<p>My early childhood experiences are what led me into “trouble” (so to speak) regarding the school world, so I’ll try to sum up what I can from the beginning to what’s brought me here.</p>
<p>My father and his family were what you’d call the stereotypical Irish drunks. Not only that, but there’s an almost 100% incidence of severe mental illness and cognitive dysfunction on his side, which, of course, was exacerbated by drinking…and more drinking…and more drinking. My mother, meanwhile, has never been what you’d call assertive, and could never get up the gumption to walk out (even to bring me with her); not only that, but even in the small town region where I grew up, my father’s parents were extremely well-connected and loved by all. Add to that, my mother taught elementary school in the district where her someday father-in-law was once principal (and she his employee), and later a town admin, and she met my dad through that. Even more Twilight Zone Mayberry for you: The old man once taught CCD/catechism in the local parish where my mother went to church as a kid. This is at least 20 years before she ever went to work and he was her boss. Creepy, huh? Well, ain’t that America, as John Mellencamp would say. (Miley Cyrus and her brother/husband/father/second step-cousin twice removed might also agree.)</p>
<p>Anyway, Mom and the boss’ son, my father, were later married, and had me, but my mother’s never been a drinker or partier or part of the “in-crowd” (the “good girl,” one might say), and that was a big reason why she quickly fell out of favor with the in-laws. You know the whole thing about a mother-in-law clashing with the wife-to-be because the bride has found herself “in trouble” at some point? One of the biggest arguing points was that my mom didn’t, and my paternal grandmother thought she was preachy and pure. She (grandmother) probably would have preferred it if my father had knocked up the entire varsity cheerleader team rather than settle down and get married to a good wife and mom. </p>
<p>Now, from time to time, I had to visit with these nutcases, who reeked of Marlboros and Budweiser, when I was a little tyke still sipping my apple juice. Not surprisingly, I used to get terrified and throw fits because I didn’t want to leave mom’s side and head to the worst little smokehouse in New England. Physically and in demeanor, my paternal grandmother also reminded me of Ursula the sea witch from The Little Mermaid, which was #1 at the box office around this time, and the parallel imagery resonated deeply within my fragile child psyche. </p>
<p>So my mother became emotionally and physically ill because she did actually want to leave my father, but knew full well that she’d lose any custody battle to the incoherent but powerful Dead Kennedys of Stepford-Amityville. She left her job teaching and was never able to return. Everything just deteriorated from that point on – her health, my father’s habits, and because everything was in such disarray, my emotional state grew worse as well. Once it came time for the first day of school, I wanted to withdraw into my little security shell, and would again throw fits when that forcefield was ever penetrated. </p>
<p>So my mom, being the good mom who would have spent her whole life and career going to bat for the 60 or so kids in her Kindergarten class, now had to face the intolerable cruelty of the town school board for just one – her own. When my father’s temper flared up, she would bring me to stay at her mother’s house for protection while she took the blows (often physically) in their arguments. But according to the school board, I was spending too much time at Grandma’s (in the neighboring town, ironically the same town where Mom once worked) to be counted as a resident/student of the school district where I still did live. It wasn’t that I “lived” at my grandmother’s, but would stay there from time to time. </p>
<p>Nope, according to the school board I had to spend 100% of my time and sleep 365 days of the year in my “hometown,” or I wouldn’t be allowed to stay in school at the public level. So we tried private (Catholic) school, but I was still prone to emotional upset, and if you think the playground bullies are tough (see an earlier post in another section), just wait until the nuns beat the living “demonic possession” out of you. Not only that, but I was tested as having a “gifted”-level IQ, and the See Spot Run format of the picture-book Bible stories just bored me to tears. (This is the Catholic Church, too – big believers in the notion that a little knowledge by a precocious young female is too grievous a sin to amend with an “apple” for the teacher!)</p>
<p>So Catholic school didn’t work; public school didn’t want me; plus, for my stark-raving fear and “tantrums,” the school board wanted me sent off to some insane asylum for “feral” children, so to speak (where they get more “feral” being away from society IMHO). On and on the battle raged; it so happened that the same year I had my first day at school was in 1990 when the ADA was made law. Unfortunately, it took awhile before I was able to get any of the help I needed to succeed and handle the emotional element as well as the academic part – even in grade school. </p>
<p>So for about 10 years while this ongoing battle went forth, my mother would do anything she could to provide me with opportunities to learn, and to coexist with other kids on the playground and in other activities. I never much cared for the other kids but loved the academics, which, of course, presented a problem at this point, because grade school is when kids are doing their team projects and Girl Scouts and sleepovers, and I came at it from a more pragmatic perspective (I actually used the term “pragmatic” at about eight!), and tried to avoid the play groups as much as I possibly could. They wanted to bead; I wanted to read. I’m OK, you’re OK, right? Wrong. See, all the while I was now back at “home” (where the sleeping giant could still pack a punch), I wasn’t “officially” being home-schooled, because there was some type of “agreement” that had to be entered between my parents and the school board to match the curriculum (this is way before NCLB, by the way), and unless I was either sent back into the jungle to swing on the regular monkey bars, without any supportive measures, or sent off to swing from the lights with kids who really believe they’re monkeys at places like Judge Rotenberg (Google it – in their view, Soylent Green is children), essentially I was being truant, and now the law had to step in. Can you believe I actually had to set my size-two feet in pink socks and saddle shoes into a courtroom because of this mess???</p>
