the hate locker

this post was inspired by a ridiculous response one reader had to my friend samantha's most recent blog post at http://www.bitchesgottaeat.com/. her post was honest and open and took her some time to write because of it. it is hard to do what she did. she chose to write about her body image and associated items. it is not a comfortable topic for her and she admitted so in her response to said commentator. but she did it because she is trying to be as honest as possible on her blog baby. this person's words were cutting and mean and meant to shame sam into submission for not subscribing to societal pressures. samantha is a good friend, an amazing writer and one of the nicest, sweetest people i have met here in chicago. i often feel that we are so similar it is like having found a counterpoint in the universe. that said, i felt it necessary to respond in some way. the words of that awful commenter reverberated in my head all day yesterday and i choose to respond with some heartfelt honesty of my own, although i think the response of some of sam's other friends were shorter and more on point.

 monday night melody

it is easier to be mean. being nice takes effort and control and reasoned thinking and, ultimately, having feelings yourself.

ever since the mainstream awareness of mean girls and the like, movies and books have been touching on a subject women have known about for decades, most likely centuries. girls can be mean, so mean as to be cruel. last month a young girl killed herself because a group of girls hen pecked her into such a state that she didn't want to live. she didn't want to live. breathe. smile. cry. laugh. swallow. blow her nose. sleep. kiss. make breakfast. walk. get married. read. have sex. hop on one foot. play games. have babies. breathe. anymore. all gone. because people couldn't keep their mouths shut. because jealousy prevailed and words can be vicious.

i know because i too used to feel their wrath. obviously not the words of those particular girls, but a group just like them. you all know them. wrapped up in the facade of their perfect picture lives, their skin-tight jeans and well-manicured hair. the girls who made middle school a place of dread and angst, rather than of education and exploration. i was like a nail that couldn't be hammered down in middle school. my parents were both teachers at the school i attended, i had an older brother who was a little off-beat and known for his academic excellence. i too was considered smart, although i don't think i was ever nerdy. i was however chubby, which in many ways is worse. i straddled a line between acceptance and repulsion by a group i didn't even want to be in. by girls who only knew one way of looking at the world. i wouldn't keep my mouth shut and i often, as i was taught by my parents, defended those around me who could not or would not stand up for themselves, often at the expense of my own popularity.

i never wanted to be boxed in. sure i wanted friends, i wanted to belong and be invited to make-out parties and have boys like me. i just wasn't willing to do it at the expense of myself. even from a young age i knew who i was, what i wanted from the world and more particularly those around me. i was never going to let some twit change the way i thought. consequently middle school often felt like one long screaming voice going into a dark well. no one to hear me on the inside. i was always going to be the chubby girl, even if i had lost a ton of weight one summer and come back a new svelte version of me, i knew the score. instead of poking fun of the way my shirt hugged my pre-adolescent curves, they would talk about how i used to have those curves. you could shed all the pounds, but in their eyes i would always be that girl. and i know because i am still that girl now. reflected back at me. same curves, same feelings. no difference.

i feel i might be painting the wrong picture here. i did have friends. and one very good friend in particular who i have been best friends with since kindergarten. together we were able to tough it out. our own tiny band of outsiders. there were others too, that i was close with. women that i am now happy to have on my facebook collective. but there were others that came in to my world and tried to torch it, burn it down and make me feel less than. little did those bitches know i was fire retardant.

i was able to make it through those years because of the few close trusted friends i had, that and the words of adults around me who saw my pain and my frustration. adults who told me it would get better, that when i was older, these things wouldn't matter. sticks and stones and dumb hoes and all that (well not exactly their words). and i believed them. i really did. i thought, well we all grow up and realize that words hurt. a lot. and don't do it anymore. i think this has been the worst disappointment of my adult life. santa, the easter bunny, even the fairy tale of perfect love were all easier to accept than the idea that we still love to tear each other down and often over petty bullshit.

i am what people like to call a straight shooter. some people like to call it bitchy. i like to call it honest.

i am never going to be cruel to you. the reason: not that you haven't deserved it or my anger pushes me to it or my rational frustration tells me it is allowable under the circumstances. no. i am never going to be cruel because i am always going to be honest. you may not like it. the words may not be sugar coated or wrapped with a bow, but they will come from a place that is hard for some to fathom. i feel no need to lie. lying is a pretense i don't stand behind. i only lie to save someone unnecessary anguish. i am a discriminate liar. i have one thousand rational reasons lined up before i do it. otherwise i just want to tell you how i feel. and i try not to make it about something it's not. if it is about how you treated me i am going to tell you that. i didn't appreciate it when you said this about me, etc. and i'll say it so calmly you might freak out. because people don't like to be confronted, especially with someone with the calm of a buddhist monk. a fact i learned in middle school, when mean girls, confronted with the boldfaced truth scattered to the four winds or stood stock still wishing they could melt into the floor. because i am also good with words said in anger. if you pick on my friend you are picking on me and nobody picks on me anymore.

we are 30. we are supposed to be adults. we are supposed to understand that the struggles of this world are difficult enough without the added pain of your poorly chosen words and the motivations behind them. we are supposed to understand that everyone carries baggage. i'm sure even those mean girls with their faux louis vuitton luggage know that. broken families, broken faces, broken self-image. i always try to understand the motivation behind someones cruelty, if only because i bore the brunt of it for so many formative years. i also don't think that it is an excuse. because i know plenty of people that didn't get enough breaks in this world and they never say a negative thing about anyone.

now i am not saying i am perfect. i have spoken out of turn, been guilty of aggression towards friends and enemies alike. there are some things i would like to want to take back, but i just don't want to. i do things with purpose. but most of all i do things with kindness. if i let you in, i'll fucking kill you with it. i am tough as nails, wrapped in an impenetrable nutshell, but once you are in i am one of the best friends you'll ever have. and i stick. this lady is for life, unless you screw me over then i'll cut you out like a fast-growing tumor and never speak to you again. it's true. ask those i've left behind. just don't ask me where they are because i don't keep tabs on the dead.

people confuse being a hard-ass or not a push over as being mean or a bully. i am not a bully. i know because i could never be after having been on the receiving end of their words and actions for so long. i think we are divided into categories when we are young, shaped by the way we respond to the actions of our peers in middle school. there are the bullies, the brave ones, the jesters and the watchers. i think it is possible, but not likely that we can grow up and move past these labels. it would be a rarity, but i have witnessed it once or twice. i know where i stand in this crude pre-adolescent adult heirarchy. do you?