I think we all miss life when we were all seven years old. When we didn’t have to worry about the big ACT test tomorrow or what you were gonna wear tomorrow. But I think the best part about being seven years old, was that everyone was friends with each other and nobody would judge each other by anything. We would just walk into that first grade classroom and have a good time with each other and go home happy. Chasing the girls you liked around the playground, doing those multiplication sheets, and trying to beat your friends at a game of pickup basketball. Now, it is about the exact opposite when you enter the middle school years. Everything changes. I remember at the start of sixth grade, always hearing other kids making fun of others based on how they look, not how they act. I never thought anything of it until it happened to me that next day. The thought never had crossed my mind and I would have never have guessed that people would drop that low and solely make fun of a kid for the color of his hair, and not stay your friend because of it.
Freshman year rolls around. It’s a white february day. At this time I still didn’t really talk to a lot of people in my lunch, just a few kids mutually knew. We were working on our mouse trap powered car project in class that day as we got dismissed for lunch. Back in freshman year I was never the guy who talked a lot, I just kept to myself, knowing about the past whenever I’d try talking to people they would just make fun of me for my hair color. I wish I would have gotten used to the name calling by now, but everytime kids would stay things like that, it would keep making me feel awful inside, feeling like I didn't belong in the world. I always would have hoped their words meant nothing to me, but that was never the case. The second bell of fifth period rings, we are dismissed for lunch. I walk normally, usually getting tripped by lunch runners, as I got to the line. I finish eating and go to my normal spot where my friends and I sat and talked to my only friend in that lunch. To this day, I still do not know what runs through some of these people's heads when they make fun of others for no apparent reason. That’s what happened to me. It was pretty normal at the start of the awful things they were saying, but they wouldn't stop. I would say nothing to them but “please stop” but that didn’t change anything. It went on for about 5 minutes straight, each of the 3 of them making up new ways to make fun of me, as I sat on the bench next to the elevator trying to ignore them, but I couldn't. I never could ignore people, I never understood why my counselor told me to because it had never worked. Finally I couldn't take it anymore. Without saying anything to them, and my self esteem at a bare minimum, I just left back to the physics room, hearing them shouting foul things to me as I walk away. I just stayed in the room with my head down, trying to look back on the things I should have said instead of walking away. From that moment I didn't want to be known as an easy target for the awful people in our school, I wanted things to change.
Later that day the whole school was in the gym.This was the year that One-Act play made it to state for the first time, so everyone in the school gathered for one of our rowdy pep fests. I get there a bit later than the other kids because my classroom was literally opposite from the gym, so I couldn't really find any of my close friends, whom I usually sit next to. So, just my luck, I had to sit next to a few people who I maybe talked to in the sixth grade. A couple minutes after I sat down and when the band was playing the school song, I immediately heard this kid. I’ve heard him before, because he is loud, big, and obnoxious. I had never really talked to him because he went to St. Wence, and as freshman, we really didn’t know a lot of people who came from there. I hear him very clearly now, because his loud voice is ringing in my ears as he chants, making fun of the people who were involved in the One-Act, right behind me. It has always made me cringe when people would make fun of others for close to no reason, and that was what was happening to me.
Sometime towards the end of the pepfest is when he started to turn his attention to me. He taps me on the shoulder and says,
“Tonight, you are going to piss blood.”
I turn around, and being my 9th grade self, I just ignored him, like my parents say to do. He doesn't quit. He starts punching me in my liver side of my body, multiple times. I say “please stop” to him multiple times but it was no use. By this time his friend had also starting chanting him on.
“Piss blood you ginger!” is what I heard a good 10 times in a few minutes. In my head, I keep replaying what happened earlier, and thinking of what I should have done instead of standing there. As I’m thinking about all of this I finally built enough confidence in my little pride I had left to try to stand up to this kid. I stood up, turned around, and spoke my mind.
“You know what, you need to stop dude.”
That was all I could think of, but that caught the attention of one of my mutual friends sitting down a few rows who heard me yell at the guy. He stands up and also tells him to knock it off. Then he told me to come sit next to him and get away from that guy. He made his other friend move over for me. From this point on, I thought, I would keep standing up for myself throughout high school.
3 years later, as a senior, it was the best decision I have ever made. Instead of people all over me, I actually try to have fun, and I do during these short years. I have also tried my absolute best to stick up for others if they are getting bullied or harassed. It still bothers me how people and swoop down to that low of a level and make people feel like they are nothing in the world. My goal throughout these years was to make a difference in someone's life, how that guy told me to sit next to him and help me out.