August, entering September.
As the sun entered Virgo so began rooting through the subconscious for Librans and boy have I felt it. Nothing too bad, it's just a bit heavy. Things keep coming up that trigger painful memories from the deep past, things that my greater self is asking me to take a look at to release, I suppose. In earlier weeks I was looking at my distrust for people, wonder where it happened that my trust in people's goodness was damaged. Though I have a basic faith in people and I like them very much, I'm like a Scorpio - always looking for the hidden dagger, not because I think people are bad, but because I think they're just that faulty. Today I've been looking at the memory of what happened in school long ago..
There was this girl a grade below mine, but we were a small school so our classes were often sharing the same room. I think she must've moved to the area a bit later, because she entered school a few years after everyone else had already gotten to know eachother. That in itself wasn't a problem, that had happened before without issue. This time, however, she just wouldn't fit in. As I remember it she acted arrogant too often, but what turned people sour was how easily she cried when she didn't get her way. The general class recgonized this as a weakness and descended on her in the same way they had done on me when they noticed I didn't fight back. I remember clearly one day when they were making fun of her religiosity, which I didn't approve of, and she turned around and said we're all going to hell, which I didn't approve of. I didn't like any of them at that moment.
As time went by it was evident that she wasn't a team player but a rule player - and you know how these things are, they need to be done in balance. Too much team player and we have a bunch of kids being idiots and peer pressuring others to be idiots and not tell the adults. Too much rule playing and kids can't run around and do silly things without adults/teachers hearing about it and the mood becomes stifled. They tended to team players and go too far, she tended to be a rule player and went too far. I didn't like either option.
I suppose at around this time I must've been 10 years old or so.
The adults of course didn't know what to do. I'm sure they noticed I was on the outside of my class (my best friend was a year below me), we were only 10 people and 4 of us were girls. Unfortunately the leader girl seemed to see me as a rival of some sorts or didn't like me, she picked on me and gained power, though I don't remember it as being very bad, just very catty, and one of the girls was usually especially friendly, so.. It just meant I wasn't able to play with them, so I missed out on a lot, spent a lot of time on my own. I was very, very shy from the very beginning, I really needed someone to say "come and join us" but they so rarely did. I was 7, I didn't know it was okay for me to butt in and take up space.
At age 10 I was totally used to it but felt there must be something wrong with me since they would pick on me and not want to play with me. Once I did well in some sport game with a ball and stick and goal and all that and a couple of the boys told me I did really well, they made such an effort to make sure I knew they appreciated me, and I remember that feeling of sort of shock and surprise and absolute elation knowing that there was something I did well after all. So yeah, things weren't all bad, they were sweet from time to time, and one of the boys liked playing with me but we both agreed that we couldn't play much since then we'd get teased for being boyfriend-girlfriend, LOL, and that would've naturally been terrible.
So at around age 10 this other girl was introduced and she was picked on more severely than me because she'd throw tantrums and cry when they did. I remember stepping in and trying to minimize the damage sometimes. Once we were all at a birthday party and they made a plan to trick her into swimming in a lake and then they'd tell her (lie) that there were green algae in it (which her parents had scared her of to the degree that she was hysterically scared of getting it on her skin). I watched and disapproved, wasn't sure what to do, the day had been nice and if I told them not to then I'd go back to getting crap. Then she came down the hill, there was some sort of dare that "she wouldn't dare to go swimming" or something, and she went in and was triumphant. Then they told her there were algae in it and she sorta gave a scream and rushed out of the water and said some angry things and started crying. The others were laughing. I was waiting for one of them to stop it since she was getting so upset, but nothing happened. So I went up to her (though thinking: the algae are't that dangerous - get a grip) and told her they were lying. They stopped laughing and asked me why I had to tell her and I gave them a dark disapproving look and I think I said something like - that's enough already. They seemed to get it.
