You Gotta Keep Em' Separated....The Final Installment of The Bully.

    VS.

Wow. I mean WOOOOW. I think it should be MANDATORY for every person to hold a giant NUMBER in their graduation pictures, OH and how about that letterman jacket. Awesome. I love 1995.

That Boy. The Boy.

He didn't hesitate for a second, he walked right out my front door and right up to the swarming crowd of football players. There were lots of cars and lot of ball players. BIG BOYS. I was amazed. I thought I had never seen anyone so brave and I was pretty much afraid for his life all at the same time. I couldn't breathe I was sure he'd come back in a crumpled heap. I mean I had heard stories of the stuff the Bullies could do. I had heard that they threw BRICKS through Mountain View Football players windows. I heard that they did thousands of dollars of damage to another rival ball players house. I watched the scene unfold tensely through the stained glass that was next to our front door. 

You know it was like those WAR scenes in the movies where the leader's of both sides come to the center of the battlefield on their steeds and discuss and then they either both go back to their sides or one waves the white flag. I think they were surprised by the size of the boy I dated, he wasn't a lightweight by any means. He was beefy and could hold his own. 

The boy, in his own way became the one who saved me. I will address this a little bit later. 

I could see things were heated. Then my friend's boyfriend who was a Mesa High Football player walked passed me, through the front door and into the street. That is when the dynamics changed. There was some shock, discussion, and then everyone went back to their sides.

The boys walked back into my house and said, "You won't ever have to worry about them again."

The next week I almost ran right into the bullies chest at school. I was busy doing something else and walking...mutli-tasking a skill I do quite well. I looked up at him, he was pretty tall. He looked down at me and I felt like I might literally throw up all over him I was wound up so tight from all of the anxiety and worry and embarrassment and always trying to watch my back..blah blah blah. 

But then something really amazing happened. He turned and walked away, he said nothing. I felt like 200 Spanish, Algebra and Biology books had just lifted off of my shoulders and instead of holding my breath, something I do when I am stressed I took a deep cleansing breath. I could breathe again. 

Maybe the fun was out of it for him, maybe he realized he was wrong, maybe he just got tired of being mean. I don't know.

The bullies then started calling my friend and I "the walkers." Because, we walked everywhere. Which was stupid because we CHOSE to walk everywhere because we thought it would burn more calories, plus we were BARELY 16 and sorry but our parents did not ENTITLE us to vehicles. I was still deathly afraid of the bullies, I still avoided them but something began to shift....

Katy Perry says it best:
I used to bite my tongue and hold my breath
Scared to rock the boat and make a mess
So I sat quietly, agreed politely
I guess that I forgot I had a choice
I let you push me past the breaking point
I stood for nothing, so I fell for everything

You held me down, but I got up
Already brushing off the dust
You hear my voice, you hear that sound
Like thunder gonna shale the ground
You held me down, but I got up
Get ready cause I've had enough

What you need to know about me is I am a lover not a fighter, but when my best friend got her little red NOVA we named BOB after..What About Bob the movie. We were driving down her street one day, remember she lived in between the two of them. They were outside without their car we pulled up next to them as they were standing outside rolled down the window and flipped them off yelling, "WALKERS!!!" That is about as mean as I got.

Something really strange happened, it was like I needed to learn some lesson about this because the bully stayed in my life even after he graduated. It's like I had to learn to overcome the fear I felt when he was around. I had to learn to ROAR. 

We all roar in our own ways, and sometimes we allow karma to do the roaring for us.

Justin Timberlake says:

 What goes around, goes around, goes around, comes all the way back around. 

The bully got a scholarship to play football at MCC. You see, after that he had nothing because when all your good at is being a jerk and playing football your future isn't too bright. I mean, unless your like superstar football status, not Mesa High/Community College awesome status. My family moved out of that ward ti Gilbert. I went to college, got married. 

I was at church one Sunday five years later when the bully was nothing but a distant memory when he and his new bride walked into our Sacrament Meeting and sat down. I nearly choked on my breath and all of my 12 year old anxiety came rushing back through my veins. I didn't hear a word of that meeting, my brain was reeling and I was trying to figure out how I could make a break for it. It was futile, I had seen them and they had seen me and the FUNNY thing is the ward we were in was SMACK DAB in the middle of TORO COUNTRY. I went to church a few more times trying to avoid him, but then his wife recognized me from Mesa High she was a few years younger than me. We talked, and laughed and became friends not, lets got to lunch friends but hey how are you friends. I got to the point where I could say hello to them without being afraid. Where I could walk by him in the hall at church and not flinch and then we moved. We had built our first house. 

