Posted:
Although it doesn't feel like it, it has probably been over a year since you left, since the end of your daily snide comments, taunts and bullying.
A year since I told you that the conflicts we had had, were just because we were just different people, and that I did not hold anything you had said or done against you.
It was a lie, although I did not know it then.
At the time, I believed in it.
I sincerely wanted to forgive you, because I knew you were just a cynical, negative person, who felt the need to put others down to feel good about yourself. I wanted to forgive you, because, beneath all your attempts at embarrassing me in front of the other colleagues, I could see your weakness, your vulnerability - and for that, I pitied you.
I pitied you for being unable to value the things that truly mattered - like friendship and kindness. You, of all people, deserved compassion. And I tried to be compassionate towards you as you were leaving the office. I tried to isolate the good memories we had shared when we were close friends, from the ones where you ganged up with others to belittle me.
I desperately wanted to remember only the good things about you.
It was important, for me, more than for you.
See, I never wanted to be a bitter person, and I certainly did not want to become a bitter person because of you.
For isn't that how bullies win? That's what you would have wanted, right? To create a crack, a dent, something permanent in my psyche? ...Something that would make me think that if I could be made to feel so small and worthless, surely, there was something wrong with me that I should change. Something to make me shy away from the eyes of others, wondering if, they too, might be secretly making fun of me. Something to make me even more of an insecure recluse than I already was.
But alas, I let you succeed, didn't I? I allowed the insecurities you had amplified in me to continue to fester. I allowed myself to become bitter towards you.
I had lied, to you, and to myself. I had neither forgiven, nor forgotten.
The hurt one feels when one is bullied does not heal so easily.
I know that now.
It still hurts when we cross paths now and then, and exchange innocuous greetings. In my mind, I think of all the vicious gossip you might be brewing in your head. And when I meet others who know you, I wonder if they already have pre-conceived notions of me, thanks to you. Yes, your snide comments, taunts and bullying have ended, but it is difficult for me to ever trust you again. After all, we had started out as friends, and yet...
I realise now that I am not as magnanimous as I would have hoped. I have not forgiven you entirely.
It saddens me, but it is the truth.
There is too much unfinished, unsettling... stuff between us for me to sweep it all under the rug. I have tried, and ended up tripping up on the uneven rug more times than I have been able to count.
I cannot forget the mean things you said, the disparaging tone, the sneers - the sheer unfairness of it all. I cannot forget the times I cried to myself (and the times you made fun of me for crying). I cannot forget how alone I felt at the time.
Yes, today, I am surrounded by friends who help and support and uplift me in ways I still find surprising, but at the back of my mind, I catch myself wishing that you could see me now. You continue to affect me even in your absence.
But I have realised something too, and perhaps if I remind myself of it every now and then, I will begin to believe in it more strongly.
I have realised that whenever you bullied me, I could never reply to you in the tone you used towards me. I just gave a small unfelt smile, lowered my head and tried to finish my lunch as soon as possible. (Except for that one time when I walked out of the room so I could cry in my room).
I know you think it was a weakness on my part.
And at the time I thought I was weak too.
Why couldn't I fight back? If not aggressive, why could I not be at least assertive? Why was it that it was only hours after your mean comments, that the retorts I could have given, come to my mind?
But it was not my weakness.
I prefer being seen as a pushover who can't fight for herself, because I am proud that I have been brought up as a person who is simply incapable of saying mean things, even to a bully.
I prefer being the kind of person who cries to herself, than the kind of person who makes others cry.
And a million times over, I prefer being the boring nerdy person with bad skin and unmanicured hands, than the kind of person with the perfect winged liner who is fashionable and trendy, but does not know what makes a person truly beautiful.
I am proud that I at least tried to forgive you, and trust me, I will continue to try.
I know, and I will strive to believe, that true victory is not that which others can see and cheer over. True victory is staying true to oneself and one's principles, and not allowing oneself to fall in one's own eyes.
These are things I could never say to you.
Perhaps because you wouldn't understand. But mostly, because, as I realise now, I don't need to. I don't need your validation.
I am validated by myself and I am fortunate that I am also validated by others, who like me, value friendship and kindness.
I hope you too are able to feel good about yourself without having to put others down. Because even you don't know how deep the scars of bullying run. There was one thing I told you on the day you left, that I know I did not lie about. I truly wish you well, former friend.
Mannat Har Khushi Paane Ki
