Pink Shirt Day
On the eve of pink shirt day, I sit here pondering what I am going to post tomorrow. I made a funny TikTok video about raising kids and being popular and in it I make light of the torment and torture my world was in middle school. I knew I wanted to post it on this day not to downplay the cause but to bring awareness to the survivors. To recognized that I have healed and that through my story of healing I hope to inspire someone who is struggling to keep going.
Too often we get caught up in being the victim that we never truly become the SURVIVOR. Do you ever forget? NOPE not for one second. Do you still experience sadness and feel pain? YEPPERS. However when you can step out of the victim role and live in the survivor role you discover that you can enjoy life. You can make new, real friendships and you can trust strangers and loved ones with your heart again. We can love ourselves and others. We recognize the gifts we have to offer and the strength we have to LIVE.
For those of you who met me after the age of 20 you never knew the Leah who wore head gear, tried so hard to have the right name brand of jeans to fit in, who joined year book and student council to try to make friends. The girl who homeschooled in grade 8 so she wouldn’t get pushed & locked into a locker again or laughed at in the change room before PE. You didn’t know that I changed schools every 3 years because my mom thought the kids would be different. I still showed up to the school dance when I was home schooled and many of you didn’t even realize I was not in class. When I came back to school, I spent my lunches shelving books in the library with Mrs. C just so I wouldn’t be alone.
Did high school get better? A little I made friends with younger kids or left in my car at lunch so I didn’t have to wander the halls alone. The star base ball player screamed hey brace face while I walked past the cafeteria and then nailed me with a stale cookie wrapped in saran wrap right in the temple.
I went to college and continued my friendships from outside of school with some of the coolest kids at the public school that I didn’t attend. Life would have been easier if I had gone to school with my besties but that was not my fate. I got lucky because those friendships at home in my “hood” carried me through dark times. Through them I found my posse at a local youth group and still have relationships with many of those kids today. I wrote a speech in college and one of the mean girls in high school was in my class, she apologized later in the bathroom but the funny thing was she is still a mean girl.
I looked for love and acceptance in all the wrong places for a few years and was lucky enough at 23 to meet my now husband and really start to live my best life. He often thinks he got the short end of the stick because I love myself so much now that I don’t let anybody treat me bad so I can be kind of hard on him sometimes. Don’t feel sorry for him, he is lucky to have me.
I also get to love so many people and if you’re lucky to be one of those people you will know. I am loyal, I am supportive, I can be your shoulder to cry on and the loudest cheerleader for all your accomplishments. I think about how far I have come and all the amazing people I have had come in and out of my life over the last 38.5 years and I feel blessed to recognize who they are, to know that they out number the few that made life hell and to be able to tell this story all these years later.
I can’t speak to how life would have been if I grew up with social media but I’m sure glad I didn’t. I won’t allow my kids to have it yet either. Bullying is not ok but the greatest lesson we need to learn is that everybody is fighting a battle, everyone deserves to be loved, and some people need to be loved even more because you never know what battles they are facing. While I want to say let’s end bullying, the only way we can do that is to love those that need it the most instead of making a spectacle of their mistakes, forgive them even if they don’t recognize the mistakes they have made. Teach our kids to respect differences in life, that we don’t have to like everyone but we must be kind to all.
