Memories …

So I seem to be delving with my 365 posts into my elementary and junior high angst, and it makes me ponder: What would I be like without those traumatic, awkward years?

I love to complain about my Catholic school education.

First, the nuns were mean (actually, not really to me — but I saw them abuse other kids). Sister Simona used to rap their knuckles with rulers. And she would dump poor Matt Grief’s desk out every day because he couldn’t keep it organized. And a pencil being out of place? That, my friends, was the equivalent of crossing Jesus. I know now that she had a textbook Napoleon complex. Most of us were taller than she was in the second grade. Seriously! But when I was seven, she was the scariest person on Earth.

Then in fifth and sixth grades, it was the other kids who were horrible shits. There was a boy who would actually beat me up. Made my nose bleed once. While two of my “girlfriends” held me down. (That term was used loosely when there were only about 10 of us in the same grade and we all went to most of the sleepovers.) And the gym teacher, who I told about it afterward? She said, “You look OK to me.” Apparently, bullying was not on the radar screen of teachers in ruralsville in the 80s. Good thing I didn’t have access to a shotgun …

Then it was the psychopath who taught seventh grade. She was a Jesus freak in the most traditional sense of the term, which is more chilling than the short, fat, knuckle-rapping nun in my book. She made us meditate daily — we were supposed to silently ask Jesus to come into our hearts. Because I had lots of questions (admittedly really annoying questions for her — because they were and are UNANSWERABLE and the reason that little light still doesn’t shine in my dark heart), I was evil and that was that. My questions: “So if Jesus loves everyone no matter what, why is it that people who do bad things go to hell?” and “Why can’t girls be priests if God loves everyone the same?” I was sent to the office more than once and got detention from her almost every day. She was determined to break me. I didn’t break. It drove her crazy. She resorted to telling the girls in my class they shouldn’t be friends with me.

All that, and the science program was a joke.

But here’s the thing: I wouldn’t be who I am without those experiences. I am a stubborn, unbreakable being. I have always had a strong sense of self. I really don’t care much what other people think of me. I do what I think is right and move on. Not much ruminating here. And all the sentence diagramming and rigorous spelling tests gave me a career. The writing, that I had to come to on my own. But how to spell accommodate? Whether that sentence takes a comma or a semicolon? Should that be its or it’s? Those things, the nuns beat into me.