(Just a little joke there; it's my own tension that I'm trying to alleviate.)

Last night, after work, I went home and picked on my husband for no reason at all. I wanted him to call our potential real estate agent to set up an appointment to view a house; I could have made the call myself, but I wanted him to do it. He didn't want to, so I yelled and pouted. I didn't realize what I was doing until after he had given up in confusion and had made the call.

What was going through my mind? Why did I get so bossy? If it were a one-time thing, I might have just apologized and gone on with my life, thoroughly chastened, but it's not. I have a sick, sick habit of occasionally trying to bully people, though these days it's just Eric.

When I was a little girl, I was quite the schoolyard bully, which is really surprising, considering my "good girl" reputation and the fact that I was considered something of a geek myself. Amy and I used to pick on those other little kids who were misfortunate enough to occupy caste rungs even lower than ourselves. Horribly embarrassing, but true: I remember dancing in circles around a rather tall boy with the surname "Pine," chanting "Pine Tree! Pine Tree!" I recall with mortification how we spread rumors about the personal odors of one little girl, and how we teased another for her worn-out clothing. We were mean, mean, mean.

We were even mean to each other, though I usually was the "picked-on" rather than the "picker." Amy's favorite game seemed to be "Let's Fight," except I didn't want to do any actual hitting. I usually ended up running home crying after one of these play sessions.

In middle school we reverted to the usual games played by young teenagers; there were clubs which formed and dissolved more quickly than anyone but we could keep up with, and one of the girls in our circle of "friends" was always shunned from membership, doomed to hear whispers and giggles about themselves until the new club could be formed. The sad part is that, as often as I was the outcast, I always jumped at the chance to be in the new club and do my own whispering, laughing with the same girls who had been teasing me only days prior.

Of course, the primary focus of these clubs was to laugh at anyone who wasn't a member. Once again, we were making fun, spreading rumors, and writing filthy notes about the "undesirables" of our class. Oh, it hurts to think about this now. I see the same group mentalities forming in the preteens who come in the library every afternoon, whispering about the poor little girl sitting alone at a neighboring table. I just want to shake them and make them see that what they're doing will haunt their dreams for years in the future. They won't understand; I'm not sure they can, just yet.

In high school, we had "matured," and no longer made up secret clubs. I still teased, though usually I excused myself from the worst of it; by so doing, I became a more frequent target. Still, I remember sitting at my friends' table in chemistry class, laughing quietly at the boy sitting alone, one table over. To be fair, he was a creepy kid, but now I have to wonder exactly how "creepy" he would have been had he not received the brunt of so much teasing for most of his formative years. I feel slimy for contributing to that mess.

When I began dating, though, another kind of bullying entered my character. I remember getting angry at Matt some evenings, and swatting at him. Mom saw me do so one night and scolded me for it. I tried to stop, and was semi-successful; I'm still working on not striking out at Eric when my temper gets the best of me. I haven't done that in a while, though.

My words are harder to control. I feel a boiling in my stomach when I start to verbally push Eric around, but it's not until the matter resolves itself that I seem to regain the control that I should have from the beginning. What I don't understand it, why is it so easy to control my behavior with other people, but so hard to keep a lid on it with him? Is it because he already has the power to evoke such powerful positive emotions in me, that he also evokes the negative? Is it because I don't hide a thing from him, so it's tougher to rein in my temper?

Of all the people in the world, Eric is the person whose feelings matter most to me; he's the person I most want to protect. Perhaps by writing about my bullying tendencies, I can better understand them and gain a modicum of control over them. Perhaps by exposing all of my dirty acts of the past, I can finally overcome the shame they bring to my cheeks and forgive myself for them.