Bullies

For almost as long as I can remember, I have struggled to fit in. I've always wanted so badly to be a part of the "in" crowd, but it seems that I've always fallen short. I believe that it is that deep desire to be one of "them" that has made me vulnerable to the bullies that dogged me through most of my adolescence.

I was in the 5th grade when my family moved to Dayton from Alabama in the middle of the school year. The social networks in our tiny, 16-person class had already been established. With such a small class, there really wasn't a lot of room to move around in the social stratosphere. If you were popular, you were popular. If you weren't, you simply existed.

The queen bee of the 5th grade was a girl named Kelly. I'm not sure what made her so magnetic, but people flocked to her. Maybe it was her powers of manipulation, and no one wanted to piss her off so they did whatever they could do to keep her happy. But regardless of what made her popular, we somehow became friends. I felt so lucky; here I was, new to town and already I had a friend and she was the most popular girl in the class.

A few months before the end of the year - I remember that it was spring, and that it was sunny - Kelly, our friend Teresa and I were crammed into the bench of our school bus, being transported from our tiny Catholic school to the public school, where we would mesh with the public school kids for the short ride to our respective neighborhoods. Teresa was against the window. Kelly was in the middle. I was painfully relegated to the aisle, my heavy book bag still on my back, struggling to balance against the sway and pitch of the bus as we rumbled towards the public middle school.

I kept asking Kelly to move over a little, and she kept refusing. I was half-sitting in the seat, half-hanging in the aisle. So I wiggled into the seat a little more, scooted a little closer to Kelly in the hopes that I'd be able to stabilize myself for the rest of the ride. Bad move.

I sat there, shocked, helpless and confused while Kelly repeatedly hit me over the head with her fist. "Stop scooting over! There's no room for you in the seat!" she kept saying. Her punches pushed me farther into the aisle. By the time I even thought to cover my head, we'd reached our destination and Kelly shoved past me on the way to her next bus.

Thinking that there must be something I could do, I reported Kelly and her actions to the bus driver. But there was nothing she could do except write Kelly up, give her a demerit of sorts. She hadn't seen it... therefore, it hadn't happened.

And so rather than risk further humiliation, I simply let it go. I didn't even tell my mother until years later, when it was too late for her to do anything except cry for the little girl who was too hurt and embarrassed to admit she'd been beaten up at the ripe old age of 10. Surely she would have done something... I suppose knowing that she would is what kept me from saying anything in the first place.

That experience with Kelly marks the start of a long and difficult journey through middle school. As if bad bangs and braces weren't enough, I was often humiliated and made the butt of cruel jokes in order to satisfy the senses of humor of my "friends." I was routinely tricked and made to cry at sleep overs. I was the recipient of more than a few crank phone calls. And that first experience was not the first time that Kelly beat me up. All this, despite my very best efforts to fit in, to MAKE the other girls like me.

Certainly whenever there was a chance to turn the tables and give one of the other girls a taste of their own medicine, I took it. Those chances were few and far between. And it's not like my entire childhood was intolerable. In fact, by the 8th grade, the two other social "rejects" in my class and I had formed our own little happy, unpopular group. We learned to fight back by assuming an air of superiority and indifference. The act was even marginally successful. But a lingering sense of self-doubt and vulnerability still left the door to our self-esteem ever so slightly ajar; and as a result, despite our best efforts, we were still occasionally flattened by the mean girls in our grade.

The cruelty bestowed upon me in my formative social years has never fully left me. To this day, I worry that when I walk into a room of close friends sharing a joke, the joke is at my expense. My friends are all warm, funny, amazing people and I consider myself lucky to have them in my life. But sometimes, I find myself doubting or disbelieving that they would pick me. I immediately turn into that insecure 5th grader.

Luckily, my friends put up with me when I get neurotic and feel unloved.

Regardless of the way those girls treated me, I think I've turned out okay. As for Kelly and her merry gang of marauders... I'm not sure where they've ended up in their lives. A small part of me hopes that their lives are miserable. Concocting all the ways that they might be miserable, however, would take more energy than they are worth.

I suck at life

Okay, I don't think that I suck at life. But I do suck at updating. Here's where I'm at:

I turn 26 tomorrow. I'm officially closer to 30 than I am to 20. Last year wasn't too crazy of a celebration because I'd just had my surgery a few weeks before and was still in the recovery process. This year, my parents are coming down to eat dinner at a fab Thai restaurant near my house, then I am meeting up with Miami Boy for drinks.

Speaking of Miami Boy, being Cingle in the City is fun. I also have a date on Friday with Tommy. I don't have a nickname for him yet, I can't think of one that is appropriate enough. He kind of reminds me of an exboyfriend of mine from college. They are disturbingly alike in both physical features and personality. Spooky. But Tommy seems nice and he took the initiative of setting the first date so let's see what he selects as our dinner destination and then maybe a nickname will divine itself from there. I'm also supposed to have a date with a guy I've nicknamed Double M because his first and last name both start with the letter "M". Lame, I know. Anyway, I have been a HUGE slacker about calling him and I'm not really sure why because all signs point to "Yes" with him. Eh.

In other news, I have started the count down to the following milestones:

1) The end of my car lease. Yes, the Gray Ghost 2.0 is going they way of the original Gray Ghost when I turn it in later this month. It was the first car that I bought new, and was the first car that I bought myself. So it is kind of sad to see it go away, but I'm excited about getting another new car. I'm looking at the '07 Accord and also the '07 Corolla or Camry. I would LOVE a new car, but everything is just so expensive! I don't know how I lucked out getting the car payment I did for my Civic, but those payments are NOWHERE to be found.

2) The end of my apartment lease. My landlord - painfully loud and inconsiderate as he may be, sometimes - is going to give me a couple of different options. My rent is going to go up by "$50 at most" but I won't hold my breath until I see the final offer.

3) The one-year anniversary of my employment in Cincinnati. Where I am guaranteed a raise. I hope it is a healthy one, since I am going to have to find at LEAST an extra $100 a month to pay for the car I want and my apartment, unless I want to move apartments and I really don't think I want the hassle. Plus, I loooooove the location and I looooove my place and if I stay here another year then I can finally have a reason to paint the bathroom and decorate my bedroom a little better and MAYBE even buy a painting for my living room. See, I'm just getting settled!

In other news, I went to a Borat DVD viewing party at a friend of a friend of a friend's house who is also the friend of another friend. Wow! Basically, this guy Andre is friends with my friend Megan's friend Jenny. Jenny and Megan knew him in high school. Andre also knew my friend Libby in high school and recognized me from a party that both he and I attended at Libby's house in high school. As it turns out, we also both went to the same college (Yay! Miami!) and he only lives two blocks away now. Random, right? It's a whole six-degrees of separation thing.

And finally, one quick observation before I head off to bed: I am in a really good place in my life. I love my job, I have great friends and an amazing family. I'm Little Miss Date Girl lately and things have just sort of fallen into place. And while I might not have the PERFECT life, I have made something for myself that I am proud of and that, sometimes, others envy. I'm content. And that's a pretty good way to be, now that I'm closer to 30 than I am to 20.

PS (I promise this is the last thing): I am going to get better at writing posts. I am going to write entries. I am NOT going to use this as my personal "let me catch you up on my life and what is going on with me" diary all the time, the way I have been doing the past few months. I'm going to write "real" posts and when I can't think of anything witty, insightful or charming to say, then I'll babble about my life. Though Cingle in the City updates are sure to continue.