Being the Oddball of Society - Pt.1

I'm not sure if it has to do with me being an empath/highly sensitive person, or me being a woke mixed black girl, or my eccentric interests from early on, or my abuse, or my moderately high intelligence, or me being an Aquarius. But I've never really felt like I've fit in and people rarely seem to get me. Not most friends. Not my family. Even with them, I've been the black sheep. I've always been an oddball, and if you've been one too, you might relate.

Preschool, Kindergarten, and 1st Grade Years 

As far back as preschool and kindergarten, I remember not really fitting in. I was in a predominantly white private school in an upper middle class suburban area. Everyday I would go to school and be accosted with bullshit, and because I was taught well by my mother, I would spout out truths that seemed too real for everybody else. 

My first "offense" was during a Thanksgiving lesson, where the teacher had concocted a cute little lesson about the colonizers playing nice-nice with the "Indians". I don't remember this, but apparently I told everyone in class, including my teacher, that the colonizers weren't the Native-American's friends, that they were here first, and that they killed them all. Of course, this didn't go over well. The happy-go-lucky Thanksgiving lesson was over. I even ended up having to have a parent teacher conference. That was the beginning of everyone in class looking at me like I was a weirdo. The beginning of me seeing the truths that everybody else seemed to blind or ignorant to see, or want to see.

Another "offense" was a time I told a girl in my class that "We are both black", which apparently came to get as a surprise. She was the only other black girl in my class, and for all comparison purposes, she was much closer to the actual color black than I was. She argued with me an entire recess about whether or not she was black, and the next day she came home after apparently speaking to her mother, who said she was not, indeed, "black", but instead was "brown". I felt like I was surrounded by idiots. 

By the first grade, and by this time, I had actual "enemies". Jessica, who was naturally blonde and had blue eyes, and wore pearl earrings, and was a bitch, even at 6 years old. Her sidekick Michelle, who was the same black girl from kindergarten who didn't want to be black. And a boy named Christian who liked Jessica, also blonde and blue eyed, who didn't like me, because "she's weird and has cooties". 

I had come to school one day with long braids. My mother had done them and added colored extensions (maybe purple or something, with black) and I felt so beautiful. When I got there, Jessica and her sidekicks just kept saying how weird it was, as if they didn't know how to react. I didn't know this would be the story of my life. I just knew everything sucked then.

Nobody wanted to talk to me anymore, and I spent most of my time at lunch and recess reading books and practicing my cursive. Everyone thought I was weird. Nobody understood what I was talking about. The world was ill-prepared for me and my personality, which is unfortunate, because this is probably when I started to dim it.

I made friends with another "weird" girl in my after school care at the private school named Elizabeth. She was white, had dark brunette hair, was lean and tall, and in sixth grade. I remember her looking a bit awkward and ominous. None of the girls or boys in her grade liked her either. We sort of got each other, and I liked that. She would help me better my cursive, and teach me weird Ancient Egyptian curses and spells from books she brought from home. She was a weird one, but she was my friend. When word got out that we were both friends our reputations suffered even more, as if that was even possible.

By the time of the first grade Halloween school party, when all the other girls were being princesses who would be saved by princes, my mother  made me what I thought was the most amazing Halloween costume, ever! She hand-sewed a Native American outfit, and considering I was part Native American and extremely interested in that part of me (I would read so many books on it, almost to the point of obsessive), I was super excited. I even had a headdress and we bought moccasins. But once I arrived to the school, my costume was met with laughter and ridicule. "What are you?" "Why would you want to be an Indian?" "That's so weird." "Ho-wah-wah-wah!" I even think that the other moms looked at us funny. The level of ignorance in America is so deep you could hypothetically dig to China with it, but I wasn't aware of that at the time. Instead, I was just really really hurt. I started to feel like my existence was a problem to other people.

Luckily, after that, I was homeschooled until 3rd grade. I'm not sure if my mom was aware of the bullying, or if she just wanted me to have a better education (she's been a teacher since before I was born), or it was a mixture of the two. But those two years of homeschooling were very blissful. 

I spent time on personal projects: on perfecting my drawing, writing, and art. I had a few friends around the neighborhood or from church, and since I was able to pick those, they didn't tease me or look at me funny. We'd play video games, watch movies, and build blanket forts. My self confidence grew a little bit. I was off to a good start again.

Just in time for me to have to go back to school.