My bloody head has had me up in the night again. I have pondered and mused and twisted and turned and am no closer to an answer, and I'm sure this is because there isn't one.
At what point in life do you learn to stand up for yourself? Is it something you do as a child and then learn not to do later on, out of misguided, or ill-judged, politeness? Does age bring with it a certain lily-liveredness? Or is it just me? Have I turned into a commandable chicken-heart, a hushed, dominated dotard nervously-but-deftly tiptoeing over a daily mound of other people's eggshells?
I've been thinking back to times when I have defended myself. There are not many. But there was once, in the first year at secondary school, during the time that everyone had to carve out their own particular idiosyncratic roles to carry them through; you know, ring-leader, beauty, freak, brainbox, slapper, (slightly mythomaniacal, of course, as we were, after all, only 12). There was a girl in 1B who, unhindered by any likelihood of academic prowess, had decided to craft herself as Hard and Scary Bully. "She's really hard" we would all whisper to each other in notes of awe, while giving her a wide berth in the corridors. "We mustn't mess with her", we reminded each other, as we crept cautiously and subserviently around, pretending we wanted to be friends, though she quite genuinely repelled us.
But then we had an inter-form lacrosse match and I accidentally smacked her on the fingers.
The message came back, hissed down lines of wide-eyed, horrified girls, and later scrawled onto a piece of paper and shoved into the inkwell of my desk: "YOU have had it affter school". I corrected the spelling of "after" and sent it back, inwardly quaking, but fired on by the bated-breath admiration of my slightly swotty, ne'er-do-wrong group of friends, (plaits, clean faces and girl guides on Friday) who gasped gratifyingly at my foolhardiness in taking on the hard gang of girls, (pink hairspray and Friday evenings looking sullen outside Pop-In).
After school, this particular girl was waiting. Like a scene out of Grange Hill, really, with her soon-to-be-tattoed-and-later-pregnant back up gang, grinning inanely behind her. I remember her walking towards me knocking her fist into the palm of her hand and saying "YOU are so going to get it now" (omit 't's, obviously).
I hit her first, with my clarinet case, and ran. And I was never, ever bothered by them afterwards. Yes, I got detention for "ruffian behaviour on public display" and a long, sad lecture from my Head of Year about my "disappointing behaviour which would not bring honour to the school or look good on my University application, in 7 years' time, bla bla" (but it turned out that this girl's brother had weed on our headmistresses car door handle, so I think, secretly, they were a little bit grateful). But I never ever had to deal with any attempted bullying ever again.
At least, not at school.
But now? Now is different. Over the past couple of years I have borne insults, accusations and rebarbative reproach, out of nowhere, and have merely flinched. I have had the most horrendous lies flung around about me and the furthest I've got is to tell people, who already know they aren't true, that they aren't true. I have watched situations develop which I know to be wrong-all-wrong and I have sat dumbly, not wanting to offend. In many cases, I have even become so unnerved that I have ended up, to all intents and purposes, supporting other people's horrible follies rather than risking their wrath by telling them what I really think, ever hiding behind pusillanimous protest that it is "NOT MY BUSINESS"... when I should be screeching "NO NO NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO".
When did I become so damn diluted?
And I mean this on a far wider scale than just within my tiny little life in Surrey. I've said it before, but it's just not right that Mengistu should be living on a ranch and popping to South Africa for treatment. Than Shwe is another one. In fact, one could go on for ages. But me sitting here at my kitchen table, bleating on about things in the world Not Being Fair makes no difference at all. What DO you do then? Switch off? Or choose one and become single-mindedly activist? Do you rectify your own little patch of green first, before branching out onto bigger issues? Or do you hide behind the big stuff and forget what's under your feet?
Suddenly, I feel a little bit like the Lion on the Yellow Brick Road. Somewhere and sometime, I would like someone to push upon me a whole dose of courage so, finally, I can begin to re-discover the guts to sod all the eggshells.
What horrible English I do use.
Afterthought
