Today my aunt and I were babysitting my six year old niece and her (my aunt's) ten year old grandchildren, all three of whom are kids I ordinarily like.
Right before I left (indeed, the incident that inspired me to leave), my niece started whispering things to her cousins, and then all three of them looked over at me and started laughing. I immediately felt like I was nine years old, overcome by a rush of hurt and helplessness and confusion identical to the emotions I felt when I got made fun of in elementary school.
Now that I'm home it's taking all my willpower to not comfort-eat the large bag of peanut M&Ms I bought last night.
And now I can't decide which is more disturbing to me: the fact that my niece seems to be heading down the path of becoming the kind of kid that treats people horribly for no good reason or the fact that, at almost thirty years old, I haven't grown out of the feeling of abject misery that comes with people whispering and laughing at you.
No fooling, it's going to take a hell of a lot to cheer me up today. It'll take an incident of Gogol-Bordello-playing-an-impromptu-concert-in-my-backyard proportions. That's how deep it cut. I imagine other people having flashbacks to being teased mercilessly for what felt like no good reason would have a similar reaction.
But I still feel like somehow I'm wrong or overreacting or something. I mean, I should just let it go, right? They're little kids. They don't know any better.
Except when I was a little kid, the people teasing me and making me hate myself were also little kids. And they sure seemed to know better. It was a "malice aforethought" kind of thing.
What inspires people to act that way?
Be seeing you.
-Sally
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