Elementary Regrets

By Augustine Wasef

In elementary school I actively detested one insufferable boy, from his blatant misogyny to his decade-old celebrity gossip, he was an absolute pain.

Honestly, I probably was the exact degree of insufferable to him. My visual memory is somewhat akin to a cathode ray tube, so I don’t know exactly what I did. All I know is that my behavior wasn’t appropriate or proportional.

For years I mentally defended myself with a handful of monotonous arguments usually appealing to some vague notion of his immorality. Then crack by crack my arguments fell apart. It didn’t seem accurate to label someone who hadn’t yet been taught his multiplication tables sexist. Similarly, his relentless rambles seem almost cute in retrospect. 

Years later in middle school I hated something else, something more human, when, as a joke, people called me a search engine or chatbot. Around campus I was always waiting for someone to be the better person, maybe start a conversation. I needed someone to talk to and yet no savior presenting themself. Years of endless solitary P.E. laps and standing in corners followed.

Yet, the dichotomy is deafening. Why should I be allowed to be human and he cannot be? How is it appropriate for me to draw the line between outlier and freak? 

It wasn’t.

I can’t appeal to the same conscience I ignored. The realization that you have acquired an inhumanity is terrifying. A couple of days ago in social studies, the exact same guy was sitting near me and somehow the topic of elementary school came up. We were jointly chastising one of my friends for hating on our old school. 

“I’m sorry if I was mean in elementary school.” Maybe that was too didactic. Maybe a simple apology doesn’t cut it anymore. Maybe the word “was” is simplistic. Or else maybe my real crime wasn’t being obnoxious; it was inaction when someone needed help.

Image: Klara Kulikova/Unsplash