Running.
I remember myself running a lot back then.
I shouldn’t have. I knew better. The doctors had told me not to run so much.
It was bad for my heart, they’d say. “You can run for a little while, just don’t overdo it,” they’d said. That’s what I was doing.
But I had to. I had to get away. I had to get away from them.
At the time, I didn’t know any better. My entire life, I had thought all people were kind, only sometimes having moments where they would snap or be mean. I didn’t understand that some people were like that on a regular basis. That they didn’t understand that they were hurting me. Or worse, that they knew and just didn’t care.
The sun beat down on my sweaty forehead. I had run the length of the playground several times and still found myself unable to escape them. I called out for my friends to help me.
“Sorry Molly,” they said.
I was alone. No one stood with me. They were just as afraid as I was. But instead of being supportive, instead of helping me, they had left me to the wolves.
I had to stop. I had to catch my breath. I couldn’t run anymore. I could hear them coming closer. They were laughing. Saying I must be heavier than I looked if I couldn’t run like them. Funny, I remember them being even more unfit than I was. They started their daily ritual.
“You know what I heard?” the big one would say.
“What?” the other two, incredibly eager followers, would ask.
“I heard little Miss Molly here was rolling around with high school boys. On the football field.”
The other girls began to feign gasps and awes.
“What kind of girl does that?”
I’d just look down at the ground. It would be over soon enough I always told myself. But I always knew I was lying.
The girls would then continue following me, pushing me, saying horrible things to me. I’d try not to cry, but I’ve always been sensitive and I’d never been treated that way before. They would use my tears as ammunition, continuing to pummel me with their cruel words as I looked longingly at the people who had once told me I was their friend.

They would just look away.

The bell would then ring. It was time for class, time for me to try and escape. The girls would always follow me inside, as I ran to try and get in before as many people as possible. Anything to create distance between us.

I would slow down once I was inside the building, keeping my head low, staying in line with the other kids in my class as we all filed into our rooms. I kept my mouth shut, something that was different from my usual countenance. I was always quiet whenever a teacher was doing something but, when we were allowed to, I would begin talking and being jovial.

But I was different now. I didn’t have any friends to be happy with.

No one would even look at me.

They knew what was going on. It was hard not to hear the girls, or at least what they had said about me. Even the teachers knew. I know they knew, because I’d told them. Like I was supposed to.
They tell children,” You should always tell an adult.” But they never say what to do when the adults don’t believe you.
And so I was alone. Sitting in the back of the classroom, keeping to myself. I read a lot of books, things to keep my mind occupied. My grades slipped a little. That was odd for me.
But that was because I could always feel the girls breathing down my neck.
I would ring my hands over and over again under my desk. My teachers would ask me what I was doing. I’d then stop and tell them a lie. Something about the room being cold. Anything to get the attention off of me.
At a younger age I would’ve craved such attention. I loved praise, loved feeling appreciated. But I didn’t want that anymore. Or maybe, I just kind of felt as though I didn’t deserve it anymore.
Those girls had done what my mother had always told me to never allow anyone to do. I had allowed them to get under my skin. I had allowed their words and actions to hurt me.
I was ashamed of myself for this.
And so, I didn’t tell my mom.
Why would I? None of the other adults believed me. The other kids were too afraid to do anything. Why would my mom believe me when no one else did?
I know better now, but at the time, I thought I was alone.
So I allowed them to hurt me. I allowed myself to be broken. I would try to escape it the only way I knew how.
At the time, I was an avid reader. I read many books, many with a focus on children who had to save the day because the adults were too blind to see the evil that was going on. And so, I suppose I followed their example. I lied to my family. I lied to the school. I lied to my mother.
But worst of all, I lied to myself.
I would make myself sick. I would think of the most disgusting things I could, I would force myself to stare at that porcelain bowl until I had to throw up. I would then tell my mother, and I would stay home from school.
If I found I myself couldn’t throw up, I would fake it. I would take the bread from the kitchen, chew it up a little in my mouth and spit it out. Whatever it took, I would do it. Anything to be safe from them for even a day.
Then there would be the days when I had to go to school. I would try and hide, try and stay as far from them as possible. But they’d always find me.
They would continue to harass me. Continue to tarnish my reputation. Even telling teachers flat out lies to get me in trouble.
I felt as though my world were caving in. I looked terrible, because they made me feel as though I were terrible, inside and out. I would go to my room, sit in the corner, and pull my hair out.
Ugly girls don’t deserve to have pretty blonde hair.
My eyes became bloodshot and had dark circles. At least in my eyes. I had always been a night owl, but I had taken it to the extreme. I couldn’t sleep, I was too scared. I thought I would wake up and then they’d be there.
I had allowed them to hurt me, which in turn led to my hurting myself even more.
My mother throughout all of this could see her child languishing. She knew I was not my normal self. But my ill looking appearance wasn’t very odd for me.
I had always been a sickly child, I still am. My first birthday, I was sick. Almost every Christmas of mine during elementary school, I was sick. I was constantly ill, constantly tired looking because of my sleeping habits, and constantly looked as though I’d gotten attacked because my hair has always loved to tangle upon itself. And so it is no surprise to me that my mother thought I was acting strangely, but not so greatly that it would cause her to be more concerned than normal.
That is, until she finally saw through my trick.

