On The Subject of Hattie and Marcy

Emily, my older sister (also known as Emmo), has a roommate who is also one of her friends. Her name, for the sake of this entry, is Marcy. Next door to their house, there is an elderly couple who owns a dog, some variation of a lab. They are unable to walk the dog, so Marcy walks it, and sometimes when she is walking the dog, Emily will go with her to keep her company and get some air herself. Well, Marcy is moving, and the couple was talking about who would walk the dog when she has moved. Emily had told them she would do it if they like, and they expressed their concern to Marcy about Emily being rather small. That is a reasonable concern, because our whole family is "rather small." Emily and I are both 4'11 to 5', but we have had dogs before, and Emily works out. But, Marcy's response wasn't, "Well, I think Emily could probably handle it, she has experience with dogs," or, "She does work out, though, so she's pretty strong for her size." No, what Marcy said was, "Well, sometimes when Emily goes out with us, I let her try to walk the dog."

"Like I'm ten or something," Emily said to Mom later when relating this story.

Marcy's habits of doing and saying things like this to belittle Emily reminds me of my friend Hattie, who behaves similarly (though it took me a few years to realize it).

Hattie was my best friend from second grade through the beginning of high school. Probably in Junior High, we starting having some harsher quarrels than in the past, but in High School, her behavior at times was infuriating. It escalated from telling me I couldn't sing in fourth grade (which I found out about a year ago, isn't necessarily true) to getting really angry if I didn't want to walk to band with her in Junior High to telling me she couldn't go to the Relay For Life with me because she had work the next day during Sophomore year (oh but, by the way, she could go to the midnight showing of Spiderman 3).

I find it somewhat ironic that both Emily and I had/have close friends that have a rather strong reputation of trying to belittle or discourage us. Both Marcy and Hattie will take almost any situation to make themselves look as good as they can... or at least better than Emily or I, often in the form of making us look incompetent, unintelligent, foolish, selfish, ignorant, or weak.

Sometimes I wonder what would have been different about my childhood if I hadn't spent so much time with Hattie. For instance, would I have felt differently about my height? She always called me Shortie in elementary school. Would I have done more summer musicals at the Community Theater? She was always telling me I couldn't sing. Would I have made more friends? She was constantly complaining about or making fun of other people when they weren't around.

I don't want Hattie to sound like a complete monster. She had her good times. She has a good sense of humor and was usually encouraging about my drawing. It's just that as we got older, she seemed to get less and less encouraging and more and more belittling, to the point that, like on the night of Relay For Life, she just came across of flat-out rude and inconsiderate.

It's not really a big deal anymore. We don't hang out very much now, and she's been rather upstaged by Elsa's somewhat sweeter personality. Hattie will occasionally call and try to make plans, but between Han and Elsa, I'm nearly always booked.

I could go into more detail about how Hattie can be frustrating to be around, but I feel I've been negative enough for the day. I was thinking about it because of what has been happening with Emily and Marcy, and how interesting it was that both our friends do that. I wonder if it is them or if it is us?

<3 o.