Somewhere along the line the adults/teachers figured I should be her friend. I was playing with my best friend and some of her classmates and then the teachers step in and say we have to include this girl in our play. That was okay for certain things like jump rope, but not okay in many other ways. We didn't match. Being a Libra I tried so hard not to get irritated with her snotty and "let's not do anything outside the rules" attitude and tried to accommodate her when she wanted to do things her way and compromising wasn't much of a skill of hers. We walked home from school together, had some good conversations. It would've been a nice acquaitanceship, but I wasn't able to be fully me and kept having to walk on eggshells so she wouldn't cry or pout, so eventually it fizzled out and eventually blew up in an argument that made her unwilling to be friends anymore. There were many parent-teacher conferences, the school was buzzing about "the problem", and eventually when we were transferred to high school at age 13 they transferred her to another school entirely, away from us horrid people.
I still feel the heaviness and guilt about being placed in the middle of all that. It was the adults that should've been the major players, I wasn't the one who should've had the responsibility to sort out the complex emotional issues of the group and be her friend or it all falls apart. At the beginning I was around 10, I was quiet and had my own problems with being on the outside, I didn't have the strength needed to defend her - especially as I felt she needed to be more responsible with her behaviour too (though at that time I couldn't articulate it like that). I suppose to them it looked like the perfect solution - put two people who don't fit in together, they'll be friends and we don't have to do anything. The idea itself was good, kids playing together, but not singling out a group of us (me and my best friend and some of her classmates, which quickly turned into mainly me) and sternly telling us to include her or else. The key as I figure it would've been to have us all play in such a way that it created team spirit, heal the whole class. I was the nice girl who couldn't say no so they gave me the so called problem child. I was 10 or 11. This shouldn't have been my job.
I wonder how she feels about it now. I like my classmates, though they were downright assholes at times, saying things like "she's so ugly I'd beat her up if she wasn't a girl", but overall they were kids and it was a long time ago.
I stopped letting people get away with crap at around age 15 or 16, finally. Doesn't mean I always stood up for myself, but I did start to argue back some.
Some years ago there was a time when I would've liked to say something, but I wasn't able to think of anything and explaining my position in Finnish was beyond what I was able to do. What happened then was extremely insensitive, she shouldn't have been so judgemental of other people's feelings and she definitely shouldn't have laughed quite that much about it. In any other situation I would've attempted to reason with her to see the other point of view. Ah regrets..
We live, we learn, we grow.. They're not bad people, none of us are. We do the best we can and hopefully our effect on the world will make a more healed and positive generation after us.
There was this girl a grade below mine, but we were a small school so our classes were often sharing the same room. I think she must've moved to the area a bit later, because she entered school a few years after everyone else had already gotten to know eachother. That in itself wasn't a problem, that had happened before without issue. This time, however, she just wouldn't fit in. As I remember it she acted arrogant too often, but what turned people sour was how easily she cried when she didn't get her way. The general class recgonized this as a weakness and descended on her in the same way they had done on me when they noticed I didn't fight back. I remember clearly one day when they were making fun of her religiosity, which I didn't approve of, and she turned around and said we're all going to hell, which I didn't approve of. I didn't like any of them at that moment.
As time went by it was evident that she wasn't a team player but a rule player - and you know how these things are, they need to be done in balance. Too much team player and we have a bunch of kids being idiots and peer pressuring others to be idiots and not tell the adults. Too much rule playing and kids can't run around and do silly things without adults/teachers hearing about it and the mood becomes stifled. They tended to team players and go too far, she tended to be a rule player and went too far. I didn't like either option.
I suppose at around this time I must've been 10 years old or so.
The adults of course didn't know what to do. I'm sure they noticed I was on the outside of my class (my best friend was a year below me), we were only 10 people and 4 of us were girls. Unfortunately the leader girl seemed to see me as a rival of some sorts or didn't like me, she picked on me and gained power, though I don't remember it as being very bad, just very catty, and one of the girls was usually especially friendly, so.. It just meant I wasn't able to play with them, so I missed out on a lot, spent a lot of time on my own. I was very, very shy from the very beginning, I really needed someone to say "come and join us" but they so rarely did. I was 7, I didn't know it was okay for me to butt in and take up space.
