An Act of Expiation

I think we have all been that small, scared child on the bus with our head resting on a cold seat; our eyes fixated on the passing scenery of trees and houses through foggy bus windows. Hoping the kid who called us a “fat-turd” or threw a half-full bottle of Fanta at us in the hallway just ignores us and moves on to a new victim. Experts in child psychology and the human brain will say a child’s mind just isn’t developed enough to know right from wrong and others will blame it on bad parenting. I don’t know if any of those things are right. They probably are in some sense but I’m not an expert, and I would never claim to be. I do know what it did to me, the feelings of absolute powerlessness and the shame. Wanting to tell your parents or a teacher but knowing better. If you say anything, you only increase the size of the target on your back. Bottling it all up and hoping against hope that you can do something to render yourself invisible. Sometimes, it works, sometimes, it doesn’t. I was a fat kid with a high-pitched voice. I don’t think I need to go into any detail of the slurs tossed my way. Most can probably guess, some of my friends probably even remember. But self-pity isn’t what this post is about. It’s about how when given the opportunity, I flipped the switch and became the bully.

I can’t pinpoint the exact day I realized I had become the bully; the teenager that was calling someone a “fag” or throwing empty plastic bottles at them on the bus. But I had. I had become that kid; the one others hide from. As I sit on my couch next to my two-year-old daughter, I still wonder why, after everything, I had decided to become what I had feared and what I had hated. And I hope, as I watch her try to mouth the words to the theme song of her show, that she doesn’t get bullied. But more than anything, I hope she doesn’t become the bully. If anyone among my social circles reads this post feels I bullied them, I’m am sorry. I’m sorry for any heartache or loss of confidence I caused. We all have regrets in life, and this is one of mine. One that has had me reflect on my decisions as a teenager as I try to explain or rationalize, in some way, why I would throw back everything awful and unfair that happened to me, unto another undeserving kid. I can’t explain it. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t right, and, ultimately, I shouldn’t, and I won’t allow myself that rationalization because that shrinks my culpability. I did those things, knowing full well how they would make others feel.

And for that, I am sorry.