One of my friends had been acting differently as of late. She had taken on some meanness and an overall attitude change for the worse. I attributed it to the fact that after about 4 years, she was no longer wearing a wig. When we were in Jr. High school her hair was always short, even shorter than mine. She wore it straightened or permed but at one point she got it permed (relaxer) and dyed. This took it out and left her with bald spots and needing to wear a wig. This was in the late 70's so when you think about all the information that is available to us now about how to care for our hair and even recover from damage and breakage, you know it was a much different story back then. Even the wig that she wore looked like brown doll hair.
Anyway, she had been wearing that wig for about 4 years, since middle school. She had also endured some teasing about the fact that she wore a wig but it didn't go very far because had a body like the song says, brick house. That girl was BUILT as we used to say, so I didn't see her suffer as much as I did over pretty much everything concerning my life. I'm sure it was hurtful for her though. She had finally stopped wearing the wig and her hair had grown out beautifully, longer than we'd seen it. She was now beginning to get attention from boys who'd always admired her body but wouldn't go near her because of the wig. It seemed that all of the compliments about her new beautiful hair got to her head and brought out some of the worst in her. She had been acting a little fonky for a few weeks and I had felt like she was serving a bit more of it up on me than anyone else. This may have been due to my hating any form of confrontation, even in a playful way. When a person is in the mood to bully or be mean to someone, it's easier to do it toward the person with whom they can more than likely get away with it; I felt like I was that one for her.
Compton High School. 11th grade. It was lunch time and the yard was packed as always with teenagers. I was in my usual cluster of friends and we were doing our usual teenage girl yacking and talking. She was part of our cluster. The conversations went on as they tend to do with females, from one subject to the next non-stop. At one point she and I had a difference of opinion on something that was just as irrelevant as everything else we had talked about and she pretty much snapped. She accelerated from 0-60 in a matter of seconds and slapped me right in the face. All of our friends were as shocked as I was. I didn't hit her back. I crossed my arms, looked away and became completely silent. She had been acting up for a while but still she was, or seemed to be as surprised at herself as everyone else was. She tried to apologize but I turned to stone, as I had become a master at by this time in my life, and I didn't speak to her or accept her apology. I didn't say anything else for the rest of our lunch.
For as long as I have had friends the one thing they've all loved about me has been my sense of humor. I've always been fun to be around, and a little off the wall. This made for many days that would have been boring to be lots of fun and filled with lots of giggles laughter. I punished her the only way I knew how, with my silence. We all still hung out together but I made it a point to speak and laugh and talk with everyone except her. Knowing she was there and refusing to interact with her was more hurtful and that's what I had mastered. She needed to know that though anybody else would have fought her, I was fighting her with my silence. She tried many times to include me in whatever she was talking about or to blend in with conversations with me but I shut down every time leaving her face to face with my stone wall.
This went on for a few weeks until she couldn't take my silence any more. She sat 1 or 2 seats behind me in our Spanish class and after one more failed attempt to get me to interact with her, she slipped me a note apologizing to me for slapping me. It was so hurtful. I had tears filling my eyes as I read it because I believed she truly was sorry and because I felt like I had hurt her. Now I was sorry for hurting her even though she had humiliated me after being mean for weeks before that. She wore me down and we'd made up by the end of class that day.
As I began to share stories of my childhood and things that hurt me there are so many instances like this one that come to the surface. I never fussed at her, cussed at her, let her know that she hurt me or that she shouldn't have done that. I simply grew silent and after a few weeks, forgave her. There is something to be said about the power of a conversation, whether you have it or not.
When you think about a person who from the time they enter into any school system, or enter into any interactions with others, that they never voice their true feelings, never tell on the ones who hit them, push them, call them names, humiliate them, follow them home calling them names, it's no wonder that at some point in their life, without a miracle, they commit suicide or end up chronically depressed. This is why I'm sharing these stories. To give you some insight into the mind of a child who is stuffed with pain and heartache. To help you to understand how it happens, why it happens. It doesn't happen overnight, but over time.