TO FORGIVE DIVINE?

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`````It was the proverbial Oprah moment. I had picked up the phone and there was a person on the other end that I had never expected to hear from again. To be honest, I didn't really want to discover that she was there. It would have been better had she looked me up on Facebook. I would never have known, as I cannot get into that account.

`````I've written in previous blogs of somebody who teased me. Well, here she was. It was that odd relationship that girls can have. I would highly recommend the superb book by Margret Atwood called "Cat's Eye", as she captures it like no other writer. How certain girls can be friends one minute with their comrades and then pull the perfect transformation the next. Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde should actually have been written about a group of little girls, as that would have been more on the mark. Should you pose the question "Who knows what evil lurks?" Surely it can be found in the heart of those little darlings gathered in the playground.

`````So there I was, on the phone. All these years later, I felt the fear return. It was like something out of a horror movie. I felt like the babysitter in the house who picks up the receiver and finds that the psycho is back; the person long thought dead or stuck in an asylum has returned.

`````I really am not kidding all that much. Sandra J had the bouncing and behaving curly locks that my stick straight hair could never achieve. She'd look the teacher dead in the eye with her sparkling brown eyes and then wait until she left the room and steal several of her felt markers. She kept them zipped inside the lining of one of her stuffed animals. She did not fear getting caught. Sandra would pick on one girl in particular, for no reason other then the fact that her mother dressed her like an old lady. Her hair was piled atop her head in a frumpy bun. Sandra would start nasty rumours about people and expect others to spread them. I wouldn't play ball and my punishment was that I was soon on the receiving end of her bullying myself. We'd once been friends, so I think she saw my not going along with her as a form of betrayl. Given her good looks, I don't think she'd ever had anybody say "no" to her antics before.

`````One day, she literally stabbed me in the back. She took her leaded pencil and drove it far into me, so that the tip embedded itself under my skin. Because it became infected, I have a green discolouration on my skin to this day. At least she missed my spine. This was a girl in need of serious intervention.

`````Now, here we were, years later. I'd never known what had happened to her, as my parents had wanted to buy a house and couldn't afford to do so in the city. As it turns out, her family had moved at about the same time.

`````Sandra J was calling to apologize for what she had done in the past. She said that she realized she had been a terrible bully and she wanted to say that she was sorry. I accepted it and we talked for a while. She was about to get married and she had done a bit of travelling. She mentioned to me that there were some things going on in her life at the time which had caused her to act in the way that she did. She didn't elaborate, and I didn't ask.

`````I had accepted her apology because it was the decent thing to do, but to be honest, I don't feel it in my heart. I let her off the hook because I had the feeling she was probably working the steps to some program. I've taken enough drug counselling courses to know the steps and I really applaud those who seek help and do battle with their demons. On the other hand, bullying really has a profound effect on kids. It goes on in the workplace too, especially by women. It is not okay to exclude people. The petty office politics and the gossip can be really destructive.

`````The culture, in general, seems to be getting meaner. Perhaps it has something to do with the annonymous nature that people think the internet offers them. In the past, people might have disagreed with something, but at least they could argue about it in a fair manner. Each side would agree to present their position in a coherent, logical fashion. Now, if somebody disagrees with a person's point of view, they automatically resort to name-calling. Usually that amounts to insulting the person's gender or sexual orientation. I've noticed something really interesting, by the way. The worst spelling and the stupidest comments come from those who use monikers on their postings which refer to the size of their, how shall I phrase this, anatomy....or a specific practice which involves a number. If you read the postings, especially on Youtube, the most idiotic diatribes come from those bearing names such as "Hung9inches". The spelling will be bad, there will be no punctucation and every comment ends with "you're gay." So much for the fine art of debate. I actually love the freedom of speech. I think the more we let idiots rant on with their racist nonsense, the more we let the rest of the world see what fools they truly are. If we try to silence them, people might try to create some conspiracy theory that there's a hidden message we're trying to suppress. Please, the morons will run out of steam soon enough. Either that or they'll get distracted by some other shiny object.

`````On that note, back to where I began, with my Oprah moment and the phonecall: I hope that she was sincere when she called. I think she was. Any kids that she has, I hope she remembers and understands the value of words and how kids pick things up. Don't put people down in their presence, as they'll learn that it's okay to do so. I only wish I could feel it in my heart.