Reflections from the back of the 24

Today in order to avoid drama….I sat near the middle of the bus.  The bus was empty-ish with only a few loud kids at the back of the bus.  Then at one of the next stops, Sponge Bob Backpack Girl (SBBG) got on the bus – and then the loud talking began.  I was listening to louder music this time, so even though I could hear a baseline rumble from the back, I couldn’t make out words.  So near my stop, I turned off my IPOD, just in time for SBBG to make her way to the door, talking loud and cursing.  I think she was making fun of someone near where I was sitting, making reference to his “big head”, which was mixed in with a bunch of “fucks” and “shits”.  Her friend even said something like “You ALWAYS making fun of someone”.

So what makes someone so nasty?  What fuels a bully?  Is it insecurity?  Does she have a really shitty home life?  Was the same person that bought her the Sponge Bob backpack the same person that makes fun of her, and said “fuck” and “shit” to her all day. 

When I think about that, it makes me feel sad and compassionate for her.  It’s really really hard to feel that in the moment, but now….15 hours later, it’s easier to see all the different angles.  It must suck to feel so horrible about yourself, that you need to act all tough, and make fun of random people without provocation.  It must suck to feel that angry all the time, and to have as many people dislike her…as I assume there must be.  It must suck to be 15 and have to wear a Sponge Bob backpack.  Wonder if she has a lunch box to match….

The second runner up…well, actually it’s a tie….for meanest girl on the 24 (she’s also around 15) has a Dora the Explorer backpack.  Are they making some ironic fashion statement?  Something meant for an innocent 4 year old little boy or girl, is worn by the nastiest beatches that the 24 has to offer?

Hmmmm

PS – I hope SBBG isn’t reading this blog…because that would make me scared to ride the bus…………….=)

For many reasons, I now need to take MUNI to work.  It’s just a 10 – 15 block ride on the 24, so it’s technically an “easy” commute, but during those short 20 minutes of bus ride, an internal process happens within me that prompted me to start this blog.  For me, it’s just a way of processing and sharing my feelings….and maybe it will strike a connection with someone reading it.

I try to be as open minded as possible.  I try to be as courteous and polite as I can as well.  I also feel that I’m really self reflective, and have about 10 years of ongoing therapy under my belt.  I also know that I always try to keep in mind someone else’s feelings, even those of a stranger.  So this is how I step onto the bus.  I always get on the bus by jumping through the backdoor….it’s spares me, typically, the clog of people that accumulate at the front of the bus, because someone, for some reason, doesn’t realize that they are “supposed” to move to the back of the bus.  So I get in the back door and then try to get as far back in the bus as I can.

Today, the back of the bus was filled with middle school aged kids….who are…..black.  I apologize in advance if any of my blog comes across as racist, and I challenge those feelings on a daily basis…but some of what I’m going to discuss are the initial feelings that I have, my self reflection, and a look at where these feelings stem from.

So the back of the bus was filled with black school kids, talking loud to each other, yelling at each other, running around a little, etc.  Immediately I was intimidated….but not wanting to let anyone know my feelings of intimidation, I moved right to the back of the bus.  I walked past an open seat where an older black kid (around 18 – 19) wearing a hoodie covering his face who was sitting next to that open seat, had placed a little plastic bag of something on the seat.  I looked at the seat, and then him, he looked up at me with what I perceived as a “fuck off” look…and I continued walking.  Should I have taken a stand for all standing passengers and said “can you please move this bag”….or did I do the right thing and keep walking…who knows.  All I know is none of the other standing passengers seemed to take that risk either.  But I think it’s absolutely shocking that this guy didn’t immediately move the bag, and straighten up so that the seat next to him was as available as possible, so someone could sit down. 

Then two young (15 – 16) black girls got on the bus….they were loud at the bus stop, and even louder on the bus.  They seemed to know the kids at the back of the bus, so what erupted was even more chaos….and me standing literally in the middle of it…with Ipod blasting (of course it couldn’t drown out the noise, since I was only listening to a choral version of Barber’s Agnus Dei).   Teenage girls scare me, a carryover from my own traumatic teen years….so my anxiety level immediately rose.  Although they were talking around me, and through me…my fear was that they would soon start talking at me, or about me.  Were they going to make fun of me being Asian, looking gay, my pimply face…all this was running through my head.  The only thing anyone really said to me was a little 3 foot tall kid got up to move towards the exit (we were a block from the bus stop mind you) and said “EXCUSE ME”, I moved a little…and then he mumbled something like “I need to get off the bus and he’s just standing there…shit”.  And I was thinking, I can’t believe I’m scared and being disrespected by someone 3 feet tall!

The teenage girls continued to carry on their loud animated conversation, I heard a bunch nasty comments, some slightly homophobic comments, some slightly shocking comments…and then FINALLY they got off the bus.  All I could think was, what makes them so mean and nasty.  I have a hypothesis…but it made me just sit and wonder about their lives.  One of the girls had a Sponge Bob backpack…and she was mean and nasty.  That doesn’t make sense to me. 

So I got off the bus, exhaled a sigh of relief, and then went to work.  It’s amazing to me how much anxiety the bus brings up in me, how it taps into so many of my darkest areas in my soul and my mind.  It amazes me how I can see the fear and discomfort in other passenger’s face as well (or maybe I’m just projecting).

But I know that this experience is important for me…to keep in touch with the “real” world, to keep me compassionate, to keep myself in perspective, and to promote my own growth.