blog 002

Spongebob v.s. the kindergartners (/r)

School was never my favorite.I have no clue how my brain developed in my first 2 years in school, but looking back I truly felt the same in Kindergarten versus sixth grade. I thought I was grown and I was only 2 feet tall. Our coloring assignments seemed to me like they should be for babies, and I never understood why that one boy always cried for 3 hours after his mom left him for the day.

Why is it that at 5-6 years old I saw myself closer in mind to the teachers than the children? Is that an eldest child thing?

I saw school like work. I had to go and it was just a short time till I could clock out and be back home having real fun again.

One memory in particular I’ve had in mind these last couple days was of the recess I lost some “friends”.

I was the proud owner of a bright blue, loungefly sized, plastic Spongebob backpack. It was my favorite backpack. My dad wrote my name on it with sharpie and I carried it to recess, lunch, class, and chapel. Was I a Spongebob super-fan? Not really — I just loved that backpack specifically.

There was a group of girls who always asked if they could take turns wearing my backpack at recess. I was nice and entertained them. They were nice about it and treated my treasure with respect.

One day, the “leader” of this group asked if she could wear my backpack and I said “no.”

You’d think I kicked her dog by the way she reacted.

She walked off silently and then the rest of the girls came up to me and, in short, said I was the worst for not sharing and they couldn’t believe how mean I was. I was no longer “allowed to play with them”.

I saw them consoling the lead girl by the swing set later like she was grieving the loss of my plastic backpack..

Funny enough I didn’t feel guilty whatsoever and I proceeded to have the most fun recess by myself with my Spongebob backpack by my side.

I think I knew deep down what a gross over reaction those girls had. At 5 years old I knew it was okay to say “no”, and I knew I would survive just fine without people like them in my life.

Teeny Bopper me was on to something.

I still to this day have attachments to objects I really like. I’m 29 years old and I probably own 29 stuffed animals. I fine tuned my collection of objects to things I absolutely adore and I will not hesitate to adopt more plushies if the moment arises.

Where I sometimes waver is the confrontation bit.

I don’t like it.

I can go Red Ross and channel my inner kindergartner when I need to if my metaphorical backpack is at risk. But I need to remember it’s okay to say no and it’s okay to upset people, like little me knew.

I miss that backpack now that I think about it..

xoxo

K