I've heard it said more than once (and some of those times very recently, too) that young boys pick on girl classmates because they secretly like them. Not only is this not always true (believe me on this!) but even if it is sometimes true, it is deeply problematic.

Telling young girls that this kind of behavior is indicative of a crush or something else seemingly innocent is actually telling young girls that teasing and tormenting are acceptable and normal. I know I'm not the only one who feels this way because I've heard and seen others comment on how horrible it is to make unacceptable behavior a "boys will be boys" thing.

I think back to my own experiences and how boys (and girls too) said very cruel things and threw things in my very big and curly and auburn hair and how I knew from a young age this was not because of any secret crushes. This was abuse for abuse’s sake. 

My teasing was not secretly coded. It was what it was: my classmates showing and telling me I was a freak, an oddity, someone who was so repulsive I was a constantly moving target. 

As middle school ended and high school began, I found the teasing and torment eased and instead my invisibility became the norm. I wasn't seen because I wasn't worth being seen. (Studies on bullying have included one that connects being bullied as a child to not being married at age 50 or above, which is what I am.)*

Other children's stories are different but no less abusive; in fact I know my story would pale next to others'. 

To tell a young girl that a boy is only making her life miserable because he likes her (in the times when the instances of this may actually be true) is not reassuring or making excuses...it is telling young girls (then later on: women) that this is how boys and men are and that they should just accept this.

On a side note, I just want to add that years ago I received a really nice note in my Facebook Messenger that helped me and validated that I had not been imagining or exaggerating things in my mind and memory. I saved it so that I could look it if I ever needed to fall back on the comfort it brought me. 

I remember trying to tell my parents once about what was going on and they told me that I needed to be stronger and not take things so personally. Their attitude had compounded things, but I also remember thinking at the time that since they both had very difficult childhoods growing up maybe I should just suck things up.

Getting the message below eased a lot of the pain I had felt both from the bullying and my parents not taking what I told them seriously.

* https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4552909/#:~:text=Being%20a%20victim%20of%20bullying,social%20support%20at%20age%2050.

other links:

https://www.quora.com/Why-is-red-hair-mocked

https://new.calderdale.gov.uk/schools-and-learning/youth-support/bullying/if-you-are-being-bullied#:~:text=You%20do%20not!,the%20way%20people%20treat%20us.

Each day I swear I won't look at the news and yet each I do. I used to have anger rise up in me so fast and furious it terrified me and made me sound unreasonable, even if I vocalized it. Now, I'm a deflated balloon with no idea or plan how to get going again. Whether it's Musk or Trump or some of the Republicans speaking out (and bragging) about overturning gay marriage, I just have no fight left, just sadness.

Sometimes I have fleeting, but very memorable and crazy high school memories...like the time my 10th grade English teacher read a scene from MacBeth right before a mouse ran across the room and Mrs. M hopped on top of the desk faster than I'd ever seen anyone move before. 

"Dude, I didn't know Lady Macbeth had a dog," commented one boy(perfectly serious and not seeing the mouse at all) in reference to our teacher saying "out damn spot."

Other equally strong, but far less funny and more devastating memories I seem to have made an entire career out of submerging. So perhaps that's why I've been having recurring dreams, going on decades, about something else that happened during high school that was far more alarming than a rogue mouse amidst Shakespeare.

I had one of the variations of the dream last night and as I always do after I wake from having it I wonder what is wrong with me that I still dream about something that happened so long ago and that the dreams can be so happy sad. 

One time, in one of my rare moments to try and put a stop to the dreams by actually acknowledging them, I wrote a hypothetical letter in my journal to try and find closure and apologize, in some kind of metaphysical way I suppose.

Reaching out to someone to apologize for overstepping boundaries years and years ago just seems selfish and wrong and possibly triggering so I knew I could never actually send anything. But I think when you realize you've wronged someone and you have no way to make up for that, it can haunt you for a long, long time, either in your real life or your dream, or both.

At that time in high school (and, really, still now) I was a very geeky unpopular girl who had a crush on another classmate. I didn't have any inappropriate longings or anything like that, but I deeply wanted a friendship I knew I could never have and it was up to me to recognize that fact and the kind and sensitive but still firm social cues I should have picked up from my classmate. Instead, though not by any intentions I was aware of, I became a huge pest and how can you ever apologize for something like that?

 

School Spirits means more to me than I ever could have imagined. When I first saw the ad pop up on my Fire TV home screen it went right over my head. Then when I noticed Spencer MacPherson as one of the people in the promo I decided to give it a go. (Spencer MacPherson is also starring in the Hallmark show The Way Home, another current favorite of mine.)

One of the ghosts who haunts the high school (all of the spirits live on campus and cannot leave unless they cross over into the next life) is Charley, who died in the mid-1990s and has a gay backstory I can relate to all too well.

The show is just so genuinely good-hearted and tragic and yet still sometimes light-hearted and fun.I know I've already written about it before, but it resonates with me in a way that feels life-saving and less lonely.

I'm on a break at work and I just checked my pet cam to look in on my cat. I do this about three times a day over an eight hour period but I am not fanatical about it. I do so because I like to make sure my cat seems okay and I miss him. 

My cat has a human name so when I talk about him and someone happens to overhear who doesn't know Henry is a cat they can get a funny Mr.Furley expression on their face.

One time I was telling someone a few years ago I couldn't get Henry to join me in bed and someone else commented "is that appropriate conversation for work?" It was much funnier in the moment than it is in talking about it now, but anyone who knows me at all knows I don't talk about sex at work, much less anywhere else.

Anyway, I love Henry as much as I would a human and there are two people in my life for which this gives them great concern and a big need to tell me how misguided I am to love an animal so much.

If I am misguided, so be it. Animals, more than ever, often make better companions than a lot of humans do.