CHAPTER 15 -EVIL 5TH GRADE

 

I've only met a handful of people who have self-esteem down. You know why? The 5th grade. The 5th grade is evil. Something happens there.

I went from this little law-abiding citizen:

To this rebel blindingly fast:

We decide we are some flavor of not enough: not lovable, not okay as we are. Then, we overcompensate for this perceived lack by developing what Landmark Education calls a ‘winning formula.’ "I'll be funny!" "I'll work hard!" "I'll be independent!" —We build personalities based on a lie, characteristics that have us survive our upbringing -- what Don Miguel Ruiz calls the 'domestication process' in his book The Four Agreements. We win at certain things in life with our strong suits, but the pathos, as I see it, is we never needed to compensate. We were always whole, complete, and perfect children of the Great Mystery. 

If you think of it, our world is based on 'not enough' or ‘scarcity’ thinking. I am waiting for Forbes to come out with the 500 most okay humans. 

'We're just fine!' their photos on the glossy cover would boast. I'm a plumber, and I'm splendid! My landlord is great, and my kids like me! 

So, I decided I wasn't enough. I wasn't unique. My plan, loosely defined, was to become cool and daring. I wanted to be famous or infamous, whichever came first, even if it meant being reckless. 

I yearned to become more womanly. I wanted a bra more than a pony. I had a pony already, so I knew how strong that urge was. This was stronger, and I was ashamed I wanted to be like the developed girls so bad, even though (or maybe because) they had to suffer the occasional 'snap' of a naughty boy.

I knew my mother would say I didn't need one yet, and she was right. I was underdeveloped for my age. But when we went shopping for bathing suits over the summer, I picked a white bikini. 

"I like this one!"

"Really?" Mom asked. It was plain, except for frilly layers of material on the bra part --not the smooth look bras have in advertisements, but the back had a simple hook, and people would mistake it for a bra. 

On the first day of 5th grade, I wore an orange suede midi-length coat with real shaggy fur trim. I felt untouchable by any insult in that thing. Wealthy kids could afford to dress outside the shaming range into fashionable.

First midi coat. From Tibet.

I wore my long hair parted sharply down the middle, walking the hallway slowly so more kids could see me. I was finally, undoubtedly, breathing the rarified air of the cool kids, except for one thing. 

I entered the bathroom stall and took the bra from my leather-fringe purse. I put it on under my white shirt. I emerged with the line —that barely discernable demarkation neatly bisecting backs while bisecting girls from women. 

One recess, I was on the top of the Jungle Jim, a crisscrossing of iron bars shaped like a silo. I could usually hang from the middle and drop down into a worn spot that became a puddle when it rained, which it was just beginning to do, making the metal smell metallic. Suddenly, I was on my back in the middle of the contraption, looking up at small, horrified faces against a grey sky, tree branches naked except for a few leaves barely hanging in there. I was unable to draw a single breath -- a new feeling, this fear I may never breathe again, that I might die. 

Who knew lungs had their limits? 

But within a few seconds, I was breathing again; clear I was a permanent fixture here on earth. I couldn't die, I didn't think. 

After school one day, I walked up over the hill to our house and saw Bryan in the garage, smoking a Marlboro. He was working on his motorcycle. He looked cool. He looked like Clyde Barrow in Bonnie and Clyde, a movie that dazzled us. I would be Bonnie to Bryan's Clyde.  

"Want to try?" He offered me the cigarette. Of course, I did. I put the thing on my lip and inhaled. It was noxious. It hurt, and it smelled terrible. I coughed. I had no idea how I was going to get over that so I could smoke. 

Bry was three years my senior. I loved the clout I got by being hip to the stuff he was into-- cigarettes, motorcycles, Molotov cocktails, and, oh my, alcohol, that sweet, forgiving (and unforgiving) nectar.