Thank you mean girls for helping make me who I am today.

Growing up I was always the new girl in school.    We moved an average of once every 16 months.

At the time this was torture for me.    A natural introvert having to fit in and make friends again and again.   I do not have fond memories of those years.

The memories I do have flash like a bad slide show when I allow myself to play them in my head.

Mean girls ganging up on me in gym class.

Mean girls making up a mean song using my last name and singing it day after day on the bus.

( Though sometimes now I sing the song to myself using cartoon voices)

Mean girls physically threatening me or shoving me when they walked by.

So why am I thanking the mean girls?

I’m thanking them because they failed.

Instead of me absorbing the hate and the mean, the opposite happened.

I grew into a kinder person, more gentle and tenderhearted and more important for me,  I learned to view life through humor goggles.

Have I forgiven the mean girls?

Oh hell no.

I hope they grew up to be ugly, broke and lonely.     I said I was kinder and more gentle.  I didn’t say I was a saint.

In truth, I have no need to forgive them.  I hope as they matured they came to understand the damage they could have done and were sorry about their actions.   Maybe they  did or maybe they just got meaner.

Now, when I see or hear about a situation where a child is being taunted or bullied it sends me back there for just a minute.

I want to hug the child and tell him or her that one day it will be okay.  I want to tell them they need to find that place within themselves where they are okay.

I want to tell them that there are good, loving people in the world and they will know that if they just hang on and hang in.

( I want to tell them about dog shit in a flaming bag on a doorstep…again … not a saint)

Yes, a part of me still wants to pinch the heads off those little bitches.   But the mature, gentle part usually keeps that part in check.

There will always be mean girls and sometimes they grow up to be mean adults.  We just need to make sure our kids know how to deal with those people.   We as adults need to know how to deal with those people.

I don’t give mean people space in my life.    Each minute is too precious to waste in argument or defensiveness.

I learned a valuable lesson from those mean girls.

Choose kindness.   Choose joy.   Choose happy.

It pisses the mean people off.