Better Forgotten

I’d recently read a thoughtful, well-written (like she can write any other way…pssh!) post by Maureen over at Island Roar. If you haven’t had the pleasure, feel free to check it out.

Co-incidentally, I’d written myself several post-its involving a somewhat similar topic:

Well, maybe similar would not be the best word…as I’m the first to admit that Maureen’s posts usually make sense….I realize mine may still be open to some debate.

(This is the part when everyone chimes in with, “What? Noooooo! That couldn’t be further from the truth, Kathryn! Please continue along with this stellar post…’cause we love ya…we just DO!” At least, that’s how I hear it in my head….)

I’d had dinner last week with a 16-year-old-girl who’d related a story of a male teacher who’d told her when she was only 8 years old that “she colored like a two-year-old”. You should’ve seen the look on her face…she looked so...hurt and confused. She said she never understood why that teacher just didn’t like her.

The reaction in my head: “WTF?! Are you freakin’ kidding me? Where the f*%k did that guy come off saying something so eff-ing cruel to a child so young? Give me his name immediately so I can drop-kick his sorry ass from here to the nearest railroad crossing…where his right arm would be severed at the elbow by a high-speed locomotive bearing down on him at 75mph…causing him to go to rehab to re-learn how to write with his left hand…and they’d start him off with crayons (‘cause they’re thicker and easier to hold)…and his grumpy-therapist would grumble at him that “he colored like a freakin’-two-year-old”.

My actual verbal reaction: “Oh, honey! He sounds like he was just having a rough day. I’ll bet it had nothing whatsoever to do with you. Forget about him! Every other teacher adores you!"

But that got me thinking about things we’ve been told in our lives that we’ll never forget. Not the good, empowering, complimentary stuff, mind you…that seems to go in one ear and out the other….but those fleeting words that somehow managed to create a lasting chink in our self-esteem.

I can remember raising my hand in second grade. When the teacher acknowledged me, I asked, “Can I go to the bathroom?” The teacher responded with, “You can if you may.” I had no idea what the hell that even meant…was it one of those new-fangled poems that doesn’t even have to rhyme? All I knew was that I had to pee and I couldn’t figure out if I had permission or not. Teacher stared expectantly at me…I stared back…convinced she could see that the pee in my body had risen all the way up to my eyeballs. Finally she sighed and said “You may go to the bathroom” and I bolted out the door. It was another two years before I finally understood what she actually meant.

We had an indoor pool in my middle school (good) and some moron decided "advanced swim instruction" would be taught as part of our physical education (baaaaad). Our swim instructor was teaching us to dive and I couldn’t, without holding my nose. When I tried, I’d come up choking, sputtering and gasping. No amount of forcing air out my nose at impact was gonna stop the water from pouring down my throat. (It was at this moment I realized that I’d never become a professional synchronized swimmer) He refused to let me (or anyone) wear nose plugs. To this day, I can only tread water…and have a healthy fear of any water that is deeper than I am tall.

I started smoking (inhaling) after some mean chick (with really bad hair, I might add) at work laughed at me when she saw I didn’t inhale. I smoked for ten years…then quit for good.

In my mid-twenties, a friend of a friend (male) casually mentioned that he thought I had fat fingers. Granted, they are not all long and slender….but they’re not fat, dammit. They’re well-proportioned….and they’d look thinner if I had long, manicured nails and a nice tan….

And finally…the one you’ve probably wondered the most about: the Ann Landers post-it. She’d written some medical home-remedy book…because well, we all know what an expert she was in everything…. and I’m sure in her mind, (and I guess her publicist’s as well) she was more than qualified to dole out medical advice to poor, unsuspecting pre-teens such as myself. Anyway, there it was...on my mom’s bookshelf. I was having a little problem with being…well, let’s just say a little “loose in the caboose” if you know what I mean…and I figured if anyone could fix me right up, it would be Ann.

(For the record, she was also the only name I recognized on the entire bookshelf, so how could I go wrong?) As she lamented about the importance of eating a well-balanced diet, she described the other end of the spectrum from my conundrum…and she described it as “pushing and pushing and producing nothing more than a small, dry pile of rabbit pellets”. I remember feeling a mixture of horror and amusement. To this day, if I have an occasional bout of constipation, I’ll mentally send a thumbs-up to my buddy Ann….who was absolutely no help whatsoever.

But I never forgot.