When describing my childhood, "sheltered" is an understatement. Elementary school was accepting of innocence and naïvete, but junior high wasn't so forgiving. By sixth grade I was overweight...Because of how small my primary school was, I lacked the social skills and status to fit in at my pretentious parochial middle school...And above all else, I had something "wrong" with me. Something that made me different. Something that made ignorant kids shun me because of what their even more ignorant parents told them.
But I was oblivious to all of it because as a child, I acted like a child. I was unaware of the pettiness and cruelty of the world. I was even unaware that others didn't have CF...Hell, I thought everyone set aside time in the mornings to blow Albuterol smoke rings. But I ran around outside. I played games. I used my imagination. This behavior carried into my junior high years and for it, I was an outcast. I didn't have many friends growing up, but the ones I surrounded myself with were true blessings. Namely, my bestie across the street.
SG moved into my neighborhood when we were 9 and it wasn't long before we were inseparable. I joined her theatre company and participated in a week-long run of The King and I with her. We watched Clarissa Explains It All and adhered religiously to her guidelines for life. Her dad hid "clues" which we searched for as Nancy Drew and Bess. We believed that creating a string-can telephone with shoelaces and scraps of yarn tied together would be just as effective as using one long string and were dumbfounded when it wasn't. We laid dead birds to rest and made sure they were paid the proper respect in a makeshift bird cemetery to the side of my house. In short, while other people our age were already getting drunk, dabbling in drugs and enduring pregnancy scares, we were having FUN.
For high school I transferred from private to public education and went from a class of 37 to a class of 500 where it was easy to remain unnoticed by those different from myself and even easier to find others to click with. Although we shared few of the same classes and although she and her family moved to another part of the city, we remained close and through her, I met the close-knit group of girls that I keep in touch with to this day. But most importantly, when my dad passed away unexpectedly halfway through my sophomore year, she was the first friend I called and the last friend to leave that night. She skipped school to attend his funeral with me and her shoulder was the one I cried on after delivering his eulogy. And after my most influential and adored role model was gone, her father stepped up to the plate, took me under his wing and loved me, protected me and disciplined me as if I were his own.
2010 would have marked the 9-year anniversary of having not seen her and the 15-year anniversary of having not seen him. Instead of continuing that trend, I made the trip to south Texas after receiving a call from her that Dad had been diagnosed in the last stages of liver cancer. Admittedly nervous at first, I soon realized that even after all of the years apart and all that had changed, I didn't feel the slightest bit uncomfortable around my second family. In fact, we almost instantly reverted back to our childhood...We re-lived countless high school memories, posed provocatively on the mechanical Dino the Dinosaur outside HEB, terrorized a dead jellyfish on the beach with a stick, turned cartwheels around the town's tourist billboard and ate like we had our teenage metabolisms back.
Why and at which point does that leave us? Why do we trade childhood jubilance for stress and overachievement with barely anything to show for it? At least as kids, at the end of the day we were worn out but satisfied with our day's activities. As adults, we exhaust ourselves concerning what comes next, if our house is decorated fancy enough, if our car is sporty enough, if our jewelry is large enough and if we're high enough in the hierarchy. News flash: It's NEVER enough. What will matter on your deathbed is core happiness.
To My Sweet Little Bacon Addict: Marriage, mini-you and 10-foot growth spurt aside, you will forever be SG to me, with your ice skating princess Keds and ponytail on top of your head. You and Dad are in my thoughts and prayers daily; I love you and will always love you like the sister I never had and I will be here every step of the way for as long as you need and want me to be. I am only a phone call and a plane ride away.
But I was oblivious to all of it because as a child, I acted like a child. I was unaware of the pettiness and cruelty of the world. I was even unaware that others didn't have CF...Hell, I thought everyone set aside time in the mornings to blow Albuterol smoke rings. But I ran around outside. I played games. I used my imagination. This behavior carried into my junior high years and for it, I was an outcast. I didn't have many friends growing up, but the ones I surrounded myself with were true blessings. Namely, my bestie across the street.
SG moved into my neighborhood when we were 9 and it wasn't long before we were inseparable. I joined her theatre company and participated in a week-long run of The King and I with her. We watched Clarissa Explains It All and adhered religiously to her guidelines for life. Her dad hid "clues" which we searched for as Nancy Drew and Bess. We believed that creating a string-can telephone with shoelaces and scraps of yarn tied together would be just as effective as using one long string and were dumbfounded when it wasn't. We laid dead birds to rest and made sure they were paid the proper respect in a makeshift bird cemetery to the side of my house. In short, while other people our age were already getting drunk, dabbling in drugs and enduring pregnancy scares, we were having FUN.
For high school I transferred from private to public education and went from a class of 37 to a class of 500 where it was easy to remain unnoticed by those different from myself and even easier to find others to click with. Although we shared few of the same classes and although she and her family moved to another part of the city, we remained close and through her, I met the close-knit group of girls that I keep in touch with to this day. But most importantly, when my dad passed away unexpectedly halfway through my sophomore year, she was the first friend I called and the last friend to leave that night. She skipped school to attend his funeral with me and her shoulder was the one I cried on after delivering his eulogy. And after my most influential and adored role model was gone, her father stepped up to the plate, took me under his wing and loved me, protected me and disciplined me as if I were his own.
Why and at which point does that leave us? Why do we trade childhood jubilance for stress and overachievement with barely anything to show for it? At least as kids, at the end of the day we were worn out but satisfied with our day's activities. As adults, we exhaust ourselves concerning what comes next, if our house is decorated fancy enough, if our car is sporty enough, if our jewelry is large enough and if we're high enough in the hierarchy. News flash: It's NEVER enough. What will matter on your deathbed is core happiness.
