For some reason I was sitting at work and a memory came flashing back to me.
Setting: On a crowded school bus heading home
Time: Sometime in the mid 90’s
Characters: Fat girl and mean Hmong boy
One day I was running late and ended up having to sit at the back of the bus with these naughty Hmong boys because it was too crowded up front. I’m sitting there minding my own business when one of the boys sitting directly behind me throws me a note. I see it fall onto my left side but pretended like I didn’t. My little sister then nudges me while she picks up the paper and starts unfolding it. As she did that, I could hear laughs surrounding me. I knew then that it wasn’t something good at all. Once the paper was unfolded, my sister told me to look at it. Now that I look back on it, I’m glad she was too young to read then. Anyways, I glanced at what she had opened in front of both her tiny hands before quickly crumbling it in my hands and stuffing it in my side pocket. When I got home, I opened that note once more. Those boys had drawn a picture of a big fat stick person and wrote some very nasty things on there that I don’t necessarily recall. I just remember seeing FAT this, FAT that, FAT, FAT, FAT and how as I stared at that piece of paper longer, it started to eat my self-esteem away. I cried and cried knowing I hadn’t done anything wrong to deserve this kind of teasing. Eventually I tore up the paper. That night I vowed to hate that one boy who threw me the note. Even to this day I still know his name - Xong Vue if you're out there.....
. I kept that hate I had for him all the way through the years I had left before graduating there.
I don’t know how I can find it in my heart to forgive people sometimes. Is skinny and beautiful the only two things human can accept only? Why is it so damn wrong to be different? Someone please explain to me because I don’t seem to understand these ideas social media often fill our minds with.
