I realized the other day that I am the sum of my experiences

I realized that other people probably have completely normal middle school experiences. Middle school always sticks out for me as an experience that has shaped me, probably because it sticks out for me as such a glaring example of why I feel so horribly guilty when I am the least bit mean to other people unfairly, and why I try and be kind to everyone and be cute and sunny.

I just want to analyze the whole experience every time. So I'll start with elementary school- grade five, just before I had to leave a school I loved and go to middle school. I was extremely popular and I honestly have no idea why- I had lots of friends and everyone wanted me to sit at their desk at lunch and I think at one point we made a schedule?? I might have let the power go to my head a couple of times, but then again, I was 10. Even then there was some indication to me that I wasn't quite one of the perfect pretty popular girls, but they were never mean to me. No one was ever directly mean to me, and if they were, it was minor, not an ongoing thing, and was resolved quickly. I have wonderful memories of elementary school.

Sixth grade wasn't so bad, I suppose, except that I was probably used to being popular and well liked by everyone. I made friends, and they were good people- they were insanely kind to me even when I was probably kind of mean and bitchy. I'm not sure what it was about middle school, but it made me really nasty. I noticed that when I finally got to ninth grade and met people who I am still friends with now, and I don't know if they had the same experience or not but suddenly having friends meant I just had to be nice and so I adjusted. I said some really mean things in ninth grade- trust me. I'd like to think I've come a looong way since I was 12.

Anyway, seventh grade I think was the worst year. I became absolutely head-over-heels infatuated with a boy for absolutely no good reason. He got shitty grades, was popular so he never had to worry about anything, good looking, and absolutely horrible to me. In the beginning, we just had to sit next to each other, and I didn't think much of it. He and the girl behind him (an ordinary, makeup wearing, fully developed and yet somehow not horribly mean girl) and I would talk sometimes about stuff, and everything was okay. I wasn't a total loser- I definitely wasn't up there with the cool kids, mostly because of my extreme lack of athletic abilities, but people hadn't been very mean. He said something the week before thanksgiving weekend. My family went out to our shared cabin that weekend, and I distinctly remember making the decision to like him on the way there, curled up under a blanket and practically backwards in my seat in the dark. I can't remember why anymore, and if I had to pick one decision in my life that I would do over, it would absolutely be that one. I would go back, shake myself furiously, and shout "DON'T FUCKING DO IT." I don't know how that would have affected the rest of my life- pretty sure my nickname wouldn't exist- but I'm sure it probably would have been better.

Of course it wasn't horribly intense at first- it was just a stupid little crush, which was fine and manageable, but over time it grew into something very big and scary (when I think back on it now). I tried so hard. Although when reading my old journals, I'm impressed at how positive I was. I made a big deal out of middle school issues like sports days and fundraisers, cared about things, had pride for the school, etc. I did everything they asked me to. I tried in gym class- really, I did. I made other friends. I let the boys jump over me in gym class when we all had to sit in our "squads" (neat lines of five or six that we sat in while the gym teacher introduced the class). Of course my gym strip was... decidedly not cool, since I wasn't about to go buy cool gym clothes I would never, ever use. I still danced at that point so I was already athletic in some way, so it didn't matter.

I don't even know how it got so out of control. Of course, being the person I was at 12, somehow I accidentally let the whole fucking seventh grade know about who I liked, and from that point on, I was not shown any mercy. Looking back now I can say I think the motive for his being so horrible to me was trying to drive me away. I made him look really uncool; I'm sure his friends teased him about the fact that I had such a huge, glaring crush on him and it was dragging down his reputation. Knowing that I made his life in any way more difficult is incredibly satisfying. Believe me, he fucking deserved it. And a lot more than that, too.

The list of names he called me is not actually that long- in fact, he began calling me "swegan" which of course my friends caught onto and then started calling me in front of him, so he realized that his nickname had caught on (which, unfortunately, made him pleased with himself). I went through other nicknames, the most notable of which were "melchy" (a play on my last name, really annoying but it never caught on) and "smeagol", which was just mean. He is also definitely on the record as calling me ugly, a fucking bitch, and faggot, and I'm not even sure why I remember these things if they hurt so much, but I feel some compulsive need to not forget all the vitriol he flung at me for the crime of liking him.

I think everything came to a head in the seventh grade dodgeball incident. That was by far the worst thing, in my memory. 12 year old me did a pretty good job of describing it in my journal, so I'll just put that here. I won't change his name because honestly I think he deserves any small amount of public shame he gets here, even if it's stupid and petty to wish this on someone who did this seven fucking years ago. (all other names will be altered in some small way).

