2

04OCT2009
　
In my spare time I have been researching colleges, college benefits and programs. I don’t mention it to K___, even though he knows about it.
When I think about my education, past or future, I swell up with anger and pain. I avoid the subject, despite the fact that K___ is knowledgeable about schools, having been in school regularly the past twenty five years.
K___ is confident about his education, which makes exchanges about it even worse. Instead, I half-heartedly search the internet, and try to take notes, try to make a plan, and am careful not to trigger the pain.
It is difficult for me to work the logistics of my life -- especially college -- because I feel so far behind. It alarms me, just the idea of walking into a college and having to face them without feeling insecure.
The last time I was in school I was eleven. Mom pulled me and my sisters out of school, claiming she was going to home school us.
I used to see college as a presumptuous institution. Being American seemed to be all about paperwork. The Americans placing a higher value on a piece of paper that says you’re strong instead of actual strength. A piece of paper that says you’re capable instead of actual capability. Or a piece of paper that says your intelligent instead of actual intelligence.
Lately I haven’t been saying much in general. It began gradually, then took awhile for me to be able to articulate it to myself. At first I noticed K___’s confidence, how effortless it is. K__ knows he’s a man. Sometimes he can get overly confident, and I wonder if I want his brand of confidence.
Sch___ is also sure he’s a man. So he perceives the world in a way I wonder about. To him, what he thinks is cool, is cool. And what he thinks is funny, is funny. Except it’s not always cool or funny, at least to me. It makes being his colleague difficult sometimes, because he doesn’t seem to register that how he perceives may not be the end all. His perception is so final because he knows he’s a man, he knows his perception is True.
Mace_ has the same finality concerning his perception. Certain rock groups are cool, certain shows are funny, and it is unfathomable if the person he is talking to doesn’t quite agree.
K__ and I agree the vast majority of the time as far as what’s cool, what’s funny, what’s good music. Maybe that’s why we’re friends.
It quiets me, maybe even intimidates me, when I see this kind of confidence. I wonder if I want it; it seems to go against universality, it being so sure of itself, in its own little world.
K__ is good at being his own Him, and he knows it. In the face of it, I feel underdeveloped, and intimidated.
I have little experience being Him. What Mom and R__ hated most was the idea of Possibility. And that’s what Him embodied: the Wildness, the universality, the infinite possibilities of being Alive. That’s why they were stunned when I knew to fight R___ off in the blue mustang.
I was considered ‘slow’ by specialists, by teachers. I was a slow developer, learning to walk late, and especially to talk. There wasn’t enough oxygen when I was born. To most I was a wasted baby.
But I knew anyway; and paid for it through abuse. The culture of the House was to destroy this element of possibility. To make us feel like we were doing wrong if we were original, if we had our own qualities, our own intelligence, other than what they had taught us, or had allowed us.
They taught, through abuse, for me not to show up, to not be present, to not have a spirit. It was why in early elementary school, I’d feel guilty if I studied for a test, because I felt like I was cheating.
It was why when I began to grow into a teenager -- and Him became more obvious -- I had to take extra care to hide Him, because that’s what Mom and A__ and H__ were looking for.
On an episode of The Wonder Years, Kevin is at Wenny’s door, and says:
_And I know I shouldn’t even be here. And I know you don’t even want to talk to me. Wenny, I know I did something terrible. Something horrible. And if I could take it back I would. You know, I wish you would do something awful to me and then we could be even. But, uh, you’d never do that. Anyway, never mind. It’s just all this stuff is happening. My brother, he left home, he’s gone, and I just need someone to talk about it with. You‘re the only one I could think of. You’ve always been the only one, Wenny. I just wanted you to know that._
I don’t know how to talk to K___. He’s the only one who knows me here, and there‘s no one else paying attention. I compensate by being a trustworthy friend, by being a good listener.
At the chow hall, when he forgets his utensil pack, I notice, and grab an extra. He sits down and says, _Sh-t,_ and I hand it to him just before he gets back up.
I could write the story of the House out, could write the past twenty five years out, and it could be the greatest piece ever written, and still I might not want it, compared to what it would’ve been like to have had someone to talk to back then.
It is difficult to feel like I belong, when I have little materially in common with the other guys. Meanwhile the feeling of belonging is strong when I listen to my conscience.
Lately I’ve felt this need to know how to talk on my own. Instead of just being reactive to what others are saying.
When the situation arises, it’s like I simply don’t have anything to say. I should be able to talk about my life, like how K___ does. Just a natural ongoing commentary.
Instead the largest part of my life is something I can only write about in little green notebooks. I feel my experience has some sort of shame attached to it. Like I need to get rid of it so I can move on and get a real life, one worth sharing.