When I was in third grade, I was friends with this controlling girl named Rachel. We played together at recess every day under a particular tree. I don’t remember exactly what kind of games we were into, but it was a lot of talking and very little, you know, playing. Sometimes our friends Stacey and Joel would come and play with us, but we never went to play with them, or anybody else, either. In fact, no one but those two really even approached our “spot” on the playground. While other kids might be playing tag or something fun, we just sat there.
One day, I rather timidly suggested to Rachel that maybe we could play with the other kids. I don’t remember how I brought it up, and I may well have worded it poorly, but Rachel FREAKED OUT. She acted like I was dumping her. She acted like I was saying I didn’t want to be her friend anymore. She would not listen to what I was ACTUALLY saying.
We came in from recess, and a pissed-off Rachel got out her pad of post-its. She wrote out a bunch of notes that said “Holly is mean,” and “Holly is the worst friend,” etc, and then used them to decorate the entire perimeter of her desk. Every kid sitting nearby could see them. (How did my third-grade teacher allow this?) I was pretty confused and distressed that my friend was mad at me, and frustrated that I hadn’t MEANT to upset her at all. I wasn’t being “mean.” She just wouldn’t listen to me. And of course I couldn’t try to explain myself right then because I’d get in trouble for talking in class! (The rules I adhered to as a kid were ridiculous. Did you know one time in kindergarten I got spanked because I had to go to the bathroom?)
The last note Rachel hung up said, “I will give Holly one more chance.”
That one made me reconsider our third-grade relationship. I asked myself, do you really want to be friends with this girl who makes you sit in a corner of the playground every day, won’t listen to you, calls you mean in front of everyone, and expects you to grovel for one more chance? Then I answered myself, “EFF THIS.”
(No, I did not literally say “eff this,” but if I could go back and relive that moment with my current wisdom and vocabulary, I would have. I would also like to grab that “last chance” post-it and rip it up, just to make my feelings on the matter clear.)
So basically, I started doing my own thing on the playground, and the rest of third grade was pretty fun. I actually made some friends, despite my freakish height, my weird, floaty hair, and the dorkiest clothes ever.
The first day of fourth grade was totally awesome. My teacher had us push our desks together into little groups of four, which was the COOLEST thing ever. I was in a group with the only boy that remotely approached my height, whom I was naturally in love with. We were also the closest group to the door. And who should appear in that door but my old ex-friend, passive-aggressive post-it Rachel?
I remember being genuinely bummed to see her, but I don’t remember if I actually said anything. Here is the story as it was told to me later: Sweet innocent Rachel, who JUST wanted to say hi to all her friends from last year (the ones she never played with and hardly talked to), stuck her head in the door. I saw her, rolled my eyes, and said, “Don’t tell me SHE’S going to be in our class, UG!” And the entire class burst out laughing. (This is total bullshit. I was never cool enough to say anything that made the entire class even collectively smile.)
That is the story as told to me by my mother, who heard it from Rachel’s mother, who heard it from Rachel. I found out about all this when I walked in and found my mom giving the sink and counter the most aggressive scrubbing I’d ever seen, tears streaming down her red, puffy, booger-y face. When she saw me, all she could do was keep repeating, “I am sooo ashaaaaaaaaaaamed of YOU!”
That’s a pretty intense way to figure out that you messed up somehow. I tried to tell her my side of the story, but she’d already decided to be ashamed of me, and she wouldn’t even consider that RACHEL was the meanie who’d embarrassed me in front of the whole class, or even that the whole thing could have been a misunderstanding. No, my mom forced me to write Rachel an apology letter. Then, when it wasn’t apologetic enough (I think I included something like, “I’m sorry we can’t be friends,” at the very end) she made me re-write it. She was also extremely ashamed of me for like a week.
I don’t know why I was thinking about all this last night– maybe because there are so many unanswered questions. Did I actually hurt Rachel’s feelings, or did she exaggerate to get me in trouble? I wonder if she ever got my note. My mother is sort of the queen of not finishing things, so she may have never delivered it, or maybe Rachel’s mom didn’t pass it on because she’d decided delicate Rachel had been through enough. If she did get it, how did it make her feel? And how did she end up? I was a dweeb in high school that nobody could stand. Was she?
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how people interpret events from their pasts. It’s been almost ten years since I graduated from high school, and during that time I’ve developed a lot of strong feelings about my classmates, and then slowly gotten past them. A few of my classmates I loved for being popular kids that showed me the tiniest kindness (like passing me the ball in PE, seriously, I’m easy). A few were genuinely wonderful friends. Most I was angry at for a long time. Lately I’ve been wondering about the other side of the story. Maybe some of those kids thought that I was a snotty jerk, and that’s why they were mean to me. Maybe they had no idea I was upset at all.
I’m still not a perfect communicator, but I’m glad I live in a grown-up world where it’s easier to talk to people. I’m also a bit stressed out for little kids… There are a lot of misunderstandings and feelings running around out there.
hate it when that happens