~ From my journal, May 10, 2008
ughhhh. i’ll tell the story. even though i don’t like telling it.
second period on friday we had fitness friday, right? and so after all the other groups left it was mr. [F]’s group (the one i’m in) and mr. [U]’s group (the one the ugly jerk and his TWIN brother and other friend are in) were left, so we played probably the worst game ever invented because it singles people out and makes them embarrassed.
loser dodgeball.
it’s just like regular dodgeball, if you get hit you’re out, and then everytime your team hits a mat on the opposite side one person gets out. but if you get hit with the green dodgeball, you have to wear the PLC ([school name] loser crown!) i mean, come on!
just hearing we were playing dodgeball gave away the fact that the jerk and his “goons” (i like to refer to them as that) were going to gang up on me. and they did. they hit me once, that wasn’t COMPLETELY horrible, but they did laugh at me and boy, do they throw way too hard! of course after i got out i watched steve try to hit me and hit [C] on the back and then later [C] hit steve on the back of the head. i enjoyed seeing THAT.
then he hit me a second time- HARD on the hand. my fingers were sore until lunch, when we went home! and i had to hold my hand because it was sore and red, and then at the end of the day, when everyone’s going out to the bus, he MOCKS me! he puts this sarcastic crybaby look on his face, holds his hand, and imitates me! oooooooooooo,  that was annoying. not to mention EMBARRASSING! right in front of everyone! and then he was like “oh, smegal, did we hurt your feelings?” and then I screamed right out loud “YOU’RE SUCH A JERK!”
~End

Vince, bless her soul, said she wanted to "punch him" when I copied and pasted that into skype, and it was so awesome. I still want to punch him. I think I'll probably want to punch him for the rest of my life. I know they say that you should be the bigger person and forgive your enemy and whatnot, but I can't forgive him. Honestly, I go through my life not thinking about seventh grade 98% of the time, and I'm completely fine and have managed to get over most of the residual hurt. (On a cruelly ironic note, the song that just came on on the songza playlist I'm listening to is "Obsessed with me" by Mariah Carey and given what I'm thinking about right now, this song is decidedly not something I want to hear). But then sometimes I hear something about bullying, or I read something about being 12, or I watch youtube videos of girls doing makeup just for kicks and come across one of a 12 year old girl and become so curious and somewhat jealous that she is so normal when I couldn't be at that age.

At the time, I was bizarrely positive about everything, like I said. I was trying so hard to pretend my life was fine, and certain parts of it were. I was certainly doing well in school, and my teachers liked me, and I had some friends (some who were not exactly the most loyal people in the world, but I was never severely betrayed by them). I think the biggest thing was that at the time, when I was ever engaged with by the popular kids, I always assumed they were treating me as an equal, because that's how I viewed myself. That when they had serious conversations with me that always had a hint of teasing that I chose not to care about, they weren't talking down to me. Looking back, that's the only way I can see the experience. I can see the whole thing from a 3rd person point of view, can see me sitting in my desk, extremely short, mistaken for a 3rd grader quite easily, with hair down to my waist and fledgling bangs I didn't know how to work with, as they would talk to me and appear to be taking me seriously. I remember quite clearly a conversation with his twin brother, who was promising me that he'd talk to Steve for me. When I remember the incident in the light of now, there's other people watching in, either entertained or confused as to why I'm bothering to pay attention to one of the popular kids. I'm not sure if that's my memory being tricky or not, but I think at least some small part of it must be the truth.

I also remember several instances of light teasing in the beginning of seventh grade that could have easily been interpreted by a naive swegan as people being friendly, just friendly teasing, rather than choosing to tease me because they knew I liked the attention and would react to them; now my view of it is that they must have teased me because I was a loser who was easy to rile up. It doesn't excuse their behaviour in any way, not at all, but that's what I think their logic was.


I feel really, really, really pathetic still being hurt about all of this, especially since it wasn't really that bad in the grand scheme of bullying that kids deal with. It still makes me shake- I have a physical response to reading old journal entries from middle school sometimes.

Sometimes I just think that all I really want is for them to apologize. I know it happened 6 and 7 years ago, I know we were all stupid then, but I really just want them to say "I'm sorry about middle school" or "I'm sorry we were so shitty to you" or "I'm sorry we were so mean" or even just "I'm sorry." I feel like that might give me some kind of closure. My only other current option is just continuing to live my life out as I am and enjoying it (as I am) and just wait for this to all fade away. I'm really, really, really, REALLY fucking done with caring about middle school and I can't let it go. I'm afraid it's because I like being a victim or something, or that I want special attention. For christ's sake, middle school was so fucking long ago and we were all stupid and my life has gone nowhere but up from there and I even still have some form of positive relationship with a favourite teacher FROM middle school and why is this even a big deal anymore, it doesn't matter, none of it matters! I hardly cared then, given my apparent positivity. The dodgeball incident was definitely the worst of anything, and that was like exactly 7 years ago come May (the journal entry is dated). That's practically a decade. I have had a decade to be over this.

Seriously, I want to analyze this, but at the same time, I feel like such a gigantic whiner. Other kids have it way, way worse than I did.

Honestly, though, I am putting this post up for 1 part sympathy and 100 parts airing my thoughts. I feel a little more done with everything every time I post about it. That's a good sign, I'd say.


In completely unrelated news, I found a tea that I like! It's jasmine green tea. And I have come into possession of  a whole tin of it via the kindness of strangers, which is a story for another time. For right now, I have to go to bed. I have class tomorrow, y'know.

yer pal,
swegan

I have also decided that that name is no longer associated with him. So many of my friends have been the only ones to call me that now for so long that it's a term of endearment now. It's a friendly nickname, a play on my name and the word "swag" or something. It's mine now. I have taken it and reappropriated it. Deal with it.