How did we get here?

Childhood (Note: Make better name)

Our country was founded by Christian puritans, so it only makes sense that I would start in the beginning. Any historical event needs historical context, after all. I could sit here and give a very generic and bland "When I was a boy, I loved sticks and rivers" type of story, but I did just say that I would be answering a pretty burning question while telling you about my unique life story, and given how much we have left to go, I really need to focus on keeping your interest, so I'll try not to bore you under the assumption that you care SO much about me in elementary school. Rather, I think that there's a lot of possible reflection from my childhood. Being a military brat, virtually everyone that I know in real life has no semblance of what I was like as a child, so while that gives me a hell of an opportunity to tell some really cool lies, I'll surprise you a bit instead.Despite what many make me out to be nowadays, I had a lot of very social traits when I was a kid. In retrospect, that makes a lot of sense. I'm a (certified) gifted kid that loved talking to people and was generally well-liked by my teachers, so I held pretty much every trait that an elementary kid would ever look for. I help you finish your math in 10 minutes, and we can talk about... whatever elementary school kids found interesting in 2015. That era is a bit of a fever dream for me. Regardless, even though that makes sense on paper, people who know me nowadays are often surprised that I was a social butterfly (My mom would definitely argue that I wasn't, by the way, but she doesn't know my school life). Dare I say that I was a popular kid? I knew just about everybody in my grade by first AND last name, and kids really enjoyed my company then. Yet, when people look at me now, the response is something like "You're telling me that you WEREN'T the kid sitting in the corner and reading??" and, yeah, I really wasn't. I may resemble that idea more nowadays (minus the reading. How do you even find a good book anyway?), but damnit, I swear that I was cool when attending Oveta Culp Hobby Elementary in Killeen, Texas.

To describe reaching that point of social success, I WOULD like to start in the real beginning which would be me as a baby, but I'm writing this alone and in secret, and my memory only really goes back until I was about 6. You don't start making memories until you're three or four, and anyone who claims they can remember anything earlier is either lying or doesn't understand the concept of falsified memories. My memory may be good, but I am not about to be the subject of some weird scientists' experiments. As a result, I remember almost none of my life from before I was 6 which means I have hardly any memory of living in Oklahoma either (I was 6 when I moved to Texas). My earliest memory that I can instantly recall is being 4 and being sentenced to the eternal dungeon that we know as the time-out corner. I don't remember why I got punished with the corner (it was probably for a good reason, though), but I remember knowing that my mom and sister were out doing... girl activities, and making this visual in my head of them doing that while I was stuck in the corner. There's no lesson or anything that I'm leading up to with that. I just thought that it would be funny to share. Good times, dad.

Mentioning that I was very social in elementary school - or at least 1st grade and onwards - really puts into perspective how much different I was back then. In all honesty, it's probably not more exclusive to me than it would be anyone else who became more introverted as time went on. One thing that I've noticed about elementary kids is that they do not give a damn. This is before you start caring what people think of you, so being social is so much easier. Kids are just like "What's your favorite color? Red? That's mine too! We should be friends" and it just works. We have a thing or two to learn from them. Okay, I'm being a bit sarcastic, but there is a point: The fact that I was so able and willing to talk to my peers and make friends as a result of the sheer simplicity of it may have directly led to it becoming harder in middle school and beyond. When that age hit and I had to start accounting for other factors beyond who I personally wanted to be friends with, the whole concept of it became tougher. At that point, I found it easier to sacrifice something that I truly wanted than to reflect and adapt in order to make it more obtainable. Circumstances changed, and those who may have been ready for the change adapted well, but for many of us who had had it easy, we weren't sure how to keep up.