Post Traumatic Nephew Syndrome

I have been having weird dreams lately that take place at my high school. In them I am being taunted and jeered, just like the bad old days. In one dream, I am walking down one of the hallways alone singing: "I am Holly. It is just me. I am so far behind, I should just be." I figured that these dreams were a result of my general anxiety and damage from high school. Now I think that my nephew is causing them.

Lately, he has been getting bullied on the school bus. Some little girl calls him names, hits him, and most recently ripped his report card that he was so excited to show us. Then some other boy just straight up hit him in the face! As a result, the bus driver gave my nephew an assigned seat near her, as if he was the issue. I think that this has triggered me and is causing my subconscious to go spiraling back to when I was in school. 

One reason why I never wanted kids is because I didn't want to relive how hard being one was. My weight was a constant source of ridicule, all the way up to my young adult years, but being in school was the worst! My whole existence seemed to be a joke for everyone, and no adult ever stepped up to help me. Being a kid was a very lonely experience. 

So when I see my nephew pouting over someone hurting him, it pisses me off and sends me free falling back to adolescence. My brother said he is going to teach my nephew to fight, but why does that even have to be the solution? Wouldn't it be easier for parents to teach their kids not to be a$$holes? 

When I was a kid, I used to fantasize about a world where I could be my binge-reading, fat self without other kids having something to say. That was over 30 years ago and it seems that things have only gotten worse. I guess that warm, accepting world only exists in my dreams. 

Mean Girls

My nephew is the coolest little dude I know. I am not just saying this because I love him. He is funny and creative. But I was just as perplexed as he was when he walked in my room moping because his friend in his kindergarten class, we will call her G1, called him ugly! My heart sank. He looked so sad, and I was furious. First of all, he is not ugly! Second of all, I was triggered. I had the same face all the way through high school when my peers would say something mean about me. He then said he didn't want to go to school because of it which really pissed me off! We all know the stats: if little Black boys don't develop a love for school early, they will probably drop out before finishing. I couldn't stand the thought of it! 

"You are not ugly," I assured him. He looked like he believed me about as much as I believed my grandma when she would tell me I wasn't ugly. He probably was thinking what I used to think which was, "If I am not ugly, why would they say I am?" I explained to him that some people say mean things and that he should not let what they say get to him because what they say isn't true. I could tell he wasn't buying it. 

Then, just yesterday morning, I put out his new outfit for him to wear to school that he was excited about. Yet, after he put his pants on, he was not happy. 

"I don't want to wear these," he complained. 

"Why not? They are new!"

"G2 made fun of my other pants," he said, shoulders slumped. 

All of a sudden, it was 1992 again, and I was sitting in class trying not to hear the kids laughing at the clothes that I had on and again, I was furious!

"No one is going to like my pants!" he whined. 

"It is not about if everyone else likes your clothes, it is about if you like your clothes," I told him, stuffing him into his coat to go to the bus stop. Wow. That one was one of my grandma's greatest hits. 

Then I thought about my mother. She was always encouraging me to be tough and stand up for myself, and I just wasn't. Eventually, as much as I loved school, I hated to go. Hated the way I looked. Hated being seen. And when that got overwhelming, I became just as mean as everyone else.

As dramatic as it may sound, bullying is a big reason why I didn't want kids. I didn't want to have a kid that would just be a punching bag for the other kids, or worse, be the kid that was doing the punching. Bullying was a HUGE part of my childhood that I didn't want my kid to experience to the point that I didn't want one at all. Now here is my 5-year-old nephew, learning about the sting of cruelty as we have raised him with love and kindness. It's not fair!

"Tell him, 'F$ck dem kids!" P suggested. As crazy as that would be for a child to say to another child, it was honestly what I was thinking and what I have gone back and told childhood me as she got roasted on the playground by obnoxious little a-holes. 

I think that I am going to call his teacher. This is something that neither my grandma nor mother would have done. But there has to be a middle ground between being too passive and being too harsh. For me, I feel like that is adult intervention. I'm not going to let the kids burn my nephew's self-esteem as they did mine so many years ago. 

The 20 Year Itch pt 2: Merch

So, yesterday I logged on to Facebook, minding my own business, when I came across a post from a Toni, a woman that went to high school with me. She's on the planning committee for our 20-year reunion. She did a post to let us know that the Target closest to our old high school sells the high school's merchandise, and we would also be able to purchase high school merch (t-shirts, hoodies, etc.), at the reunion! Yay! 

I stared at this post blankly for like five minutes. It astounds me how different other people's high school experience was from mine. When I think of high school, I think of bullying and being immensely unhappy. I think of how this high school was one of the last ones in Georgia to take down the Confederate Flag from the flapping proudly in its lawn...I think. Well, I assume it's down now. Back in the 99s and 2000s when I was there, the parents had voted to keep it. Can you imagine being 15 and Black trying to explain to a 55-year-old White teacher why the Confederate Flag is problematic?! There are no memories from this place that make me want to put on a tank top with the high school's mascot plastered on it, believe me. 

