Who, Me?

Honestly,

There are days when the groups of heads on the playground seems like a bobble head of impossible choices and “I dunno’s”

My head swings back and forth, like a pendulum’s never ending sway.

The tiny voice in my heads asks the other side of my head to make a friggin’ decision.

So, fearfully I lift my chin up from my chest and look around.

”Do I belong there?”

I wonder.

Or.

”Do I belong over there?”

I ponder.

Or.

”Who is most like me I ask myself.”

I shrug my shoulders as if to try and answer to myself.

Or

”Who is least like me?

I question.

”Who should I steer clear of?

I judgingly look back and forth amongst the talking heads and cackling kid-heads to see who is wearing who.

Or.

”Should I go home and dye my hair.”

I suggest,

To myself.

As I contemplate running home, a ball rolls in front of me, hits my foot and as I look up.

A kid is standing in front of me.

I wasn’t certain what to do. The kid held out his hand and I placed the ball into it. He shrugged back at me and ran away into the crowded black top crowded square of street shoes, high tops and trainers.

“I don’t belong here.”

I shook with fear just as the bell rang and the bobble heads and high tops all began to line up at the door.

Phew. I thought. It is over for today.

The free-for-all of what to do with who and how to look cool doing it.

You see, straight lines for me were comfort, order and structure. I felt safe within the limits and not pushed to the sidelines of another person’s quest.

Quest to prove he or she was answering the questions of their own insecurities and foibles and not drawing me into caring. Caring was another of my problems. It was not as if I did not care. Sometimes, I fell short and wasn’t certain HOW to do it.

Care.

As our burgeoning selves marched one by one back into the confines of our classrooms, our minds and how they ticked, I was reminded how close I came to dying. Dying of embarrassment. you see, if I got up and threw the ball to the other kid, there is a good chance I would have thrown it over his head.

”Loser.”

He would have clapped back at me and I would have become half of the person I was before the ball hit my foot. How am I so sure he would have called me a loser?

I dunno.

But.I wasn’t about to find out. In the classroom is where I excelled. Most of the time, the other students sitting in the straight rows of desks and organized pristine pencil boxes, just stared at me when I answered a question. Usually, I was the first one to answer the question, because the answer came real fast and easy to me. I think I am considered a

“freak.”

Although I am also certain there is a spectrum of choices. Of what or who I am. How I do and how I do not think.

Like others.

Which pretty much describes my incessant fear of not fitting in. As I assessed the bobbling heads on the playground I became dizzy—not with excitement but desperate for acceptance. Even if by one like-minded kid it would help to ease the acute moments of discomfort that I am

different.

In the classroom, it was not so much I HAD to answer the question, it is that even the teacher felt challenged by my incessant knowledge of so much. I could not help it. Most of the time, I could not stop myself and in no way was I trying to “show up” the teacher.

You see. Patience was not a virtue of mine and sometimes the wheels on the bus do not go round and round. Thank God I was able to walk to and from my five day a week, 8 hour a day of collection of educational presentations, catechism lectures, math problems and historical knowledge of a country of such greatness. Here. I felt free. In the confines of the walls where I could “show ‘em what I got” was stored in my mind and please believe me, the knowledge came out of me in vomits of informational knowledge. Of bright answers and succinctness.

It was not so much the other kids were bad. I felt like an alien. An alien filled with integers and equations and the language abilities of a person who could not keep up with the words as spoken.

I belong in here.In the class of answerable answers and stories I could understand.

Out there. On the playground of bobble heads and high tops, I did not know who I was. Or could become. Tomorrow, I thought as the last class bell rang…..

If the opportunity arose, I would throw the ball back. Destined to sit on the sidelines would not become my fate. Not without a fight of my inner demons of doubt challenging me to prove I had physics in me.

The good news. Inside these walls of daily lessons and the potentials of learning, the safety and security I absorbed came not in the form of fear. To me, knowledge translated into confidence. It was as if I did not even have to challenge anyone for the first in class—in any of the classes. I had already leap- frogged a couple grades and developmentally could not move on any quicker. The experts opined of the detrimental effects to my development. Or so I was told.

Ironic. If you ask me.

Inside. Loud noises made my head ache with confusion. The quiet and order in the classroom was a salve. While outside was not as bad, at least I could breathe, the entrance to the playground and groups of differing bobble head activities proved to be about as unfortunately un-enticing as eating a bug.

Tomorrow. If the opportunity arises.

I would throw the ball back….If for no other reason than to see where it goes.☺️

”Don’t mind me.” I surmise. I hypothesize. With no hyperbole.

I am thinking it will go straight.