October, 2011
It’s my second day at a new school and I’ve just walked out of an intensely nerve-wracking period of P.E., wherein I had no other choice but to display my utter lack of talent in the art that is volleyball to an entire class of students I still feel woefully uncomfortable around.
I’ve survived the horrors of the locker room and changed back into my clothes without incident, and I’m on my way across the courtyard with the gaggle of girls I’ve latched on to, and…really?
We’re going to do this now? We’re going to do this today?
I was at least four hours late to my first day of school yesterday because I was crying my eyes out at my front door, and now a bumbling band of gorilla-boys I’ve never seen before are following me across the courtyard, calling French insults at me and mocking me for my nationality.
I thought the world loved Canadians?
My self-appointed mother-hen-classmate snaps back at them to leave me alone, but they continue to stalk me the whole 50 meters until I stop and abruptly turn around. The ringleader is right in front, of course. I’m pleased to see that he’s considerably shorter than I am, and he reminds me of a small, sweet, pudgy boy I knew in elementary school.
I had much more affection for the sweet, pudgy boy.
I am proud to say that I do not cry. Instead, I place my hand on his shoulder and say, very gently in English, “Shut up, and walk away. Just shut up. And walk away.”
I am very pleased to see the look of confusion that crosses his face, and the faces of all the boys in his posse as they start to mumble to each other-
“I didn’t get that, did you get that?”
“I understood ‘Shut up’, but…”
Of course, the memory of satisfaction is very much obliterated by the large, sopping tears that begin to fall from my face and I turn my back on them even before my victory over their dull, small minds can be assured. My mother-hen friend ushers me beside her and rubs my arm while she hollers after the boys as they start to run from me, muttering:
“Sh**, she’s crying, let’s go!”
Filthy cowards. The lot of them. I wish I had used much stronger words with them before they could run off. Something along the lines of “va te faire foutre”, complete with a nice bras d’honneur.
But that wouldn’t be a good way to make friends.
Present Day…
A recent assignment for a creative-writing class has caused me to relive a thousand-and-one memories from my various experiences in life and in school overseas. Some of them delightful. Others more along the lines of this one. I’ve relived this particular experience so many times already, I shouldn’t be surprised that I gleaned nothing new from it this time. I go over all the horrible things I could have said to those boys, and all the ways I could have made myself feel more powerful than they did… and it changes nothing, because I’m here now, and that is how I chose to react then (not that I chose to cry, but you see what I’m saying).
Nevermind the fact that I could probably never bring myself to say anything especially rude to anyone’s face, and anyone who knows me knows that even better than I do.
I had a couple of very rough days that ended up colouring the rest of my time at that school, that year. I think that, if I learned anything from that day, it’s that those kinds of days and those kinds of people… they hold little weight in the long run. I mean, they hold as much or as little weight as you give them. At the time, that weight was crushing. And at the time, I think I had every right to feel crushed. The important part would be that I didn’t stay that way.
The important part is, always, to grow and keep growing. To learn and keep learning. In many ways, c’est ça la vie.
elisesearching 