Olive branches

Because who you are in school really shapes you. It never really leaves you.

I don't really get what makes kids decide to make your life hell, but it was

Daily.

Some years I blended in with a couple other outcasts enough to avoid the worst. Third grade I had no friends. Fourth grade was okay. Sixth grade I had one friend. Seventh grade I had many. Eighth grade I had none again. 

It wasn't until high school where I found acceptance for being "nerdy."

And on good days you hold it together enough to cry at home, but sometimes you're in the gym in a corner and wanting to never come out. 

Because They were always there, with taunts strong enough, my loser-status clear enough, laughter mockingly enough, to create embarrassment that sticks with you after they've left. 

My clothes weren't cool enough to want me as an ally. 

My interests were less relatable. 

What I said in prank calls was spread around school (nothing horrible, but kids make it seem that way and lame)

Luckily, it wasn't until my last year at college that I actually hated existing. During middle school I had a couple of church/Armenian friends that I could be "myself" around. I was convinced that my life would testify to what Bill Gates had said: "Be nice to nerds. You might end up working for one someday."

I was going to be successful, and what would they be doing?
Probably working a minimum-wage job because they had never bothered to find out what they could learn, for fear that they wouldn't be cool.
Hey, I'm just being honest!
So, you know, I read some more Horatio Hornblower on the bus. 

I know...sometimes the bullies are bullied at home. But sometimes, I really think at least some of them are just truly cruel and selfish. Not all of them could have lives more horrible than the rest of us. Because some of us had really shitty home lives too.

Anyhow, during college I was as far out as you could be cast. 

Sometimes there isn't a nice beautiful lesson. 

It was a messy lesson summed up in two words. 

I survived. 

That was it. 

Maybe it further reinforced the importance of being inclusive. I don't know. I kinda got that before. But now I got that sometimes you survive four years that were at times pleasant (all because you're prone towards happiness, even in solitude), but where you on the whole have zero friends. Except for Arpi, basically, far away in Chicago. 

One of the guys who bullied me in high school, he caught up to me in junior or senior year of high school and apologized. I'm glad. I saw him in the airport a couple of years ago, and he was nice. 

I think his apology went something like "I'm sorry I picked on you so much for being nerdy in middle school. I realized that I should be working too, and it may be too late." I felt compassion. I still do. 

Another one grew very friendly and kind after she went to South America. Fine by me.

Another...well she friended me on Facebook about a year ago. I haven't talked to her since eighth grade. It was as out of the blue as you can get. I struggled with whether to accept it or not. 

In the end, I decided to. 

Well, it turns out she just got her masters in something. She posted a picture of her thesis on Facebook with the sub-text "I'm a real person. Thanks to everyone for the support over the last 2.5 years. Especially the thesis informants, gate keepers, classmates, family, friends, and anyone I may have insulted a long the way. Love you all."

What did it mean? Should I like the status? Had she changed, especially given the last sentence? AND WHY HAD SHE FRIENDED ME? She's never liked one of my status' or made a comment. 

But I realized that, until the bullied and the bullies become friends, we can never expect to stop the cycle. We can never hope to be heard. Or hear the other. We can never hope for our children to not know what it is to love learning but hate the school yard, the cafeteria, and the hallways. 

It's the Berlin Wall that stands between us.
That life of separateness.
Even if the other has changed.
Even if the other has not changed. 

Maybe they're all why I never have trouble marching to the beat of my own drum. 

Sticking up for what I believe in. 

Not excluding others, even if that means that a group excludes me from their circle. 

Extending the olive branch, even if one hasn't tacitly apologized is the only way we both grow. Her. And I.

"Congrats, ****. That's a huge accomplishment! I'm glad it also sounds like something you're passionate about. Best wishes!"

Maybe I stay a pawn to her. Always. Maybe it's awkward. Maybe I'll appear more lame. Who knows?
I don't harbor a secret hope to be friends. Or that she'll write me back. Or she'll feel sorry. 


I just acknowledge that who I was in school shaped me in ways that will probably stick with my for life. 
In good ways. 
And bad ways, if I let it. 
And tonight, I decided to let it stick with me in one less bad way--

Resentment. 



Oddly enough, her approval, which seemed so important in middle school, would mean absolutely nothing to me now. 
Because I like myself. 

And I like that I am over resenting the particular people. 
And if she wants to grow too? 

That's for her to decide. 
I am genuinely happy for her either way.

Maybe the final frontier isn't space or the deep sea at all.
Maybe it's the gaping chasm between us all,
Between people
and groups.

And for me, it's time to start handing out more olive branches.