And then, THEY moved INTO OUR WARD. So, very slowly I learned to be in contact with the bully and say hello and tolerate his presence. I even ran into him at the gym, he had gotten HUGE and he worked out with my then husband. I heard that he was on steroids, I don't know if that is true or hearsay but he was HUGE and red faced. His wife looked tired, she was always so nice to me and I was nice to her, it was kind of like we were kindred spirits. And then we built a little bit bigger house and we moved. 

And then, THEY MOVED. INTO OUR WARD. 

I thought is someone playing a trick on me? Seriously. However, I got to the point where I didn't even notice he was there. His wife and I laughed about the coincidence of it all, she had no idea that he was the scariest person in the world to me. She was finishing up her degree and she and I were both working hard at our careers. And then we moved, and I never heard from or saw the bully again. UNTIL, a few years later......

I was reading a magazine at my Mom's house and in it was a HUGE TWO PAGE AD. A before and after picture of the bullies mouth. (this was not his mouth but it resembles the BEFORE picture of his mouth) Apparently he was heavily involved in Meth. had been through rehab and a dentist had fixed his teeth for free. My heart sank. 

I thought of his kind wife, I thought of addictions and how they hurt everyone around them. He was probably her biggest bully too. You see, in some ways she and I had a few things in common. I felt bad for his family, they were some of the nicest people I had ever known. I felt sad for him, that his choices through his life led him there. You see that is a hard road. I have not seen the bully in years and years but a few years ago I ran into his beautiful wife, they were divorced he was not doing so well. 

The question is WHAT DO WE DO AS A PEOPLE TO PREVENT BULLIES? This is a question that is always on my mind as a MOM, as a TEACHER, as someone who was once bullied. I am almost 100% positive that everyone has been bullied by someone in his or her life. How do we teach love? What is the difference between someone who bullies and someone who doesn't? I have a few very unscientific theories. 

1. We teach love and build confidence in our children in the home. 

2. We do NOT entitle our children. We do not make excuses for bad behavior as parents for our children OR ourselves, we let our child deal with consequences for their actions and choices.We don't blame others, we take responsibility and we teach our children how to do that to. You see, as a child the consequences for say lying about NOT doing their homework is much easier to handle than a lifetime of entitlement and not facing consequences to actions as say the consequences for drug use. I have a hard time with parents who see their children as "They can do no wrong, it is everyone else, it was an accident." UH. NO. Take responsibility. 

3. We serve others.

4. We learn how to work.

5. We teach that the way we treat others MATTERS. It is a reflection of WHO we ARE.

6. We will celebrate each others differences. 

7. We learn to have a VOICE to have the confidence to say ENOUGH is ENOUGH because let's face it we don't want some hormonal TEENAGE boy to be our daughters HERO we want our children to be THEIR own HEROS!

8. We can read and discuss these FOUR books in our HOMES and in our CLASSROOMS.

A few resources I use to teach about bullying are:

In WONDER there is a part in the book that says: 

YOUR ACTIONS ARE YOUR MONUMENTS

 What does this mean to you? What do you want others memories of you to be? What will be your LEGACY or MONUMENT of memories that you leave behind? I mean really, isn't that all we are left with in the end anyway when this life is over? All that's left is our memories, knowledge and friendships that we have on this earth, lets make them REALLY good ones! 

PS. I want you all to know that I have forgiven the bully. A really long time ago, but like all wounds of the heart sometimes those sad feelings come back and we have to work at pulling out the weeds of hurt.  Here is what I know to be true, I have been bullied and I have probably even been a bully myself at points in my life. We all make mistakes, we are all imperfect and hopefully we are all trying to be a better person each and every blessed new day we get to live on this Earth. I hope we can teach and be examples of love to all of those around us even the bullies. Remember, sometimes it just takes ONE person to say HEY, ENOUGH is ENOUGH. 

With love. 

XOXO-The Sunny D