I’m the third of four children for my parents; our family consisted of myself, my two older sisters, and eventually my younger brother. For the first four years of my life, I was raised as an only child, though, and my parents love to remind me what a precocious, loving, adventurous child I was during this time. My mom still brags about me knowing which state is which from its outline at the age of two. By then, I was also reading and writing, and I’d leave my parents little notes telling them I loved them or that they looked funny or some other adorable three year old shit.
That was who I was, a sweet little troublemaker with a heart of gold. Even at that age, it was apparently apparent that I was different; my parents didn’t really know what to do with me, but they tried their best. Montessori school was the path they chose, followed by a private pre-kindergarten, since their brilliant and weird little rascal deserved a similar educational experience. All I can remember now from those days are objects - obnoxious sterlite storage boxes for the Montessori toys and an old cracked red-and-black basketball that was baked on the blacktop of the pre-K under the relentless El Paso sun.
Most of my memories of other people have been wiped out from this point in time. I know for a fact I had friends - my lawyer father would remind me about how one girl I got along with was the granddaughter of a “no good, cheap ass, worthless” owner of an insurance company he frequently sued - but I barely remember them. I couldn’t say a bad or good thing about them, today.
After that year, everything changed. For one, the pre-K shut down unexpectedly, and my parents had to scramble to find me a school. Simultaneously, my mother got pregnant and my father won custody of my two sisters from their biological mother, and they came to live with us. Ten days ahead of my fourth birthday, my brother popped into my world, and a few months later, so did my older sisters.
In hindsight? That fucking sucked.
The entirety of my perception of the world changed, and while I’m sure I was thrilled at the time, I can’t help but remember how rough I came out the other side of that time. Of course, those are faded memories. Much like the basketball I played with, my memories are sun bleached and washed out. Cracks riddle the surface and make it hard to play with, and the writing is almost gone. But if you look closely and really work for it, you could still shoot around with it. And I do remember that, the feeling of the sharp rubber hitting my palms and stinging for a second. It feels like it does to remember being forced to take entrance tests to private schools that met the standard my parents had come to expect from me.
Having expectations wasn’t a terrible thing, and I genuinely enjoyed learning. I still do. But you know what I also enjoyed? Being the best and being annoying about it. And, as a five year old, I succeeded at that, too! Because I tested into the second grade of an elite private school back in El Paso. Upon hearing that their little mutant child was a prodigy, my parents - mercifully - only advanced me into the first grade, leaving me a year younger than my peers. Surely, that wasn’t going to end poorly!
It did. I lasted a little over two years before my own cracks started showing.
—
In my mind, I had plenty of friends. I talked to all the kids in my class every day, so they like me, right? On field trips, I wanted to remind everyone to stay safe at the dairy farm and hold hands. When my teachers asked questions, I always had an answer… even if the question wasn’t meant to be answered. If we played games in class, I’d make sure I knew the rules so we could all play fairly. All of this stuff I did, it was all to help these people I saw every day. I wanted to love being around them like I loved being around my mother, who was a stay at home mom for 10 years, including the four years I was an only child.
Sadly, these people didn’t have the same patience as my mom. My teachers loved me, but I remember them being frustrated by my insistence to answer questions and try to get ahead of everyone else to volunteer to help. They’d criticize the fact I was prone to being late, stranding me out in the hallways after the bell would ring and they’d shut the classroom door in my face. The other students - my friends - would laugh at how I practiced my cursive penmanship obsessively. Or how I would count all the sticks on the ground during pick up sticks, and make sure that nobody was cheating when they’d try and move one of the fragile wooden dowels.
Through writing this, I’m realizing how much I remember from this time, and how much I didn’t realize I remembered. It’s odd.
One memory sticks out from this period in time. Let me grab a curly white wig, big glasses, a wicker purse, and a thick Brooklyn Italian accent real quick. Ahem- Picture it. El Paso, 2002.