Throughout my life I have moved three times, accumulated about a year of living in Wisconsin, and have attended 10 different school. My first house was in Greenston, Texas where I was born. When I was about three or four my family moved off to Louix, Indiana, a big town with a small population. Things went slowly around there, so there isn't much to talk about, however I did travel there last spring break.

When I was almost six I moved back to Greenston. While there I formed a strong fondness the local Barbeque, the flatness, and the free lollipops at the bank as well as made many friends. At some point in the school I assume was G.S.E., one of the local elementary schools I was passing the water fountain and above it was an anti-bullying poster. It then occurred to me that I had never really been bullied by anyone nor seen it happening outside of “Karate Kid”. I considered myself to be quite lucky.

In 2012 I moved here to Benson, Pennsylvania and I was to be in the fifth grade. Just like every grade, I would be in a new school, with new kids, in a new community. For most people being the new kid would have been nerve-racking, but for me it was just par for the course. My new school was Benson Elementary, a school I have come to despise for various reasons.

Since I was in a new state, different things were decidedly common. For one soda, or coke as I had learned it, was now pop; a term I never understood. In addition to pop there was a whole different tongue in the form of slang, and I never bothered to even try and understand it.

Outside of how to speak, there was also a different common technology brand. My whole life I had known Windows, Dell, and Toshiba (my favorite). Here we used Apple. In short, the scroll was inverted, there was no right click, and the keyboard was... messed up. Anyway I’ll spare you all the other details and get onto school itself.

In school I found out many things about the kids in the area. Coming from a southern private school, just the first week was a complete culture shock. I found that the children seemed to lack self control.  Being someone who is mentally rooted rule and order, although I do love a clever loophole, I found that all of the dirty jokes being passed around were not funny in the slightest, were somewhat offensive, and thought that they should be dealt with. I also found their use of curse words to be immature, obscene, and incorrect in their use. I tried to get these problem solved but to no avail since these were not directly affecting me.

Even though I had been a new kid in seven schools already, I had never received the “New Kid” treatment more than the teacher asking me to introduce myself and then to  take a seat. However, in this school I was teased for my slight southern accent and vocabulary. Another thing I remember being pestered about was how idiotic I was for wearing long sleeves and pants in most temperatures under 90 degrees. Both of these could be easily explained away by the fact that I was from Texas and some winters there were closer to some summers here. Eventually, I gathered a few enemies, and one day the childish teasing got physical.

One day we were all going outside for recess. I was walking around looking for anyone to socialize with. I never found anyone since I didn’t have any friends in my grade. Eventually, I just decided to walk aimlessly around the area. While passing through a concrete plot, a kid who shall not be named came up to me and greeted me. Knowing what kind of person he was I responded bitterly telling them to leave me alone and walked away towards some play structure.

I was unaware that they were following me. Before I knew what was going on, I was on the ground. They were kicking me in the gut, over and over. They were calling for others to join in; no one came. It felt like time had come to a stop with each kick. In a slight panic I tried to call for help, but I had no breath. All that came out was short breaths interrupted by each kick. I finally decided to fight for myself, so I kicked him where it counted. They fell in pain; I ran as fast as I could.

I got to one of the monitors who appeared oblivious to the whole incident. I tried to explain what happened, but my words just didn’t come out right. Nothing more happened about it during recess.  Quite a while later they were told off. As far as I know that was all that they got; no suing, no criminal charges, no arrest, or anything; just told off. I guess the only positive coming out of the situation was that I only walked away with a bruise or two.I’m not sure if anything happened to them after that, but they didn’t bother me since then.

I was never attacked to such extremes again. I’ve never let bullying get to me because there is always a way it could be worse. This is still present in how I interact with most people. If I were to describe it, it would be a like a mildly annoying scar. The kind of scar that you only notice when you scrape something against it.

A scar because it’s a mark, however this one’s invisible. The scraping would be that the bullying still persisted. Mainly it’s been verbal threats but people have stolen from me, destroyed my property, and very rarely attacked me. The final reason would be that scars can’t heal if you don’t let the surrounding skin heal over which is why I shall continue looking forward towards 2020 when I finally go home.