They're back! Voices in charge again!!!

Aha!!  The voices in my head are still going at it.  Oh sure, it's been a few days since they last ranted like this, but I think that's just because they've been saving it up for a nice explosion.  One where not many people come out happy or unscarred.  One where the majority of people who read this won't give a rat's ass and others will either be embarrassed, offended, or so confused they won't know which opinion to choose.

Things are just stupid all over and I have no idea why.  I hate chaos and disorder except when the disorder is created by me.  Then it just looks like disorder to others but I know where everything is and I don't want anyone touching it.  But the past few days/weeks have me remembering more in the continuing story (which I'll get back to soon) and watching things happen that just have me shaking my head in disgust and frustration.

Example:  Husband read a post by Half-Sister on her Buttleaflet account.  She made a comment.  He replied to the comment.  Nothing offensive, just an opinion.  She called him an asshole and de-friended him.  So what?  They're adults and can do whatever they want.  What I thought was strange was that she did the de-friending after calling him an asshole and that prevents him from seeing it.  He didn't know that she'd responded until I was on my account and saw what was posted.  Not that either of them care, I'm sure -- they've never gotten along for a laundry list of reasons (some I know and some I don't) and I don't think either one feels slighted and/or vindicated by the actions.

So it seemed strange to me when I was reviewing my account online today and found that one of my Sisters-in-Law had de-friended me.  This was weird because quite a while ago we'd had a bit of a difference of opinion regarding something I'd posted somewhere and what she typed to me hurt my feelings.  I let her know how I felt and she replied and I realized that we were both reading way too much into things (which we both admitted) and mutually apologized to each other.  Just recently I'd been seeing posts from my niece but nothing from her mom.  I thought maybe she was just being unusually quiet recently and had even received an email from a mutual friend wondering if she was okay.  Now I know why I've not seen anything.  Am I sad?  A bit because we were close in age and had a lot of things in common and always have enjoyed each other's company.  But, if that's her choice, then I have to respect it.

So, all of the voices are now trying to get me to continue with the retelling of my story ('cause we're getting to some of the juicy parts) and argue over whether or not being able to contact family members online is a good thing or a bad thing and lamenting over yesterday being Mothers' Day and not hearing from Eldest Son.  He sent a brief text, but that's all.  I don't want a parade or anything like that but he doesn't call or return messages anymore.  He didn't say or do anything for his step-father's birthday and the last time I sent him info about what Youngest Son was doing he seemed disinterested.  I always take his calls, regardless if I'm at work or in an appointment.  Just as long as answering my phone won't cause a dangerous situation (like when I'm driving) I answer because I worry about him being far away from home.

But is it "home" to him?  He lives closer to his biological father and paternal grandparents who give him everything he wants.  I see him for maybe a week around the Christmas holidays when I pay for the Amtrak tickets to get him here and back.  He should be graduating from college soon and I certainly don't want to miss that, but I can't get an answer out of him when I ask when he thinks he'll be done.  He used to call me for everything -- even issues I couldn't solve for him but he knew that I'd give him my best advice and intelligent options for him to weigh.  Now it's nothing.  No texts.  No calls.  No emails.  And he dropped Buttleaflet and the other thing with a plus sign after it when he wasn't interested in it either.

I don't really know what to think about much of anything anymore.  I make up my own mind and have my own opinions and invariably someone gets offended.  I explain that my opinions are just that -- mine -- and that anyone who is offended should (1) say something to me so that I understand that their opinion is different than mine and we can come to a mutual understanding that I'll have mine and they'll have theirs and be respectful of it or (2) be quiet about it if all they're going to do is try to shove their opinion down my throat and tell me what an awful person I am for thinking or believing the way I do.  I have seen and experienced a lot of things I'd never wish on anyone else.  I have friends who have seen and experienced a lot of things -- some thousands of times worse than anything I've had -- that they'd never wish on anyone else as well.  We all come from a damaged background in one way or another.  It was different when people lived tens/hundreds/thousands of miles away from each other and only called/wrote every now-and-then.  With the Internet, everyone is in everyone else's business 24/7 and people don't understand that sarcasm/humor/anger/despair won't translate well through printed words.  So we all (and, yes, I include myself in this) jump to a conclusion based on what we see and what we believe that person would say/do/think.

