I don't want to remember how much I hated being alive when I was in my pre-teen years. My mother doesn't know it, and very few others may either, but when I was in that stretch of time between second and fifth grade, I did think about killing myself. That time where I took the extra dosage of children's Tylenol was a rather pathetic suicide attempt that resulted in my being additionally sleepy. I didn't do like my brother and down half the bottle. Mom freaked out when he did that, screamed at me and proceeded to call poison control. For some reason, it was my fault that my 7 year old brother had gotten his hands on the Tylenol. Never mind the fact that she left it sitting on the table.
So, I had my Mom freaking out with poison control on the line. I was getting yelled at when she was put on hold and then ordered not to move when she was back talking with the nurse or who ever it was over there. Then, Mom got the castor oil, made my brother take a swig of it and sent me to fetch the bucket. Right as rain, he threw up and then everything was fine. Except for the fact that I had to clean up the spot on the floor where he missed the bucket and wipe down the rocking chair that he puked on in the process of missing the bucket. So, I got bitched at and punished for a combination of my mother's own dumb mistake and my brother's insistence that the orange flavored Tylenol was actually candy that magically made him feel better.
Thanks a lot, Mom. That did wonders for my self-esteem. I've lost track of how many stupid schemes like that happened. Maeby it wasn't my brothers drinking or eating something stupid, but they'd do something and I'd catch hell for it along with them. Even if I wasn't there, because I obviously had to have put them up to it since I was the eldest. I am amazed that I didn't get yelled at for when my brother got scalded by the hot water from the tea pot. Mom was visiting with my grandmother. My youngest brother, who was all but 3 years upon this earth at that time, walked up and took a hold of the tablecloth as he grabbed onto Mom's leg. Insisting that Mom pick him up, he pulled on the tablecloth and Mom's pants. The table cloth came down and with it came the hot teapot filled nearly to the brim with hot water.
He screamed. It was a wordless, almost inhuman scream of pain and horror. Mom grabbed him up, rushed to the sink and began to pour cold water on his shoulder. Grandma called 911 and Mom ran with my brother in her arms to the car to take him to the hospital. I and my other brother sat in the dining room watching this drama unfold. When Mom and our youngest sibling was away, grandma began to clean the hot liquid up and then clean the house. I remember watching her as she picked up the shards of the broken teapot. It was a dark blue teapot, oddly enough that looked quite a bit like the one I have now.
The way it looked an eggshell blue on the white of the broken porcelain just shines in my mind. It's funny, that color and his scream stand out more clearly in my mind then my first day of school. I hated school and yet loved it at the same time. My first day, I don't remember the entire day. On the whole, it was one of the worst experiences I've had in my entire life. And for me to still say that 20 years later, well.. It had to be rather awful. It was one singular thing that should have warned me that school was going to be hell.
I got on the bus for the first day of school, dressed in my brand new yellow and pink dress. I had my hair tied up into pig-tails and I wore my brand new rain jacket. It was bright red with lady bugs on it. And I had my purple back-back. I walked up onto the bus and was promptly tripped flat onto my face. Not stumbled and fell over, no some malicious little bastard stuck their foot out and tripped me. The entire bus laughed at me, including the bus driver. I was teased and pushed around for a few minutes, unable to find a seat. Finally, the bus driver pulled the hulking beast of a bus over ordered some one to move over and I had a seat for the ride to school.
As sad as I am to report it, but that set the tone for the rest of my schooling years. I was regularly harassed by my classmates and not a few members of the faculty and staff of the places I went to school. I had kindergarten teachers questioning my intelligence because I was small for my age and born prematurely. I had classmates beating me up and insulting me because I didn't live in town with them. I had a teacher in 2nd grade that regularly punished me for not believing in God. She asked me who made me. I answered that my parents did. The teacher blew her stack and I spent a lot of time out in the hallway with my friend Joanna, who was Jewish.
And I wonder now why I have so much difficulty with things like multiplication. Perhaps if I didn't have a teacher that threw me out of the room for any possible reason she could think of, I may have gotten the basics of multiplication down at some point in time. I got the bullies on the bus that were older then me putting their hands places they weren't supposed to go and threatening to hurt my younger brothers if I told any one. It happened up until my brothers started fighting back, and it happened for a little while after that. You see, since people realized they could harass me until I cried or did what they wanted, because there was more of them then there was of me, they started in on my brothers.
One day, my brothers got mad. So they started fighting back. They saw one of the largest boys on the bus grabbing at me. My brothers threw themselves at him. I joined in the fray. Next thing we knew, I had been knocked to the ground with the beginnings of a fat lip. My youngest brother was kicking and trying to break out of the headlock he had been put into by the offender's friend. And the leader of the group had picked up my other brother by the neck and was slamming him against the window of the bus. The sound of my brother's head hitting the wall of the bus carried awfully well and the bus pulled over in a hurry. A few days later, after my parent's had both had a rather loud argument with the principle of the school, we were pulled out of that school and started at another.
And this incident was one of many that happened on a regular basis as we were attending school. Yet, this was the place where I met the man who is the love of my life. He is one of the few good things that came out of that hellish place that I went to elementary school and high school. When I did fight back, he was right at my side with my brothers and my few friends. As I got older, I lost that fire. But he was still right there with me. I can say it honestly, I was a fool for not telling him that I was in love with him right when I got back to that school at the beginning of high school. I had been, ever since 4th grade, if you can actually believe it.
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