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bloodyrosemccoyAt one point during the week, my siblings, my mom, and I started chatting about our memories of elementary school, and once again I was reminded that, to my surprise, I was a Weird Kid in school.
I suppose we were all Weird Kids to some extent, but it always takes me a while to realize just how weird I was. I remember getting along with most kids, reading books the same way you eat popcorn—a fistful at a time, frenzied to get to the next fistful—and discovering music and language and science. I felt my best friend was my piano teacher (an SCA nerd 8 years my senior—terrible piano teacher, but a really great person to chat with), I had a lot of pen pals, and had a lot of friends who were not very close. I got along well with my siblings. I was into brain science, Star Wars, Tales Of The Paranormal, and notebooks.
And I was exploding with stories. Characters, plots, individual dramatic or comedic scenes, settings, backgrounds—they all spun to life in my head so quickly I sometimes had difficulty making enough universes to hold them all. Scribbling down my story ideas relieved it a little, but they all clamored for attention all the time, to the point where I often had to put my books down for a little bit to let them get their ideas in. Sometimes I would find myself posing or making the face one of them was making in the story in my head.*
I usually spent recesses alone, hands in my pockets, endlessly walking the quarter-mile circle of track around the upper playground lawn. It wasn’t that I felt uninvited to join kids. I did it because I had to spend school beating back the headnoise, and for a few minutes in the morning, at lunch, and in the afternoon, I could relax and let them crash around in there all they wanted.
And I was really content. I sometimes wished I had a friend who understood me, but normally I was just happy. Which is, I think, why I was surprised to find out that there was a concerted effort by teachers, counselors, and my own parents that year to try to get me out of my shell and to engage in the world of tween girls.
“You were baffling,” Mom said. “You weren’t like the child psychology books. You didn’t have really close friends.”
“I got along with people,” I pointed out.
“… You could be stand-offish.”
“Oh.”
“I worried you wouldn’t be happy without any friends.”
“I don’t remember being unhappy. I mean, my fifth grade teacher was a terrible human being, but that was my biggest problem.”
“Fifth grade was bad for everyone,” my sister said. “I had a bunch of friends, and they were always ganging up on me. Or one would get all snotty. I never knew quite where I was with them.”
“You had the normal experience I wanted for Amelia,” my mom told her wryly.
There was a pause as we processed that.
“Why, again?” I finally asked.
I can see that I could do with a little more understanding of how to make friends and influence people, but I’m not entirely sure why I worried people for being happy and friendless instead of constantly paranoid that my friends were going to dump me, but it was interesting to find out. It did explain that friendship group I was put in, though. School psychiatrist figured she’d cured me when I got along with them.
Poor lady. She tried so hard.
*Which did, in fact, lead to this situation once or twice.
I suppose we were all Weird Kids to some extent, but it always takes me a while to realize just how weird I was. I remember getting along with most kids, reading books the same way you eat popcorn—a fistful at a time, frenzied to get to the next fistful—and discovering music and language and science. I felt my best friend was my piano teacher (an SCA nerd 8 years my senior—terrible piano teacher, but a really great person to chat with), I had a lot of pen pals, and had a lot of friends who were not very close. I got along well with my siblings. I was into brain science, Star Wars, Tales Of The Paranormal, and notebooks.
And I was exploding with stories. Characters, plots, individual dramatic or comedic scenes, settings, backgrounds—they all spun to life in my head so quickly I sometimes had difficulty making enough universes to hold them all. Scribbling down my story ideas relieved it a little, but they all clamored for attention all the time, to the point where I often had to put my books down for a little bit to let them get their ideas in. Sometimes I would find myself posing or making the face one of them was making in the story in my head.*
I usually spent recesses alone, hands in my pockets, endlessly walking the quarter-mile circle of track around the upper playground lawn. It wasn’t that I felt uninvited to join kids. I did it because I had to spend school beating back the headnoise, and for a few minutes in the morning, at lunch, and in the afternoon, I could relax and let them crash around in there all they wanted.
And I was really content. I sometimes wished I had a friend who understood me, but normally I was just happy. Which is, I think, why I was surprised to find out that there was a concerted effort by teachers, counselors, and my own parents that year to try to get me out of my shell and to engage in the world of tween girls.
“You were baffling,” Mom said. “You weren’t like the child psychology books. You didn’t have really close friends.”
“I got along with people,” I pointed out.
“… You could be stand-offish.”
“Oh.”
“I worried you wouldn’t be happy without any friends.”
“I don’t remember being unhappy. I mean, my fifth grade teacher was a terrible human being, but that was my biggest problem.”
“Fifth grade was bad for everyone,” my sister said. “I had a bunch of friends, and they were always ganging up on me. Or one would get all snotty. I never knew quite where I was with them.”
“You had the normal experience I wanted for Amelia,” my mom told her wryly.
There was a pause as we processed that.
“Why, again?” I finally asked.
I can see that I could do with a little more understanding of how to make friends and influence people, but I’m not entirely sure why I worried people for being happy and friendless instead of constantly paranoid that my friends were going to dump me, but it was interesting to find out. It did explain that friendship group I was put in, though. School psychiatrist figured she’d cured me when I got along with them.
Poor lady. She tried so hard.
*Which did, in fact, lead to this situation once or twice.
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Date: 2009-03-15 08:52 pm (UTC)