What nobody tells you in those tender, high school years... Is that those "mean girls" don't stay locked in the walls of adolescence. Nope, they actually follow you around, making you cry (or blog, red-eyed and tissue-clad at 2am). I don't know if there is a particular reason women are so nasty to each other, but I'm becoming vividly aware that the pleas for us to stop go unnoticed.
What's the answer? Snide comments and backstabbing shouldn't be ignored, right?
So... Stand up for yourself! Nope. Any approach taken can ultimately be twisted and drag out the drama.
So.... Kill them with kindness! OK, if you appreciate looking like a tool and being laughed at. Sweet.
So..... Cry. Try to sleep. Get up and prepare to be bullied all over again.
It breaks Christopher's heart, and drives him insane, that I don't adapt to his "everyone is a backstabbing jerk and you need to grow thicker skin" mentality. I can't. I think that's part of the problem, definitely not the solution. Once we all cave to being as ugly as people are to us... It's time to surrender as a species. As nice as it feels to sometimes daydream about returning those glares or getting a few jabs in, it is the WRONG thing to do. I simply can't fight rudeness with rudeness, because the ugly in that makes the person in my mirror a hideous-beast.
Maybe some people have lost their crickets? Ha, that brings to mind the image of a world full of wandering crickets. Poor things.
Really, in case anyone out there is reading on the edge of their seats, I believe the "answer" is simply to not let it break you. Nobody being truly terrible is worth the time and effort it takes to be hurt by them, right? Also, to be aware of not making others feel badly ourselves. If there is someone out there I have personally hurt, please believe I am sorry and there was no excuse.
That's what I'm going to stick with and eventually teach my daughters too. Except when someone hurts them, I'm sure post-motivational mom speech.... I will cry all over again.
end.