I try to make a point of stepping-back and thinking about what I've read and how it could be interpreted different ways.  I've been doing that with a lot of things from my past recently, too.  That's one of the reasons the voices in my head keep telling me to write more and get things down on paper.  It's not to beg for pity or to embarrass someone else by airing anyone's dirty laundry.  It's trying to see things objectively and get them out of my system once and for all.  The voices have been rummaging through the cabin trunks in my brain to clear out the crap and make more space for the penguins (if you're a Douglas Adams fan you'll get that reference).

So now that I've gotten that mess out of the way for now, I'll pick up where we left-off in the story.  My parents decided to divorce and the summer between my 4th and 5th grade years of school they took me on a really long "family" vacation.  Then they waited until the summer between my 5th and 6th grade years to actually finalize the divorce while I was away at summer camp.

I talked briefly about 6th grade but it needs more information.  Not only was I again attending a school where my biological father was the principal but his mistress was the school secretary there as well.  Oh joy.  As if I needed further reminders of how much my life was going into the crapper.  But, I was an honor student and was meeting even more people because the school district had two elementary schools and the students from both combined into one class during 6th grade.  Yay....not only did I have the ones who knew me and knew my dad was the principal but I had a whole new set who would look at me as if I was the privileged one because my dad was the principal.

I can assure you that being "privileged" was far from the truth.  Some of my teachers liked me because I was a good student and I worked hard.  Some of my teachers just outright hated me because they didn't like my father or his mistress or both and were determined to make my life hell and were upset that they couldn't fail me because I made high grades in all of my classes.

There was an instance, however, where people felt I was being given too much privilege during my 6th grade year.  Previously I mentioned that I began playing the flute in band in 4th grade.  When I finally made it to the middle school where grades 6-8 attended, my father said that he was going to try to get me into the beginning band (7th grade) because I'd already had band experience.  He also knew that I was going to be bored to death in the 6th grade music class because I'd already learned to play the recorder and the keyboarding part of the year would be equally as boring since I'd been taking piano lessons since 1st grade.

One afternoon, my father told me to bring my flute to school with me the next day and I would be allowed to play with the woodwind class.  I happily entered the classroom the next day and was excited to get back to playing.  The band instructor said that it was "Challenge Day" and we would have to play a section from the book to see who would be placed in which chair based on our performances.  The students in the classroom had already been playing together and were in their "chairs" so I was told to take the last seat and would play first.  I played the piece from the book (which was the exact same book I'd already completed in 4th grade) and did better than the person next to me, so I took her chair and moved up the line.  This continued over and over again.  Each time I would play, then the next student would play, and then I would be moved up another ranking by taking their "chair."  Finally, I had moved all the way from last chair to second chair.  This is when I got really, really nervous because the person in first chair wasn't just the child of my 6th grade science teacher but was also a boy.  I'd not played against a boy before and I'd heard that he was very, very good.  He took lessons from the same piano teacher I had started with in our new town and if he could play the flute half as good as he played piano I knew I had no chance.  I was so nervous and I actually made a mistake while playing the same line that I'd been playing all day.  He, however, played it perfectly and remained in the top spot.  I was humbled and highly impressed at the same time.

I didn't even get to finish the week.  Word spread quickly of what I'd done and how I'd nearly unseated the top player in the class.  How dare I, just a simple 6th grader with 2 years of previous playing experience, walk into a classroom of older children who happened to live in a district that didn't allow them to begin band (in school, they could have taken private lessons though) until they were 7th graders and do so well?  How could this happen?  Who would allow it?  After enough teachers and parents complained, my father wouldn't allow it.  He yanked me out of that class faster than I could think possible.  He tried telling me it was for my own good that I stayed with my "regular" classmates but I knew better.  He was always trying to be popular with everyone and if someone said something negative about me being in band, he took it as a personal assault on his character.  It never mattered if I excelled at something -- if someone said or even thought anything negative he would immediately stop me from doing whatever it was so that people would think highly of him.

