It’s been a
long, long time since I’ve participated in one of Mama Kat’s Writer’s Workshops.
In fact, I’ve been away from Blogland altogether for far too long. I’m trying
to remedy that, so... here goes. I chose the prompt:
Share a story from the fourth grade.
The fourth
grade was, for me, H – E – Double Hockey Sticks. It blew up in my face – like a
nuclear bomb –and though it was nearly 40 years ago, I still catch myself
dealing with the fall-out.
That was the
year we moved to a different state – New Jersey to Virginia… after the school
year had started.
(A bit of
advice: If you can help it? Never move
your kids after the school year has started.)
Honestly, though,
I could have survived the move… maybe even thrived in spite of it, regardless
of the fact that I’d hit a growth spurt and was simply skin stretched over bony
knees and elbows; that it would be years (if ever) before I grew into my nose; that
I had dirty dishwater-colored hair (it was actually described that way once);
that I was, generally, nondescript (where ‘nondescript’ equals ‘incredibly
awkward, bordering on homely’). Yes, I might have thrived in spite of all that…
had it not been for…
Her.
That girl.
That tiny,
waif-like, well-dressed, blonde-haired, blue-eyed, pixie of a She-Devil.
We’ll call
her Karen, OK? (Mostly because that was her name and she doesn’t read my blog.)
Karen
introduced herself to me during recess, on my first day at my new school. I was
on the playground, hanging upside-down on the monkey bars with the girl the
teacher assigned to be my ‘buddy’ (who is, incidentally, still a buddy), when I
came nose to shoulders (the monkey bars weren’t very high) with a skinny little
girl, 2/3 my size, in a blue plaid skirt. Following her were most of the other
girls from my class. Karen stuck out her bony hip, put her hand on it, and said
just four words:
“I’ll be
your friend.”
I’ll be your
friend? What? Of course you’ll be my friend, you odd little creature. Everyone
will be my friend. That’s how things work in the fourth grade. Duh!
That’s what
I was thinking, anyway.
What I said
was, “Oh. OK.” (I was not nearly so articulate then as I am now.)
And with
that, Karen and her posse turned and walked away, leaving me hanging. Literally.
Odd as that
exchange was, I didn’t give it too much thought. Not at first, anyway. I mean,
I didn’t understand why someone had to declare her friendship in such a formal
way, certainly, but I chalked it up to being one of the weird things they do in
the south, like eating grits, wearing camouflage, and saying y’all.
I was,
however, destined to give that exchange a lot of thought over the coming year…
the coming years. Truth be told, as the mother of a pre-teen, I still give it some thought. And it still bothers
me.
You see, what
I didn’t understand then was that when Karen declared her friendship, she was
declaring nearly every other girl’s in the class as well. And when she took her
friendship away, which she did, often, at whim, usually with no good reason,
she took everyone else’s with it, leaving you alone… ostracized… miserable.
This was a
new world for me. In my old school, we were all friends. We argued, sure, and
there were days when you didn’t talk to your best friend because you were mad
at her, but you were always mad for a reason (like, you know, she said she
meant to spit on the sidewalk but she spit on your new sneaker instead… stuff
like that). In general, I’d always been
pretty well-liked. I had friends at my old school – lots of them – and I never much
worried about who was mad at whom or if anyone was going to speak to me (or
wasn’t). I’d never encountered a girl who decided, simply because she could – simply
because it gave her JOY – to choose a victim at random and utter the worst words
a fourth grader can hear:
“We’re not
your friends anymore.”
We.
Not I.
“WE’RE not
your friends anymore.”
I’d never
met anyone with such POWER.
It was
terrifying.
And it
changed my life. It made me doubt everything I’d always believed about myself –
that I was funny and smart and popular; that I was capable of anything
important or was good at things that actually mattered to my friends, like
jumping rope and making up silly words to songs and doing cartwheels. And worst
of all? It made me doubt that I was worthy of friendship.
And crap
like that? It stays with you, people. Little shrapnel-like fragments of
self-doubt get lodged in your psyche. You can live with it, sure, but
sometimes? Even after 40 years? It still hurts a bit.
Now, I
should clarify that I wasn’t always her target. Other girls faced her firing
squad, too. In fact, someone faced it almost every single day and the very worst
part was that we never knew who it was going to be. It was like playing Russian Roulette… you
didn’t know if you’d be spared or if you were going to see your feelings and
self-esteem and bits of your heart splattered all over the playground. You
didn’t know if you were going to be the girl sitting on the low end of the see-saw,
with no one on the high end, or if you were going to be one of the girls watching
that poor girl, feeling miserable about your part in her misery, but ever so
grateful it wasn’t you alone on the see-saw that day.
I’ve often
thought about that year and wondered why the rest of us didn’t band together
against the pint-sized Mussolini; why we didn’t ostracize her and give her a
taste of her own medicine. I’ve often
imagined us doing it and, even as an adult (I’m somewhat ashamed to admit), I’ve
felt a tiny bit of pleasure at the idea of making her sit alone on the see-saw.
But we didn’t do it. We let her have power over us; we let her control our
behavior toward one another. In hindsight, it’s hard to imagine feeling so
helpless – so utterly powerless – in a situation involving nothing but a mean
little girl, but, we were little girls, too, and that is exactly how we felt.
I’ve wondered
why our teacher didn’t notice the cruelty going on around her or see how in-over-our-heads
we were… or if she did see it, why she didn’t even try to intervene. And for as
much as I liked that teacher, there’s a part of me that will always despise her
for not stepping in when we really needed her.
I’ve wondered
what on earth made Karen think she could behave in that way – what made her think
it was even a little bit OK; what was happening in her life at home; what
examples were being set for her.
That year
most certainly figured into how I would raise my own child. I remember telling
my daughter, when she was young and developing clear leadership traits, “You
need to use your power for good, not evil. People will follow you either
because they like you or because they’re afraid of you. And people who follow
you because they’re afraid will never be your friends. So be a friend. Be a leader, certainly, but
be a friend first.”
I was never
in her class again, thankfully, and I changed schools after the 6th
grade, so Karen was officially out of my life for good. But her tiny little
shadow lives in the back of my head always.
I’ve often
wondered if she grew up to have a little girl of her own. And I’ve wondered what lessons she taught her
child.
And I've wondered if her tales of the fourth grade sound
anything at all like mine.
