When I was ten, I hated my life. I won't say I was the least popular kid in my class, but I was right up there. (Down there?) I went to a private school, because when I was about six, I'd taken some tests and my parents were told that I'd do better in small classes. And so they scraped together the money to send me to a private school.
Intellectually, that school was the best thing that could've ever happened to me. Their classes were at least a year ahead of the public schools, so I was challenged without having to skip a grade. (When I was in kindergarten, they'd tried to skip me to the first grade. I refused - all my friends were in the old class, and I didn't want to be the baby.)
But socially... Well. My parents were convinced that the reason the other kids didn't like me was that they came from families much wealthier than ours. I'm not sure that was the case at all. I think they didn't like me because I was shy, and they instinctively sensed that I could be easily upset.
Kids have a much more stratified and protean social structure than adults. Every child needs to know they're not at the bottom. Every one needs someone they can push around and abuse - even if they're nice enough not to actually do it, they need to know that whipping-boy is there. (Yes, even your precious angel.) That was me.
I think kids are innately cruel. Not evil, in the way that cruel adults are evil - but thoughtlessly honest. I'm not saying kids don't lie. The gods know, I told enough of them in my day. But the lies kids tell are almost always for their own benefit. It would never occur to a kid to lie to save someone else's feelings.
I was in the fifth grade when I finally felt enough of an outsider that I told my parents that I wanted to go to a different school. Being as shy as I was, that was an enormous leap for me. And I guess it told my parents something, too - that I would rather face an entire room of people I didn't know at all than go back to the familiar abuse. It was probably something of a relief for them, anyway. We weren't poor, but we weren't rich, either.
Public school was a revelation for me. It was like an entire new world had opened up before my eyes. And it was infinitely better than private school had been.
But now, when someone talks about how they'd like to go back to being a child, I'm unable to resist qualifying it - that I'd only go back if I could remember being an adult. Because I can remember being ten.
Word of the Day: abstemious - marked by restraint, esp. regarding food or alcohol
I've thought of becoming at least partially vegetarian. Not out of any abstemious desires, or even because of health or moral reasons. And I couldn't do it completely - the smell of bacon frying or beef cooking sets off a Pavlovian response in me that requires satisfaction.
But at least ninety percent of the time, I'm not all that interested in meat. I find myself lately having to force myself to eat the pieces of chicken in my dinner rather than pick them out. And when I serve myself, I actually try to get as little meat as possible onto my plate.
Listen to your body, they say. Maybe my body is telling me it doesn't need any more protein for a while. Or maybe it's starved for vegetables and fruits. But how do I reduce my meat intake without depriving Matt or cooking two meals?
On the other hand, I ate an enormous rare steak when we were at the Outback a couple of weeks ago. Maybe it's just a summer thing. Or maybe it's just a chicken thing - maybe I just need to take a break from the chicken for a while. Ah, well, I'll figure it out...
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