Spin Cycle: Guilt Trippin

Sprite's Keeper's Spin Cycle this week is guilt.

This is a tough one for me. It does not help that I am feeling intimidated by succinct and thoughtful thistle’s spin, where she compares guilt to regret; and Jan’s strongly worded spin where she blew me away with her fuck you guilt attitude.

For me, I think the grey area lies with the mix of guilt and shame.

I used to be dogged by guilt. I would wake up in the middle of the night and worry about a detail left undone or a phrase that may have been taken the wrong way.

It wasn’t until my thirties that I realized others glided through life with much less worries. I studied this and tried to let things go. I have come to believe that what does not come naturally at first should still be practiced. Eventually it might stick.

It wasn’t until my trip through cancer territory that I was able to truly embrace and live the “let the little things go and stop beating yourself up over what’s already done.” Learn from it and move on.

I’ve probably done worse, but my most shameful memory is from my childhood days.

There were four of us. Sarah, Sophie, Katie, and Pseudo. Sarah and I lived at the park. Sophie and Katie were weekenders.

I was the weak link in the group. You know. The one that gets picked on. Sleepover? I was the one whose hand got put in warm water, ice cream melted into my hair, orange juice poured into my sleeping bag.

I wasn’t the youngest. That would have been Katie. But she was bigger and stronger. Plus her parents were the wealthiest. Her mom would give her a twenty to treat us all to candy at the bait store. That would be like giving a kid a hundred today I think. Who would pick on that?
Plus I was a sensitive child. I did not take some practical jokes well. Whenever I got picked on in a way that crossed the line, I went loner for awhile. My older sister would let me hang out with her. She was fearless and could have eaten my friends alive, one by one, if I had asked her. Her boyfriend was even more bad ass.

My friends would eventually apologize. Say it was a joke. Kiss my butt and off I’d go until the next time.

There was another weekender at the park who was our age and always tried to hang with us. Sheryl. We did not like her. Her parents were so rich that they made Katie’s look like they lived in the projects. Plus Sheryl was an only child and very spoiled. Self-indulged.

She was a royal pain in the ass. Her way of fitting in was to let us all know we would be lucky to hang out with her because of all her stuff. She’d brag about all her stuff all the time. That did not go over too well. Then she tried to boss us around and lay claim to leadership because of her vision of herself as better than us all because she had more money. She wasn’t intuitive enough to realize Sarah was the leader by virtue of being the strongest minded. Sarah had the hardest life as well, she was tough from the inside out.

Sheryl was also a big baby. We were a bunch of dare-devils. Our secret name was the dare devil’s club. For fun, we would go into the State Park and climb trees or go down to the beach and climb rocks. Each of us would come up with a precarious stunt. Once we accomplished our stunt, everyone else would follow suit. Sheryl did not like this activity and would tell us we had to do something else. We’d tell her if she didn’t like it, not to come.

So she ratted us out. Told her mom who told our moms. Who told us we had to let Sheryl hang out with us. We were not allowed to do anything that scared her. We all got yelled at for being stupid enough to have a dare devil’s club.

After a couple of weekends of forced company with Sheryl, with Sheryl being bossy and a royal pain, we talked her into going into the State Park. Just for a walk. No tree climbing. Just a walk in the canyon. In my defense, I really did think that was all it would be.

We walked about a mile back into the canyon.

We stopped under some trees and ate the candy bars we’d brought with us.

We were about to walk back, when Sarah and Sophie asked Sheryl if she wanted to become a part of our group for real. She looked both eager and leery.

She said yes.

Then they told her to take off her clothes and run naked through the trees.

She looked petrified.

They talked smooth and sweet. Said we had all done it.

They winked at me conspiratorially.

Sheryl hesitated. She looked at me. The weak link. What was she thinking?

I now had to choose between telling Sheryl, “No. They are lying. We have NEVER taken our clothes off and run naked through the trees. Don’t do it. I wouldn’t trust them. They can be mean even when they do like you. And they so don’t like you.”

Or I could look at Sheryl. Nod yes. Let her trust me for a second and become the picked on one instead of me.

I nodded yes.

Sheryl slowly peeled off her clothes.

She stood there in her twelve year old nakedness. So much fear and trepidation in her eyes.
Sophie and Sarah smiled. “Go on. Run around. Be wild. You’ll like it. Really.”

She faintly smiled. And I realized that despite all her stuff and her spoiledness, what she really wanted was to fit in with us. I felt sick inside.

She raised her hands above her head. She ran around with a slight “whooohoo.”

As soon as she was past a tree or two Sarah grabbed her clothes and yelled to the rest of us “RUN!!”

In that split second, I met Sheryl’s eyes and they pleaded me to befriend her.

The four of us ran through the canyon, Sarah in the lead. Sheryl ran after us screaming and crying for us to stop and to give her back her clothes.

Once we were a good deal ahead of her Sarah turned around, holding Sheryl’s clothes above her head and laughing.

“Still think you’re better than us? Still want to hang out with us?”

Talk about a rhetorical question. I did not even want to hang out with us.

It did not end there. While she stood there, naked and crying, Sarah and Sophie listed her indiscretions and personality flaws. And although dead on, it was mean and cruel. But I did nothing to stop them. My thoughts fell more along the line of realizing that although they might pick on me, it was fluff compared to what they could do if they really did not like you.

Sheryl stood about twenty yards from us. Tears streaming down her face. One hand trying to cover her barely beginning breasts and the other trying to cover her nether regions. She begged for her clothes. She choked on the words.

Sarah left Sheryl’s clothes on the gate that separated the canyon from camping area.

Sheryl never tried to hang out with us again.

I clearly remember a day a few weeks later. I was sitting on the beach with my gang and Sheryl was sitting down the beach with her parents. As I glanced her way I caught her eye. She looked beaten and forlorn. Sarah had wanted to take her down a peg or two, but we had flattened her like a pancake.

I never approached her or apologized.

Guilt, shame. Lots of it over this one incident.

Every kid I notice that sits alone in school or eats alone on a field trip I now pay special attention to. I let my room be his or her safe haven for lunch. I try to befriend the ostracized kid. For me and for Sheryl.