Every day, it seems, I read some “newsish” article online
about something horrible some kids did to another kid, or something wonderful
some kids did for another kid.
On the bad stuff end of the spectrum, there was an eleven year
old who recently killed himself when he was pranked by some kids who told him
that his 13 year old girlfriend had died.
They rigged up their Facebook pages to corroborate the story.
On the good end of the spectrum, there’s a kid in Atlanta
who saves up his money all year, and then on Christmas Eve he puts on his best
suit, and heads to the Childrens’
Hospital. There, he buys dinner for any
families coming to the cafeteria.
Why? What he said was, “This
place saved my brother’s life. I’m here
to say thanks". He has done this
for four years.
Both of these incidents bring tears to my eyes. But you know, I cry easily and often. I was just telling someone the other day
about the birth announcement some friends had sent me, and I teared up. Hormones,
I guess.
Anyway. I never did
anything as bad as pranking someone with a fake death, or as good as saving
money to feed stressed out families of sick kids.
I never had anyone do anything to me as bad as telling me a
friend was dead. I’ve had so many nice
things done for me over the years, it’s hard to keep track. I once complimented a woman who came through
my checkout line on her armadillo earrings.
The next week, she brought me a pair.
On my 18th birthday, my History Class threw me a surprise party. Some Senior girls took me under their wing my Freshman year and made me feel welcome. I have received some truly kind letters from
people thanking me for things that I didn’t even think twice about.
But. In 7th
grade, I did something pretty awful that I regret.
One day, before class (I think English with Mrs. Stanford),
we were all sitting around shooting the shit about whatever. And someone mentioned heaven. And I, very quickly said, “Ah, there’s no
such thing as heaven!” And this girl
burst into tears. Because her father
had died the year before, and she most certainly did believe in heaven.
And I remember everyone in the room looking at me like I was
a monster. Which, let’s face it- I
was. Now, it wasn’t a calculated move,
made to specifically hurt her, but it did.
And to this day, I feel terrible about it. I think that I assumed that, since we were in
a gifted class, everyone was onboard that heaven, like Santa and the Tooth
Fairy was an innocuous fantasy that our parents told us as kids, but we’d all
figured out by now.
Did I mention I grew up in Georgia? With a lot of Church-goers? Did I mention that in 7th Grade I
was baptized and confirmed into the Presbyterian Church, wherein I made a pact
stating that I accepted Christ as my Savior – and that part of that package was
entrance into the Kingdom of Heaven?
Look, I joined so that I could go to Wednesday and Sunday youth group,
and more importantly, CHOIR.
I gave up
on the church right before I entered High School. At a Church Camp – where a sixteen year old
boy who was walking with me leaned over and whispered, “I’d like to fuck your
brains out”. On that same trip, while I
slept – my roommates, who were “friends”, by the way, dumped ice water on my
face, and I woke up gasping and furious. Some of the older boys from my Church
were fairly mean and dismissive of me.
I
finally melted down. I remember one very
kind Senior boy who took me aside and suggested I just be myself. Well – I was being myself. If you wake my ass up with ice water, I’m
going to flip way the hell out. I
stopped going to Church soon after that. And I joined the womens’ choral group at my
school and it was fine.
I will say, I still don’t believe in heaven. This makes some people in my life sad, but I just
don’t. I’m not saying that it’s not possible. On the upside, I don’t believe in hell,
either. Well, you know what – that’s not
entirely true. I think you are
responsible for creating your own heaven or hell here on earth. And I’m
not saying I know I’m right. There’s a
chance that when I die I’ll end up in one of the two and say, “Huh, well – I was
wrong about that!”
OK – so that is, without a doubt, the worst, “meanest” thing I
ever did in school. I’m not saying I was
angelic, but in terms of hurting someone, that’s really it. OK – once in high school, I was involved in
some light hazing that involved covering Freshman with condiments at
a chorus retreat. I regret that one, too. And I think there are pictures on
Facebook. Yep, I just checked.
 |
| That would be me in the camo hat. With an overbite. I am clearly enjoying the shit out of this. |
In the interest of balance, I’ll tell you one nice
thing I did. I had a friend. We’ll call him Chet. Anyway, Chet was a nice guy. He was a little nerdy, but so was I. Again, one day before class, some of the guys
are roughhousing, and one of the douchier ones gets Chet with a kidney
punch. Chet was tall and lanky but not
all that “swole”. And I could tell it
hurt. And he went and sat down on the
edge of the table and looked like he was about to start crying – well, this was
8th grade, and I knew that the douches would make him miserable if
that happened. So I went over and
started telling him jokes, doing an impersonation of one of our lunch ladies
who was always trying to push salads on us, and just trying to work him past
the pain and tears. I made him laugh and
just kind of stayed right with him til he was OK, and then class started. And that was it. Now, that may seem minor to you, but when he
signed my yearbook in HS, it ended with, “Ya waaaaaannnnnaaa a
saaaaaaaaalllllad? - Chet”. So, I think
it probably mattered. Chet’s in the
hazing picture, by the way. He is now a
very successful lawyer, married to the sister of a classmate – has two gorgeous
kids. He did just fine.
Here’s the last one.
There was a kid in my class who was kind of a jerk. Cute, popular – short man’s syndrome. Played tennis and was always calling me a
nerd or geek or whatever. One day, our class is headed to lunch and he realizes he doesn’t have money – so he’s asking around
if he can borrow a dollar, and I offer to loan him one. He looks at me kind of surprised, but he takes
it, then pays it back the next day. Here’s how he signed my yearbook:
“You sang a really good solo in the play. Thanks for the dollar. You’re a real nice girl”.
I hope that I live my life so that the thing I did back in 7th
grade stays the meanest thing I ever did.
ae
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