A mini retrospective

I don’t have a Bitchstory article this week because Lisa and I had to reschedule a bit. We will be back at it within the week, and we have some cool guests coming soon! But in the meantime, please enjoy this walk down memory lane with me…

I was just sitting and watching a true crime documentary and had a realization… One of the most interesting things about aging is the perspective you gain on the life you’ve lived.  More on that in a moment…

 

Most people who meet me or know me think of me as a pretty lively personality, but for much of my youth I tried to remain unnoticed and I was dysfunctionally shy. I have always played small, either to avoid making other people uncomfortable, or displeased, or to avoid drawing attention to myself (for a few reasons). 

The latter half of grade school was an era when I was definitely not playing small.  I JUST realized as I was typing that, that astrologically, when you are 12 you experience your first Jupiter Return, which can come with many things but a feeling of invincibility is definitely possible…especially before you have a strong grip on the concept of mortality.

So here I am watching this true crime thing and the woman says “so he is holding a box cutter to my throat”…and I actually said out loud to no one but myself and the cat: “weird that I can say I’ve also had a box cutter held to my throat”. And in that moment I thought “holy shit I’ve had a pretty interesting life!” 

In the 6th grade,  I was physically assaulted…twice!  The year

before that our Principal killed himself.  What a crazy time!  The first assault was a young man very high on what we found out later was PCP. He grabbed me from behind and held me against him but thank God my friend Jenny screamed my name and I was able to break free.   If you know anything about PCP (and if you don’t, allow Dr. Nerd who did a term paper on drugs in 5th grade tell you), you know that super human strength and decreased pain are hallmarks of the drug. It’s somewhat miraculous he did not use any strength to hold me or hurt me. In the time between him grabbing me and the arrival of the police, he punched a couple teachers in the face.  His subdual required 2 cops and 2 large custodians to hog tie him.  

Later that same year I was working in “the ball room”. So in the olden days- the 80s- during recess kids would check various types of balls out of a room and have to sign them in and out similar to a library. We nerdy kids would volunteer to work in the ball room.  Everything was ticking along nicely when a dude about my age starts talking to me.  I don’t recall if a ball was even involved in the transaction…but a box cutter was.  He grabbed my shirt in his fist, along with a good chunk of my hair, and held the box cutter up near my face and neck.  He was ranting about things I don’t recall (I do remember his name though!).  

If you’ve ever had your hair pulled or even pulled your own hair while styling it, you might understand me when I say it ignites a deep and animalistic rage within you. The hair-rage combined with a heaping cup of being real over being manhandled by psychos sparked a reaction that surprises me a little to this day. 

I just remember yelling at him to “let go of my hair and get your fucking hands off of me! I am so sick of all this crazy shit!” (Yes. I was a potty mouth then just like I am now!)   I pushed him away and I stomped to the office and stormed in.  I was good and pissed and I think I yelled at the secretary something like “I don’t know what the hell is going on but I am so sick of it! Andrew —— just pulled my hair and pulled a knife on me and I’m just” and here you may insert an explosion of tears.  

I don’t remember anything after that.  But I just had ANOTHER realization.  I started my period for the first time within a few weeks of that incident.  Don’t fuck with a premenstrual pre-teen!   

Andrew was expelled. I bumped into him the next year in Jr.High, another era that was fully fucked. I was relentlessly bullied by some truly scary girls and back in those days, nothing was done about such things. But the day I bumped  into Andrew, one of us was exiting a bus and the other was entering, so we were basically face to face.  I recognized him and then he recognized me.  As we passed each other I said through my teeth (hand to God) “I know who you are” and then I hissed at him!  I hissed at him like the feral female that I was becoming. He never ever made eye contact with me again. I wish I would have hissed at the bullies that made me live in fear and drove me into depression and anxiety. 

Anyway, part of the perspective I’ve gained as I’ve aged this far (52), is that my life has actually been pretty interesting! Yours probably has been too.  Don’t discount the parts of yourself that are feral, or wild, or the time you hissed at someone.  Don’t continue to live small if you recognize that you have been.  Don’t take shit from anyone because life is too weird and too short! Be a feral bitch. 😎