ironymaiden | awkward on the inside

kijjohnson.

this one is hard to write. it's hard to write because this part of my awkward adolescence shouldn't have been a problem. it isn't a problem. no one should ever be marginalized for it. and i'm practically normal among my current batch of friends, so it's not like people reading this don't get it, and other people had it worse in one way or another.

the block on talking about it is very strong.

i was a very smart little girl.

before school started, i didn't know that there was anything odd about me. my siblings were still at home, but i was the youngest by twelve years. i lived in a house of adults, and i adjusted to them, not the other way around. i didn't know what kids were supposed to know/not know, or how kids talked to each other.

everything might have been fine if i wasn't in a small rural school district, with no access to schooling alternatives. i was the only kid my age in Enrichment (the gifted program) in my elementary school. i turned down skipping a grade the first time because i thought it would be socially miserable, although in hindsight fifth grade would have been a better grade to skip than eighth. if i had gone from 4 to 6 i would have had one awkward adjustment year in a class with the couple boys who i knew from Enrichment, and entered the high school (7-12 in one building) relatively clean.

instead i spent sixth grade doing things like being the only kid in my reading section, lonely, bored, destructive, and ahead of every child in the building. turns out i was ahead of every child my age in the district, and it was the only time this had happened, so they really had no bloody clue what to do with me when i got to seventh grade and broke the curriculum. on top of that, i had no classes with the few kids i was friends with in elementary school, not even lunch. by the time the offer came, i was happy to skip from 7 to 9, anything to make it better. couldn't be worse.

academically, it was a vast improvement. socially, it marked me as a freak to the entire school. it alienated and hurt the friends who were my age. it made teachers single me out even more as the one with the answers. (and i was, and i learned how to stop raising my hand for my own protection, but i never would pretend that i didn't know when they called on me anyway. that i still can't stomach.) that first year's classes were a patchwork that combined the usual freshman coursework with a couple things the state required for 8th grade. so for a year, i didn't belong properly to either class. in the process i lost the girl who had been my best friend since second or third grade, and had a tough time making new friends in my new class. the adjustment took almost all of high school. i didn't have a local boyfriend until i was a senior. (and that relationship was so very messed up, but i desperately wanted to have a "normal" experience...)

my family was always pretty awesome. i had some great teachers.

i'm not going to bother with details. you either know the thousand ways that other kids hate on you for being the other, or you don't. i can't dwell on it.

CTY, theatre, and band are the reasons that i'm still alive, that i avoided addiction, that i had enough hope to bother with enough of my homework to get a scholarship for college and get out. that, and i managed to make a few close friends that kept me sane. (hi Billy.)

people routinely treated me like shit for something that is intrinsically positive. saying "they're just jealous" doesn't ever cut the sting.

*sigh*

i really should have written about how i chose the wrong audition song for the spring musical my senior year, refused to take "just" a chorus part in a teary huff, and then ended up being the acting coach for the girl who got the role i wanted.