School itself wasn't my enemy. The enemy was in the crowds of kids who didn't care about me, the teachers with too many students to pay attention to me, and the students who left me to play alone on the playground. I was alone.
At the end of this year in a health class, we played a game where we taped pieces of paper onto our backs and ran around the room, writing something nice about each person in the class on the paper. When we were done, I looked at what people had said about me: "Smart" and "Nice". From then on, when I met people who would pass me by, I would often want to tell them how nice I am.
My dad once told me, "What other people do or say about you tells you more about them than yourself." I would repeat that to my friends who came to me for comfort. I hoped it comforted them the way it did with me.
The more I thought about my dad's words, the more I realized what he meant. The kids at school might call me ugly. They might ignore me, but their words and actions didn't make me into someone I was not. Instead of feeling sorry for myself or being angry at them, I could choose to forgive (原谅) them. I knew that being unkind was their way of making themselves feel better. I knew that they wounded me as a result of their own pain. Even though loving my enemy was hard, it was the right thing to do.
