The Fight

Have you ever been in a fight?

I have.

I was young. 12 years old. But I’ll never forget it. I had never been in a fight before and didn’t know what to do.

Now I was raised by good parents who taught me to be kind to others. I considered myself a pretty good kid. However towards my middle school years, I found myself running with a “bad crowd.” They were a group of my friends from elementary school, most of whom lived in my neighborhood and got on and off the bus with me daily. So naturally, throughout my elementary school years, we all became friends.

The gods of popularity must have deemed us worthy because as we got to 6th grade (last year of elementary school for me) at Ravenwood Elementary, we were kings. We rode in the back of the bus. We played football at recess. We started experimenting with crude jokes and inappropriate language. It felt good to be included. I liked my friends.

There were other kids in my neighborhood that also got on and off the bus, however they were not deemed worthy. They were labeled as nerds. Losers. Kids to be mocked and made fun of. I’m not even sure why or who decided this, but I do know that I carelessly laughed along as my popular friends continued to belittle them.

Once we entered 7th grade, we were no longer on top. But we were in middle school now. Lockers. Different teachers. Different environment. I still ate lunch with my popular friends. I still rode the same bus to and from school with the same people. Soon laughing, teasing, and mocking weren’t enough for the unfortunate “nerds” that rode the bus with us. I’m not sure how it started, and it seems so ridiculous when I think back on it, but for whatever reason, after we all got off the bus and it pulled away, me and my popular friends would start chasing the “nerdy” kids around the neighborhood.

There was one kid in particular, I’ll call him Ben (not his real name), that for whatever reason it became my duty to chase him. Maybe it was because he lived closer to me, I’m not quite sure how the decision was made, but I was complicit in this now daily task of chasing Ben around the neighborhood after the bus dropped us off. I never actually caught him. Eventually he would end up home, and then I would walk home, and that was that. My 12 year old brain didn’t think much of it. This went on for some time.

And then one day, as I was fulfilling my daily duty of chasing Ben around the neighborhood after the bus dropped us off, all of a sudden he stopped, turned around, and faced me. I froze, genuinely surprised to see tears in his eyes, looking at me with intense anger and hatred. No one had ever looked at me like that before. He put up his fists in front of his face and screamed at me that he was sick of this, he didn’t want to take it anymore and wanted to fight me. I wasn’t quite sure how to respond. I was shocked! I had no idea he was feeling this way. I looked around to see if any of my friends were in the vicinity watching, but realized we were alone in the woods, not too far from our houses. Despite my stunned surprise, I snarked some cool remark back to him, welcoming the fight, and raised my own fists. We both threw a few lame punches, nothing connecting, nor was there any injury. Ben then took off to his home. I watched him go and didn’t pursue.

I stood there for a moment, re-capping what had just happened in my head. I was alone in the woods, nobody to chase, nobody to be cool in front of. It was just me. Guilt and shame started to sweep in. Everything I had always been taught about being kind to others began to overcome me. What had I done? Why hadn’t I realized that Ben was feeling so hurt by my actions? What could have driven me to behave in such a way towards someone else? I felt absolutely miserable. I felt the need to apologize immediately, I did not want to carry this with me. Maybe if I stopped by to say I’m sorry it would help. The truth was, I didn’t have anything against Ben. I liked him. I played with him on multiple occasions when I was younger. But because popularity was bestowed upon me and not him, the result was unnecessary violent actions that I knew I did not want to participate in.

I wish I could say that I went to Ben’s house, knocked on the door, apologized, he returned the apology and we became friends from then on.

But that’s not what happened.

I did go knock on his door. I saw his tear-filled face in the window, then he disappeared. I waited a minute or so and knocked again. Another minute passed by. Then Ben emerged from his front door...

Carrying with him an axe.

I was terrified. His face was flush with tears, his anger intensified, and he began screaming at me to get the $@%& out of there. A simple apology was not going to solve this. He wanted nothing to do with me. I had caused him so much pain that he was ready to return that pain with a weapon. I tried to yell at him to calm down and I was just coming by to say sorry, but he could have cared less. He swung the axe at my leg.

Lucky for me, the back side of the axe.

I collapsed to the ground. It hurt. Now I was the one screaming in pain and swearing profanities. He continued to scream as well, turned around, went inside, and slammed the door. I’m not sure how long I sat there on the ground clutching my left leg and sobbing, but eventually I picked myself up and limped home.

I lacked the creativity and energy to come up with a lie to my mom when I hobbled through the door, so the truth spilled out of my reluctant cries. Not long after I ended up at Ben’s house with my parents and his parents. I don’t remember much what was said, but I do remember how I felt.

I never wanted to feel this way again. I never wanted to be in this situation again. Even though Ben nearly chopped my leg off with an axe, I realized the internal emotional pain I had caused him for so long was much more than the physical pain he reciprocated to me.

And with time, I was grateful. It was a wake up call for me. 7th grade was the year I voluntarily left my popular group of friends.

The group of friends that I ended up gravitating to during middle school was my church friends. Jared. Carter. Mason. Shelby. Jessica. Karlee. These were people that until this time I had been casual friends with from church activities and such, but soon they would become my best friends (and some college roommates).

My 7th grade popular friends, realizing I’d made the grave mistake of choosing not to hang out with them anymore, quickly resorted to mocking, teasing, and making fun of me. I learned a lot about friendship when I was 12.

A few years later my family moved away, but then happened to moved back and my senior year of high school was spent among many of these childhood friends. At some point during my senior year, Ben and I were able to talk about that fight. I don’t remember exactly what we said, so many years had passed that we probably just laughed a little as we discussed the unpleasant memory. We never became good friends, we graduated, he went his way and I went mine. But with years of maturity and perspective now, I wish I would have told him thank you. He may have saved me from a path I didn’t realize I was on. If Ben hadn’t responded the way he did to my bullying, and given me the axe chop of a wake up call I needed, maybe things would have turned out differently for me. I’ll never really know.

My senior year in high school, my friend Tracy taught me that "friends are people who make it easier to live the gospel of Jesus Christ" (Robert D. Hales). I learned I didn't have to choose between making a friend or living gospel principles. Compromising values for friendship puts you in compromising positions. Quite literally in some cases.

Since my 7th grade fight, I’ve never been in another physical fight. I feel lucky for that. Lucky to have had that experience at a young age. Lucky to have had a great group of church friends to take me in. Lucky it was the back of the axe. But most of all, lucky to have learned what friendship is and what it isn’t. I didn’t struggle much with friendship after that. Not to say I always had great friends, but that friends came and went, and as my family moved a few more times, I learned not to care too much what others thought about me. I didn't need to do things I didn't really want to do just to have a certain group of friends. As long as I tried to treat others with kindness and love, the right friends would be there for me, and me for them.