Schooled: A Transition From One Extreme To Another
I did not have the average childhood compared to a majority of my friends. On the spectrum of normality my childhood lies in one of the two extremes. Though it may come to many as a surprise, given my wildness, my childhood was not burdened with violence, cruelty, or emptiness. I resided on the other side of the spectrum; the severely reserved and sheltered end. I was brought up by two domineering christian parents who decided to homeschool me for the majority of my childhood. Only having spent five years in a public school, I am happy to say that with every single year I have spent there I have improved and evolved more than in the eight years of being homeschooled.
Transitioning from homeschool to public school was not a simple nor gentle process. I did not want to leave the car, or my house for that matter. My house was my support system, without it or my family I was scared and alone. I recited a slue of incantations during the early morning process, in which I was not familiar with. The one that I recall , “Be confident and if you can’t find confidence fake it.” From the moment I opened the door to my parents car I began to fake as much as I could. In the span of 5 minutes I diagnosed myself with about three incurable diseases, and convinced one of my parents that I was having a seizure. Despite my attempts to stay home that day my parents were not easily swayed. My parents kept telling me, “Don’t worry Wesley, you will transition fine!” That was the sentence that made me realize that you cannot trust everything that everyone says. My transition went as smoothly as trying to put a round peg in a square hole.
I remember the feeling of suffocation, as if my fears and my anxieties were slowly destroying me. I feared failure and rejection. Having never been integrated with kids my age I had no clue how to act. It is as if I forgot how to interact with people, not that I could do that very well in the first place. I was dwarfed by everyone around me, leaving me feeling very insecure and scared. To make matters worse my parents decided to walk me into the school. They figured that it would be good to walk me to my first period class, but this piece of advice that they had to have found in a parenting magazine failed. Other students began to stare and gawk at us trading glances of confusion and mockery. Once my parents had left, not before they succeeded with making a huge scene. My father introduced me to the entire class, giving them a brief summary of my life as my mom stood next to me crying. I could not have walked faster to my seat in the back of the room praying for this day to be over. One student sitting next to me sensed my discomfort struck up some small talk with me. This student, Ryan, would soon become my best friend throughout high school. First period passed uneventful, and I was thrown back into the crowed and terrifying hallways.
On my way to second period English class I got hopelessly lost in this labyrinth people call a high school. After walking around aimlessly I was forced to hunt down a teacher for directions. Due to my minor hunting trip around the school, I was late to my class. As I walked into that classroom all eyes were on me as I opened the door, making me immediately turn bright red from embarrassment. Luckily my teacher forgave me and excused my tardiness. It helped that the teacher I tracked down gave a lecture about how freshman get confused and should not be penalized for tardiness, using me as a prime example. My fortune continued because my new friend Ryan was also in this class and there was an open seat next to him. I ran into a few problems with this class, due to me never having a formal english class during my time at home.
My next two classes past without any troubles besides navigating the terrifying hallways. I admit that I have gotten better at navigating the school, but not navigating through the cliques. The