I was the girl everyone made fun of from grades 1-12. But people still see me as that girl and treat me the same way. It hurts. What can I do?

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Man. When I was in middle school I got into quite a few fights. I kept to myself and was busy playing video games and reading while all these other kids were learning how to be mean and nasty to each other. I imagine they kept on being mean and nasty to each other after I left town to go somewhere else.

It got bad enough that I joined the wrestling team in the 8th grade. I never won a match, but I learned the basics of asserting physical dominance over others. I realized I already knew those techniques, I just didn’t care to fight.

We moved away to Hawaii after that. I only had two bullies there, one of them I completely humiliated in class and after that we became friends. The other one I simply ignored and stayed away from after he made himself a nuisance.

You know the last time I thought about all this? Man, maybe 5 years ago. Possibly longer. After I joined the military, my old life was over. I never went back.

Well I did. Once. I had some time, my parents still lived in Hawaii, so I went back and visited, and got reacquainted with my old stomping grounds. I randomly ran into one kid I barely knew back in high school. We talked about getting together, I called him once or twice, he didn’t get back to me, and that was that.

I’m friends with exactly one of those kids on Facebook, the one kid I spent maybe two years hanging with. The last time we had a conversation that wasn’t “Happy Birthday” was in 2015. That conversation mostly centered around girls we had wanted to bang. I was glad to be done with it.

For me, the past is the past and will always be the past. The military I joined to get away from my life in Hawaii is old news too. I don’t have any friends I keep up with from those days.

How do you make the past the past? By moving on. Doing different things. Growing, Not holding on. Always looking towards the next level. Never saying “this is enough.”

If I suddenly had a job where the managers reminded me of bullies, I’d marvel at what I’d gotten myself into. While looking for a new job. Obviously this one isn’t working for me. You choose when and why and how you move on in life. Nobody else.