One day, I was trying to avoid going to school. But I could not make myself throw up. And so, I grabbed the bread from the kitchen to fake it. My mother had noticed that our bread consumption had gone up drastically, at the same rate as my absences from school. This morning, she finally called me on it.

She begged me to tell her what was going on, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t tell her. I was so scared of those girls, and I was so afraid my mother would be like everyone else. That she would think I was a liar. The thought was something that made my heart hurt. I couldn’t handle something like that. My relationship with my mother was, and still is, so important to me.
I didn’t want to ruin it.
And so, I refused to talk. So my mother took me to a therapist.
She took me to a woman, someone who I was told to call Dr. Penny. Doctor Penny had a nice face, a calm voice, and a mini Zen garden. My mother went into the room first, trying to ease my worries. She told Doctor Penny that she thought my anxieties were stemming from my mother and father’s divorce arrangement. She thought I was upset over visitation times with my dad.
My mother soon finished and walked out of the room. Dr. Penny held the door open for me. My turn.
I slowly walked into the room, head held low. I looked around her office. It was dark, but warmly lit. She had a small bowl filled with sand that had a tiny rake in it. This was her Zen garden. She began asking normal questions, how I was, what was going on at school, if everyone in the family was doing alright. The school question made me cringe, which I’m sure she noticed.
As she was talking, I kept looking at her little Zen garden. It was just a bowl of sand with a tiny rake, but it had all of these patterns drawn in it. I was trying to keep my mind occupied with it so I wouldn’t have to look at her face.
I couldn’t lie to her if I looked at her.

“Would you like to use the garden?” Her sudden question shocked me. She had noticed my eyes darting back to it. I silently nodded, embarrassed. I grabbed the tiny rake and began drawing patterns in the sand.

After some time she said, “I’ve noticed, you like to keep the lines straight and very regular. You don’t like them out of place.” As she said this, my hand slipped, messing up one of my rake-throughs. I used the other side of the rake to smooth everything back out, and started over.

“You don’t like making mistakes. You feel if you mess up, you have to start all over again,” she continued. I kept quiet.

“Why do you think that is?”

I shrugged. She continued talking, asking me questions every so often. She then again asked me how school was going. I paused in the middle of my line. I then composed myself and started the raking process over again, telling her it was alright.

She made a note on her pad, then began asking more specific questions. I became agitated. I wasn’t ready for her questions. She soon pulled it out of me. I begged her not to tell my mom, I couldn’t bear to make her upset.

She promised me she wouldn’t.