<p>So flash forward to 2001. It’s now August, my fifteenth birthday, and the board member who made my life such a living hell because the decision to prevent me from “inclusion” in the classroom was hers, is now gearing up to retire. Now the “case” is dropped, bada-bing, and you’re fifteen, time to go to school. You can imagine the shock of this, the bittersweet numbness of a should-be sophomore having to make up for a decade of lost time. But I surprised myself, because I did. High school is hell for most folks, but actually, I became very friendly with the faculty who understood my rather unprecedented situation and helped me to thrive. Which I did. I mean, the following month was Sept. 11, and the month after that, my mom’s mom, who had taken care of me when Dad was being a “posterior crevice,” was rushed to the hospital after having a stroke – on my baby brother’s eighth birthday, to boot. There’s a law that states you can’t “graduate” high school with a diploma from regular school (not night school or a GED) past the age of twenty. So to compensate for my “missed” requisites I would attend high school part time (to “ease” myself in), and did an articulation agreement with my local community college to take the ‘developmental’ coursework as a substitute for ninth-grade English and so forth. Thankfully, I graduated a mere two months before I turned twenty, because I was determined to walk across the stage and be rewarded for my hard work in the real-life school of hard knocks. </p>
<p>Want to hear more about fate? Guess when I graduated high school and rid myself of the devil for good.</p>
<p>June 6, 2006. 6/6/06.</p>
<p>So right out of high school, I matriculated as a full-time student at this school, and did very well my first two semesters. In 2007, though, I dropped out because at the time, I was taking what’s called “half” courses (thirteen-week seminars sort of squished into five- or seven-week intervals), and for three of those five (or seven, I think), I had fallen ill with a severe bout of pneumonia. The stress of college life and more catch-up work really knocked me for a loop, plus I’d never really resolved any of the emotional clutter that was still bound up from the past. I was practically high on a myriad different antidepressants and I just couldn’t think straight. Chest cold or no chest cold, I was heading for a break in more ways than one.</p>
<ol>
<li>I’m at home, still not in school, growing fat on TV and junk food and basically going nowhere at the age of 23. Guess what, that summer I got swine flu (or what people later told me was swine flu), and was really sick and probably could have died. So I got sick on Father’s Day (hm, more symbolism here?), and was not even halfway to recovery by my birthday in late August. Around the same time, my father went through a bout with MRSA, and everyone was under as much quarantine as was humanly possible for us, because we live in really close quarters and no one really has a “bedroom” of his/her own. My grandmother, by the way, did recover remarkably from the stroke in '01 – and another mini-stroke weeks after returning home that year – and another the year before this (she’s a fighter, I tell ya). Now that I didn’t require a “district” per se, I would stay more often in relative peace at her house. Of course, I still “lived” with my folks, and two people roaming about with contagious illnesses (and one possibly infecting the other just through the air), isn’t good for a nonagenarian’s well-being, but surprisingly she was the only one who never got sick!</li>
</ol>
<p>So back to me, well, throughout this summer-long ordeal, I basically flushed myself of not only the hazy fever but the foggy mind that I had from all the “mood enhancers.” One would think that coming off the depression meds was a surefire ticket to a padded room at Bellevue (and not the halls of higher learning), but for the first time in my whole life, I felt clear as a bell once the fever rushed out. In January 2010, I finally returned to school.</p>
<p>That semester was a rocky return, but I actually came away from it feeling much better than ever. One of my professors from an elective English course I took is also the advisor for the school’s literary journal, who was taken aback at how well she thought I wrote – and encouraged me to submit a piece and/or become part of the review staff. They don’t meet in the summer, so once fall started up, that’s just what I did. I’ve not only found the best of friends with the other students on board, but even had a piece accepted and published in the journal – and another piece I wrote for a campus-wide essay contest won second prize and FIFTY BUCKS at that!</p>
<p>Right now I’m part-time, taking a few noncredit personal enrichment classes in my spare time, and 98% of the way finished with my Associate’s Degree (with a 3.85 GPA and Phi Theta Kappa too!). I’m hoping to transfer to Emerson College, aka Jay Leno’s alma mater, come fall. I don’t take anything besides Tylenol for the occasional headache, and have become more interested in the realm of alternative/mind-body health and wellness rather than bandaging the symptoms but never treating the wounds. Sure, in the time span it’s taken me to get a “two-year” degree, I could probably have a bachelor’s by now. But for a turtle like me who used to live life in her shell, I can testify to the fact that slow, and maybe a little unsteady, does ultimately win the race.</p>
<p>Speaking of unselfish shellfish by the North Shore…finally, the world is about to be my oyster. 
</p>
<p>(And let me be the first to say, I have to give mom a boatload of thanks.) ^_^</p>