So, I clearly had the timeframe wrong from the accident, but that’s what happens when you deal with memories from 40 years ago. The accident probably happened in October because school was in session by then and I have no idea where we were going. We were just all in the bed of the truck and dad was driving way too fast for our pock marked driveway. You know the rest of that story.
Recovery wasn’t any easier than injury. I went back to school eventually and after the initial ‘wow, look at that thing’ it all of a sudden turned into an ‘I don’t want to get near it’ thing. This is a small town. There are 500 kids K-12. (PreK hadn’t been invented yet.) Now, I have a classroom of kids I’ve know my whole life who won’t even get near me because I look like a mummy and I’m going to die. They don’t want me to make them sick. The teacher tried to calm them down and tell them that nothing would happen to them and that I was just injured and the bandages and gauze were there so I could heal and to protect the wound. Things got even worse as the gauze came off little by little. Then they could see the stitches. The stitches came out and they could see the scars. Once they could see the scars, even though this was no fault of my own, even my two closest friends abandoned me for a time.
The only person who interacted with me on a positive level was my teacher. So on top of all of the other shit, I was now teacher’s pet, by their own doing. Different is not something you want to be in elementary school. Elementary school kids are all conformists and any difference is dissected, examined and ruled as unacceptable regardless of circumstance. They will pick up on that one little difference and chew on it like a pack of hyena. You are permanently ostracized.
These are the same kids who wrote me the kind letters while I was out right after the accident happened. I was looking forward to being with them again because I liked school and I was kind of lonely and bored at home. Unfortunately, once I returned to school, I got exactly the opposite response. I was now different, strange, marginalized. This was the one singular event that drove the rest of my school experience through the next 11 grades. I was unwanted, unpopular and an outcast. I was disillusioned, angry and incredulous. I would tell my mom and she would just say that they just have to get used to it and once they do everything will be fine. My dad would just growl because I was crying and weak. (This was his fault anyway. I’m not sure why he even got to have an opinion.) Of course I cried at school from time to time when the kids would be especially mean. I didn’t know or understand what was going on.
This particular memory opened another strand of zip line of memories stretching from 1st grade through 12th grade. It was not a strand that I wanted opened yet.
cazandoconejos 