What We Carry With Us

"Hanging on to the past

It only stands in our way"

- Tina Turner, I Don't Wanna Fight

There he was, being exalted. The man (well, he was a young man then) who'd thrown a basketball at me at point blank range after yelling, "Think fast!" then laughing when I'd had no time to react. The ball had hit me square in the head. To this day, I can still remember the immediate blackness after the impact, of not being able to see anything for a few moments, and then the ringing pain that reverberated throughout my skull for what seemed like an eternity, but was probably only a few minutes.

The aforementioned incident happened during high school P.E. class. The person who did it was someone I rarely, if ever, interacted with. He was just a person in my class who liked to bully people, and I happened to be his choice of assault that day. And then, several months ago, I saw him. Not in-person (thankfully), but online. His picture was posted on a mutual friend's feed on Facebook, and the friend was singing his praises. My stomach turned momentarily, but then I tried to parse through the bitterness and calmly assess the situation.

I graduated high school almost thirty years ago. Three decades. That's more than a third of the average human lifespans. In other words, for us, it's a long time ago. People change. Or, I should say that people can change. Maybe this former classmate had? I dunno. But that's what I tried to tell myself in order to pacify my emotions at 1) seeing him again, if only in a photo, and 2) someone I know and like speaking really, really well of him. It worked. Kind of. And, I didn't do it for him, for the basketball-thrower. I did it for me, for my own inner peace.

Many of you who have read this blog on a regular, or semi-regular, basis will know of the bullying I received while going to school. It isn't, unfortunately, a unique story, as many kids had to -- and still do -- endure being pushed around and intimated by their classmates. Sometimes, it can be put down to 'kids being kids,' and we move on from it rather than dwell on the past. Other times, things can be severe enough to warrant intervention. How is that decided? I don't know. It was unclear back when I was going to school, though perhaps there is more rigidity with it now?

I was reminded of all this a few months ago when news broke of an NHL player who was hired by, and then promptly let go from, the Boston Bruins team when it came to light that he'd mercilessly bullied a classmate back in middle school. The defenseman, Mitchell Miller, is much younger than yours truly, so for him, the bullying incident he incited had been just six years prior. And, there had been a juvenile conviction for it. His victim was also not so sanguine about the incident. All of this led to Miller's dismissal from the Bruins.

Only single digit years had passed since the situation involving Miller, whereas decades have come and gone since I was bullied in school. And, to be clear, I am not above reproach. Awhile back, an old classmate messaged me online about something I'd done to them back in middle school. I didn't really remember it, but that wasn't the point. I know what it's like to have something happen to you, to carry it with you, and to sometimes just want acknowledgment of it and, hopefully, an apology. I provided that to this person as best I could. We all have things we could atone for.

So, here we are. I'm nearly fifty, and still carrying the memory of that day from high school. Not all the time, mind you, but when I saw the picture of that guy who'd thrown the basketball at me, and laughed when it hit me, of course it came flooding back. That, and the countless other occasions of peer cruelty. Things like that have probably happened to most of us at some point, and we deal with it in different ways. Sometimes, the offense is so egregious that we can't turn a blind eye. A lot of it, though, is often chalked up to 'kids being kids.' I suppose that's a way of looking at it.

Ultimately, I know that people often change, sometimes for the better, but not always. In that particular scenario with the basketball, it was something that, while stupid and cruel, didn't leave any lasting damage (that I'm aware of) and, if our mutual friend's Facebook post is anything to go by, the bullying classmate has turned a new leaf at some point. Good for him. In this case, I choose to forgive and move on. I understand that not everyone is able to do that, and it's up to each of us to decide how to best deal with the scars we carry.