Bullies are UNloved too...

I wonder if I have bullied someone...what comes to mind is intentionally scaring my sister, one year younger than I. I would raise my arms in the air like a vulturous bird and chase her around her bed, while hooting as if I would eat her. I enjoyed her being afraid. I would call the fat girl next door Toodles, which she disliked...I wonder if she ever cried. I know I wanted to cry when in junior high when I heard Jim Clark yell up the hallway stairs, as students passed between classes, "Hey Pancake!" I wonder why I couldn't share how embarrassed and hurt I was with anyone even though I had a loving father. The hurt I felt stuck in my heart for years, rearing its ugly memory whenever I thought of my adolescent years, or attended my high school reunions. I was a wall flower of late blooming. Very late, barely buds of breasts as my period finally appeared at age fifteen. I wonder why I kept my mouth shut when I saw others bullied with more severe words, or even when seeing two girls fighting, pulling each other's hair. The silence is horrifying as I write. At my forty-fifth high school reunion, Jim Clark showed up, whom I hadn't seen since high school. I walked up to him as if I was a proud eagle guarding its nest. I asked if he remembered me, which he did. "I need to tell you something; I was really hurt when you yelled 'Pancake' at me in the hallway in junior high." Without a pause, Jim replied that he did not remember saying that, yet he apologized. I wonder how he felt about me breaking my way too long silence.

BREAKING THE RULES ...

I have broken The SUN rules. Never before have I missed a month of writing a SUN readers write for over 15 years until now. The SUN has broken the rules by not printing ANY of my SUN reader's writes despite my readers emailing me how they are inspired or maybe laughed. It is now February 4th and BREAKING THE RULES was due by January first. NO I have not been sick or in an accident. I just finished writing a book, TEARS ARE TRUE LOVE...waiting to be known, where I have centered my focus, with a looming publishing date of Valentine's Day. This last book of a trilogy is presently at the printers. Now I have broken two deadlines because BULLIES was due the first of this month, February. I am doing my best to bring out the sun in my heart: 1) I talk to the TV when a young man on American Idol says my goal is not to cry. 2) I don't say "sorry" when I cry in front of others, and tell people on TV or my clients the same: please do not apologize for your tears. 3) I have reversed my childhood Sunday School lesson: JOY is Jesus first, Others second, Yourself last. NO, it is Yourself first, Others second, Jesus last, "For the first will be last and last will be first" according to whom? 4) I will "talk back" if I need to! My opinions are as important as yours mom. 5) I will cry with my clients, hold them, and say 'I love you' to them when I feel so moved or touched. 6) I will be arrested (and was) for not giving my psychotherapy client's notes to the court- lawyers when ordered to, as is my professional ethics concerning confidentiality. 7) Lastly, I am breaking the Reader's Writes rules: do not lecture. Hopefully, you won't laugh too loud...or is it too loudly? PLEASE break the rules and publish one of my unSparrow-like reader's writes and feel better. JOYfull. With more love, dianea