Five boys on a break from a nearby school walk out of the supermarket I’m headed towards. Time slows down as they walk towards me. It’s cold enough to see your breath out in front of you, and though I’m in a winter jacket, all they have on for cover are light sweatshirts. They’re probably around 13-years-old and their conversation seems light. But I can see right through it. I note the undertone of nastiness that oozes from their pores. These are mean boys.

I watch them from the side of my eye – not looking directly at them. No. That would get me attention that I don’t want. Attention I can’t have. My skin starts to crawl. My breath is quick. Chest tight. Prickly sweat burns at my underarms. With each step towards the boys, I feel myself slipping into some form of helplessness.

What the hell is going on? I try to square off my shoulders and keep my head up. I need to look calm. This sort of pack can smell fear. I can’t afford to get hunted. I’m 45 for goodness’ sake! I take a deep breath in and let it out slowly. I’ll be damned if I’ll let a group of prepubescent boys get to me. The deep breath doesn’t work. A sense of panic is growing within me. A warm sensation spreading across my chest, like a dark inkblot spreading from the pocket of a plain white cotton shirt. My mouth is dry. I am scared.

We pass each other by. I take the risk and turn my head for a quick look at them.

They don’t seem to notice me. I watch them. One brings out two cans of a fizzy soft drink from the deep pockets of his baggy jeans, handing a can to another. That other must be their ring leader. He has that swag and the casual self-assured good looks of one who is used to easily getting out of trouble. I wonder if the future holds a high political office for him. They open the cans and sweet-smelling carbonated liquid gushes out. Laughter. A good time.

“Shoplifters!” I tell myself with the dead certainty of a crime scene investigator after they are safely away and my pulse has started to slow down. The deep pocketed boy was the only black boy in the gang. “Why did you do this?” I berate him in my head. “Fitting in is not worth going down a path in crime! Why did you have to play the stereotypical role that black boys are often cast in? I know that cultivating a sense of belonging is paramount at your age, but this is not how to go about it!”

And this is where I pause. It’s like a different part of me asks me to step aside so they can consider the scene. That part has questions.

“What did you see?” the part asks me.

Exasperated at having to state the obvious, I answer, “You already know and it’s as plain as the nose on my face! The …”

The part interrupts me to ask, “The black nose on your face?”

“Um … er …” I’m stumped.

Having served its purpose, the part disappears back into the complicated web of my psyche. I step back into center stage to view the scene from the new perspective proffered. I see that they’re just a bunch of boys. I don’t have enough information to make a judgment call on their character. Who’s to say that they hadn’t purchased the drinks and declined to buy a bag at checkout? Which self-respecting 13-year-old carries a supermarket bag? And back to school, no less!

But why had I had such a dramatic response to the boys if I wasn’t sensing danger? I dive deep into myself and that is when I notice that the boy I’d flagged as a politician-to-be, looked a little like a nasty boy I knew when I was 9. He was a mean piece of work! He bullied me relentlessly, telling me nasty racist stuff. He was white and I black.

And just like that, the scales fall from my eyes. I had traveled back in time. I was looking at a scene happening in 2024 through the dejected eyes of my 1988 self. I had superimposed the personality of a bully, a boy I hadn’t even thought about in decades, onto a young kid passing down the street. As if that were not enough, I’d also given the black boy the role of one who seeks validation from his white friends at any cost. Validation that I never got from the bully.

A further step in all this, is I had had an emotional flashback. Without any images for guidance, I had, in the blink of an eye, returned to being 9 again, and feeling how I’d felt while being bullied. The sensation had come unabated because my body remembered what it was like. I was living through a stored emotional memory triggered by the sight of a boy on the street.

Wow. Just wow.

Through inner-child work, I soothed myself into calmness and faced the reality of what had been a tough situation in 1988. I allowed myself to feel the feelings that I hadn’t withstood then. I went through the motions of feeling hurt, unwanted, shame, desperation and not belonging. Then I lovingly let them go. That was the price of freedom.