And it just wasn't in school that he did this.  He enrolled me in golf lessons at the local country club.  I wasn't the least bit interested in playing golf the way he was.  He bought himself the newest Jack Nicklaus "Golden Bear" clubs and made sure that he was seen playing with anyone he thought could get him viewed in a more positive light.  I had a teeny kids' set with a 3-wood, a 9-iron, and a putter in a vinyl bag.  Yeah....that was going to get me into the LPGA someday.

I suffered through the lessons and one day went with him to play a round at the country club.  I'd never played all 18 holes but he wanted to be sure he was getting his money's worth out of my lessons.  As predicted, he did much better than I did on every hole (and he had me teeing-off from the men's tee instead of the women's).  Every hole....except one.  There was one hole that had the longest par 5 on the front-nine and from a short kid's perspective seemed to go straight up instead up a sloping hill.  I got there in par -- a feat I was never able to reproduce but I was thrilled.  My father did not fare as well.  It took him more strokes to complete the hole than I'd made but he was still ahead in the game.  It didn't matter to him.  That wasn't even the last hole on the front-nine.  He was angry.  No, he was pissed-off in a way I'd not seen for quite a while.  He was shocked that I beat him on that hole.  He couldn't fathom the idea that a young kid could get lucky (with a bit of training) and make a par on that hole when he couldn't.

Immediately, he said he was done and didn't want to play anymore.  Just like a spoiled child, he took his toys and said I couldn't play in his sandbox anymore.  He wouldn't finish the entire game.  He wouldn't finish the front-nine.  He never asked me to play again.

So, with my broken family and the semi-acceptance of "friends" from school and church and my mother's depression and ranting at me as if I was the cause of everything evil in the world, what was I supposed to do?  If no one was happy seeing me or wanted me around, why should I be?  But, I wasn't quite ready to give up breathing yet.  Summer was coming and my favorite thing was just around the corner -- summer camp in Mississippi.

I escaped to Mississippi by begging my mother to take me a day earlier than usual and spending the night in the nearest town so that I could arrive very, very early the next morning.  All of the campers were allowed to pick the cabins they wanted to stay in, the hobbies they wanted to learn, and the bible classes they wanted to attend.  But, all of those were first-come, first-served.  If you weren't there early enough in the line, you didn't get anything you wanted.

I needed this to be a good summer.  She agreed and we went early so that I could be one of the first in line.  I knew that my second week I would get pretty much anything I wanted because they would allow me to pick my cabin/hobby/class before the others would register so that I could help show people around the camp, answer questions, and make sure that parents were comfortable leaving their kids.  I even had one father who, when he heard the name of my hometown, demanded that I look-after his daughter 'cause she'd never been away from home and anyone from where I was from had to be "good people."  I said that I wasn't a babysitter and that she'd be fine but we were going to be staying in the same cabin so at least she'd have a friend from day one there.  We actually got along and had a blast that week she was there.

During lunchtime, all of the campers would get excited about mail call.  Some kids were shipped items they'd forgotten from home.  Some kids got care packages from their families as if being in the middle of the forest prevented them from obtaining decent food.  (We got decent food, and lots of it!)  Some would get letters from boyfriends/girlfriends back home but most never received any.  I usually didn't get mail because it would take 3 days to get there from where I lived and by the time a letter would arrive I'd either (1) have already been able to call home on the weekend ('cause campers weren't allowed to call except in emergencies during the week) and found out everything or (2) I'd have left after the second week.

This year, though, there was a letter for me.  I was stunned.  The Camp Director enjoyed teasing the kids by pretending there were things written on the outside of the envelope, usually the gooey-eyed type of phrases people thought that people in love would say to each other.  It always got a big laugh and usually helped whomever received the letter he chose to play with feel better.  My family and I were good friends with him, so when he saw this letter I became the target of his humor.  It was funny and I proudly walked through all of the applause and laughter to receive my letter.

