I am not going to go into too much detail, but will discuss this a bit.
When I was 10 years old, and about to start fifth grade, we moved to another state. I was very excited about moving . . . I had elaborate fantasies in my mind about how this was all going to go.
It seemed to start out all right, and I even felt like I was making some headway in making friends despite my extreme shyness. (All right - extreme anxiety even more so.) One of these girls (M) even was going to invite me to her birthday sleepover.
Was.
The most "popular" girl (Mean Girl) in class told M (loud enough so I could hear, naturally),
"Leisl doesn't need to come. She went to the overnight at church. Don't invite her."
M looked at me like she was sorry, but in the end, didn't invite me. I think I was always a bit angry with M afterwards for listening to Mean Girl. Also, Mean Girl was such a hypocrite . . . she went to the same church! What in the heck did she mean that I didn't NEED to come?? She went to the church overnight, too, but she was obviously invited to M's sleepover.
I withdrew even more after that. Who knew who would be hurtful next?
If I could go back and re-do some point in time, I think this would be it. I would go back with my adult perspective and stand up for myself, nice and loud and very clear. I would call Mean Girl out on all the BS. (I have forgiven M for listening to Mean Girl . . . I can understand why she did it.)
I have found these two online - one before facebook and one after. I am not fb friends with either of them. I am not facebook friends with anyone from the time period. There is one person I would be friends with on fb - a friend from junior high - but she is not on facebook.
There were more episodes, particularly in 8th grade, that were really "mean" and started by Mean Girl, even more so. I was happy when we moved and I had the opportunity to start fresh in high school.
Oh, do I remember "those" years. And we never moved so I got to deal with the same mean girls through junior high and high school. Lucky you got to move.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, stopping by from the A to Z Challenge. Happy Blogging!
Off topic I really like the layout and colors of your blog.
Thanks! I kept changing the colors, and then finally settled on on what it is now just a couple of weeks ago.
ReplyDeleteI think everyone has had a "mean girl" in their life at some point. I hated my school years, but it's all past me now happily!!! : )
ReplyDeleteFound you A to Z
Oh, I hate mean girls! I lived in 3 different towns and then went away to college, and found mean girls in all four of those places. Even now, in my new town, there are mean girls, er, mean women. They might not have grown up, but I have. They're easier to deal with now.
ReplyDeleteNew follower here -- hope you have a good weekend!