She said that I had to tell her. Doctor Penny called my mother into the room, telling her I had something to tell her. I tried as hard as I could, but I couldn’t tell her.
And so, I asked Dr. Penny to do it for me.
I remember my mother being so upset. She called the school, even went to the school and my teachers. They told her that she was blowing it out of proportion. They had told her, I was over exaggerating. That I was a liar. My mother had had enough. So my family packed everything up and left.
I remember the moving van. It was early in the morning, I had two months of school left in my fourth grade year, and my birthday was coming up in a few days. I would have to celebrate my birthday without any friends my age. But, then again, I didn’t have any friends to invite. My mother had me in my pajamas in the front seat of the moving van. I curled up next to her, trying to keep my stomach calm. We then left my childhood home. Forever.
I remember pulling into our new neighborhood. Everything was so different. Everything was clean, everyone looked nice. It was nothing like where we had lived before. People cared about their appearance, they cared about their neighborhood. I can still remember the garbage that was in our old neighborhood. How the neighbors would just toss it all into their backyards.
I remember our new driveway. The van was on the street, and all of our stuff was being brought in. My mother took us all inside. The house was so much bigger than our other house. I found my way to my room. Everything was white. Everything was clean. Everything was perfect.
I remember my first day of school.
I was absolutely terrified. And so was my mother. I was so scared everything would be just like it was at my old school. I thought everything would go back to how it had been. But it didn’t.
I remained quiet. I sat in the back of the room. I wasn’t asked to participate, it was so late in the year, and we had nothing new to learn. Everything was centered on studying for SOLs. And so I found myself again in the back corner, reading. But this library was different. This one had a castle and a million books to read.
I would go whenever I could. I soon found I had checked out all of their books on animals and poetry. I had read so many of their books in the time I was there, that my mother had to resort to taking me to the local library.
It was at this school that I found out what I loved once again. I loved animals. I loved books. I loved drawing. I loved creating new things. I loved being able to express myself again without being afraid of someone telling me I was garbage.
My birthday soon came, I didn’t have any friends I was too close to at my new school, so it was a small family affair. But that was all I wanted. All I wanted was my family near me. Although, the giant pink Care-Bear was a nice bonus.
The next year at my school, I found I had a teacher who loved my art and well, me. He encouraged me to do what I loved. He encouraged me to ask questions. He gave me the confidence to do what I enjoyed. He gave me back some of my confidence.
In the years following my experiences, I’ve found that, even though my mother told me I shouldn’t, I have come to view myself in a negative light. Over the years, my confidence in myself and my voice have begun to grow again, but I know it will never be as strong as it was before.
My mother continues to think that I am defining myself by my experience.
But, if I’m being honest, I know that I am in some part defined by it. Our lives are defined by our experiences good and bad. The good ones are wonderful, the bad ones terrible. But we always seem to find the bad memories to be the most powerful of the pair. We let ourselves be completely defined by the bad we experience in our lives.
But that isn’t always a bad thing. It is through our hard times, our sad moments, that we find that, when we meet once more with happy ones, we are our happiest. It takes the hard times to allow us to fully appreciate the good ones.
That is not to say that all bad times are good in the end.
It can still be difficult to deal with some things, I know just as well as anyone else. But if we allow sadness to swallow us up, to take all of our joy from us, then we’ve allowed ourselves the greatest disservice of all.
We’ve allowed darkness into our hearts which will in turn lead to our bringing darkness into the hearts of others.
And this, this is why I think I was bullied. Why I was abandoned. They themselves, had allowed such darkness inside of themselves. And had allowed themselves to be swallowed up by it.
I don’t define myself by my experience. I define myself through the understanding of theirs, as well as my own, in the hope that I will one day become better than I currently am.
Until then, I continue to explore myself through art and writing. I continue to try and understand what happened to them. To my friends, my teachers, my bullies. Myself.
As we explore our lives, we often find we remember the little things. The things which come to reveal the most about us, because they are the things our minds have decided were important enough to remember. Sometimes, these little things reveal just as much as the events that led to their remembrance.
A tiny garden with a tiny rake, filled with sand. That’s my thing of choice. I wonder what theirs are. Maybe they too, have their own tiny gardens. Maybe one day, our gardens will find a way to coexist. Maybe they won’t.
In the end, it’s all just a pile of sand. No big deal, right? We can all just redraw our own lines in it. It won’t take too long but, at the end of the day, someone or something else will come along and cause us to stray away from our straight lines.
And that's okay.
Nobody’s perfect, right?