“Stay so we can talk”
A phrase usually used after doing something wrong. Odor of aged paint fills the air and is splattered on every single table in the room. An innocent bystander waltzes about the room collecting supplies probably for her internship. The girl's hair is a soft brown that has clearly never been touched by artificial color; it's tied up in a messy ponytail. She had been carrying a raggedy backpack and wore a gray crew neck t-shirt, faded blue jeans, and gray vans on her feet, that was just her, gray. She looked like the “artsy” type though. She looked well-natured. Paint brushes are scattered throughout the room, possibly on every surface. A cart of special chalk, special paper, and special pencils sits in the center of the room, between the arrays of dirtied tables that would never be clean. Clouded, gray cups lie on most tables, again with used paint brushes in them. Paintings and sketches the special students made line the wall behind the one teacher desk in the room.
My chair screeches as I push it in politely. The teacher face is lit as she greets her prized pupil with an enthusiastic “hi!” her face bares resemblance to a sesame street character that’s just sang a montage about being friends with some creature. The look quickly vanishes as the teacher swiftly twists in her desk chair, towards my direction. And her face bares disgust. Her judgmental gaze burns through any self-esteem I have left. She looks at me like I’m special alright, but not her kind of special. And the way she tilts her head condescendingly reminds me so much of my father. But she’s not my father, she’s a teacher and there is nothing that links us together other than me being her student. A smile dances across her face as if she thinks she’s Google, and knows everything. It’s not even what she’s saying so much it’s her expression. I only bare THAT kind of look when I’m mad at my mom or something. And this woman isn’t my mom or my friend or any one I love. She stands before me not mad at me because she cares about me and wants me to do better, not because she cares and sees me going down the wrong path, she stands here full of utter hatred, ready to raise hell.
“What’s wrong with you” she said as she furrowed her eyebrows in disgust.
“Like mentally, are you okay?” she takes on a snide tone, joking about her really caring.
But she really wanted to know. She actually was curious I f I had any form of slight autism, or attention problems. When all I did was try my hardest in her class.
“What..? I’m a little slow…I take a while my time doing things but in the end I do my work…”
“No you’re not” she remarked in an “I’m an adult I know better and that’s the end of the conversation” sort of tone. I tried to give it back to her but I couldn't, I am talking to a teacher anyway, or maybe it’s just the way I was raised, not to talk like that to people.
“Well yeah” I roll my eyes to the other side of the room and pause there for a moment, mentally taking note of the out of place paint brush on the table. And then I’m back, staring at the loathsome woman.
“It’s in my file look it up”
I said quickly enough so she wasn’t able to hear my voice crack as my esophagus started to close up. And for a moment I stood there, just thinking about how many times I’ve gotten told things like this. That one time my aunt called me an “airhead”, and again when my dad used to call me a turkey. Half of the time they claim to be “joking” but there’s always a little bit of truth behind those “jokes”. I figured no one else gets this as much as I do, after you hear it so many times you kind of start believing it yourself. Never mind the fact that these are adults I’m supposed to respect and value… It’s kind of like how when kids are growing up their parents opinions influence them so much that they start to believe what their parents believe. Or the polar opposite, when kids start to grow up they realize what they’ve been taught all those years was wrong and they become extremely against it. I was just starting to believe the “jokes” myself. I believed was a so called “lost cause” because I am slow and I do have to be taught everything twice even if that means reteaching things to myself. The one subject I thought I was good at was English, and at that moment I was just trying to make it by with a B-. Which doesn’t seem too bad but when you’re telling people that it’s your best subject, it’s a little sad. I believed I was what they had all been saying, stupid.
Some people don’t realize the impact of what comes out of their mouth every day. Life is full of people analyzing, picking apart the meanings of, and hurt, a lot of hurt. Things would probably be a lot worse if I knew people like my dad knew me, like actually knew me, and knew how the things he said to me would affect me, same with all the other people. Because after a while it’s not a funny joke anymore and in that moment it really wasn’t, and wasn’t meant to be. It took a while but I made the decision to go with the polar opposite, and start believing that I am a lot more than a joke, and older doesn’t always mean wiser. You’ll face a whole different variety of people trying to bring you down in life. And as cliché as it sounds, the key is knowing who you are and not letting others define you. Don’t become what others want to define you as.