It was from my father.  This was very strange.  And it wasn't handwritten.  He'd typed the envelope and the letter.

After lunch we had a mandatory 30-minute "rest period" in our cabins so that our food could settle before the swimming pool would be open for the afternoon.  Yes, we had a huge lake there but it was much safer to swim in the pool!

I sat on my bunk in the cabin and read the letter.  I couldn't believe what I was seeing.  I still have the letter somewhere in my house.  I've packed it away with other important items but made sure that I've put it somewhere where I won't casually find it but also where it will remain for a long time because it was a great turning point in my life.

My father typed a letter to me saying that (and I'm paraphrasing here) he knew I'd be having fun at camp; that he hoped that I got to be in the classes I wanted that summer; and, oh by the way, that the day I'd left for camp he and his mistress had traveled to Arkansas and gotten married.  He gave a half-assed excuse for not inviting me or letting me know about it before I left for camp and that I should be prepared for them (him, her, and her 2 kids) to pick me up at the end of my second week.

I don't really remember much after that.  I was shocked and hurt.  To think that he purposefully didn't want me to know what was going on was the worst.  I can only remember them coming to pick me up in his diesel Chevette and me being crammed into the middle of the back seat between her kids (both of whom I was older than by many years) for the 8-hour drive back home.  No stopping except if they wanted to stop.  No eating anywhere except where they wanted to eat.  It was if coming to get me was a huge chore and not an attempt to help mend any wounds or begin to create a family.  I couldn't stand it.  It still makes me ill to think about it.  I was ignored the whole way back and dumped-off unceremoniously at my house.

"Well," I remember thinking to myself one day around that time, "this is it.  Mom's mad because she's divorced and has me to take care of on her own and Dad's being a jerk as usual except he's rubbing it in my face with his new 'son' (step-son, actually) that he's always wanted.  What's the point anymore?"

I went to the church camp sponsored by our local church that summer as well.  Fortunately, they drove a bus to get us out there and back so I didn't have to suffer either of my parents' unwillingness to deal with me.  I tried to have fun and I remember our group of girls (we were divided by age and gender) doing well on contests, but there were many who didn't want me in their group.  And I dreaded every day having one or both of my parents showing-up to give me some additional news that should have been told in person but was just haphazardly typed-out in a letter.  It didn't happen and I don't think I could have stood it if it did.

Well, poop....looked at the clock and all of my time is gone again.  The voices are still trying to cram words down my arms and to my fingers on the keyboard but I've got errands to run.  Need to get things done or Husband will be irritated that I stayed inside all day again.  I know he says he's not but I also know that it does upset him because I used to be very outgoing and my disabilities are not getting better.  Maybe in the long-run this "therapy" I'm trying with these posts will help.

Voices are in charge again!

I have no idea what the hell is up with me today.  My brain has gone into extreme overdrive and now I've got thoughts and words and feelings and shit (yes, I can swear and am actually very good at it) bouncing around in there and they won't leave me alone.  Maybe I'm finally having a mental breakdown.  Maybe I'm finally having some kind of epiphany that will let me find my "true calling" in the world.  Whatever the hell it is, it's driving me freakin' nuts and I can't stand it!

It's like the voices in my head are trying to get me to write my autobiography.  Nice idea but who the hell would want to read it?  I'm nobody.  I've not done anything fantastic and famous.  I'm just another schmuck on the sidewalk with the rest of the people whose hopes and dreams are dashed by themselves, their problems, their families, their jobs, their government, or any other number of outside and inside forces.  Yeah, I'm sure all of the major bookstores would make lots of prime real estate for a book about me -- right in the bottom of the dumpsters.  Besides, if I wrote an autobiography I could never get it published because all of the people in it would hate it and what I had to say about them at one point or another, they'd try to sue me for slander, or I'd just never get the rights to use their names or likenesses and then my book would have a bunch of blank spaces in it I couldn't fill.  Yeah, that's going to be interesting reading.