At age 10 I was totally used to it but felt there must be something wrong with me since they would pick on me and not want to play with me. Once I did well in some sport game with a ball and stick and goal and all that and a couple of the boys told me I did really well, they made such an effort to make sure I knew they appreciated me, and I remember that feeling of sort of shock and surprise and absolute elation knowing that there was something I did well after all. So yeah, things weren't all bad, they were sweet from time to time, and one of the boys liked playing with me but we both agreed that we couldn't play much since then we'd get teased for being boyfriend-girlfriend, LOL, and that would've naturally been terrible.
So at around age 10 this other girl was introduced and she was picked on more severely than me because she'd throw tantrums and cry when they did. I remember stepping in and trying to minimize the damage sometimes. Once we were all at a birthday party and they made a plan to trick her into swimming in a lake and then they'd tell her (lie) that there were green algae in it (which her parents had scared her of to the degree that she was hysterically scared of getting it on her skin). I watched and disapproved, wasn't sure what to do, the day had been nice and if I told them not to then I'd go back to getting crap. Then she came down the hill, there was some sort of dare that "she wouldn't dare to go swimming" or something, and she went in and was triumphant. Then they told her there were algae in it and she sorta gave a scream and rushed out of the water and said some angry things and started crying. The others were laughing. I was waiting for one of them to stop it since she was getting so upset, but nothing happened. So I went up to her (though thinking: the algae are't that dangerous - get a grip) and told her they were lying. They stopped laughing and asked me why I had to tell her and I gave them a dark disapproving look and I think I said something like - that's enough already. They seemed to get it.
Somewhere along the line the adults/teachers figured I should be her friend. I was playing with my best friend and some of her classmates and then the teachers step in and say we have to include this girl in our play. That was okay for certain things like jump rope, but not okay in many other ways. We didn't match. Being a Libra I tried so hard not to get irritated with her snotty and "let's not do anything outside the rules" attitude and tried to accommodate her when she wanted to do things her way and compromising wasn't much of a skill of hers. We walked home from school together, had some good conversations. It would've been a nice acquaitanceship, but I wasn't able to be fully me and kept having to walk on eggshells so she wouldn't cry or pout, so eventually it fizzled out and eventually blew up in an argument that made her unwilling to be friends anymore. There were many parent-teacher conferences, the school was buzzing about "the problem", and eventually when we were transferred to high school at age 13 they transferred her to another school entirely, away from us horrid people.
I still feel the heaviness and guilt about being placed in the middle of all that. It was the adults that should've been the major players, I wasn't the one who should've had the responsibility to sort out the complex emotional issues of the group and be her friend or it all falls apart. At the beginning I was around 10, I was quiet and had my own problems with being on the outside, I didn't have the strength needed to defend her - especially as I felt she needed to be more responsible with her behaviour too (though at that time I couldn't articulate it like that). I suppose to them it looked like the perfect solution - put two people who don't fit in together, they'll be friends and we don't have to do anything. The idea itself was good, kids playing together, but not singling out a group of us (me and my best friend and some of her classmates, which quickly turned into mainly me) and sternly telling us to include her or else. The key as I figure it would've been to have us all play in such a way that it created team spirit, heal the whole class. I was the nice girl who couldn't say no so they gave me the so called problem child. I was 10 or 11. This shouldn't have been my job.
I wonder how she feels about it now. I like my classmates, though they were downright assholes at times, saying things like "she's so ugly I'd beat her up if she wasn't a girl", but overall they were kids and it was a long time ago.
I stopped letting people get away with crap at around age 15 or 16, finally. Doesn't mean I always stood up for myself, but I did start to argue back some.
Some years ago there was a time when I would've liked to say something, but I wasn't able to think of anything and explaining my position in Finnish was beyond what I was able to do. What happened then was extremely insensitive, she shouldn't have been so judgemental of other people's feelings and she definitely shouldn't have laughed quite that much about it. In any other situation I would've attempted to reason with her to see the other point of view. Ah regrets..
We live, we learn, we grow.. They're not bad people, none of us are. We do the best we can and hopefully our effect on the world will make a more healed and positive generation after us.