To nurture my own creative flow I am clearing the river beneath the river. I bought a project box about writing your autobiography. It has kept space in many cupboards never being explored or cracked open. My intent is to just write and use this tool to help me share my story.
The Awkward Age
The first day of junior high was nothing special. It meant we could play on the field instead of the playground. I was in the same school from first to eighth grade. I wore the same uniform and progressed up the track of classrooms, moving from one teacher to the next with the same group of kids. Social groups had already been established and if you were awkward the year before chances were it hadn’t changed. Junior high is that phase between the grown world and child’s play.
When I was 12 there was an innocence of childhood mixed with an eagerness to be older. I still wanted to play make believe but there were pressures to act and look older than I was. I remember feeling awkward because I didn’t have any interest in boys but my environment was telling me I should. I was already capable of responsibility taking care of younger children, but immature to the idea of being a popular female. I tended to write in journals and wear black clothes. My parents even spoke with me out of concern that I was depressed. I wasn’t sure if I was, but I got the message that my behavior seemed unusual to my family. I had braces and eventually started crushing on a guy who was a guitar genius. In fact, he was always a friend, but that crush lasted through junior high into high school. At that age I could feel that parental protection thinning because I was being exposed to more adult problems. It was at that time I learned about domestic violence, lack of job security, alcoholism.
There was also a surge of confidence as I ran for student body office, sang in talent shows, and even created my own enterprises personalizing frames with posters and selling hot chocolate at Christmastime in my neighborhood.
The women in my family were instrumental in helping me bring my ideas to fruition. My sister took me to a Cinderella audition. My mom encouraged my love of the arts and my Grandmother continuously showed me through her example of how to love and nourish myself and others.
As I moved from the child realm to teenage land I remember the anticipation of personal freedoms and the fear of those freedoms being taken from me.
