Harris Burdick: The Seven Chairs

            When I was in fourth grade, my mom started dating her would-be-future-husband. Being the oldest, I was ‘made fun of’ a lot. Just teasing here and there, but it didn’t really help that I was prepubescent and moody.

            So, basically, her at-the-time boyfriend picked on me. He would pick and pick, and when I started getting upset and frustrated and on the edge of a freak out, he would simply say, “Jeez Bethany, don’t be such a bitch”. Wonderful thing to say to a ten year old, let me tell you.

            As soon as my sister could talk, she pick up on the habit. Now, my mom didn’t want her saying swear words, so her boyfriend eventually changed the ‘bitch’ to ‘witch’. And now, I can’t really seem to get rid of it.

            My granny even constantly says it. Whenever my sisters start being little brats and decide that they run everything, I will not hesitate to tell them what’s up. Of course, they laugh at me, tell me I’m evil, and that I should just ‘go fly on my broom’ or ‘go brew up an evil potion’. They gang up on me, and when I get mad about it, they laugh it off and tell me to lighten up.  If you ask my sisters, they will probably tell you that I curse everything, and that the fifth one ended up in France.

            If I’m being honest, every single time they say it, it kills me. It’s not that I can’t take being made fun of – because, trust me, I dish it out enough, I can take it – it’s that the insult takes me back to those years when I was constantly begging screamed at, and everything was somehow my fault, one way or another.

            I can’t say anything, though. My sisters don’t know what it means, in general, or to me personally. So I just laugh it off, as usual.

            But whenever someone says it to me, I feel that I’m no longer a seventeen year old who’s comfortable in her skin. I feel that I’m not enough, and I suddenly am twelve years old again, trying my best to find myself, but getting beat back down.