk everything to live with such honesty, those who shrug off societal expectations and protocol and choose to BE exactly who they are. The ones who read, or cosplay, or play chess, or clarinet because they think it’s cool regardless of what anyone else thinks. The boys who wear eyeliner and nail polish. The girls who shave their heads but not their legs. The kids who choose to be neither masculine nor feminine, asking society to consider, why does it matter?
My daughter’s soul is visible outside of her physical self. She is uninhibited and beautiful, like a wildflower. She makes a joyful noise, albeit a bit nasally at times. She spins, arms flung wide, daring anything breakable to come into reach. She doesn’t get sick like I warn her she will; her head flops backward, a smile beams, and pure joy erupts. Will she one day be targeted because matching her socks doesn’t occur or matter to her? Already, in second grade, she’s been promised a seat at the birthday table, only to have the promise broken, twice. “Don’t they know that six baby kittens and two baby dolphins die every time you break a promise?” she asks. Don’t they know that breaking a promise hurts? I think.
I'm no hero, but God granted, I want to be. I can’t go back to unsay the hurtful words, to replace callousness with compassion. I've got to live with myself, and my family has to live with me. I want my kids to be proud of me. I'm not a superhero….not a REAL one anyway. I don't have a cape but I do have a pretty pair of gold heels. I don't have super powers, but sometimes, when I write, people pay attention, and isn't that enough? Maybe we aren’t supposed to figure it all out. Maybe we’re simply meant to pay it forward. Maybe it’s enough to let the future generation know that we do care, that we haven’t solved it, but we’ve given it a go….
I wasn't an educator for long when I realized that there are people—kids--looking for a hero, and why shouldn't it be me? Not as I was or as I am--just plain me, but why not strive to be better? Why not strive to be the very best me so that if one of those kids needed a hero and chose me, at least they wouldn't be disappointed. If I told them the truth, that I’ve been unkind, that I’ve been the bully, at least they’d recognize my failure and my growth. I don't have a cape, but they seem to like my heels, and I never lie to them—ever—so they believe what I say.
On September 11th 2001, I was 22, a second year teacher with a room full of teenagers, and no answers. The day after, a student looked at me and said, "I don't know why anyone would want to bring a child into a world like this." But all I could think is, who wouldn't? I was 22, a month away from my wedding, and I wanted to be a mother more than anything….In a world of bad don't we need more good? Who wouldn't want to do whatever they could to reset the balance?
I don't know better people than children. Maybe that's why I surround myself with them. My greatest hope for the future comes from our children. When people shake their heads and commiserate about our sad world, our bleak future, our lost causes, I can't relate. My world isn't sad, as weary as I may sometimes allow myself to become. Even when tragedy occurs, there is love and in love there is light. My world isn't bleak—it is rich and full of hope. My world is full of promise and fresh energy because my life is spent in the company of children. They remind me that forgiveness is easy and possible and necessary. Even for bullies.
We were born to roll out of that bed—daylight savings time or not—We were meant to stretch into a smile and we were meant to say yes to that pull—or tug—or push however it finds us--that need to live for something. Whether it is to write a song or give a hug or build a fence or tear one down. To feed, to clothe, to balance, to manage, to weld, bond, sow, reap, teach, or preach. Whatever we are called to do—do it—do it wholeheartedly, do it with passion and fever and we will find truth. I see it each day in the girls selling their worldly possessions to fund a missions trip, in the kids who step out of their comfort zone, cross the lunchroom, and offer the new kid a seat at their own table. I see it in those who tell bullies to just stop it already, and who tell the bullied that it’s not okay and you don’t deserve it. No one deserves it. You are not alone….
I don't always know what I'm supposed to do or what I’m supposed to write, but I know this, If I don't do something, I can't be mad if no one else does either. If I'm going to be the change I want to see, as Gandhi suggested, then I need to be willing to get up and stand up.
If the next time we feel compelled to speak up or reach out or step in or call out—if we just do it instead of worrying what other people will think or say—we will find our truth. We can't afford to ignore the call. What if Gandhi ignored it? What if Dr. King ignored it? What if Jesus did? What if He decided to just roll over and sleep instead of getting up and saving the world? Gandhi said, "To believe in something, and not to live it, is dishonest." Now isn’t that the truth?
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