finding your peace before your people

Almost two months ago, I found myself in a complete dilemma. Should I retaliate? Ignore? Forgive and forget? I had just been the target of an unsavory encounter with “peers” who apparently did not consider me “one of them” and so on and so forth. They managed to progress from passive aggressive remarks about my looks and my clothes to a much more straightforward tactic: swearing at me repeatedly. 

Though I was proud of their improvement from said remarks, as it clearly shows their development as humans, I could not deny that I felt awful. Their comments played in my head for weeks after, and I found myself struggling to deal with all the anger and frustration in me.

It was at the times where all the emotions I was feeling reached a sort of peak, that I began to focus on them instead of the incident itself. I started observing them instead of acting on them. And as I observed them, I also observed them ebb away, growing smaller and smaller, until I finally felt somewhat peaceful.