Monday, December 9, 2013

2+2=5



I’m a survivor. A believer.  A “light at the end of the tunnel” kind of gal. I’m a “glass half full” thinker. I don’t have a halo, but I’m the best I can be. I’m silly, beautiful, lucky, curious, and maybe even a little crazy. But I’m me. Past me. Present me. Future me. Everyone has a story. This is mine. The story that made me me.
            Sometimes I sit in my room, thinking about how different my life could be if just one little thing never happened. If just one day, I decided to walk a new way home. What if I decided not to dot his assignment? What if one day, I decided I wanted to cut my hair. Where would I be now? Parts of my life make perfect sense. Everything happens for a reason. But something’s just feel wrong. Backwards.
            Like 2+2=5.
Think about your first day of school. Your brand new backpack. Shiny pencils. Never before worn blue jeans. Crisp. Your parents are taking pictures of you and your friends from around the neighborhood. The adults shed a tear as you get up on the big yellow bus that will convey you to your new school. A new life. Your parent’s baby is leaving the nest…. Alright, maybe this never happened to you. Maybe we have more in common than I thought. However, this is how I imagine how my first day of school would have been if I were “like everybody else.” But I’m not. Not even close. My first day of school began and ended in the kitchen of my four bedrooms, one bath farmhouse. Yep. I lived on a farm. With cows and chickens and tractors. With a circular dirt drive-way that wrapped around the dog house and make-shift teeter totter fashioned out of a boulder and 2x4. I lived with my parents and eight older siblings (Okay, maybe some of them were in college.) But me, I was homeschooled on a farm. If that doesn’t scream “not like everybody else”, I don’t know what does.
 2+2=5.
            I never watched Barney. No Blue’s Clues, and I never even heard of Dora. I watched Veggie Tails and the Yellow Dyno. I went to a Jewish church every Sunday. I didn’t know what it meant to be Jewish. I didn’t know there was more than one religion. At least not until my parents decided to try all of them in a short period of time. I didn’t know what to think of it. But I did know not to ask questions. I knew I wasn’t supposed to be curious. Have an imagination. Think outside of the house. I was supposed to learn what my parents taught me and that was all. I wasn’t supposed to share my feelings, let alone feel those feelings.
            I didn’t have friends. I lived in the middle of nowhere. I didn’t even have school friends. I was secluded. Isolated from the world. Couldn’t stay with a group of people long enough to build friendships. I think that was on purpose. I think my parents wanted it that way. To keep us vulnerable. Never let us get comfortable with good people. That way we wouldn’t talk to people. I mean really talk. That way we would never leak their secret. The secret that they were abusing us. 
2+2=5. 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rb9mvkxE5Ww