Everything

Being Weird

it all started when I was little. preschool, maybe, but first grade is the first time I really remember someone calling me that name.
I was playing and having so much fun. jumping around the playground at recess and being completely myself, like every little kid, before it was destroyed by people's words. the kids called me "weird" and I didn't want to be that. they made it sound like it was bad and they were calling ME this bad thing. It was okay, it was just one kid calling me this.
However, it was only the beginning. I continued on throughout elementary. I remember crying the whole way home on the bus, once.
A girl named Brooke teased me every day and I didn't understand why. I began to change slowly, without knowing. Becoming more and more independent, I closed off to avoid being called weird.
My favorite thing to do as a kid was always to play Sims 2 Pets on the couch until my eyes hurt. I could have the life I always wanted in this computer game and design my own house and it was so real. I would even get excited, sappy and sad for the characters.
I liked watching movies, playing sims and eating beef stew, instead of going outside.
I used to go outside, when I lived in town. I was always out with my friends walking around, swimming in the pool and playing pretend in my best friend's grandparent's forest.
My first real best friend was Evelyn Schork. I remember the day I met her. It might be my earliest memory, at the age of just four.
Evelyn and her mom, Melissa, were Jehovah's Witnesses. They went door to door spreading news of their religion and handing out pamphlets and reading material. They had maps and certain places to go and not to go. My mother and I were on that map and they came to our door. When my mother opened it I remember seeing a small blonde haired girl in a pink puffy coat. She was two.
All I interpreted from the situation was someone to play with. We went to my room and my mom had the conversation that led to our 10 year relationship with the Jehovah's Witnesses.
I liked being a Jehovah's Witness, basically. I was too naive to see the way they kept my mother and Melissa as outsiders. They were nice to me and the buildings were beautiful.
The Kingdom Hall was not like any church I've ever been inside. There were individual red cushioned seats to make up the rows leading up to the stage.The curtains behind the stage were beautiful off-white and they reminded me of frosting on a cup cake. The building had a pleasant aroma and pleasant vibes. I loved to explore it when there was no one else in the building. I got butterflies in my stomach, like I got when my mom and I would walk through houses for sale. I wanted to live at the Kingdom Hall so badly. The walls were a robin's egg blue and there were imposter flowers pouring off every ceiling ledge and table.
The men were always the main speakers. Men like Lynn, Mr. Burmeister and Neil. Lynn and his father were my two favorite people from the Kingdom Hall. They were the two most genuine ones.
Lynn was always so positive and funny and he and his wife made a beautiful couple.
His father radiated warmth. His eyes held stories and his hands showed the hard work he's done. Whenever he smiled, it was always genuine. He would talk to me after the meetings and his white hair was beautiful.
Their entire family had their houses on the same road, and they were beautiful houses. Large, white and classy. The one at the bottom of the hill was the biggest and they had horses. I loved their horses and all other horses, too.
Every little girl is obsessed with horses. I fell in love with a horse, I'm pretty sure. Spirit of the Simeron. He was animated, but so beautiful.
I would always make my mom draw me pictures of him during the, unforgivingly long meetings at the Kingdom Hall.
That's when I really started enjoying art. Instead of having a coloring book, I would rather have my own mother effortlessly draw a picture right in front if my eyes and I would color them. It was so enchanting the way she just glided her pen across the paper, making so many lines that formed a beautiful horse. Sometimes, he would be reared up, but mostly he would be running, maybe to a blessed body of water in the distance.
I had one of those pens with eight different options for a color by the pen clip. It was my favorite thing ever. I would use it to practice my left hand writing.
I was right handed but I wanted so badly to be left handed that I would just write certain letters over and over until they became better than a scribble. I can write with my left hand quite good, now.
There were the downfalls to being a Jehovah's Witness, as well. They didn't celebrate birthdays, because John the Baptist was beheaded for a princess's birthday request. They didn't celebrate Christmas because they believed Jesus Christ to be born in October/November, rather than December. Halloween was a devil's holiday, so that wasn't celebrated, either. They also didn't say the Pledge of Allegiance.
So at school I was set aside during the Pledge, like the burnt popcorn pieces, while the other kids said it in unison. I missed ten years of Birthday parties, Christmas presents, and trick or treating and had to be asked every single day why I didn't say the pledge allegiance, like the other kids. I got used to explaining what a Jehovah's Witness was to the closed-off, small-town Delwood kids.
I didn't have to for very long, considering that in 7th grade, Delwood had no middle school, so I went to a new school, Northeast. My mother and I stopped going to the meetings and she got a boyfriend, too.
His name was Gene, while her's was Genie. I found that ironic and he lived in a cute little house in Maquoketa, Iowa. There was no siding and wooden floors that were like ice in an ice rink when he polished them. I remember sliding around on them and doing little spins.
The first night I met Gene, it was in December, around Christmas. He was at my house on the living room on the old futon with my mom, they were laying down together on it and that was the first time I ever saw them together. I didn't like it and I didn't like my mom to be that way.