So where do I start?  What am I supposed to be doing with this mess in my head?  I didn't even want to open the word processing program but now I find myself here typing as fast as my fingers will move trying to get onto the page everything at once.  And that's not a good thing to try to do because I have OCD and I have to proofread while I'm typing and when things are not flowing well my brain starts yelling at me and I have to start over again.  I'm going to try to switch it off for a bit but I can't guarantee how that's going to work out.  If you don't hear from me again somewhere in the middle of this diatribe it's probably 'cause my OCD-blocking caused an aneurysm and I'm face-down on the keyboard with the dogs wondering why I won't let them outside.

I remember things from when I was little.  I told my mother that I swear I remember the green seats on the airplane back from Hawaii to the mainland.  I told her once that I have a vivid memory of a bright circle of light in front of me and an ugly green upholstered seat back to my right and I'm laying down in the seat and can't say or do anything.  She says it's just me remembering her telling a story about the trip when my family moved from Hawaii to Missouri and she flew with me while my dad was still getting out of the Navy.  I don't remember anything else from then until I opened my eyes after "making a wish" and blowing out the candle on my 3rd birthday cake.  I remember that.  I remember my brain saying, "We have to remember this.  This is an important day."  It was like I'd switched-on a tape recorder in my brain and I have vague memories of doing that many times when my mind would believe that something was worth remembering.  Not like things from school or grocery lists -- just places and events that should stick with me for some reason.

I was an only child.  I say "was" because I do have step-siblings and a half-sister.  But biologically, it's just me.  Even though my biological father refuses to acknowledge me anymore and claims the children of his other wives as his kids, I'm the last of his bloodline and he's way too old and sick to do anything about it now.  Yeah....he always told me about how awful it was when he was 4 and his father walked-out on his family and then never wanted to have anything to do with him until he'd remarried and divorced and had a bunch of kids in Utah somewhere and was dying and then tried to call my father for help and support.  And my father, being the person he is, was more than happy to tell my biological paternal grandfather to shove it and didn't give a crap even when I gave him the message sometime in the early 1980s that we'd gotten a phone call and his dad was dead.

Kind of the same thing is happening now, in a way.  My biological father wanted a son.  He was sure that he'd have a son.  Then I popped out and spoiled his fun.  I don't really know when my parents' marriage began to fall apart, but I have a feeling that even then things weren't so good 'cause they decided to not have another child.  I don't know why and no one has ever tried to tell me a reason, so it's just a guess on my part.  But, good ol' dad knew he'd have at least a decade before puberty would set-in and make me the daughter he couldn't pretend I wasn't.  So he taught me about cars and guns and sports and I was the epitome of a tomboy.  Oh sure, I had Barbie dolls and other girly toys, but if I was playing with friends, they were usually boys and I loved their toys WAY much more than my stuff.

I had a friend, Russell, who lived two streets away and my parents taught school with his parents.  Oh yeah, I left that part out.  We moved back to Missouri because my dad didn't want to be in the Navy anymore even though he was offered stations in London, Madrid, or Washington D.C.  Nope, he wanted to go back to being a schoolteacher for some insane reason.  My mother then became a teacher.  Her father was already a teacher.  You can see where I'm going with this.  I was doomed from the start to be a teacher in some form or fashion.

Anyway, back to Russell.  His family and my family were friends and Russell and I were the same age.  We stayed at the same babysitter's house since they didn't have formal preschool in those days.  Sometimes when our parents would go out together in the evenings, they'd drop us off at the sitter's house and we'd either stay until our parents got back or spend the night.  Russell and I had a blast together 'cause I'd been raised so much like a boy by my father that I didn't mind getting muddy in the yard or trying to catch crawfish with my bare hands in the ditch at the end of the road and I watched all of the TV shows that the rest of the guys liked.  I fit right in.  Heck, my babysitter figured I "fit-in" well enough that I do have the memory of bath time at her house one night.

