>I Was a Teenage Bully

>We all have small moments that define us- We can look back on our lives and pick out minor decisions we made that ended up changing and molding us into the people we are today.

One of those life-altering moments happened to me 18 years ago, right in the middle of my tenth grade Physics class.

I was the new girl at my high school and eager to fit in with what I thought was the “right” crowd. It was a strange place for me to be socially- I had always been my own person, hanging out with whomever I wanted, whether it was a group of cheerleaders or math team members or theater geeks.

But I was also competitive, and had taken on the challenge of infiltrating the popular groups at my new school like a runner in a gold medal dash.

So there I was in Physics class, filling out a worksheet, when at the table across from mine, beautiful Marissa Hastings tossed her golden hair, looked at her lab partner, the homely Muriel Krall, and said loudly, “Your middle name is AHUVAH?! Seriously?!”

I glanced over at them. Unbelievably, Marissa was looking at me for a response. I had to think fast.

“A Hoovah?!” I said “Like the vacuum?!”

Marissa laughed and so did a few other kids who were listening.

Muriel scowled. “Cut it out, guys,” she said quietly.

“I’ll have A HOOVAH!” I said in a deep voice. The laughter grew louder. Marissa smiled approvingly.

And as she scooted her chair up to my table and put her worksheet next to mine, I looked over at Muriel, who seemed to have shrunken into herself, frowning and alone as she filled out her labsheet while everyone else snickered.

I. Felt. Horrible.

When we are young, we try on personalities to see what fits best. I see my own teenagers going through this process from month to month. At one time not so long ago, they were literary rebels, reading Jack Kerouac, wearing black and scribbling in their journals. Right now, they’re channeling Molly Ringwald from Pretty in Pink, wearing quirky 80s gear and playing board games each night with a group of delightfully oddball friends.

But some of their character changes aren’t so visible. They occur on the inside, and the kids around them at school often are more likely to notice their personality swings than we are at home.

Unbeknownst to my own parents, for one, brief moment in tenth grade Physics, I was a bully.

Afterward, I pulled that personality off of myself like a killer would rip off a bloodstained t-shirt. I am still ashamed of myself and my behavior. Nearly two decades after the fact, it’s hard for me to admit here that I treated an innocent person so horribly.

I wonder every so often if that moment was one that defined Muriel, too. I wonder if I contributed to chipping away at her self esteem. I hope I didn’t. I hope it was a silly, nothing incident in her life that she put aside and forgot about.

I’d love to apologize to her if I saw her again. Somehow, though, I think it would only make things worse and more awkward. There’s a good chance she doesn’t remember it.

But I do. And it changed me.