Drat
Well, the question that I was thinking about recently is of course, "Why am I so weird?" It's sort of simple, but at the same time, it's rather complicated.
For one thing, I grew up in a smart family. The whole family was really quite smart. Sure, we have our skeletons, but then again, who doesn't? So I'm smart. I know that. I'm not boasting or bragging or anything of the sort. In fact, that might have been part of the problem.
In middle school, I had some tough times. I've always said that math is the bane of my existence, but then again, middle school rates pretty high up there. Hell on Earth? No, that's too light a term/phrase. Slit my wrists sort of lifetime? Perhaps so, perhaps not. That story (the complete and unabridged) will have to wait for a later date. Preferably ten years down the road.
I'll just say that middle school made me the person that I am today. And I don't think that I got many good things out of the experience either. I learned to adapt, no matter what. I learned to keep my mouth shut and my ears open. I learned to stay out of the way and to go with the flow, to avoid being crushed and broken.
I learned to forsake all that I was for survival. And I learned to give all that I had for camouflage. Life sucks. That's all there is. That's all there was. And that's all I had to go on.
Obviously, I've grown out of that a bit. I found my own niche perhaps in this great world of suffering. But I've never ever really felt comfortable around those that society has deemed the perfect and pure and popular. They make me nervous. Why? Because they just seem so fake. Without the friends and the money and cars and the make-up and clothes, who are they? I had everything stripped away, down to my very soul. In the end, I knew where I stood and whom I was. But without all of that stuff, who are they?
posted by Val at 12/26/2001 11:38:00 PM
