Bully's

So my wonderful sister in law says its time for another blog. So I went to my handy dandy idea jar (a jar full of topic ideas and questions) and pulled out today the topic; My first encounter with a bully.

To be honest I don't know if it was my "first" encounter but when I read the word bully, it was the first memory that popped into my head. So here goes. I was in middle school in Rockville Maryland dutifully attending a choir class. I was walking along the riser type setup in the classroom when my foot caught a kids backpack strap throwing me into the all embarrassing "in front of everyone"moment of falling flat on my face. The best thing to do when the whole class is laughing at you is to laugh with them, so I did just that, face turning red I bounced back to my feet with lightning speed and laughed along. No harm right?Well...

The backpack I later understood belonged to a kid named Jay who viewed the whole experience quite differently. He interpreted the scene as my "kicking" his back pack and laughing along with the entire class about it. (He must have missed the face to the floor part I played). So Jay I can only imagine felt his pride needed defending and waited patiently outside the class room door that day. Now back to me...

Having somewhat recovered from landing on my face I sheepishly finished the class and headed out after the bell rang when WHAM!!! I was slapped in the face. No it was not a punch but this was one of those slaps that turns you whole body around while seeing black for a second. To use the kleshay I didn't know what hit me, but it hit me hard. As I came to my senses the cheers of "fight! fight! fight!" rang out as kids came running to the scene. Like a movie, part of my brain said (little devil on the shoulder) Yeah do it, I maybe a girl, but I had 2 brothers and could probably take this kid. (John, Sean no laughing at that thought please, I said probably). But then like the good little angel on the other shoulder all the lessons of Family Home Evening and Sunday school came flooding in and it took some courage to push my way through the crowd of kids and walk away. That's right one of the bravest things I did in middle school was walked away. I had no intention of mentioning the incident but my Mother's first words when I jumped in the car 20 min later was "What happened to you face?" Like a kindergarten finger paining I had Jay's entire hand print on my face, if it hadn't hurt so bad I would have thought it looked kinda cool. I of coarse had many other run ins with bullies growing up, every school had one and growing up in dozens of schools I avoided some and others met head on. I have been hit, spit on and threatened, threatened threatened but for me each time I simply walked away. OK in at least 2 incidences I had to run away, but for me it never was me fighting back. Well at least no physically I kinda had a mouth sometimes. 

There you go Britt hope you enjoyed- Love Jenny