Some sad news this evening. Rebecca, the 17-year old who was severely injured in the auto accident Saturday has been given about 24 hours to live. Today's MRI showed diminishing brain activity and the doctors think that by this time tomorrow her brain and body will have shut down.
This morning I went to Annabelle's dance rehearsal. She's 5 and is doing a duet with Devon, who is just about to turn 5. They dance to "Ma, He's Making Eyes at Me" and it is adorable! The dance academy where Jen teaches and the girls take classes has a competition this weekend and Annabelle & Devon will be in the youngest age category. If they remember their routine they are an absolute lock for the prize.
After that rehearsal I came back to the house and installed a child gate at the top of the stairway to keep Elianna from taking a header down the steep narrow stairs. Then a fix for a doorknob that wasn't working properly. Turns out the 150-year old cassette had a broken piece inside. Yes, there's always something to fix in an old house. This afternoon Annabelle and I played games involving ballerina cards, a version of Old Maid that used Bible cards, a numbers game, and...gee, the games were so exciting that I can't remember the rest. Then I drove to Panera to finish the article that's due tomorrow while I ate supper.
On a trip to the hardware store to get molly bolts for the gate install I heard an interview on NPR (the Dianne Rheem Show) with a woman who has written a book about schoolyard bullies. She was bullied throughout her K-12 years and now counsels kids & holds school seminars on the topic.
I wanted to call in but I realize doing so is a waste of time and effort. I wanted to call because the lady needs to be in counseling herself, not writing books. If her attitude and verbal mannerisms were, back then, anything like they are now, it's no wonder kids picked on her. Can you spell obnoxious? Sanctimonious. And now she's made a profession out of being a perpetual victim, still allowing those bullies to define who she is.
Kids have been picking on kids since there were kids. I was picked on. I was small for my age - short and scrawny (did most of my growing after my Junior year and continued until I was a college sophomore) and had no coordination. I got chosen last and sent to DEEP right field. While other guys were playing basketball I was playing the cello. I got chased around the playground, pushed in the mud, had my gym clothes hidden, teased mercilessly and served as the target for just about every practical joke an adolescent can invent. I hated school because it posed a daily threat. And somewhere near the center of Dante's Inferno lies a special spot reserved for Knute Olson and Paul Kenner, my perpetual tormentors.
Was it fun? No! Were the guys who picked on me (God spared me from getting beat up by any girls) deserving of discipline? Yes. Would my childhood and early teens been more fun if I hadn't been the whoopin' boy for my classmates? Sure.
But at some point you decide you're either going to spend the rest of your life as the runt or grow up and find ways to succeed. The truth is that once past adolescence those bullies either get bored and move on to more productive things or they slide to the bottom of the social ladder themselves. At that point the victim is faced with a choice: find his own strengths and make the most of them or wallow in self-pity as a perpetual victim. The bullied kids will probably never grow up to be successful athletes but neither did 99.9% of the H.S. football players. They can, however, grow up to be teachers, or lawyers, or skilled technicians or plumbers. Mostly, they can grow up to realize they have skills and abilities that bring fulfillment to life. More valuable than that, their experience as the brunt of others' own psychological problems (bullies have issues) can give them insight into and sensitivity towards others who are victims of any sort.
But at least in my case, having been bullied gives me very little patience for those who won't grow up and out of it. I feel great empathy for those who suffer because of the vicissitudes of life, but very little for those who choose to allow just the memory of being bullied to define who they are.
I am who I am today because I got bullied (we are all the products, in part, of our past). It has made me more determined to succeed than I think I would otherwise be. I ran marathons, I go to the gym, I do distance cycling, I read everything, I listen to all kinds of music, I ride a motorcycle.....I refuse to let them define me, to live as a victim. I'm having fun. And so in a way I'm glad I was bullied. It drove me to try new things and to maximize my potential in order to make up for the years I tried to hide.
Maybe if I ever meet up with Knute and Paul I should thank them.
Or push them down into a mud puddle.
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