The NaBloPoMo prompt for today:
What was your favourite part about returning to school?
That’s not an easy question. It wasn’t cool to acknowledge being happy to return to school each year, of course, so while I was glad, I didn’t really acknowledge it to myself. As a result, it is more difficult to access those memories.
Even though I knew there would be endless amounts of review each year, I was always excited about the possibility of learning something new. After we left Gadsden, I was able to look forward to school library access, too. (The elementary school I attended in Alabama didn’t even have a library, and back then, the Gwinnett County Public Library wasn’t the award-winning facility that it is now.)
I also had a secret hope that maybe this would be the year when I would meet someone like me. Someone else who didn’t fit in. Someone who preferred books to most people, who either didn’t go to church or was only there because his or her parents forced the issue, who would be willing to discuss the questions brought up by all the contradictions in the Bible and various church’s teachings (and how preachers and other church leaders actually lived). Someone who didn’t think it was bad to be intelligent, maybe even someone who would admit to daydreaming and making up new stories about people they’d read about, or completely new stories of their own. The kind of people you didn’t run into just because your parents bought houses in the same neighborhood, went to the same church or worked for the same company.
I did meet someone who became a dear friend in the first week of my Junior year, on the bus, in fact. She even lived in my neighborhood! I continue to be amazed by the fact that I said something to her first, as she’s far more extroverted than I have ever been. Dorothea is a treasure, and I will always be thankful for meeting her.
