That Which Does Not Kill You…

In 1969, when I was entering the eighth grade, I changed schools from Immaculate Conception–the Catholic school I had attended since first grade–to the public middle school in town.  It was up on Main Street about three and a half blocks from our house.

I changed schools because I was afraid of Sister Mary Carmen who was one of the eighth grade teachers.  She also taught seventh grade English and I could tell she didn’t like me and I was terrified that I would have her for the whole eighth grade year so I bailed.

After the end of my seventh grade year she retired, I’m convinced just for spite.

Anyway, going to public school turned out to be worse than having Sister Mary Carmen for eighth grade.  In many ways, it was a very traumatic year for me.

Beginning with Home Room, I knew I was doomed.  We had to sit in alphabetical order and the boy who sat behind me was mean.  I was probably the youngest kid in the class at twelve and fresh out of Catholic School, a great combination of vulnerability if you were looking for someone to pick on.

Most of the class I presumed, had been going to school together for many years and most of the friendships I had formed over my school years were sitting in desks on the second floor of Immaculate Conception looking forward to graduating together at the end of the year.

So my first memories of public school were of the boy behind me taunting me, asking if I had taken a bath or washed my hair the night before. He would lean forward and whisper just loud enough so the other students sitting near us could hear his taunts:  You smell bad.  Put on some deodorant.

Sometimes the girl in the next isle would chime in.

On top of all that, I got my period for the first time that October, shortly before turning 13.  In total fear of a mishap, I often wore my coat all day in school.  Although I’m sure this delighted my tormentor, the other students in school were mostly indifferent.

Sister Macrena was not there with her wooden paddle to come straighten this young man out, which was very disappointing to me.  He would not be going home with a note pinned to his jacket and getting another spanking from his parents either.  And so it continued.

I felt very alone.

They put me in Remedial English, a class which included my Home Room buddy who sat behind me.  Somehow, I wasn’t surprised to see him there.

If they had only known Sister Mary Carmen’s teaching methods, they would have known that nobody passes her English class that doesn’t deserve to.

I told them I didn’t belong there and they basically told me to sit down and do my work.  After a couple weeks though, they realized they had made a mistake and moved me to a regular English class where I then had to play catch-up.

For the first time in my life I had to pick out clothes to wear to school.  There were no uniforms to rely on and anyone who knows me knows that I don’t have a fashionable bone in my body.

For the first time in my life I got an F on my report card.  Social Studies.  I guess I wasn’t worried about ancient cultures, I was just trying to survive the social faux pas I was living.  By the next report card I was passing.

For the first time since kindergarten I had to walk to school alone.  My older sister Sue started high school that same year which was in the same building but the school was so overcrowded at that point, the middle school started and ended at a different time than the high school.

There was a bright spot though.  Math.  In eighth grade math class they allowed some of us to start ninth grade Algebra as a self-study in the classroom.  I think it was some kind of experiment but I was happy to be able to retreat to the back of the classroom with my Algebra book and spend some time with my new friends x and y.

I was so pathetic.

Going to public school was a culture shock that I was totally unprepared for.  But I would repeat this many times in my life–going to college, joining the military, moving to the south–each time navigating the changes a little better than the last.  Absorbing parts of the new culture I liked, discarding the rest.

These kinds of experiences grow empathy inside us.  We can understand what it feels like to be isolated, to feel lonely while in a crowd of people, what it feels like to be the target of the bully and how it feels to look to someone across the isle for a little sympathy and then find her taking the bully’s side.

The next year, in high school, in the absence of that offensive boy, that girl and I became friends.  We had an understanding–she felt bad for joining in the hurtful behavior, and I understood that she was trying to keep herself out of the line of fire.  We were kids doing the best we could to navigate our own coming-of-age stories.

My dad used to say that the difficult things we do and endure build character.  I think his exact words were, suffering builds character.  There was something in that phrase that spoke to me of responsibility and choices and empathy and finding some kind of value in every experience, good or bad.

I’m grateful for the difficult experiences in my life if for no other reason than they let me know I can survive them, that I won’t crumble or fall apart in a gust of wind.  Sticks and stones and all that jazz.  Christopher Robin had the right idea.

And always remember “that which does not kill you makes you stronger.”  (Friedrich Nietzsche)

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Feel free to share with us in the comments the experiences in your life that made you stronger.