I learned that life doesn't play fair very early on. About the first grade I started to recognize a distinct difference between my station in life and those of my little friends. Of course, I was just a kid to the adults in my life. They assumed, wrongly, I am sure that I was oblivious to the differences. First I never knew that your parents were supposed to enjoy spending time with you. I thought kids were just 'there' to be told what to do. I had no idea that other children had a voice and were encouraged to use it. What a revelation. Things didn't work that way in my house. We were just objects to be enjoyed when it suited our parents. To be shown off for the company. And when we were an annoyance, to be shipped off to Nana's house for the day, weekend, or during school break, the bulk of the summer. I didn't know that parents were supposed to come to Meet The Teacher Night or school plays or get to know your friends. I didn't know that you could invite friends over to play or that other little girls had bedrooms that looked like a fairy tale castle in my books at home. My bedroom had a hole in the ceiling that leaked over my bed at night. Who knew that this wasn't the case for everyone. But I was becoming quite educated in life's inequalities. It seemed to me, at that young age, that God decided who would be winners and losers. God decided that if you were a kid you were stuck with what you got. And don't even bother to ask for more because there never was more. It wasn't long before I started to hate God.
When you discover that there are winners and losers it's quite shocking. But more shocking is to learn that you were in the group of losers. The group who never quite fit in. The group who had no great stories of weekend trips with their parents, the cool lunch box, the Adidas shoes, or the clean clothes. Nope, losers didn't have those things. It's hard to get along on the playground when you have no points of assimilation with the other kids. Nobody wants to play with the kid who can never attend the birthday parties and never returns the invitation by asking you over to play. Nope, losers are losers who become even bigger losers. Life wasn't fair and I didn't like it. But I was just a kid who had no voice. A voiceless loser who silently screamed inside each and every day for God to either strike her down or make her a winner. I hated God. He never came to my rescue. Thanks for nothing.
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Hey, that's how I felt but I was a loser with glasses!!! Can you imagine being 4 in the 70's and wearing glasses? I was a loser because of that and because my childhood resembled yours an awful lot. My Dad is an alcoolic so we never had friends over, there was never money for new clothes or for much food for that matter. I remember getting yelled at for laughing at my dad sneezing! I don't remember if I ever went to a birthday party, I'm sure I didn't. My brother and I, today, pride ourselves with being part of kids lives in the best possible ways. I sometimes relive some childhood memories and I hurt for the child I was and I hurt for what I could have become if only I had been given the chance. Just to have a choice.
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