There are so many times where I’ve felt out of place. In fact, I think I have felt out of place more than I have felt included. But for this prompt, I’ll talk about my first day of 7th grade as a new kid at a middle school where 5 elementary schools funnel together and no one really knows anyone from the other schools.
I moved 45 minutes from where I lived because my dad got a new teaching job. His first “real” teaching job. He had been a substitute teacher for awhile and this job gave him a huge raise. He would be making more than what he and my mom had made combined. It was exciting. We had to sell our house and find a new house and I would be going to a middle school that was relatively new.
Over the summer my parents brought me to meet the principal, showed us around town, and we looked at a few homes to buy. My parents had settled on one, but we didn’t know that. We were screwing around in another room, with no idea that they were making an offer at that time.
Unfortunately there wasn’t enough time to close on that house before we all had to start school, so we tried staying in a hotel. That lasted two nights before we came up with a ridiculous plan that really sucked. My dad and I would get up really early and drive the 45 minutes in. Because I would get there an HOUR before I needed to be at school, I was to sit at the playground in our neighborhood to-be for 30 minutes before walking to school. So my dad would drop me off and I would sit and wait. It was weird. Then my mom and brother would leave 90 minutes later and my mom would go to her job where we lived. Then in the afternoons I had to wait at the playground. My dad would pick me up and we would wait for my brother’s school day to end. Then we would drive the 45 minutes to our house.
Anyway, the first day of school…we all walked in. Seventh graders in the bleachers and eighth graders in the chairs. We had a bunch of administration talking at us and then the eighth graders left. Then the teachers started calling out names. Kids got up and lined up behind the teachers. Then that whole team left. Another round of teachers and names, then leaving. This happened four times. Finally there were just a few of us in the bleachers and they called us all down to the front row. They handed out our schedules, which were blue instead of white. We all found out we were new to the district together. Then they took us in small groups and put us into our homerooms. But the teachers had already lined up the names they called in alphabetic order, so we were just seated in the chairs closest to the door. It felt..awkward. Like we were afterthoughts. I suppose we actually were since we weren’t born there.
That would be the first day of 4 years of awkward feelings and exclusion in a small, weird city that always felt uncomfortable. My mom hated it there almost as much as I did, so we left after those 4 years. My father was forced to commute for decades, which made more sense.
Interestingly enough, not far from that city is an amazing wedding venue where my wife’s cousin got married a little over a year ago. I showed her around the city and where I used to live .That playground looks really nice and they turned the tennis courts into pickleball courts. Everything looked so much smaller than I remember. But the people haven’t changed one bit. Still excluding everyone who isn’t from there. The restaurant near the hotel we stayed was terrible. We waited forever just for someone to take our order. It felt like it did when I lived there-shitty.
Leave a Reply to satyam rastogiCancel reply