My wife and I are giving each other prompts to motivate each other. We both want to improve our respective skills, because eventually we want fulfilling careers that use our creative skills in some fashion. As it turns out, those don’t exist in the wild. Nowadays, one must create his or her own dream job in a lab. By accident. So here I am again in the dark room of life with a blindfold on feeling around for the light switch. May I know what to do when I find it.
Today, I was tasked with recounting a time that I struggled as a child and how I overcame that struggle. I have been going through prominent childhood memories to find an example for this, but I must say it’s been difficult. I think that is because my definition of “struggle” is different from my wife’s. To me, an example of a struggle is more physical, but since I was neither athletic nor living in a war-torn country, my childhood was pretty relaxed.
For me, as a kid and even up through teen years, if something was causing me stress or anxiety, I didn’t know a way to deal with it other than continuing to do exactly what I’d been doing before the onset of the stress. My 3rd Grade year was a difficult time for me. I was moved around between 4 different schools, and I was trying to find some place to belong. But in the face of this adversity, I remained the same person I had been prior to it. And by that, I mean I talked. All the time. I did not ever shut up, and it got me into trouble. Was that me trying to deal with my discomfort? Maybe. Was I even aware that I was uncomfortable? In some way, yes, but again all the struggle was internal, and I was too young to express it. The thing I did know was that the teacher at the first school I went to didn’t like me. And what did I do to combat that? I tried to make her like me anyway because she was an adult and I needed her approval.
When I became an adult and could unpack all the things I remember from back then, I realized this teacher, we’ll call her Miss Lane, could have been nicer to me. None of the other teachers I had at the three other schools ever got onto me as much as she did. I spent a lot of time in detention for doing nothing . . . except the time that I was caught changing my answers on a quiz while grading it. But what did she expect giving 7 to 8-year-olds the power to grade their own test? I bet I wasn’t the only one. The others were just better at getting away with things than me. As much as I wanted to be an action spy super hero back then, the clandestine part was really where my skill set lacked. I had the heart, though. One time I was running across the playground and looking at the ground below me pass by at seemingly ridiculous speed. I told Miss Lane that they should have picked me to be “The Flash” on that TV show. She did not seem amused.
I later tried to appeal to her sympathetic side. It was once again time for me to report for detention; the least productive way to correct my behavior. All I did was sit and copy some bullshit printout of discipline practices or something like that. I was absolutely useless. Anyway, I was noticing a trend in how my recesses had been spent, and how I was missing out on valuable time to act out episodes of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on the playground. So I approached Miss Lane, and timidly made a reference to my upcoming birthday and how the enjoyment of said birthday relied heavily on me “being good”. To amp up the sympathy points, I said this while looking at the floor and turning my right heel out in a sort of “ah shucks” manner. All of this together was supposed to convey humility and remorse, and I recalled the technique working before. It did not work this time. I don’t remember all of what she said, but I know it started with “You listen hear, mister” which is a phrase no one says sympathetically. I then resorted to my follow-up tactic which was to stare at her unblinkingly and forget everything she said to me.
I probably handled all this pretty well for someone in my situation. Going to 4 different schools in one year can have an effect on a kid. I didn’t have any control over that, so it helped that I was able to make friends everywhere I went. When you talked as much as I did, and talking to yourself is only amusing for so long, eventually you talk to everyone. And that includes the people sitting next to you that are just trying to work and would appreciate you not asking them what you’re supposed to be doing every five minutes.
I did however get to make one choice that year. When my mom told me that another school had an opening and that I could leave Miss Lane behind and get a new teacher, there was a smile on my face from ear to ear. That was probably one of the easiest decisions I ever made.
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