Hug an Enemy

After we moved to a new town, my parents had to network with different people to find childcare for us. Prior to that, I had gone to a daycare right by our house as had my sister, but the town that we moved into was forty-five minutes away from that facility, making it too difficult to stay with the same babysitter. This proved to be a difficult task for my parents. Not only were we in school but they also had to worry about making sure they could find someone that could take care of our little brother. Not every babysitter was up for watching three kids, so they went on the hunt for one that was.
Ironically for me, the babysitters that they chose were usually two years older than I was. This proved to be both an interesting and somewhat unflattering choice, because I knew that I would end up going to school with the same people that were in charge of caring for me. They went through five different babysitters, but one of those babysitters ended up making a bigger impact on my life than the others.
This babysitter only came to watch us once. She was just like the others, two years older than me, and though we got along while she was at my house, years later, she would become my school bully. Now, I don’t exactly blame her for thinking that it was odd that she had to watch a kid that was almost the same age as she was. I thought this was weird too, but I assume there was some kind of law regarding how old you had to be to stay home alone at the time.
Eventually, I got to the age that I needed to be at to watch myself and my siblings. I finished elementary school and middle school, and I ended up in high school. I was excited to be a high schooler. That meant that I only had a few more years until I was on my own. I was looking forward to meeting new friends, and I was curious about what classes and activities would be available to me now that I was a little bit older. Nevertheless, I would have never guessed that I would be in the same class as the girl that had babysat me, but to my surprise I was.
One day, I walked into my history class only to find the girl that had babysat me, sitting on a back counter with a couple of kids that were in my grade. I didn’t think much of it at first. Sometimes, people had to take different classes, depending on their graduation requirements, and I had gotten along with her back then, so I let her be. Ironically, she didn’t feel the same way as I did. Instead of leaving me along and tending to her studies, she did anything and everything that she could to start a fight with me in front of the class.
I was upset about this behavior as I felt that we were old enough to do the things that were required of us in class without this extra bit of chaos, but she wouldn’t stop. She would tease me in the halls. She would call me out in class, and finally, I had enough and decided to call her on her actions. She didn’t back down. It became a back and forth routine between the two of us. She would do something mean to me, I would leave glue under the handle of her locker. She would talk to my classmates about me, I would tell everyone the new nickname I came up with for her. It didn’t stop until she graduated.
Fast forward fifteen years later and that girl hadn’t crossed my path or my mind for a while. Then, a news story comes up regarding her family business and a devastating loss. As upset as I was for how she had treated me in high school, I still felt bad for her and her family. They had lost a business that had been passed down through generations of their family, and I really wanted to help. I wrote an article, doing my best to spread the news about the loss and getting the information in front of the eyes of people that didn’t necessarily watch the news. I’m not sure how many people saw my article and were able to help her family, but I did realize that by doing this, I was able to help myself. No longer was I held captive by the memories of my childhood bully. Things had evolved, and I realized that even bullies deserve compassion from time to time.