Forgive and forget?

Does anyone else run/hide from their past?

I do. My high school reunion is this year (20 years), and I'm not going. I want nothing to do with the people who tormented me, made my life hell, made me cry, made me eat, made me angry and bitter and untrusting of people, spit on me, hit me, and made me lie to my parents every single day when I was asked how school went.

I've done pretty good hiding from the world. I'm not on LinkedIn. I'm not on Facebook (under my real name, anyways). I've worked very hard to have a very low profile under my real name, because I knew that this day would be coming.

But now, apparently, everyone wants to be besties. They want to let bygones be bygones. They want to get together with their families and have a huge picnic to show off their kids and their accomplishments, and to show that we are all friends.

Guess what? We AREN'T friends. We never WERE friends. And I cannot let the treatment that you gave me be left in the past, when it has shaped my entire life, and every choice I've made in my life since.

So, stop trying to find me. Stop asking my family for my contact information--they won't give it to you--I've already asked them not to. Stop going on FaceBook and trying to figure out why I don't want to come. You know why I don't want to come. I shouldn't have to spell it out for you.

You are all bullies. Not a single person ever stood up for me, not even the teachers. If a kid was treated in school today the way I was treated 20 years ago, there would be charges pressed and kids suspended...because bullying is bad.  But guess where kids today learn how to bully other kids..they learned it from their parents. And back then, it was called "kids being kids", and when it was reported, it was brushed aside. Being bullied was a life lesson, a learning experience. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger, right?

I hope that when I have a child that they never ever have to endure what I endured. I hope that they luck up in life and turn out beautiful and smart and athletic instead of fat and ugly and prone to acne. I hope that I can give my child the life I never had. I would hate to think that I would have a child that would have to endure what I endured. That they would have to live with the emotional and mental scars of the past like I do.

They say that forgiveness is not for the guilty person, but for the victim. It allows them to have closure with the past, and to move on. It's been 20 years, but I'm not able to forgive the past yet. Maybe one day. But not yet.

But I can say one thing--what didn't kill me DID make me stronger. So thank you for showing me exactly what to expect from the real world. To show me that I have to be stronger and smarter than everyone else. That I have to work hard. That you can never show fear, or show tears. And that when you try hard enough, even if you can't leave the past behind--you sure as hell can hide from it.