“What you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others.” – Confucius

1. “A real friend is one who walks in when the rest of the world walks out.”
   – Walter Winchell

I've recently been seeing a post on social media.  It's a quote saying something along the lines of wishing parents cared more about if their children are kind to other kids, sitting with the kid who is sitting alone at lunch I think it said, than if they are in gifted classes.  I couldn't agree more with that sentiment.  I remember one little boy on our street that used to tease my daughter and make her cry because "he was gifted" and "she wasn't".  My common response to that is there is no such thing as gifted in high school.  It's an equal playing field there, so who cares?  But it got me thinking.  Do parents really care?  Do they want to know when their kids are being like that??

I watched as my 14 year old nearly got excluded, about 1 hour before their first high school football game as freshman last Friday, because there was only room for so many in this girls' opinion and someone needed to be left out.  My daughter was the lucky one she chose.  If this did happen? I was actually going to call the mom, because you know, I would want to know if my daughter was doing this, so she might actually too.  I like her daughter a lot because she is usually very kind and inclusive. Thankfully she called my daughter and apologized and decided to include everyone, I am glad to say everyone had a great time.

“If you make friends with yourself you will never be alone.”– Maxwell Maltz

But the thought of my child being excluded tore into the very fiber of my being.  It got me thinking again,  when do you forget and heal from such an ordeal?  It was so difficult for me to handle when everything happened with my youngest daughter and her former friend group last year because I realized so much of the pain I was feeling was my own.  My own from way back in St. Hyacinth's. When, for whatever reason, two of us were chosen to be ostracized by our female friends. I remember the lonely bus rides, I remember lunch being a nightmare.  I was with the same 30 or so kids so there was really no where to branch out and find new friends.  I wonder if it's anything that the girls who did this to us think about.  When I think about it, it can still make my throat tighten.  It was the loneliest feeling in the world.  Do these girls think about what they did and think, "hell yeah, we made those two girls miserable.  We made them hate waking up and going to school!  We are awesome!"  I mean seriously what goes on in their minds?  Thankfully our Nun was pretty savvy, caught on to what the girls were doing to us and made us all have a sit down and make amends.  But I just remember crying and crying during it, my head on my desk, relieved it would finally be over. Sad that I was hated by my former friends.

“To the world you may be just one person, but to one person you may be the world."– Brandi Snyder

I got through high school fairly unscathed.  Sure there were groups of people I wished truly liked me. Ones I so desperately tried to fit in with. The ones that used me for my car or my pool, that would make fun of me when they thought I didn't realize it.  Or soap my car with horrible sayings after I was finally done putting up with them.  I remember sobbing, because my father found my car covered in horrible things, horrible things that were said about me and he was sad someone would say something like that about his little girl.  I was embarrassed as my neighbors watched as I scrubbed away their literary masterpiece on my old blue Monte Carlo.  I do feel I should mention I did meet a couple of wonderful people going into my junior year that I still call best friend to this day.  But for the most part, I made it through high school looking forward to college.

Let's skip to my senior year in college and unfortunately I was on the receiving end of another "let's exclude Danielle" campaign.  I guess some guy got my suite mates and sorority sisters believing I was saying some pretty awful things about them.  I couldn't understand the cold shoulder I was getting until I asked one of the girls I lived with.  She countered with she couldn't be friends with a back stabbing bitch like me.  I was floored.  I guess when this guy who wished he was in our sorority spouted off all of his crap about people it was okay, because I stupidly kept his confidence.  But for whatever reason this time, he unleashed his fury on me, and once again I was sitting outside looking in.  I graduated without a friend pretty much.  Once again, ok because I met the man of my dreams and knew I would be with him right after I graduated, so really those people mattered not much in the grand scheme of things.  Brad was my world, he still is :)

“Lots of people want to ride with you in the limo, but what you want is someone who will take the bus with you when the limo breaks down.”— Oprah Winfrey

So it got me thinking yet again, what is it like for you people?  The transgressors who make other's lives miserable for whatever reason?  My husband seems to think it's because these people are insecure with themselves.  They need to boost themselves at other's expenses.  Did you get off on seeing how awful you make people feel?  Do you even remember what you did?  Because those of us who suffered at your insecure hands still do.

Then another thought crossed my mind, what happens if it happens to YOUR child?  If someone decides it's time to ostracize your kid?  Make their lives miserable.  Can you honestly be empathetic? Can you look at them and be genuinely sorry for their pain knowing at one point in your life you did the same thing to someone else?  When my best friend and I were talking this weekend she told me how her oldest daughter's friend group decided they didn't like Emma anymore just a month or so outside of graduation. The pain I felt for my friend's daughter was real.  Like someone punched me in the stomach.  How I wanted to go find these nasty girls and give them what they deserved for being so ugly and hurtful.  It honestly broke my heart in two.  This is a brilliant girl, a great athlete, so pretty she could be carved in a cameo is how I describe her to others, and yep, some insecure butt heads decided to try and take her down a few pegs because they probably aren't nearly as successful. But words like mine do precious little to heal a person when they are living through stuff like that. Thankfully my non blooded niece is happily attending Northeastern in Boston now, making her way through college beautifully so far, where she has access to Mike's cannoli whenever she wants them. Kind of like a little slice of heaven after dealing with the hell she had to endure.

I guess that's what I need to get past all of these feelings.  My very own Mike's Cannoli shop. If it were that simple, I'd be a millionaire.  Able to solve hurt feelings, one cannoli at a time.

“Friendship is the hardest thing in the world to explain. It’s not something you learn in school. But if you haven’t learned the meaning of friendship, you really haven’t learned anything.”– Muhammad Ali