She didn't seem to care that I was seeing her like this.
Once, I was in my old room by the bathroom and I heard the shower running. I also heard my mother's voice. I simply thought my mom was taking a shower, but then Gene's voice rose from the depths, as well. I cried and texted my friend, Wyatt, about it.
"My mom is in the shower with some guy." I sent.
"Yeah, that happens, I guess," he replied.
He didn't understand the magnitude. MY MOTHER was being defiled and taken advantage of by some strange man she met. That's what I thought the situation was, until my mom sat me down and me about the fact that she and him went to high school together. They had known each other for a long time.
I still didn't like it. I thought it was gross. I didn't even look at myself in the mirror, naked. Let alone, be able to imagine having someone else have full view of my body, exposed and vulnerable.
It all just reminded me of being little and showering with my Evelyn. I didn't feel weird about it, but thinking back on it, it was quite strange. We would wash each other's hair sometimes and wash each others' backs. We thought nothing of it.
Gene got on my good side in due time. He would make me laugh and my mom seemed really happy with him. I was more focused on the new kids at northeast and who I would become friends with.
the kids were exactly the same at northeast as they were at my elementary school, Delwood. I became friends with the "weird" kids. I felt a connection with them that I didn't with the jocks and overachievers. These people didn't feel the need to talk about others' lives and gossip from lack of anything better to do.
My friends had imagination and substance and each one had a story. Their lives weren't like every poster-child sporto with rich parents and a huge house. They had dark pasts and bright thoughts. I could be myself with them.
The first to befriend me was Chase Pyse. he actually had quite the crush on me, but I didn't view him like that and, surprisingly, we stayed friends. The second one to befriend me was a rare mixture of your classic girl with her gossip and normal views on life, along with some "weird" kid qualities, Allie Williamson. She was her own person with her dark brown hair and clear blue eyes. She was a Mexican girl with a freckle dusted face. Her mother and she had the same nose and resembled each other, extremely, but Allies mom dyed her hair blonde most of the time and Allie was always dying her hair, as well, damaging it so ruthlessly.
She and I hung out for the first time in November of seventh grade and we drew pictures on her couch and her mom yelled at her and her brother for making a mess. Her dog was a bit wild and jumped on me, upon meeting me.
Her house was interesting to be at, but not in a pleasant way. there was usually a puddle of pee waiting to be cleaned up, or a little turd of dog poop in the spare bedroom. She had actually developed a habit of taking a big step from a couple feet away from her staircase, onto the step, to avoid the puddle of pee that was usually hiding there. I don't know why they just left it there, I sometimes had to ask her why she wouldn't clean it up, for her to actually consider it.
Her feces infested house didn't bother me, I wasn't one to judge someone based on the appearance of their house. She and I would go for walks around the small town of Charlotte, sneak out after her mom went to work, just to go down to the deserted town park merely to sit and talk all night. Something we could have done at her house, but she and I didn't find that very interesting. Whenever a car would pass we would sprint from the sidewalk to the shelter of the trees, just in case we would get in trouble for being out when we weren't supposed to.
We would always make huge plans to go to six flags or a different state for a fun trip. She would always be making budgets for something and saving up to do something, but would always end up spending it before she even got close to her desired amount. She always had so much money, yet her mom was always broke. They always went out to eat but her mom complained when I would go along, asking if I had money, which I never did. I stopped going to eat with them.
I felt bad for Allies brother. Allie would always yell at him for the smallest things, like walking loudly or saying something weird, calling him a "fucking loser", "dumb ass" was her favorite. She would call him that just about every time I was over. I got used to it, learned to ignore it. Sometimes I would say "Allie.." when she was getting out of control, and give her a crazy face that said "why are you doing this". She would even sometimes hit him. I remember many times she would come to school, bragging about punching her brother in the face, arm, stomach, etc., like she was proud. I would not promote her lunatic behavior. I hate violence and everything about it.
I remember our obsessive behaviors toward boys, too. One boy, especially, Nick Sellnau.
We just thought he was an angel sent from heaven, with his blonde hair and lanky legs. He was popular and a grade older. His twin brother wasn't as popular, but he was nicer. he's the good one.
We would have never had a chance with nick, he only goes for the girls who are crazy about sports and do nothing else with their lives.
It's not like these girls are the beauty queens of the school. Those girls and us girls were quite separate.
Nick taunted Allie, texting her things and leading her on. He even started a rumor about 13 year old Allie texting him, telling him that she was "wet". She denied it of course but, I wouldn't doubt her actually saying it.
Allie's sister, Ashilynne, was a real wild child and Allie spent a lot of time with her. She and ashilynne were just about the same person. Ashlynn's introduced Allie to weed and sex and stealing and every bad thing Allie has introduced to me, as well. Ashilynne promoted Allie to do these bad things.
Ashilynne fascinated me. She had tried to commit suicide a time or two and I had never met her, but her facebook had pictures that she looked beautiful in and she always had boyfriends I wish I had. I found it so captivating that she could have all these things that I wish I had, yet want to give it up with suicide.