Oddly enough, Toni had reached out to me a few weeks earlier via Facebook message, asking me directly if I was coming to the reunion. She and the committee were trying to figure out how much food to get and what venue to book. Toni was always cool with me. We were in remedial math together. But my instinct to reading that message, which was very sweet by the way, was to tell her to kiss my ass! I wanted to ask her why she was so eager to celebrate this nightmare? Could my poor Black experience had been that much different than her middle class Asian one? I guess so. If it had not been, she would have known to not even waste her time reaching out to me at all. 

Merch. Incredible! 

Oh, and I didn't tell you the best part: Bradley Barker is on the committee too! This for me is truly unbelievable. Bradley was then what he is now: a fat, Anime-loving, horribly dressed weirdo. This boy was made fun of so badly for being himself that I used to wonder if the student body was in cahoots to make him lose his mind! He was socially rejected and lost every SGA office race you could possibly run for! I should know, I was his campaign manager for his race for Regional President of a club we were in together. I guess 20 years has erased these memories for him, because he is now posting on social media posting about reunion ticket sales. What?! The boy had been so hurt about losing the Regional President race that he literally cried in my lap! 

I can't wait until the reunion goes down so that the publicizing for it will end and I can stop being traumatized whenever I go online. I try to pretend like high school didn't happen, and I'm eager to do that for the next 20 years. 

Homecoming Post 8: No Socials and the Flashback (Part 3)

Saturday, November 5 around 3pm- Big Homie Sans and I arrived on Xavier's campus for the tailgate. Out of all of the events at homecoming, I would say that the tailgate is the most anticipated. There is music, food, drinks, and vendors. It's where you can catch up with people and you never know who you are going to run into.

"What's up?" No Socials said in passing, walking around Big Homie Sans and I, heading towards other tents. I stopped at the standing table at my graduating class tent and took a deep breath. It was clear why No Socials was giving me stomach aches. 

First Month of Freshman Year 2003

So at Xavier, the freshmen come to campus about a week before the upperclassmen for Freshman Orientation. That's when you move into the dorm, register for classes, get familiar with the city, etc. It is also when you get to know other kids and learn the ropes from Peer Deans. You are put in color groups. It's really fun! But in my opinion, you really don't get a full scope of what the culture of the school is like until the upperclassmen arrive. I definitely felt like a kid amongst adults, but not in a bad way. I was still pretty excited, getting to know new people. 

I actually met PUSH in the lunch line that first real week of class. He was tall and built. It was obvious that he was an athlete. He had a booming deep voice. Yet what was most interesting about him is that he looked like a famous actor at the time. 

"Do people tell you that you look like 👽?" I asked him. 

"All the time," he said nodding. I mean, the resemblance was so obvious that you would have thought that he was 👽from a distance. The very next day, he was loudly making fun of me with this friends at lunch and dinner. 

I was pretty disappointment by this. I had been made fun of since kindergarten. I had been looking forward to a fresh start, which is what it had been for that magical week. Eight days later, I found myself isolated, eating alone in a building called Xavier South at the other end of campus. It was sad because I liked catching up with my friends at the main cafeteria, but I didn't want trouble with PUSH. I only saw him in the cafeteria, so if I stayed clear of the cafeteria, I rationalized, I could stay clear of him. 

This plan worked for about a week. One day, I was sitting at Xavier South with my friends Sydney and Donna when I saw a basketball player walk in. He was one that I often saw with PUSH. When his eyes met mine, I knew there was gonna be some shit. He took out his phone, texted something, and about five minutes later, most of the team had popped up, including, of course, PUSH. 

The jig was up. I couldn't eat at the main cafeteria. I couldn't eat at Xavier South. I was going to have to ask my grandma to order me a box of Ramen Noodles so that I could eat them in my room alone. Living in an all-girls dorm, I could be sure that PUSH wouldn't show up there. 

PUSH and his teammates got their food and sat directly behind us. Immediately, PUSH began roasting me, talking about how huge and ugly I was. They were having a gay old time, laughing their asses off, and I was truly confused. I had been in college for a little less than three weeks! I didn't know these guys! 

I took a deep breath and turned around. I mean, PUSH was directly behind me. I think that he wanted to make sure that I heard him. I had to confront him. If life had taught me anything up until then, it was that bullies gonna bully if you don't at least attempt to stand up for yourself. This was going to be different though. I had never stood up to a guy that was like 6'4 with 2% body fat before. Even though I weighed more than him, I had no doubt that he could toss me across the floor like a napkin if he wanted to. 

"Did I say something to offend you?" I asked him in an overly professional tone. 

"Whoa!" he exclaimed moving back, as if the power of my weight had pushed him backwards. Then, on reflex, I poured my soda down his pants. 

He jumped up quickly, and I just knew he was going to punch me. 

"You're dead!!" he yelled, reaching for some napkins. 

