Be a Condom

It has been an interesting couple of days, to say the least...

Some old wounds have been ripped open...

Yet, I had the opportunity to get involved instead of simply watching it from a distance.

I didn't run into a burning building to rescue someone.

I didn't donate an organ to help save a life.

I didn't talk anyone out of doing anything stupid.

Nothing was life or death.

Or was it?

Two worlds collided for me this week.

Knowing me, had they not, I still would have acted the same in the end, however this makes it a fun and fantastic little story.

Sit back.

In another life I liked to fancy myself a Sweet Polly Purebred of sorts.

Allow me to digress a moment...I assure you it will make sense...

A few years ago while my son was being bullied, I joined Classmates.com to find this kid from my grammar school who had stood up for me one night against a group of girls. His name was James Hambel.

On the night of the "save", those mean girls had surrounded me at a Friday night mixer. I was terrified, as one was a known badass and towered over me.

As they encircled me and started taunting me while poking and pushing me, I stood there. Shoulders back. Feet in a soft 2nd position. Chin defiant.

I looked like a little asshole with my natural smirky face.

I was scared shitless.

James saw from a distance that my cheeks were red. He was 2 years ahead of me and was no longer in my school. He was a high schooler. (ooooooh!) James was first of all smokin' hot and everyone and their mother had a thing for him. Even the nuns.

James came up behind me and slowly ran his hand across my bare back. (Thank you Mr. Happy Neon V-neck Sweater worn backward!) Never before and never since was I happy to have owned anything neon that wasn't utility.

James stands at my side with his hand on the center of my back. I am nervous.

Is he here to save me or shove me at them?

I breathe.

He pulls me closer and looks those mean girls right in their snarky faces and in the softest, coolest tone imaginable he asks the main one, "Jackie" if she has a problem. She says she is just talking to me and he says he doesn't think so. He continues to keep his arm around me. He maintains eye contact with her and says, "Bye". She looks at me like she wants to light me on fire and she and her friends storm off.

I feel like I am in a John Hughes movie...Though I do not know who he is at the time.

Would they have done much damage to me? No.

We were in a public place and it was 1985. In my mind, James saved me. And he did. In ways that cannot be witnessed by the naked eye.

Jackie eventually did get me. Jackie and her friend Kim followed me home from school one day soon after. It was snowing. The public schools were closed. Ours was not. Jackie and Kim followed me and my friends as we walked. I was noticeably scared. When we arrived at the corner where we normally split, my "friends" split like we did every day, as if there was nothing different about today.

Two turned right, toward their houses.

One walked straight toward her house.

As I was about turn go left, WHAM!

I got hit in the ear and face with a big ball of ice and snow.

OK.

Fine.

I stop and with composure attempt to clean it out of my ear and face so I can cross the street and continue.

Too late.

Jackie and Kim are on either side of me.

SHIT!

I honestly cannot tell you what they said to me. All I could hear was my heart and my breathing. Like when you cover your ears with your hands and breathe hard. Yeah. Like that. That was the sound...with some mumbling.

I felt more snow smack against my head at close range.

They were "cool", so they were of course 13 year old smokers. Actually Kim was 14.

They put their cigarettes out in my hair.

They piled snow on top of my head and crammed it down my back and put my hood up to seal it in.

I stood there.

No tears.

I am dead inside.

I am frickin' freezing.

I am trembling.

Everyone knew they were going to fuck with me.

It was just safer for them to go home.

No need for them to get beat up too.

"Friends" is a loose term at 12.

What I have found is that "Friends" is a loose term at 25, 29, 35, 37, 40, 46...yada, yada, yada.

Why is that?

I was 12 and learned then that I would never do what those "friends" did to me.

People rely on you when you are their friend.

Not to pay their bills, loan them money, or watch their dog.

Friends are the ones who make the difference between laughing or eating a tub of ice cream. Friends hang out so that you do not find yourself sleeping with that sleazy fucktard because you feel "alone" or bad about yourself.

Friends are the ones who remind you that it is OK to laugh at yourself and to be alone and to be scared and to be strong when it is way easier to jump into the box.

Not that box. Not a coffin. THE Box. The neat and pretty box that the people who are too afraid to be themselves or even know themselves have crammed themselves into and will beat you relentlessly until you jump in it with them.

*breathes and brushes hair out of face whilst gritting teeth at the thought of The Box*

So a few days ago I receive an email from a girl who had found me through Classmates.com.

Actually, she found a message I had posted on the board a few years ago (and had forgotten about) regarding James Hambel. I think the message said that I was looking for him so I could thank him and if anyone knows where he is, to pass along my email...which was posted.

The email was from a girl who wondered if I had found him and if I had, could I pass along her email address to him?

The girl was Kim.

Jackie's friend Kim.

As she had not known me prior to beating the crap out of me and had merely been there as Jackie's friend, she didn't realize it was me. I had known of her because the year before she had been a Mighty 8th grader...in James' class. Little kids always look up to the "big" kids, right?

I was stupefied by the email.

Simply because it crossed my mind that sometimes bullies have no idea how they affected the lives of the people they bullied.

I wanted to thank her and slap her all at once.

She is one of the reasons that I now have a voice.

She is one of the reasons that I also now have a "hard candy shell".

Almost on cue another friend is expressing to me her frustration over a stranger violating her privacy and disrespecting her value as a human.

I check it out.

It was a blogger.

I have written things in blogs that have hurt people, but never has that person come back and called me a liar. This was wild. I write about actual events. Sometimes people don't like having others know when they act a fool. Sometimes that is of little consequence to me.

This was different.

This was a blog written about what this blogger imagined my friend to be in a life outside of the blog.

It was harsh.

What made it worse was that this jaded blogger refused to acknowledge that she was acting out and being unhealthy.

She posted semi-nude pictures of my friend without her permission and invited people to make fun of my friend's body.

She was executing the practice of tearing someone else apart in the hopes that it would "elevate" her as a person.

*scratches head*

I cannot even fathom this line of thinking.

They circled like sharks and started ripping into personal tidbits of her life that my friend had written about on her own blog...including the very real death of her husband.

What the fuck is wrong with people?

Where the fuck is the humanity in this world?

You know me. I almost could not resist the urge to rip this jaded bitch up one side and down the other.

Who the hell did she think she was?

There really is no arguing with her. She doesn't have an identity of her own, so she attacks others to deflect her lack of depth.

She is angry, and hateful, and if I ever witnessed her doing something that was not entirely self-serving, I might faint dead away from shock.

The point is not this jaded mess of a person or her behavior.

My friend (who could of and has held her own) was grateful that I had stood beside her on this one.

With friendship, it is not always about needing your friends. It is knowing that if you did need them, they would be there.

Like Condoms.

They're always better when they're in your back pocket when a fucked up situation arises.

I am a condom friend.

I like to think that I am ribbed kind...with just enough warming pleasure.

*starts thinking of a snappy jingle*