MEMOIR
The Other Side of Normal
The Art of Saying the Wrong Thing
I remember being afraid. The first day of school. Everything new, everything unrecognizable. I don’t remember how I got there but must have followed my brother onto the bus and was delivered to the school grounds. The ushering into the classroom, introductions to classmates — a blur. I’m shivering, sitting on the gymnasium floor. Rising out of the din, I hear the school rules, pledge allegiance, and repeat the Lord’s Prayer.
The seats were assigned in class, and I was lucky enough to be seated next to an unusually verbose, tiny, blonde girl. Growing up with brothers, I had very limited experience with girls.
I’d never met anyone like her before. She was incredible. Beaming, relaxed. Dressed like the other kids. Spoke with ease. Seemed to have made friends already and we weren’t through the very first day yet. How did she know what to say? How was she so confident? She didn’t seem uneasy at all.
Like, at all.
How?
Almost boring a hole in the tops of my new shoes with my eyes, I memorized the shiny patent black mirrors. Safety was in not looking up. Not looking someone in the eyes. The fear was almost paralyzing. Luckily, if I caught someone’s eye, I could quickly look away, my eyes darting to something that suddenly required my attention. Readjust my books. Tie my shoelace. Reorganize my desktop.
Years later, I trained myself out of that. To not look away. Hold their gaze.
Gasp.
It wasn’t easy.
A couple of months in, we’d settled into a routine. The day seemed like any other day in school. My friend, let’s call her Claire, was my constant companion, a safety shield against the world of the school playground, with its incomprehensibilities. Things were so much easier standing behind her, basking in the delight that was her personality, her social ease. I must have learned so much from her in those early months. Silently taking note, observing from her shadow. What to say, when to say it. There was one last lesson left to complete. Sometimes these things take shape in completely unexpected ways.
Our group of girls was reasonably predictable. The same 4–5 girls, depending on the ebb and flow of little-girl-school-yard politics. I can’t tell you what games we were playing. I can’t remember what was popular and what wasn’t. What I do remember is that the politicking was fierce and that you had to stay on your toes to remain unscathed. Josie said such and such about Tracy and now she’s shunned. Tracy started a rumor about Maggie, now they are all on Tracy’s side. And so on and so on.
Now. I didn’t understand a thing about this cycle. I was an outsider looking in. I tried to mimic as much as I could, but I really didn’t understand the whys and why nots. Why do we like her? Why do we not like her now? How come you can say this but not that? Was I the only one? Did they all know the rules of the game? Or were they all just as confused as I was? What this was to me was an endless game of Calvin-ball, where the rules were made up spontaneously.
I was soon to learn that lesson the hard way.
We were sitting cross-legged in a circle, settled into our special corner of the playground. There was general chatter about who said what. The laughing and jostling with each other was well rehearsed, comfortable. Maggie said something scorching, and we all laughed. Tracy mocked her back with a retort that had us all in stitches. Claire was the next to point out a foible that we all snickered at. I returned fire with an absurdity that I thought was just as clever.
The circle fell silent. There was no laughter, no tittering, no snickers. The looks were of disapproval, shock even. “Come on!” Tracy instructed the group, “We’re leaving.”
They got up and single-filed after Tracy. Claire, suddenly a stranger, left one last look of disappointment behind her. What? What? I didn’t get it. My heart in my mouth, I swallowed hard. I didn’t know where to go. I remember walking towards the other kids in the playground; they all seemed to hover in their own cliques. They turned their backs as I drew near. I wandered the playground a bit and found where my brother played street hockey with his friends. Unnoticed, I sat off to the sideline watching and consoling myself, trying not to show my hurt. During conflict, boys just duke it out and by the time the dust settles, everyone has reconciled. My heart ached with jealousy.
So. This was not an easily blown-over event. The next day was the same, and the day after that. By the end of the week, I knew this wasn’t the same as the other short-lived transgressions. I knew I would not be invited back into the group anytime soon, if ever.
Since, I’ve been told that exclusion is a ‘girl’s game’.
You don’t have to tell me twice.
This was the first of many interactions that left me feeling isolated and different. I have been lucky enough to take to socializing relatively well after this first lesson. Now, highly masked and camouflaged, I’ve learned how to behave “normally”. People don’t believe me when I confess a feeling of otherness, of never feeling like I quite fit in. But this is how I see it; I’m just peering over the fence from the other side of normal.
To this day, I can’t remember what I had said.
