So there Andy was, minding his own business when all of a sudden he is lifted up into the sky by a beast. I watched in horror as this creature spun in circles with Andys little body raised above its head like it was a feather. When it was done spinning, it tossed Andy forward and Andy landed feet away with a thud. Andy didn't move, he was face down on the ground. It happened so fast because neither of us were paying attention to the Godzilla of a boy that roamed the playground! Godzilla boy had a name, it was Josh. Josh was a wall of a boy with a head of bushy loose curls and big features from head to toe. I was convinced that his hands alone could cause some sort of eclipse! One thing Josh did not have was my amazing jean jacket and my bad ass leather ankle high boots with little tassels and a metal tip on the toe. I was stylish and dressed for battle at a young age!
Picture boots like this , but tan with tassels and handy little metal tips.
I looked at Josh and then Andy and sat down my fist of plastic soldiers. I marched over to the playground Godzilla and put him to the ground with one swift kick to his meaty left leg. My mother always told me , " The bigger they are the harder they fall!" and I finally saw the truth in this with my own eyes. Andy was not the typical boy who would have been bothered by a girl taking down our mutual enemy. He actually appreciated the assistance and we carried on with out GI Battles everyday in peace while Josh limped around for a week with a bruise so big it probably could have eclipsed the sun. Andy Continued to be my BFF for most of my grade school years along with some other awesome boys and girls of course, but he was always my favorite. Our mothers would watch us sledding out Andy's dining room window and laugh at our process.To this day mine loves telling the story of me being the one to pull Andy up the huge hill of snow in the sled. I guess I have always figured that each of us were made with our own unique sets of talents, strengths, and expertise. His was supplying me with foam dinos capsules and I was the one skilled in taking down bullies and providing winter transportation up hill. What seemed entirely normal to us had both moms watching the roll reversal with laughter . Andy later moved away and we lost touch until the power of Facebook came into play decades later. Andy grew up to join the army and get married and have two adorable freckled babes of his own.
Now for Josh. The playground bully. The tidal wave to our peaceful beach. The pee in our lemonade. This wasn't my last run in with Josh, but I'll save them for a later post. I went to a small school and was stuck with that little jerk from kindergarten to graduation. Tables turned for him as the years went on. He continued to grow and grow taller, but then he started to grow wider. Kids started picking on him once we were in high-school and the bully now was the one being bullied. Because bullies are such jerks, they typically lack real true friends. They might have a few spineless shallow types who join forces with the bully because they enjoy the lifestyle, the protection, or because they prefer to stay on the bullies good side than their bad side. Who knows. There are probably plenty of reasons people align with jack-wagons like that, and since I'm not one of those people I cant honestly give an accurate reason for the "Why?"
Once we hit high-school , Josh found himself a nice little spot with the group of kids that lived in the same pair of Jnco jeans, farted on lighters and set their asses on fire , and drank bottle of food coloring so when they got wasted later that their vomit was the color of their choice. That group was in interesting group. They were friendly, entertaining, but he was the underdog in the mix now. He was more like their mascot now. They would use him to be their clown. Dare him to do stupid things to himself so they could laugh at him. He was no longer a real person to them, he was their lap dog. Their jester. The physical bully of my childhood was now being bullied mentally in his later years. To many it was poetic justice. I have an eye for eye streak in me, so that side of me was all about the Karma that was kicking in.
Ladies and Gents! I present Jnco Jeans! Do you remember these? Ff you went to high-school in the mid to late 90's you might!
As we made our way through each year of school, we change and morph. Our circle of friends change. Our interests change. Our footing in one social circle shifts and we find our self in an entirely new one or even spread across 3 or 4. That is where I was. I had my hands and feet in every social circle I fit into. I was a social butterfly of the highest order! I ignored and still ignore these sort of boundaries and barriers . I would have it no other way, but it is not always easy to master for everyone. It wasn't that easy for many, and it still wasn't easy for Josh. I could tell as we got closer to our junior he was growing tired of being the clown. His grades were failing. The only friends he had used him for shits and giggles. He started to pull back and chose more and more to go it alone instead of where ever he was welcomed. He started doing what many of us did, we started to mature. Our interests changed. We started looking back at where we've been and tried to figure out where we were going. He started to feel remorse. He started offering apologies to those who were still around that he had been a tool too. One of the girls he had tormented actually had left school because of her own harassment , harassment he would join in on daily. It appeared that this playground bully was leaving his cocoon and seeking a new beginning, which always works fantastically in the movies, wasn't looking to work out so well in real life. There wasn't uplifting music in the back ground. A flash mob didn't break out in the cafeteria with all of the students letting down their guard to hug and dance in harmony. There was the annual winter fest dance approaching and he didn't have a date. For obvious reasons he actually never ever attended a dance let alone ever had a date.
Now, I had mentioned that I went to a small school. When I say it was small, it was small. We had 50 kids in my graduating class and all of us graduated. Many of us went to school with one another from kindergarten all the way to graduation. You might assume that is a cake walk. It wasn't. You couldn't just blend in with the crowd or swap social circles or friends at the drop of a hat when your friend pool was actually the size of a mud puddle. If you were the nose picker in 4th grade you were still called the nose picker in 10th grade even if you stopped picking your nose in 6th grade.
I think that is something that we often forget as we make our way in and out of the chapters in our life. Often times our reputation does precede us and can feel like a heavy wet blanket we have to climb out from under. If you are lucky, someone may decide to lift the blanket so that you can climb out from under it with little to no struggle...but I wouldn't count on it.
It was a week before our Winterfest dance and anyone who wanted a date to it was running out of time. My girlfriends and I liked to go in a group of 5 to 6 in our early High-school years because it just felt weird going with people we've known since kindergarten. This dance ended up being entirely different that year because I actually attended it with Josh. Believe me, My friends were just as shocked. When Josh asked me to attend his first dance with him I had my reservations as you can imagine. He had a horrible reputation that followed him for obvious reasons. I had to really search hard for any redeemable qualities to justify a yes rolling out of my mouth. He was sweaty, nervous, awkward. He couldn't make eye contact. He knew he was taking a big chance asking one of us to go with him just as much as I knew I was taking a big chance going with him. It wasn't that I was worried about my reputation. That ship sailed when I embraced green glitter lipstick and holographic rainbow boots in a small country town. It was more of a trust issue. Could I trust him? The person who was trying to be? Could I forget how he had tormented everyone of us individually or with his friends? Would he be such a huge downer on my night of fun? Would I be stuck by his side because no one else would want to hang around him due to his history? I decided to go with him. I decided to give this bully a chance to continue down his path of change. The only thing I had to lose was perhaps a night of fun with my girls. I had seen enough change in him that I felt I would have been just as much of a jack-wagon to not toss him a key to free him from his reputation prison. I would have wanted someone to do the same for me.
My Take Away?
- People can change if they want to change.
- We don't owe anyone a second chance
- Second chances are circumstantial in my book. It all depends on the who, what, where, when and why.
- If you feel someone has put in the time and attention to warrant a second chance, approach with baby steps and gauge how you feel during the process. Some people are great manipulators and see kindness as weakness. Listen to your gut instinct, not your heart.
- I was raised to treat others the way I wished to be treated so that plays a large part in how I interact with others to this day. I find that it is more than a cliche, it is a compass for my actions.
- People change as we grow and roll with life and it's punches.
- Sometimes we change for the best and it is hard to change how people perceive us. That is something to always keep in mind. It may have taken you 10 negative actions to dig you into the hole you're in but it can take more to dig you out. Think before you act.
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