Thoughts and Promises

Broken Alphabet

Bright fluorescent lights in the grocery store set my stage, and passersby who glanced my way were my audience. I danced down each aisle of the reflective tiles, spinning and twirling to some song playing in my head. Being overly cautious of each crack leaping from square to square and smiling at every person I saw. "That's my best friend," I would tell my mom, noting that I had no idea who they were and my mom would just 'mhmm' along with me. I was the happiest kid you could have ever met and outgoing, but now, now I'm a broken mirrored version. It's only when people get close enough to look in between the cracked and missing pieces that you can find any resemblance to who I once was. The girl who couldn't stop moving or dancing, that had a million friends whether they knew it or not, and the girl who made no effort to shout even when trying to whisper. 

I've changed. I can barely speak out to people, I no longer feel comfortable in my own skin, and getting called on is enough to cause another panic attack. Not the kind in movies where pretty girls cry softly with music playing in the background, but the incredibly frustrating kind. The kind where I want to break everything around me screaming, but I also can't see behind a blur of tears, and to breathe I have to gasp for air. The person who called me out might as well put a plastic bag over my head and then throw me into a circle of sharks, telling me to "figure it out." But, When I was little, I would have loved that, all I wanted was someone's attention, to love and be loved by everyone. So what changed? I think it was little things, each jab at me creating a new crack. Nobody should change themselves to appease society's expectations, and yet still, if we're pushed enough, we will lose sight of who we once were. Then at the end of the day, we have to push past the stigma that's engraved in our minds that we're not normal.

B,C,D,F,G,J,K,L,P,Q,R,S,T,V,X,Z. Out of twenty-six letters, I couldn't pronounce sixteen of them, not even including the compound sounds 'sh', 'ch', and 'th'. My voice was like a broken radio station, every now and then, you might hear a word come through, but for the most part, it was just static. The only person who could understand what I was saying was my sister. It was as if I was a foreign tourist that nobody could understand, and Heather was my interpreter. Although still, to this day, I'm not sure if I believe that. She could have just been making up things that I was apparently saying. Some of us actually think that may have been the issue, I had too many people talking for me that I was behind schedule with talking. Honestly, we don't know why. Maybe it was because I kept my binky for too long, maybe I really was late to the game, or maybe there was no reason at all. But, for whatever reason, my tongue couldn't figure out where to go and because of that, I needed to take classes to figure it out. 

I went often, it was a small room in an office, not much bigger than a single bathroom. A shelf filled with games took up half the room and a small table took up the rest. I was small then and couldn't imagine spending an entire day in that cramped space. I think my teacher was nice. Honestly, I don't remember much of her, besides her name and she would often let us choose what we did. I think they tried to make us feel less awkward about the whole thing by playing games, it probably did help. I remember one specific game that I loved, not for the game itself, but because I thought it was pretty. It was a board game, one where you have to move your piece to the finish line, but it looked like a tea party set in a secret garden. Each step forward was a stone, and the pieces we played with were little random objects, like a teacup, a book, or a doll. The game was banal, but every time I went to the class, that was the one I wanted to play. 

These games followed me all the way to middle school, where people started to ask questions. They would ask me where I was going in the middle of class. I was too embarrassed to tell them the truth. This time the game was Apples to Apples, and if you haven't heard of it, it's where you put down a card or word that best fits the subject. I remember one time in specific. There were a boy and a girl; the groups were always small. The boy he talked too fast, and the girl couldn't pronounce her R's, I was still stuck on S's. Weirdly I was always jealous of the people who got stuck on R, I thought they sounded much better than me. The word this time was crunchy, and the other two kids took it seriously, putting down chips or whatever, and I put down the word skeletons. I thought it was hilarious, I couldn't stop laughing and wasn't able to say the word; nobody else seemed to get it.