Recently I’ve had my memory launched back to my Primary School days when I was 7 or 8 and things were a bit bumpy in the friend department.

One particular name pops up…

Vanessa Fucking Pickard. I don’t think her parents gave her that middle name.. it was probably Jane or Louise like most girls born in the ’70s.

Vanessa was the unelected leader to the cohort of girls in our class. All the girls seemed to follow her and do what she said. They loved her and I couldn’t figure out why because she scared the beejeebers out of me.

Maybe the other girls in my class were a bit scared of Vanessa too? She seemed to have some kind of magical power. It was a power I was envious of. How’d she get everyone to like her? How’d she become the boss of our little world of girls? I don’t know how or why but one day she decided that she didn’t like me, and that was it…I was “outed”.

I think my gatekeeper friend was in another classroom perhaps? She was a year older than me and hey, maybe she was just sick of the shy new kid that she got lumped looking after because her dad was the principal. I don’t blame her. I was almost mute in my younger years. (I’m sure that wasn’t the case Cath..ha!)

I remember wishing for recess and lunch to never come. I felt so safe in the classroom…I didn’t know what to do at recess and lunch. I had no one to play with. When the girls would see me, they’d shoot off in another direction. I remember the look on a couple of their faces. It was guilt mixed with “if we don’t follow her, I might be you next week”. With nowhere to go, I would seek out my older sister who was in year 7. Popular, pretty with lots of friends, she was nice enough to let me hang around a bit until one day she pointed out that I had a GIANT BOOGER  hanging from my nose in front of all of her year 7 friends. I think she was trying to be discreet but my reaction to the devastation of “CODE BOOGER” alerted everyone else to the fact of my unfortunate situation. Tears ensued, which made code booger a giant boogery mess of a situation.

My lonely days came once more. There was no way I was going anywhere near all of the big kids. “Rogue booger” may strike again and I couldn’t risk another humiliation. Around this time, I remember our Principal talking to our class, or maybe it was the whole school…. there weren’t many of us. He spoke of inclusion and kindness and friendship. At that moment I knew he was talking about me. I knew he was talking to Vanessa. I also knew that my dad with his big fat giant mouth was the reason this was happening. I was 7 or 8, but I wasn’t stupid. I can’t remember how long this friendship outage lasted. It may have been a week or months. It’s all a blur now. But I’m 45 years old now and I can’t recall where I put my phone most days, but I remember this. I remember the feeling. I remember the sadness and the sick feeling in my belly.  I remember not wanting to go to school. I remember hiding behind the classroom so no one could see me..the pasty quiet kid with no friends.

God, school years can be so hard.

Vanessa Pickard moved away that year and I never ever again experienced that kind of ‘outage’ for the rest of my school days. I think I was one of the lucky ones.

But in turn, I’m sure I was no angel either. None of us are. We all slip up on the pathway of learning how to live in the world. I’m certain I have been cast as a villain in at least a couple of people’s stories. Most of us are at some point in our lives.

The 8-year-old Melissa hopes that Vanessa stepped in a few dog turds on her path to adulthood but the older and wiser Melissa wonders about what happened to Vanessa. I wonder if she learned what it meant to be a good friend? Or did she grow up to be an older version, changed her name to Karen, and makes demands to see the manager. I wonder if she ever had a turn at being “outed” during her school life? I wonder if she was even aware of her actions and the impact they had on others?

This child-ing business is tough. And parenting our children through these times is tough too. I’m sure Vanessa Fucking Pickard never knew how many tears I cried about being left out. She may have had a whole bunch of stuff to deal with herself. Who knows? She probably wouldn’t even remember her years at our little school, as she was shipped off to yet another place to live,  like all of the other Army kids.

So to all of the Vanessa’s out there, please try your hardest at not being mean bitches. There are good bits to everyone, even the bitchiest of bitches have goodness buried in there somewhere. Let that shit shine! You never know…maybe one day it will be your turn to be crying behind the classroom.

And to all of the Melissa’s, for the love of God, carry a hanky. Code booger is never far away.