I DO understand

Yesterday I had a girl in tears after lunch recess.  She is a tough girl, apt to retort with cutting words, but she was devastated.

Mean girl strikes again.

I said my oft repeated refrain of don't let her have power over you; go find someone else to play with.

She looked at me, big tears pooling in her pretty brown eyes, and said, "You don't understand how I feel."

I said, "I DO understand how you feel."

And in that moment I remembered how it felt to cry myself to sleep like I did multiple nights in 6th grade.  What seems like no big deal and just find someone else to play with to me, is a big deal to her.  I remember that.

Empathy has a power that mere sympathy does not and once we're safely removed from trouble, it's with gratitude that we can pick up empathy.

I said, "Once I had a hat I wore to school.  At recess I was playing kickball and I took off my hat.  This girl spit in my hat and I didn't know she had.  I put the hat back on when it was time to go inside and my entire class laughed at me."

Her eyes got wide and she said, "What?!?" and "Woah."

"I understand how you feel," I said.  "And I know that the only thing to do is ignore the mean girl.  Don't let her bother you.  That was the only thing that helped me."

I also have the vantage point of knowing that the mean girl in my class has a family in crisis and upheaval right now and she is grasping for control, even if it is only the control of being able to manipulate her classmates.

Mean girls lose their power.  Hair can be washed.  Someday you'll have a story to tell and maybe you can reassure someone else that life goes all the way on.

Sometimes empathy is worth the price we pay for it.