Her husband and sons worked at the local grain elevator.  They came home and got cleaned-up from their long, dirty day at work and went to eat dinner.  I didn't know that they were used to the old country ways of when you had to bring water in for a bath by hand and everyone shared it.  She got Russell and me into the bathroom and stripped-off our clothes and plopped us into the large claw-foot bathtub that had just been used by I don't remember how many stinky, oily, dirty grown men.  I just remember the water was so dark I couldn't see anything of myself under it and there was a film of some sort that carried small curly hairs past my face.  She reminded us that we needed to use plenty of soap to keep the other dirt off of us so we'd be clean.  This was one of my first introductions to lye soap.  It doesn't suds-up like soap we use today does, so I kept rubbing and rubbing it on me thinking it was never going to clean anything.  Then she scooped each of us out of the murky broth (remember, we're both in the tub together), dried us off, gave us our pajamas we'd brought with us, and finished it all up with a healthy dose of NyQuil.  Yup, back when it had a high enough alcohol content to knock you on your butt.  We'd already had dinner and she wanted to make sure we went to bed.  I was basically an alcoholic at age 4 from all the times I stayed at her house.

My biological father helped Russell's dad build an addition onto their house.  For some reason, my dad had gotten into the building craze and was making shelves and cabinets and anything else he could think of with power tools that I longed to use.  I'd go out into the garage and look at the tools and ask to help and he'd occasionally give me a hammer or a screwdriver to "pretend" to fix something.  Heck, I knew in my young mind that I was doing better than he was 'cause every time my mother would ask him to fix something he'd end up breaking it or trying to screw-in all the attachments with a butter knife.  Now that I'm older I realize that this is a specific "Dad Phenomenon" that all males have.  They don't want to do the "honey-do" lists and figure if they screw up whatever they've been asked to do enough that the wife will decide to never ask him to do it again and will hire someone else to take care of it.  Yup, even before Kindergarten I'd already learned how guys worked.

Anyway, when the guys were building the addition onto the house, Russell and I would play outside.  By this time he had a younger sister and she and our mothers would sit inside and do something.  I don't know what it was because I didn't want to be stuck inside.  Russell and I would chase each other around the house and up-and-down the street because this was back when you could play in the street and traffic watched-out for children.  It was also the time when neighbors watched-out for kids as well and if you did something wrong they had every right to punish you just as your parents would and then tell your parents about it which usually got you punished again.  Plus, our babysitter with the claw-foot tub lived just diagonally across the street from Russell's house, so everyone knew we'd be safe.

I remember hearing adult voices telling me to not run in the construction area a thousand times but it was still fun.  There were the studs for the walls to weave ourselves through and unfinished stairs that we'd climb and jump off the top before being scolded again.  Finally, it happened.  The klutz gene in me decided to show up and I tripped on a piece of wood.  That wasn't too bad 'cause the floor had already been laid and the concrete and I were already good friends.  What sucked was the small board with the very large nail sticking out of it that just happened to be in my landing zone.  This large framing nail went into my left calf and somehow didn't hit either of the bones in my leg.  But I bled like a stuck pig; my mother screamed that I was going to die of tetanus;  and my father carried me to the bathroom with the board still nailed to my leg before pulling it out.  Someone was on the phone to the doctor to ask what to do about it and I remember the evil bottle of Mercurochrome was brought out to be poured into the large hole.  Of course, I did the screaming-jumping-whining dance of any kid who'd been assaulted with Mercurochrome and watched my leg become dyed a weird rusty color wherever it ran.  The doctor on the phone told them to just put a bandage on it and it would heal.  It did.  I've got a cool round scar there that's faded with age but because there were no stitches or butterfly band-aids, it's still the same size as the nail that caused it.  I loved showing it off to guys like an old war wound on the playground.  They'd cringe and I usually won admiration for having the most awesome scar in the group.

