Best Kid Memories

I’m writing.  I’m in third grade and the substitute teacher tells us to write
whatever we want to write.  “Write from the heart,” she says.

I write about romantic, ecstatic love between two people…about how these two
people never want to be separated so deep is their passion.  I discover after
she reads it that most of my classmates have written about toy boats or
baseball.

“That’s nice”, she stutters handing it back to me.  I’m terribly embarrassed but
also secretly thrilled that I was more connected to my real feelings than the
other kids.

I’m in seventh grade and  another instructor tells us to write a Thanksgiving
Haiku.  I write about how I am thankful for different things (“music is the
elixir of life”) but mostly I write, I’m thankful for me…because without me,
there’d be nothing for me to be thankful about.

It’s not as conceited as it sounds!
I was trying to get at the existential aspect of being.  Saying that I was glad
to be conscious and alive.  This hyper awareness of life was quite thrilling.
Again, I shocked the teacher and the class who mainly turned in mundane
platitudes appropriate to the season.

So what does this say about me?
I love being different…being on a different wavelength than my contemporaries.

I love writing what is real and authentic without cover of appropriateness.

I love writing, love words and big ideas and finding out things about myself and
expressing them.  I love how my writing allows me to stop hiding behind a nice,
safe exterior and exposes my reality.

And not one inch of my life is like that right now.  And that’s why I keep
ending up so depressed.