It's Hot Again Today

My posts will be an exploration, a look back at my life in light of my dx.  It's hard to know where to start.  It's a big undertaking, looking back at your life with a new set of parameters.  These posts, I think, will be rather disjointed as I look back.  It's not my preferred style of writing, but it's a matter of plunging in and getting started, or not writing at all.  So, let's explore together.

I think the first time I can remember feeling like I did not fit in was the summer after 6th grade when I joined the Governor's Program for Gifted Children.  There were students from all over the state.  A few were local like me and commuted to school, and there were others who stayed on campus.  The first person I met was a local girl like me.  I did not want to meet the others from the group.  Getting to know one person was enough for me.  To my distress, she wanted to meet the others.  Go figure.  Looking back, I would say that, from that point on in my life, I was more of a person who hung around others more than being a part of a group.  Most of the time, I was not conscious of this.  I felt as though I was a part of things, but I was more of an observer rather than a participant in things.  (I do recall, however, being overwhelmed at my introduction to school.  This was some time before the first day of school, I think.  I remember going to a classroom, then joining all the other first graders in the cafeteria for cookies.  I was so overwhelmed that I buried my face in Mama's dress and cried.  I also remember being told that I had said the kids in my first grade class were too noisy.  So the roots of this run deep.) 

There were two other sources of anxiety for me at the Governor's Program, music and physical education.  Almost everyone there played some kind of instrument.  The best ones were chosen for the orchestra, and the others made up the chorus.  Since I didn't play an instrument, I was in the chorus.  I can't sing.  But even worse than that was music theory.  At the end of each class, the instructor would slowly play notes on the piano while he tapped out the beats, and we were supposed to record the notes onto music sheets.  I had no clue.  I kept my head down the whole time, but out of the corner of my eye, I could see people going through the notes in their heads and writing them down.  One person would be called upon to go up to the piano to play the song (usually something like Three Blind Mice).  I lived in terror that I would be called upon, and my secret would be out.  I couldn't do it. 

In phys ed, we did gymnastics and played tennis.  I couldn't do either.  Never returned a ball in tennis, couldn't climb a rope, or do flips. 

I think the program was a four-year program.  Completing the program gave you 15 hours college credit.  I left after two years.  I used the excuse of going to Baton Rouge with Daddy (it was his first year in the legislature.)  But the second summer at the program was more stressful than the first, and I was glad to get away.  I didn't really know what 15 hours college credit meant, and even if I did understand, I would not have been able appreciate what that was.  Even by the time I got to college, I didn't have a clear goal in mind of what I wanted to accomplish.  I started in chemistry, I think, and I had about 5 different majors before I graduated with a degree in psychology.  My area of study in graduate school was personality, of all things. 

Oh, well, enough for today.  Signing off.

God forgives those who invent what they need.  ~~Lillian Helman