Speak Your Truth

The below excerpt was taken from the book that I'm writing which is a prescriptive memoire.  This is the unedited version, but is something I hope to share with you all one day.   Please comment because it'll help me get a publisher.  :)  Enjoy.

~ Don’t deny a part of who you are.  It what makes you who you are, which you are also not. ~

It was 1980, in Idaho. 

Earlier that year Mount St. Helen’s blew up on my birthday, May 18th. I remember my grandma, mother, and I walking into the grocery store and my grandmother looked up and said “It’s really going to storm.” Boy was she right. For the next 40 years it would be quite a storm.

I was in the fourth grade. My best friend hurried to me, very distressed.  She ominously whispered, “It’s your turn.” 

We were in the middle of another boring recess. It was freezing cold, and I had a warm coat on with fake fur around the collar. I didn’t want to be outside. I didn’t like the cold. I preferred heat.

Obediently, I followed her a short way into the playground and realized there had been a glitch in the Matrix. There were a group of girls huddled in a circle with the leader, the one with the biggest boobs, staring me down. If you had any breasts at all at this point, you were nominated leader. The rest of us were some time away from puberty so we all acquiesced to this rule. 

I had somehow talked my way into the popular group and was happy to be there. But, now, I understood my time was up. I just wasn’t like them. 

Growing up I always felt like I was an outsider. During a playdate as a child, one of my friends tore the head off my barbie, which I regarded as barbaric. I had asked her, simply, “Why did you do that?” She shrugged and didn’t have a good response.  People mystified me even as a young person. I would often choose to play by myself or take walks in the woods with my German Shepard, Babe, named after Babe the Blue Ox. Today I still feel very comfortable in my own company or around animals. 

Just moments before seeing the group of girls, I thought I had been in the group, but turns out fourth graders change their minds very quickly. I was now out, and the protocol was if one got kicked out of the group you had to fight. 

I was a tiny person with a small head, big glasses, and ears that stuck out. The same bully would later nickname me Monkey and make screeching noises every time I walked by. My glasses were terribly thick, and I was insecure about them. Without them I couldn’t see much, as later I would be diagnosed as “legally blind.” Thankfully a little bit later I got some braces to match my coke-bottle glasses, making me quite the catch. Lasik corrected most of my blindness as an adult, although I still have to wear contacts.

She was gigantic in my eyes; a taller, heavier, bigger-boobed, dirty blond-haired version of myself. 

Under her reign, someone was getting kicked out of the group at least once a week. That someone was also getting bullied, shoved to the ground, and kicked. It was a way for her to assert her power and dominance over the rest of us. She was probably being bullied or abused in her home life and took it out on her fellow coeds. I often wonder today what life had in store for her. I suspect if you’re a bully as a child, you are unlikely to transcend that until adulthood, if at all. If I had to make a wild guess, she probably got pregnant young, and went on to repeat this cycle of suffering with her own child.

I felt afraid of her but also a little sad at the same time. I had met her mother once and she didn’t seem like a very nice person. Even at a young age I connected with empathy and compassion and felt that for my opponent. 

The rest of the girls dispersed to watch from a distance as I approached her. My friend took me as far as she could.  We stopped and turned to each other to bid our farewell. I took off my glasses and said, “Hold these.”

My friend, who was tall and skinny with red hair, was beside herself with the amount of heroism I showed.  I could feel her angst. She nodded a silent encouragement, took my glasses, and stood fixed as I slowly made my way across the field towards the blurry figure in front of me. 

I was literally walking blind into a fight. The amount of courage this former self had was marvelous. 

I don’t exactly remember what I said to the bully. She said some words to me and then pushed me, hard. I caught myself before I fell and didn’t push back, adjusting my puffy coat. I said some words to her. I do remember standing up for myself.  Fortune favors the brave. There was a very specific moment where we made a connection on a human level. She looked down and kicked some imaginary rocks, said some more words, and had an attitude of “never mind.” I was fascinated with this response. She suddenly turned from a bully into a person with feelings.

Instantly I was back in the group. I turned to walk back to my friend, suppressing my joy. As my friend handed me my glasses she questioned “What happened?!” As I put them on; I mildly declared, 

“I think I won.”

Even though she would try and intimate me later by using her words, she knew, and I knew I had won that battle.  She never tried to fight me again. I had earned some serious street cred with the other kids because of my courage in that moment and the fact that I called her to the mat.

Here's the lesson that I learned as an adult.  You should never dummy yourself down for other people, or stoop to their level. We all know taking the high road is better yet sometimes we cannot help ourselves and we get into a battle. How many text bicker battles have you had in your lifetime? How many angry emails have you fired off? I know I’ve had my fair share in my young professional career, especially if I got triggered by bullying or people crossing my boundaries. Michelle Obama famously says “ When they go low, we go high.” This is what she means when she says this. Don’t put yourself above or below another. Everyone is equal. 

When you practice meditation people don’t get under your skin as much because you have seen all of them within yourself. Forgiveness, courage, faith, and love set the foundation to speak your truth. Shine your light as bright as you can. Every part of me, including my inner nerd with the thick glasses, is what makes up the amazing human that I am today. Why are we so afraid of who we are? Why are we afraid of our own truth?

Lots of Love,

Marne