It seems like not a week goes by that I don’t see a heartbreaking post about a young person’s experience of being bullied, often with tragic consequences. My heart breaks for all the kids who are suffering, and at the thought that my own kids might experience this one day.

But my heart no longer breaks for that girl in the picture, my adolescent self. She suffered too. There were deep emotional wounds from my own bullies’ words. For a time, the pain they inflicted colored my entire world. But the cruelty of those kids long ago lost its power to hurt me.

My family moved from the city to the suburbs when I was ten years old. Geographically the move wasn’t far at all, but it felt like the firm closing of the chapter of my childhood, a care-free time of being oblivious to things like Read more ›