My Own Nellie Oleson

I loved watching Little House on the Prairie when I was a kid. Hating Nellie Oleson was so delicious! Maybe it was because I had my own Nellie Oleson in real life. KB and her parents lived in a first-floor apartment (A17) in the C building under our second-floor apartment (B17). One would think I would've been hesitant to play at her house, because her cousin lived in an apartment across from ours and, out of nowhere, without even knowing me, she stuck her tongue out at me one day. It was also rumored that her cousin had pushed a little boy out of a second-floor window. Yikes!
 
I was undeterred. I loved going to play in KB's apartment because her room felt magical. Sure, I had my own toys, but she had a canopy bed in her own room, fancy curtains, a Barbie doll house, a Barbie van, Light Brite, and shelves upon shelves of other toys. I was convinced that her family was rich. Sometimes her mom would take me with them in their car (they had a car!) to Kings Plaza Mall and Toys R Us. In my room I had a black and white TV with no sound that my parents found (I got really good at figuring out plot lines without being able to hear anything), and her family had a floor model TV with cable (every once in a while, I could pick up their HBO cable signal on channel 3), a coffee table and VCR in their living room.  I remember watching Michael Jackson's Thriller video there. We had a floor model TV, too, but it didn't work and served as a table in the hallway. They had a burglar alarm installed at one point (I can't remember if someone had broken into their apartment or not), but the alarm was SO ANNOYING because it seemed like the wind could activate it. It was SO LOUD and it went on for SO LONG! In my kid mind, only rich people would need a burglar alarm, because only rich people could afford something like that, and had possessions that were valuable enough to protect. 

But KB wasn't a nice kid. She was mean and bossy. I remember one time I took my cousin to play at her house, and she convinced him to eat that pink Baby Magic lotion on a potato chip. Blecch! What would make a kid be so mean? And why was I willing to endure poor treatment just to have access to her apartment? I soon realized that having all that stuff didn't automatically equal happiness. I could tell because my bedroom was above her parents' bedroom, and they argued all.the.time. At one point during an argument, KB's dad slammed their apartment door not knowing that her mom had reached out for it, and mistakenly cut off the top of one of her fingers. Things aren't always as great at they might seem. 

When you're a little kid, friendships can be complicated. And sometimes those unhealthy patterns continue when you're not such a little kid. I read an old diary entry the other day that was like listening to nails on a chalkboard as I realized that I was in an emotionally abusive friendship in my late teens. I felt gross after I read it, wondering why I allowed myself to go through something like that. Why didn't I know that I was worth more? Why didn't I stand up for myself? Why wasn't I stronger? Where's a time machine when you need one? Grrr!

Sometimes we hang out with people who hurt us because we desire access or acceptance, or we're lonely . . . and sometimes the people who hurt us do it because . . . well, hurt people hurt people. They're sometimes dealing with things we don't understand. And some people are just narcissistic and self-absorbed. It doesn't mean that we should be in or remain in unhealthy relationships, but when you know better, you do better. When I add texture to my characters, I want to keep the complicated nature of some relationships in mind.