Secondary School
I was so shy, quiet, and not very bright. I got bullied continuously. Always. It upset me so much and I never hid how much it upset me, which of course made the bullying worse. It didn't stop me from telling the teachers about the wrongdoing when I could, even though it never worked. I mostly tried to keep to myself, keep attention away from myself. I found solace and escape and comfort in books. Books - books I wanted to read - were, and still are, decades later, my sanctuary. I could rely on them, then and now.
All this is to say if I were ever to meet any of my school bullies or rubbish teachers who hated their jobs again, I'd walk away. They never listened or took me seriously then, so why should they start now? Why should I believe they had changed, or really grown up, when they had faced no consequences for their bad behaviour in the past? I would be ready to forgive them, but I won't make it easy for them. I won't let them get off scot-free. I'd move on from their toxicity; the trauma they put me through in childhood. I owe them nothing.
One lady in my creative writing group told a story about a nun at her school who, whenever it rained, would say it was coming down, and then it was "letting up", as she lifted up her hands. The lady, as a young girl, took this literally and said that "rain doesn't go up". Then someone else in the group said something to the effect of, "Nuns can't defy gravity". For bizarre reasons, I thought, "Huh, so The Flying Nun isn't a documentary?". Was I, the youngest of the group, the only one who thought of that reference and joke?
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