I don’t know when it all started. Was it my “friends” turning against me in elementary school and making fun of the way I walked and talked, or was it how when I was little everyone used to tell me I looked like a chimpanzee? Who can say.
I remember getting a birthday card once when I was four years old. Maybe 5 – I don’t quite remember – from my mom and her boyfriend (at the time) Bernie. It had a chimpanzee on the inside. Maybe both, it was a long time ago and I don’t remember it exactly. What I do remember though is that my mom used to tell me I looked like a chimp, and it used to make me feel bad, and when I got the birthday card it made me so upset when I opened it and there was this picture of a chimp staring back at me. They laughed, trying to say it was a joke or something, but it really hurt me. I don’t remember much from those days my mom was dating Bernie, but I do remember this.
I remember another birthday from when I was really little… at John Ball Park. I think I was between 3 and 6 maybe? I don’t quite remember, but it was pre-Bernie. My mom made rice crispy treats with seashell-shaped chocolates on them. They weren’t brown chocolates though, they were white chocolate dyed with other colors like light pink and blue.
Anyhow, she made these for my birthday party instead of a cake and I remember asking her for one when they were being served, but she said I had to make sure there were enough for everyone else first. I remember coming back to the container they were in a few minutes later so I could get mine and they were all gone. Everyone around me was eating them and enjoying the party, but I didn’t get any.
Had I known the way I felt when that happened would become a recurring theme in my life, I’d have probably ran to the little pond at the park, dunked my head under the water, and taken a deep, deep breath.
I wish I had.
A Lion's Roar 