Word of the Day Challenge:Lightly

When I was in highschool this guy used to bully me.

He would go out of his way to tell me I was fat, or ugly, he’d ask why did I wear my hair that way or why did I always have to raise my hand to answer questions in class- why didn’t I give someone else a chance?

He was just a jerk and at that time I was a lead guitarist in a band, I rode a motorcycle and on the weekends I flew down to L.A. and hung out at clubs with some of my friends who had moved down the year before, so his punk mouth and what came out of it wasn’t exactly something that kept me up at nights.

After we graduated I heard he had died and that he was about to start his career as a teacher. What a tragedy was the word on the grapevine. He had been such a super kid.

I was relieved- not happy, I didn’t laugh at the news , but I was absolutely relived that he wouldn’t be in a roomful of kids day after day and hour after hour because I wasn’t confident that he wouldn’t zero in on a few of those kids and find ways to shred them apart too.

I guess that I hadn’t taken that experience as lightly as I though I had.

Not lightly at all.