An Overdue Confession

According to the American Justice Department, one in four kids will experience bullying in their lifetime. My experiences lead me to believe that 100% of the people alive today have experienced bullying in one form or another. Some have been bullied, some have been the bully, and some have experienced life on both sides. As we all know, bullying takes all sorts of forms: physical, emotional, mental, etc. There are varying degrees of bullying, ranging from severe abuse to gossip, but regardless of the form in which it takes, it leaves scars on all participating parties.

I have a confession. I have been a bully.

It happened a good while ago. There were a group of us who always hung out, drawn together by mutual interests and a similar desire to do "unpopular" things (read: not partying on the weekends). During one of these weekends a trip was planned. And one member of the group was excluded. Why they were excluded is unimportant now. Granted I did not exclude them, but I did absolutely nothing to make sure they were included either. I didn't volunteer to stay behind. I didn't try to persuade the others to include this person. I simply went along with the rest of the group and what they wanted. I rationalized it to myself the entire time. "I'm sure they'll be fine." "Most popular member of our group anyway." But it wasn't true. And I didn't find out until quite recently how untrue it was.


Now, nothing major happened as a result of what we did (I'm still friends with everyone in that group), but what I did was rude and insensitive. And what makes it worse is that I know the bitter taste of being left out quite well. I am very sensitive to the comments of others and have been hurt by similar situations in the past. And yet, when the chance came to be in with the "popular kids" I took it. Since that weekend I have worked much harder to make sure no one is left out, to sit with the loner, and to talk to the ones on the outskirts. It doesn't make up for that weekend, but it is a start.

There is no neat way to tie this up, to make all the puzzle pieces make a beautiful picture again. But I think that's okay.