Everybody Hurts
A Confession to Make
Disclaimer: This one might not be very relevant to you, this is more of a personal blog, not selling anything but me having a heart-to-heart conversation with you. I want to put it on the record that I am not using this story to assuage my guilt rather I am digging deep into it.
It’s been quite some time since I have written anything as I was keeping busy with my academic commitments. I am very emotionally vested in anything that I write as all of it is very personal.
Like everyone here I have so much to say, so many topics that I want to address, talk and start a conversation about. I’m writing this story at Starbucks sipping my cappuccino laced with a lot of emotions.
I still don’t know what title I’m going to give this story. I am just gonna go with the flow.
Just like the 24 hours of a day are a blend of light and darkness, not all of this has to make sense, not everything is in the black or the white, the right or the wrong, yin and yang; the lines are more blurred than we imagine and it is in the grey areas where the real game comes to play, but you already know that.
It was a dark evening with no sign of light and I was walking with a friend of mine aimlessly on the road not taken, talking sensible nonsense, laughing as we ran into a classmate of ours from our school.
That changed everything for me, I was forced out of my oblivious existence and made to own up to my actions and their consequences.
Kids can be extremely sensitive, every word you tell them can mean the world to them.
She was bullied by everyone in our school, called all filthy names, constantly picked at for her shabby appearance, unkempt clothes, hygiene, her unreasonable behaviour, and a lot more reasons that I can’t seem to recollect as I write this. But what I do remember is that our entire batch, the Class of 2017 did ill-treat her, treated her like an untouchable, and mocked her, at every chance they’d get.
Kids can be very cruel sometimes, with their wide smiles curved with too much honesty and bluntness, they can pierce your skin with mere words. No thick skin can stand a pin so sharp.
She was carrying her guitar, she went right past us, no we did not brush each other. She saw us passing by but didn’t say ‘hi’…I exchanged a glance and recognized her at once and stopped there to greet and ask her what she had been up to. I felt I was being humble, what if she ignored me…I can be the bigger person. I was such a fool, I didn’t know what I’d open up for myself but it was very much needed.
We small-talked for a while, and I was surprised to the core of my heart and very much happy for the kind of person she had become. (As if I had no hope for her, it is so easy to underestimate people that you use words like ‘surprised’ when someone does well.)
Apparently, she was having some family problems during her childhood. She was a victim of child abuse, her father tried committing suicide and she was the only child of her parents, with no siblings to alleviate her loneliness. Her father was the breadwinner of the family, and thus she faced financial problems. I got to know the kind of situation she must have been in back in school at such a young age.
In 13 years of my school, I was in self-imposed oblivion only to find out about this now.
I know…I should have known this, but I don’t remember anything now. She’s working multiple jobs to make ends meet, is a part of an NGO that rescues dogs, got admitted to a good school of architecture, and is taking good care of her family by honing many other skills like singing, and playing the guitar, and writing.
I asked her why didn’t she call me out when she saw us. She told me that she wasn’t sure if we were interested to talk to her.
She told me that her childhood was a nightmare… a dream so bad that she wouldn’t wish it on her worst enemies.
Just before we met her, we were just reminiscing our school days, something we look back at so fondly, but for her, it was something she wanted to cut out of her memory, a wound so deeply infested that it needed to be cut from her flesh…that pained her every time she thought about it.
And deep down somewhere in my heart, I felt responsible for an infinitesimal part of it or more.
I know there are a lot of stories like this around the world but that does not make this normal.
I felt so small at that moment… I can still feel goosebumps as I’m writing it…I had judged her all this time and of course, her behaviour during that time was questionable and not one that would make people empathize with her.
But I never questioned it, as a kid I never raised a question as to why was everyone treating her this way. It was so internalized that I did not even care about it because I had more important things to worry about huh.
Seeing her made me realize that I am a bad person. When I spoke to her, she was so optimistic irrespective of all that we did to her. I obviously did not know her backstory nor did I personally do anything to hurt her.
Kids can be very cruel sometimes, especially to each other.
People used to make balls out of paper and throw at her, spray ink all over her clothes, verbally abuse her, and treat her horrendously and I was silent, I was mum.
More than silent I was willfully ignorant of all that was happening around me.
Maybe I did not want to take cognizance of it.
My silence was an implicit consent to the kind of treatment she was receiving.
She reminded me that she was made my bench partner in Grade IX since she was not good at academics and I supposedly was. She then told me that one time we fought over something silly and I stood up during the lecture and blurted that I don’t want to sit with her because she was dirty. (Yes, apparently I said she was dirty as if I was too clean to sit with her.)
She remembered it all, who would not?
I could not believe for a second that I could say something like that…how could I be so insensitive. I went numb as my heart began pumping guilt to my body.
Hearing this my heart sank so low that I can’t describe it. It’s been weeks since this happened but I’m still thinking about it.
How could I hurt someone so badly? All of this put a question mark on everything — my conscience, self-esteem and most importantly the goodness I believed that is in me…all of it seemed just lost.
And the most important thing here is I don’t even remember it. Like really, I did not know what I had done, let alone be aware, I had no memory of it.
I was responsible for what had happened to her, looking back I could have done something. I know I am pondering too much over it, but I ought to.
Neither she asked for my help nor was I aware of the problems she was facing, but that’s no excuse, just something to make me feel good about my inaction and innocence huh. (Later, after reading this, she told me that she herself did not know what was happening and was in no position to ask anyone for help.)
I feel very guilty for what I did, as I should. I should have taken a stand for her but I chose to stay silent and be a spectator to this.
I did have some influence in my school, I could have used it to stop what happened to her. I can’t begin to describe how bad I am feeling, I was very egotistical, shrewd and apathetic. I did not flinch before verbally insulting anyone or punishing them with words which would leave a deep mark on their hearts.
Kids do not know how power works, power struggles are everywhere, and they are no exception. Even they use all sorts of weapons to assert their dominance.
I must have unintentionally hurt so many people during school and they are carrying all that hate in their hearts, it is not who they hate but it is about burdening their hearts with that hate, it must have drawn and pulled them back on countless occasions.
The heaviness and load of such hate, to carry it from such a young age…
I feel full of regret for the kind of behaviour I exhibited as a kid and even as a teenager. I must have hurt people unknowingly and people still hold those grudges buried deep in their hearts.
I called her at 2 in the morning and apologized to her, and she so graciously accepted my apology. She told me that even all of us were young and dumb and can not be held responsible for our actions. Listening to her talk so maturely made me feel good, she must have been so strong, so damn strong to come out of this kind of traumatic childhood and still be this gracious.
My mother always tells me not to hurt anyone, at least not consciously. Everyone hurts…we are human, but do not be a cause for someone’s agony and heartache. There’s enough of that as it is, you do not need to contribute to that.
Everyone is special and gifted. No one is anybody to judge people for the choices they make because they can never see the whole picture. Even if they could, they ought not to judge people.
This is something that I am working very hard towards… not judging people and giving them space and a clean slate in my head, to begin with.