The situation had obviously escalated, but I didn't notice or care. I felt completely vindicated, seeing the alarmed looks on his friends' faces. I was proud as a peacock, strutting out of that pathetic little eating area, loudly reciting the lyrics to "Wangsta". Even as the restaurant workers called the campus police, I felt like Muhammad Ali. Holly Clay: 1/ PUSH: 0. Boy, never underestimate how things can change in the course of a minute. 

In the midst of my victory lap back to my dorm, I turned around to make sure that PUSH was not behind me, for the basketball team was walking on the other side of the street, talking about what had just happened. I saw him getting into Bob the Builder's Dodge Charger and even from a distance, I could tell from his body language that he was PISSED! Like, violently so. 

Oh shit, I thought to myself, stopping in my tracks. The players on the other side of the street stopped too. Bob The Builder pulled his beautiful car up to the curb. PUSH jumped out of it with a basket of chicken fingers and fries, walked right up to me and smooshed the hot food in my face with the strength of ten men! "You look hungry you fat bitch!" he screamed down at me. I grabbed his white tall tee and he pulled it out of my grasp so quickly that it made my fingertips burn. Donna moved back, unwilling to soil her Polo sweater, and little 5-foot Sydney sprang into action, nipping at his heels like a possessed chihuahua. 

I don't think that I had ever been in shock before that moment. I could feel warm ketchup settling into my scalp, which is tragic, seeing that I had worked all summer to afford microbraids. As Sydney verbally went in on PUSH, I looked down on my clothes and couldn't believe my eyes. I was covered in food crumbs and sauce stains! Then I looked up, directly across the street, and saw a younger, goofier-looking No Socials laughing at me. They were all laughing at me. But it was like I could feel the vibrations from No Socials' voice from across the street he was laughing so hard. He was practically choking on his spit. 

That was 19 years ago. 

How had I forgotten he was there? I asked myself, watching him talking to someone at their tent. I had such a good time in college. Sometimes I forget that every moment wasn't great. 

Allergic to Negros

Last night I took the train home after going to this event for my job where I was laughed at by two high school girls for no reason. No. Reason.
I said nothing. Not just because I didn't know them and because they were kids, but because I was tired and didn't have the energy or the attire to whoop their asses adequately.
As I have shared with you, I have moved back to East Point, GA where I grew up from Douglasville, GA, a rural area. And I have found that my defenses are now down, you know, the ones I had built to be able to deal with the ignorance I consistently encountered growing up there.
While in college, I became very conscious and Afro-Centric. From freshman year on I have been essentially masterminding how to save the Black community. But yesterday, as I watched these two girls LAUGHING at me TO MY FACE I thought, What am I doing? I don't even like these people! And then, to the soundtrack of their cackling, I felt ashamed of myself. Embarrassed. Saying that I don't like them is like saying that I don't like myself. No matter what I do for a living, no matter where I live, or where I went to college, they are the stock from which I derived. I am the McDonald's worker with the bad hair weave and she, minus the manners, is me. Not sure if this is a good thing. Not sure if I like it. Just the truth.

So here in Atlanta, a fellow fatty goes to get her toes done and when she goes to pay for her bill, she notices that she has bee charged $5 extra. She asks why, and they tell her it's because there is a fee for being fat. Apparently, overweight customers have been breaking their chairs and they are charging all the fatties $5 to go towards repairs. When the customer complained, they refunded her her $5, then told her not to come back. I don't know this lady, but I feel bad for her. I envision her having to debate the owner in front of other thin clients. This makes me sad, but it seems that being embarrassed is just another part of being Fat these days. Sigh.

Examining the 90s Baby

Am I the only one that yearns for the good old days when the meanest thing another kid could do to you was talk about your Mama? You yell with your peer, get in a fight, get sent to the office, your Mama spanks you because she had to leave work early to come get you, and life went on.
Well, the 90s babies aren't about keepin' it simple...they are about keeping it gangsta! Beating each other to literal death and posting the videos on Youtube. Setting each other up for jail time and such. I have said it once and I will say it again: they are crazy!
But technology, technology has given them a new medium to be awful to each other. What am I talking about? Well, my sister comes home yesterday and tells me that some girl in her class took a picture of her in class and then took a picture of some other girl at another time, then took the pics home and photoshopped them so that it looked like my sister and this other girl were kissing. Then she posted this pic on her Facebook page.
WTF? Why would it even cross your mind to do something like that and furthermore, why does a 12-year-old have a Facebook page?!
I was bothered by this guys. And not just because it was weird and involved my sister, but because my sister thought that this was OK. Kids do things like this all the time apparently, and it could have been worse. The kids in her classes could have actually believed the obviously doctored pic, which would have been social suicide. This surprised me, seeing that this is the "I Kissed a Girl" generation.
I got made fun of a lot in school, and I can not imagine having to defend my sexuality as a preteen! I guess such things are commonplace for the poor misguided 90s baby.