Wednesday, December 16, 2020
~~~
Alright, since no one's deciding, here's what's gonna happen!
Harry Potter will happen tomorrow.
Count of Monte Cristo will either happen Friday night or Saturday.
~~~
So I was listening to a John Mulaney skit, that one with Detective Bittenbinder?
And it reminded me of a little story, so sit down and let me explain to you a bit more of my ~School Trauma~
*also big notes here, if bullying, self harm, depression, pedophilia, homophobia, and/or transphobia are triggers for you, please don't read any further, don't push yourself. Please.*
So as most of you know, I went a private Catholic school for most of my life, from kindergarten to eighth grade year. Now you may also know that I am a pan romantic asexual, which means according to one deacon who was a guest speaker at religion class on day, I'm a very unique and rare person! I also don't exist according to him because I'm a demigirl but whatever. Point is, Catholic school for what is roughly eight or nine years of my life.
Not much happened for those early years, was in a car accident on my way to school when I was in first grade, got invited to my third grade teacher's wedding, learned my states in fourth grade from my kinda weird teacher, experienced what black students had to go through for one day in fifth grade, and then middle school hit. And oh boy did my life change forever.
Not in a good way, no no no. This is a Catholic School, life only gets worse once you stop being able to be indoctrinated, which is what happened in sixth grade.
But I'm getting ahead of myself.
Sixth grade year.
I'm this tiny little four foot nine inch kid in a red or navy blue polo shirt and plaid skirt. Don't worry, in the winter we got to wear these thin navy blue leggings underneath, you know, because leggings work so well against 35 degree weather in the friggin' Midwest.
Anyway, I'm this tiny little thing and I was bad at being friends with people—nothing's really changed to be fair—so my "friends" weren't great. They were getting into pretty sexual humor which was not my thing and were super judgmental, so I changed friends to my current ones, who I love so much more. Meanwhile, all the teachers hate my grade and we as a grade get yelled at a couple times for being mean to each other and stuff, so yeah.
Whatever.
Seventh grade.
Everyone's tall now, I'm like, four foot ten-eleven ish now, and life sucks. I mean, seventh grade just sucks in general, but things were rough. My friends were self harming and depressed (okay to be fair they're not not-depressed right now, but they're better than they were), homework was piling up, and all the teachers were trying to prep us to be the next eighth grade, who were like angels compared to my grade. Also we dissected a ton of stuff in science and I had to do it because my partner kept walking out of the room so she wouldn't puke.... do you know what staring down at a frog's colored organs does to you?? The smell, the squish of the organs under your plastic glove, pinning down slimy skin to you can peer into the chest??
But then.
Eight grade year.
Shit goes down. Like, a lot of shit.
Maybe a month or two before school starts, it turns out that my fourth grade teacher? The guy who taught me my states and Midwest lore and was a little weird? Yeah turns out he's a pedophile.
🎉Surprise!🎉
Anyway, then school starts and people have left, people have joined, it's a big mess. My favorite teacher, my English teacher who talked classics with me and encouraged me to read books that challenged me, leaves, and in her place comes a bitch I hate with all my guts, not to be confused with my religion teacher, a bitch whose guts I also hate and she lives in my fucking neighborhood.
Right so, first quarter goes by, I learn to hate the new English teacher a ton, and I score well enough in English and LA that I get into a high school-level class for middle schoolers, where I will spend two of the best quarters of my life doing a basically virtual school course where I read classics like Fahrenheit 451, which inspired me to read other classics like War Among Worlds, Animal Farm, and Frankenstein. Then, my music teacher decides to do an eighth grade musical.
Now, my school didn't do "musicals" or "plays". We weren't that kind of school. But she decided we would do it and so we did. Lesbian friend and Pan friend helped her decide on Newsies, and my whole friend group helped cast, choreograph, get a script and music, and build sets.
Then my stupid classmates destroy many of the set pieces we work on during our lunch with two seventh grade friends who didn't have to help but did anyway. We sacrificed lunch time, recess, we missed group pictures because we were working on sets no one else worked on. And it was all destroyed.
But it was fine, we repaired, we knew our lines and could sing the songs, had the choreography down, had costumes and props and everything was going well.
Then, our actress for Katherine accused my friends, including one of my seventh grade friends who was helping out of their own free will, they had no reason other than because they wanted to help us, of telling her to kill herself out at recess.
First off, we were comprised of people who were depressed, who saw therapists, who had self harmed and were going through so much shit it's not even funny. Secondly, we never saw the outside during school hours. We were in that music room as much as we could, working on sets, running through dialogue, making sure all the props were ready and good. We ate while painting, I wrote a letter out twice in nice handwriting, just because someone through out the first one. She had no reason to accuse us of anything!
Then, while all this was ALSO happening, my religion teacher started telling us that being gay was a sin, that transgender people are sinning, that euthanasia and abortion and marrying someone without intending to have fucking kids was sinful and wrong. And I swear, that's when I completely gave up on the Church. I accept that many people believe in a god, or gods, but I can't, not after that.
Good things came out of school, it's true.
I have amazing friends, a good education (kinda), an incredible trip to DC, the only time I didn't have stage fright in my life, and good books.
But there is so much shit that I suppress, that I don't talk about or think about.
I don't know, I understand that we all have our hardships, our trauma, and no one can compare theirs to another's because it all impacted us differently, so please don't try to feel bad or think your stuff is worse or better than mine.
I just needed to get that off my chest.
Heh, maybe I could use some of it as a comedy act one day, who knows?
Stay safe kiddos, and trust your gut instincts, they tend to be right.
Love you all <3<3<3
~Ink
