It's not the school system, It's me

I was 3 ½ when I went into Kindergarten. Most of the children in my class had turned 4 that summer, or even the year before, but my parents fought for me to be put into the class at my age. The road I was taking, they figured I’d turn 17 halfway through my senior year of high school.

Apparently, however, the school decided that allowing a mere 3 year old into kindergarten had been a mistake; I wanted nap time when it was not scheduled, and would not sit quietly during story time, and they never had the snack I wanted. So instead of allowing me to go on and wreak my too-young-to-be-here havoc with the children I had come into school with, they decided to give me another year of Kindergarten.

I didn’t mind. I started taking naps at nap time, once I realized that they weren’t lying when they promised me one ‘later,’ and my parents sent me to school with snacks each week, just in case I really refused to eat what was offered to me. I still didn’t sit silently during story time; often I got up and looked at a book myself, making up the story by looking at the pictures. The other children in my class enjoyed that greatly and often lost interest in our poor teacher and circled around me. My parents were comfortable with the fact that I seemed to fit in better, and actually kind of preferred the idea of my being 18 when I graduated high school.

In that second year of Kindergarten and First Grade, I met my first love. His name was Clayton and we were mad for each other. Every lunch and break we ate next to each other, we had naptimes next to each other, when we went out to play he and I held hands and giggled to each other. Towards the end of 1st grade, Clayton and I shared our first kiss, one that I will always remember as, so far, being the only kiss I’ve ever shared with someone I truly loved.

At the end of 1st grade, however, the school dropped a bomb on me. Apparently, while I was back in Kindergarten for the second time learning about napping and sharing, I had the intelligence to have been learning addition and subtraction. I was far too advanced for my peers and the school decided that I should skip second grade and go straight to third, to rejoin those that were my peers that first year of kindergarten (all of whom I had forgotten by that point). I cried and screamed that no, I would not leave Clayton. Eventually my parents and his parents convinced us (he wasn’t as upset as me, but he really didn’t like the idea of me leaving him either) that life could go on with us in different grades. We still went to school in the same building. We would see each other at lunch and breaks, before and after school.

When Clayton’s Dad, Mr, Sinclair, got a new job that would require him to uproot his family and move them from beautiful California to half way across the country, Clayton and I weren’t the only ones who threw hissy fits. Our mothers had been close since before either of us had ever been born, I viewed his Mom as my Aunt Ginevra and Clayton had known my mother as Aunt Belinda. When he got on a plain with all of his stuff and left my life, probably forever, my 6 year old heart broken to pieces. I think this is where I started worrying that anyone that I ever cared about would leave me.

So without at least having Clay to talk to during breaks and lunch, I pretty much ignored the old crowd I’d gone through first grade with. I was in third grade and when either they or me tried to talk about school, it just ended awkward. But the students I had joined weren’t much better. They’d gone 2 years without seeing me, and when you’re 7 or 8, that’s a lot. When they wanted help with spelling or a math problem they would come to me, I usually understood it all pretty well, but they didn’t have any memories with me. When they would talk about that great party so and so had had the summer before, they would give me an apologetic look and say “Oh, I forgot, you were still in First Grade then.”

I didn’t really hang out with much of anyone, I was back at a year younger than most of the other students (who had taken kindergarten with me when I was 3 and they were 4), with my goal to be 17 when I graduated high school.

This worked out well for a while. I was the quiet, non-social one and it didn’t hurt that I was usually bored. I understood lessons almost right away, while the rest of the class spent hours trying to comprehend a simple statement. Eventually all of my teachers saw why I started acting out in class and blatantly ignoring them, falling asleep in my desk, or teaching classmates how to do something when the teacher simply hadn’t explained it well enough. By 5th grade, they decided that enough was enough. They skipped me again into 7th, leaving my so-called ‘friends’ to fare the wilds of sixth grade by themselves. Thus I would have graduated at 16

When it came time for me to be put into High School, They decided that, apparently, Freshman year isn’t really all that important and switched me up to sophomore, making me join High School at the age of 12 as a sophomore.

Intellectually, I was fine. But personality wise, I was in no position to be a sophomore. Soon after I turned 13, they bumped me back down to be a freshman, second semester. My second attempt at sophomore year worked much better now that I was 13 going on 14 and had survived the basics of freshman horror stories. Yet, now no class particularly viewed me as one of their own, and I pretty much stuck to being a loner.

Junior year went great and I was looking to be graduated at 16 years old. Until right after my birthday, when I turned 15 and did horribly on all of my final exams for that semester. All Hell is what broke loose for the next 6 months or so, with my family imploding and me, at the middle of it, not caring about anything. It was no surprise to my teachers that I still got A’s on all the tests I took and participated well in class, when I went, and was awake. It was hard for all of them, they said, to fail such an intelligent girl, because I didn’t do my homework or essays or stay awake in class.

I was not surprised when I found out I would have to take Junior year over again. It puts me at about a right age, I think. I’ll be 16 for the first half and 17 until halfway through my Senior year. I’m still going to be younger than anyone else in my class, but I bet I will be the only one :younger: and :repeating: it.

The disconcerting thing is that now, I’m moving. Away from my friends (or kinda-friends that I don’t totally hate) and my parents. I’m moving across the country to live with my Aunt Gin, because my parents don’t want me and my school is just plain sick of me.