I’ve often explained to people that despite how bloody brilliant I am now, Tanya of the past was kind of a dick. Not just the ‘Tanya of the past’ from last week, who avoided doing something ‘Tanya of the future/now’ wanted her to do, but high-school adolescent Tanya of the past. She could be quite the dick.

I largely try to suggest, with my rose-tinted hindsight, that I wasn’t really a dick, I was just hilarious, and people didn’t get the joke.

Now, some of that is true. I’m exceptionally hilarious.

So, let’s not beat around the bush. Let’s paint a rich tapestry of my inherent cuntiness.

• At my first high school (RIP Lakeside High), my group of ‘friends’ basically made it fun to ruin peoples school lives. Not strangers, not even other assholes at our school, but from within. I think within a 2-year period we did this to 3-4 people in our clique, people who, for whatever reason, were deemed the weakest link. At least two of these people were my closest friends. One I’d known my entire life. I was complicit in her public ridicule, punch on and eventual exit of the school. It was extremely fucked up, and it’s the kind of cunt act you can’t really come back from.
– Let it be known though, my time came, the last half of year 8 was torturous for me, and eventually resulted in me leaving the school without telling anyone.

• Changing schools was terrifying. Like, legit, most of the people I went to my previous school with, I’d know for 10+ years. I was given advice, ‘Find the losers and steer clear’. I thought that was stupid, so on my first day, when the only girl who befriended me was someone I would have previously avoided with a 10-foot stick, I thought ‘Fuck it, Tanya of the past was a dick anyway’.
That lasted a couple of weeks. High school, much like the jungle, operates by kill or be killed. So that same girl, the one who befriended me when not many others would, I quickly dropped like a sack of rotten potatoes. This eventually led to a public fight in the middle of the school. Broken up by teachers and resulting in detention and threats of expulsion.
I then, along with my friends, spent the next 2 years making her the butt of our jokes – turbo anyone?
She left school.
 Tanya of the now says: Listen, years later this same girl reached out on Facebook and wanted to be friends. I declined. It’s not that I don’t feel bad for how I handled the situation, I was a jerk, but the fact remains she was still kind of a dick and I didn’t want to be her friend now, any more than I did then.

The vicious cycle continued. It seemed that the recurring theme in my formative high school years was fighting. Often with those closest to me. Examples.

• I fought with one of my best friends, like, “went to kinder together” friend, on and off for 3 years. I vaguely remember the reasons. At the time I felt justified, like, by me being an asshole I was fighting the good fight. Truth be told, we worked pretty great at being enemies, we were both little assholes, the fact remains though, my biggest strength, to this very day, is being able to tear people down with my words. Some of the things I said to her were fucked. (I’m embarrassed to repeat them, so I won’t because it’s my blog and fuck you).
While 90% of my words were jokes, it was a case of ‘you hurt me, I hurt you’, and boy o boy do I know how to dish out hurt.
– We eventually made up, and I classify her still as one of my closest friends. The sad truth is though, it took a lot of really shit stuff to happen for me to realise I was being a dick. When I made that realisation, I lost other friends because of it. Kid stuff, ya know? The thing is though, if a friend judges you because you’re doing right by another friend, tell them to fuck off.

• I ended up fighting with another best friend for over a year through VCE. We were those ‘every day’ friends. Chat every night, even though we spent hours at school together, were at each other’s houses on the weekends, we even ended up working together (which really made us fighting a double shit time). I don’t necessarily remember why we started fighting, to be honest, it doesn’t really matter now. We fought, our friendship circle shattered. She hurt me, I hurt her. She called me names, I called her names. We were kids.
I was still a dick though. I took joy at times, by making her feel shit.
Being friends with people in high school is tumultuous at best, big highs, low lows, it’s a thing. Me and this friend eventually made up in year 12 and quickly became quite close again. Then, things happened, I got hurt and I let my inner-jerk out, my friends and I would drive past her house, her boyfriends’ parents house and air horn them at all times of the night. I also think I tried to have a shipping container delivered to her house because I thought the name ‘Dial a box’ was funny. That was the end of that friendship (rightly so)
– Tanya of the now update:. Years later, I apologised to her, she reluctantly accepted that apology, but it doesn’t erase the shit.

My jerk behaviour didn’t magically stop when I graduated high school. Post-school I would tell people that I wasn’t proud of who I was and that I could be insanely hurtful, they would often not believe it “Oh you were just a kid, I don’t believe you were that bad”.

These people ended up believing it. My instant defence mechanism with people was to find their weakness, I don’t do it anymore. I would know the right thing to say to make someone cry. To destroy them. I would find the wound, throw salt in it, squeeze some lemon and then take a shot.
I wasn’t all bad, these are just examples of my being shit, I was still rather nice throughout all of that. That’s not the story I’m telling though. It’s not the point I’m trying to highlight here.

I’m so much more than my worst action.

How did I impact others though? How much did I screw up some already messed-up teen? I’m sure (well hoping) that it wasn’t that bad, ‘Kids are jerks, don’t be so hard on yourself’ and all that. Is that good enough? Reducing my impact, my faults, my ‘bullyish’ behaviour, however minimal it may be, enables bad behaviour.

I’m not proud of who I was, and I’ve used it to learn and change and be a better person. (side note, still can be quite the dick).

I’ve been reflecting on my high school years a lot lately. Mia is in grade 3, and soon enough she’ll be getting ready for high school.

That’s terrifying.

I’m terrified that she’ll get bullied, that she’ll have her own ‘Tanya’ who deals with shit by deflection. Who takes joy in making others feel crap. Throw social media in the mix and boom! Scared.

Truth be told though; my bigger fear in all this is that she will be the ‘Tanya’, she’s already faced more than I did when I was a teen, I want her to be strong, smart, kind, all of those good things.

More than that, I want her to be able to learn from my mistakes.

So, if Mia of the future is ever reading this, my message is simple; Don’t be a dick.