To-day was like a day in a dream.
I've read too much, or I've been in my room too much, or I've burned too much insence, maybe--I've been listening to music I know by heart, and I found two pairs of shoes under my bed that I'd forgotten were mine.
I remember my shoes. One was a pair of sandals that are really Mum's, that I had when I was eleven and wore everywhere and loved like anything. I wore them until they fell apart. The other pair was also Mum's, brown leather shoes that always stained my feet dark red-brown. I wore them until they got too loose. Both pairs were full of dust, and I realised that I'd forgotten about them, even though I loved them so much two or three years ago.
I don't forget things that belonged to me, really.
Recently I've started to remember things again. For the last five years, if you asked me about school, I wouldn't have been able to tell you anything. I blanked out every single part of it. I couldn't remember my teachers' names, my classrooms, what I learnt, whether I had friends, things I said, books I read, the library, the music room, the way the art teacher kept turtles in a huge aquarium that was hidden between shelves and shelves of paper and pipe cleaners and string and ribbon and crayons and tissue paper and clay and plaster of paris and everything you could imagine. I couldn't remember any of that. I always said school was horrible and I didn't like to think about it. I had a sort of made-up slate story I told people if they asked, that it had been scarring and nobody liked me and finally we decided to homeschool me.
But recently I've been able to remember things, and it makes me wonder, is that because I'm not afraid of it any more? Do I not mind? I remembered a few weeks ago that 'nobody liked me' is a lie. I remember I had a friend named Rachel in first grade; for Show and Tell I brought it a big pink seashell, and she brought--I think, I don't remember exactly, I won't lie--her hairbrushes. She had beautiful black hair and a pointy face. She listened to the ocean in my seashell. We didn't have school together again until fourth grade, but we were almost-friends there. I remember in second grade when one boy jumped on my desk, that I was doing a puzzle with somebody who must have been my friend. It was raining, and we had recess inside.
I didn't have many friends. I didn't know many people. But I wasn't alone. I think I made that up because I couldn't remember. I can remember all sorts of things now, I remember school picture day, I remember standing in the lunch line, I remember when my third-grade teacher let us put up tents all over the room and have a pretend campfire night in the middle of the day (I also remember when she ridiculed me in front of the class for getting a maths exercise wrong); I remember lots of good things (and a fair number of the things that were, yes, scarring and resulted in my getting taken out of school).
I was just thinking about it, is all. I remember that I used to have birthday parties when lots of people came. I haven't had a birthday party with people since I was twelve, maybe. I don't have any friends living close enough any more.
I'm almost completely isolated, in real life. I just don't feel lonely most of the time. I remember a few months ago, though, that I realised that I always feel lonely if I don't fall asleep immediately. I have to go to bed feeling exhausted, or I'll lie awake and start crying. This is one of the reasons I get up so early in the morning.
But I was thinking, I was thinking, that for so long I thought the worst things had happened to me in school. But there must be hundreds of people who have absolute nightmares of years at school. It really wasn't half as bad as I've believed for the last five years. I made myself sick--I actually don't remember that, that's something I don't remember. I used to make myself sick so I wouldn't go to school, or so that I'd get taken out of class; but I only know because Mum says the school nurse and she realised it after it got so regular. I remember being sick often enough, but I never knew why. I remember that the school nurse used to let me spend recess and the lunch hour in her office helping her with things, but I don't remember that it was so I wouldn't have to be around the other children. I remember getting called fatso once, but I don't remember being teased apart from that. I remember being in the SEARCH programme, but I don't remember knowing what it meant. I remember, I remember, that I used to spend recess in May sitting out on the grass reading books with my best friend Hillary, who was skinny and little and had brownish-fair hair and whose father was terrifying.
It's just funny, that's all, what I remember and what I don't and what I've begun to remember again after all this time.
Also, I wish I could do nothing in the world but read and read and read. I wasn't able to read a single book from January to May except on the treadmill, because otherwise I had no time, and now I feel as though I hadn't been able to drink any water all that time, and I'm horrifically thirsty, only what I'm doing is reading instead of drinking, and I'm reading and reading and reading and it's still not enough to make up for those five months; and it makes me wish I had a month with nothing to do but read, until I wasn't thirsty any more.
This is all rather silly, isn't it?
I think I did all right as eucharistic minister. It won't be very frightening any more after this.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
