The David Keenan Story, Part II

So maybe you'll remember a few weeks ago, I wrote a post about how when I was five, I bit a boy named David Keenan and still couldn't remember why. Though my parents punished me at the time, since they've said that it wasn't my fault and I was provoked, and he possibly even deserved it.
I mentioned this the other day when I went out for lunch with my mum, and guess what?
I found out why I bit David Keenan.

There was no need for boldness. It isn't that exciting.

I wrote a retelling of the story, but it wasn't necessary because it's too mundane. David Keenan was blowing rasberries in my ear, over and over again until I screamed at him to stop but he kept on doing it. The teacher didn't listen to me, and so I bit him.
"So he deserved it?!" I was faintly excited about the idea of finally shrugging off years of guilt. I remembered my useless primary school teacher, Mrs Hindley, her pale eyes and wrinkled lips, unflustered, lifeless tone of voice. We'd never liked each other very much. And I remembered David Keenan - huge, blonde, bright-eyed and large, cherry-coloured lips.
"... but you still shouldn't have bit him," my mother told me.
"Why?" I asked. "What would you have done?"
"Just thwacked him one. Biting him is sort of animal."
"I was a five year old girl! I didn't have much physical strength, I had to bite him!"

And thinking about it now, I sort of wish I was more like my five year old self.
We moved house and I moved schools when I was about seven, and during that time I was a one best friend at a time "sorta gal". Until we were in Year 5, Molly was my best and also only friend, and when her mother moved her to a Catholic school I didn't know what to do with myself. Interacting with pretty much only one person in my class, since falling out with Samantha, I'd become too shy to talk to anyone else and the rest of the class saw me as a laughing stock. For that year, though I didn't really realise it until now, I was lonely and bullied and depressed. That Lizzie wouldn't have bitten David Keenan.
I'm not sure whether I would now.

I've heard somewhere your entire personality's formed by the time you're eight, but I think that probably isn't true - it depends what we go through and how we have to face things. When I was five I was carefree and strong-willed and I even sort of idolise that former self. When I was eight or ten, I was the complete opposite and couldn't talk to people I was intimidated by at all, I'd simply act like I couldn't hear. I'm not sure which of those I am now, and maybe it's just a good job I don't have to deal with those situations. Because I don't know whether we grow up from being children, or it just gets easier once we're all surrounded by sort-of adults.