Closer is better

Dear Blog Diary,
“People are hard to hate up close.” - Dr. Brene Brown

When I was in 5th grade, there was this kid named Brett Rodgers. He was mean as hell to me. I remember his father didn’t like me. I was always so gentle to him, and there were times where I really tried to extend kindness to him, only to be met with cruelty. Kids can be like that.

He had lots of friends and I think I just wanted to be friends so I could make friends. To a certain degree I think he knew that and would pick on me almost because of it. Hell we were 11 years old and at that age, I’m not sure anything like that truly comes from the child. It's usually learned.

One time I tried to talk to him about it. We had a project and I got our teacher to let just the two of us work on it out in the hallway. We talked. I asked questions. Our teacher stood there the entire time. At such a young age I really tried to understand his perspective as to why he treated me this way. He was embarrassed, ashamed, frozen still.

He wasn’t mean to me after that.

Found out later that he was mean to me because I made him uncomfortable and didn’t know how to express it, just being a young perfectly normal stupid kid.

The more you know a person, the more you see them. And when you see them for who they are, you begin to see their humanity. Just makes hating someone more difficult seeing how they got there and where they are now. That douchebag in traffic, Karens, whoever it is you deeply dislike – I doubt you ever see them, like really see them.

It’s hard to love from far away too.

Sort of flips everything on its side when they say “keep your friends close and your enemies closer.”

What a world it could be if we just changed perspectives sometimes.

And FYI, it was the other way around. I was the one that bullied Brett Rodgers as a kid. Been decades and I wish I could apologize to that guy, let him punch me in the face or something.

Best,
E
#ARTiculate