there was a little girl.   She was cute and sweet and loved everyone – and everyone loved her. And then she went to kindergarten.  

There was another girl in that room, one who stole her blocks and made the other kids laugh at her when she cried.   There were nice kids, too, but she remembered most the one who stole her blocks.  The teacher took her into the cloak room and knelt down in front of her, holding her hands tightly as she cried, and told her that she had to stop being a baby. But they were MY blocks, and that girl STOLE them and how come SHE didn’t get in trouble?  

I think that was the first time I was supposed to “get over it.”   I was four.   

Then came grade school.   The pattern was set  –  I was teacher’s pet, and the other kids hated me.   Words, always words, were used to hurt me.   I had funny clothes, and funny teeth, and my parents weren’t educated and I was teased, constantly.   But I loved school, I loved learning, and when I could read, and escape, it was all okay.

Junior High  – a new Hell.  Boys, suddenly, were way important.   I was just as interested as any other girl in my grade.  They, however, were not interested in me. except as someone to tease and torment.  No, Dude, I do not want to hold your johnson while you pee.   Hell, I didn’t even know what that was!

High School, and then college, were no better.   

We didn’t call it bullying.  I just wasn’t popular, I was weird, strange, homely, smelled bad – pick your words, any bad ones were applied to me.   We called it teased, picked on, and were told to get over it.

I thought I had.   I was wrong