As I said before, my parents were teachers.  My dad was my school principal from second grade through eighth grade (with a small respite when I basically had to retake fifth grade -- more on that later) at two different school districts and my mother taught 8th grade math and science, so I never had her as a teacher since we'd moved and I'd changed districts before I reached that level.

Okay, so I mentioned "retaking" the fifth grade.  Here's what happened.  I was very advanced in Kindergarten.  When I went for testing to see which class I'd be placed in, the teachers knew me because my parents habitually loaned me out to their friends who were in the process of getting their Master's of Education and needed to run tests and show experimental learning styles on a subject.  I was free labor (well, they did have to take me to McDonald's) and was soon also known by most of the graduate-level instructors at the college where everyone was attending.  Someone would pick me up, take me to the college, run their test with me, get their grade, and then take me to McDonald's for a burger before heading back home.  The college was over an hour away and we didn't have a McDonald's in our town, so I thought I was hitting the big time by getting to go there a lot.

Since I'd been tested and had a rabid reading habit of my own that allowed me to devour books in a very short time, I was very advanced for being only 5 years old.  The school even said that if I'd had a better grasp of mathematics that they would have considered having me skip Kindergarten and perhaps even 1st grade because I was already reading on a 3rd grade level.  But, my poor math skills kept me back and I hated the first day of Kindergarten because it was nothing but recess all day.  I was there to learn, by god, and all the playing was SO boring!  And I couldn't get over the other classmates who would cry and whine and need to be restrained as their parents left each day!  Didn't they realize that this was where you could learn more and be away from your parents and be who you wanted to be?

Obviously not and no one informed me that it wasn't proper for me to "be who I wanted to be" because I wanted to get the heck out of there and they made me stay.  My class was divided into groups by abilities and I so vividly remember the first day we had our reading circle.  Everyone was given a copy of the book we were going to learn to read and my teacher sat in the circle with us and read the first sentence very slowly.  "Okay," I thought, "this is just a warm-up and we'll be done in no time."  I started reading the book and was done before the second child to her left had finished reading the sentences assigned to him after the first child had stuttered and stammered her way through her attempt before saying she didn't know the words.  When they finally got to me, I was ready.  I was going to show these kids how it was done.  The teacher called on me to read the next page and everyone was stunned that she'd ask me to read so much.  I started reading and was almost done with it when I realized that she was trying to stop me.  I hadn't made any mistakes and was very confused.  "You need to slow down," she said.  "Not everyone else can read like you can and they need to hear the words.  You're going too fast."

What?  I remember thinking that if they couldn't read as fast as I could then they needed to be in another group or another class.  And I remember my teacher (another friend of my parents) talking to my mother and explaining that I needed to slow down and that it wasn't anything I'd done wrong but that she needed to help me understand that I was going to have to help "teach" the others to read.

Looking back, I wonder if that's where my desires to teach and control started.  At the age of 5, I was being told to "teach" others which meant I had a certain "power" over them.  It didn't help when almost halfway through the year the teacher's aide we had that did our language and spelling "classes" was arrested and we didn't have anyone to grade our workbooks.  My teacher said that since I knew how to read and had already completed my book on my own that I could grade the other students' books.  Yup, I "taught" language and spelling in Kindergarten.  How cool is that?

Okay....my fingers hurt, I've been typing for over 2 hours straight, and I've got the voices in my head screaming at me that I'm going WAY off topic.  What topic?  It's supposed to be about me and this is about me.  They have other issues and topics they want brought up and put on paper.  I can't do it at the moment.  I'm exhausted; I'm making way too many typos to suit myself (told ya' the OCD-block wouldn't work) and I've got to stop for a while.  I'll try to pick it up again tomorrow.  Probably after my therapist appointment -- that always is a good trigger for me.

Now I'm going to try to shut the voices up with some inane television and something to drink (non-alcoholic).  Maybe this running commentary will be good for me to be able to see how my mind is working and organizes things.  And maybe I'm just full of crap and want to feel self-important again.