Grudge

Meaning THE Grudge, like, that scary movie with that scary thing that makes scary sounds.

Not really, talking about grudges people have and hold for a while. I'm no exception. I've held my fair share, and even now have a hard time getting over some. But we get over them eventually. Particularly if they're over trivial matters. I've been peeved at good acquaintances of mine for a few minutes. Eventually you realize that it's not worth being mad at them, or you realize you're gonna see them so much it'd just be weird to be mad.
The thing about grudges, though, is that the other person isn't supposed to know. I guess that's not completely true. You HOPE they know they're mad at you, so they'll come crawling back begging for forgiveness, but the thing about grudges is that you store up all this negative emotion, and the only one who really notices, who really gets hurt, is you. I suppose I've been aware of when people have negative feelings towards me, but that's only been a few times in my life, and for someone who is as incredibly obnoxious as me, that's gotta be happening more than I've observed.

But observe I have. One happened quite recently. I can pin point the moment it started.

One day, a warm sunny day, I was playing with a favorite 2 year old at work. E. She's DARLING. I don't know what it is about her, but my colleague (I've decided to use that word instead of co-worker, because it's cooler, even though I very well could be using it wrong...) My colleague has described E as being a baby panda bear. A solid girl, not fat, but VERY STRONG, who moves with a kinda shuffle that only can be described as baby-panda-ish. It doesn't help that she's Asian but I'M NOT BEING RACIST I'M JUST SAYING.

One warm sunny day, I was playing with her. We used to get along great because of one day during nap time, I hear her making noises, and I thought she was crying, but she was giggling. I guess she just loves nap time. Well, we giggled for a while in the corner, she was giggling about being well rested, I was giggling because it was just so strange that she was giggling. We became best friends in that moment. The kind of friend that would cry when I left the room.

On that warm sunny day, we were playing outside. I was gathering them all together so we could go back in, since our playground time was up, and as I was gathering them, I saw E hit another girl.

"E!" I said. "Soft touch, please. Let's be nice to our friends."

And she hated me ever since then.

It didn't help that one day, she had a particularly good nap, and she wasn't too keen on ending it. My colleague had already pulled her mat from under her to clean it and put it away, she was just lying on the floor staring at us while we were eating muffins for snack.

Eventually I went over to pick her up so she could eat and go potty before the kids trampled all over her in their regular play-time fashion. She was NOT happy to be picked up. Especially by me.

Days passed, and she wouldn't play with me. Or near me. I entertained the idea that she was still mad at me, because, come on! A 2 year old can't stay mad THAT LONG.

Days turned into weeks. Sometimes E would be happy playing and I'd love to watch her because she's a baby panda and it's just adorable to watch baby pandas! She'd look at me and immediately her smile would turn into a sneer. The kinda look Malfoy gave Harry ALL THE TIME. The Mean Girls sneer. The "What do you think you're looking at?" sneer. But surely that was just coincidence? So I'd step towards her and say something, hoping she'd smile again and I could play with her. But as soon as I'd take a step, that sneer would be wiped from her face, and she'd start crying, run towards another teacher or something. "Oh help, the mean teacher is coming for me! Help!"

This lasted roughly a month and a half, and one day it changed when I pretended to drink a pretend drink she "made" by squirting the air of an empty bottle into another empty bottle. And suddenly we were friends again.

I've realized though, she's a bully. During outside time, she found joy in throwing wood chips at me. I'd laugh and pretend like she was being silly because I didn't want to get on her bad side again, but she kept throwing them, so I laughed and walked to the other side of the playground. She'd come running at me, full force, the kind of run 2 year olds do that makes you worry they're gonna fall on their face, but they usually don't, two times out of three. She'd run at me, chuck the wood chips at me, run back to the other side of the playground, pick up more, come run back at me... This happened about 20 times. I'm not sure why she couldn't pick up wood chips right by me.  They had to be the ones on the other side of the playground. But whatever.

She also scratched my face.

As I type this out, I realize, maybe she's not over the grudge. Maybe she's in that stage where she befriends me, only so she can hurt me more.


I need to look into this.