This year will be different

Growing up, I was one of those kids who actually looked forward to the first day of school. As much as I loved summer and those endless days, the first day of school was exciting. New classroom, new teachers, new desk, new books. It was a chance to start fresh, a clean slate. Even now, I still get a little giddy whenever I walk down the school supplies aisle in stores. Notebooks filled with clean white sheets, the rubbery scent of erasers, rows of yellow pencils. It all speaks to promise, to possiblity.

I started kindergarten when I was four, the youngest in my class. My mother had already taught me to read and write and she thought it would be a waste for me to wait another year. I don't remember much about the first day, other than there were parents and kids everywhere, and that my mother cried when she dropped me off. It was all a blur of colors and sounds and faces that I didn't recognize, but I wasn't scared. This, to me, was an adventure, like anything else.

That first day was perfect because there was so much I didn't know. I didn't know that elementary school would be a series of small cruelties, humiliations. I didn't know that I would never fit in, that I would always be the standout, the odd one. I didn't know that eventually, school would come to symbolize every dread, every fear, every doubt I had about myself. I learned many things in those years but most of all, I learned what it was to be ashamed, embarrassed, hurt.

The last day of school was always like a holiday, a nervous energy buzzing through the halls. We handed in our books, cleaned out our desks, our lockers. The walls were stripped down to bare white, all of the signs and billboards packed away for another year. The teachers always on edge, wanting to get through this last day, just as excited as the rest of us. Everyone waiting for that final bell, that final run to freedom. For me, there was always a feeling of relief and sadness. Relief that the year was over, that I had a break from the cruelty of my classmates. Sadness that it would only last a few brief months.

Every September, I told myself this year will be different, but I was always disappointed. Eventually, I changed schools, started over in a new city, a new state. I left behind the kids who had teased me but I still remember their words, their faces, even now. I don't know if I'll ever have kids of my own. If someday I should, I hope their school experiences will be better than mine. I hope that they don't inherit my shyness, my awkwardness. That they will be accepted in a way that I wasn't, that they'll never know the kind of hurt I experienced. That for them, it really will be different.