Finding the Words

There are so many things I want to talk about. I am nearly overflowing with topics, with thoughts that would do better on a page than in my head. But...I don't seem to have the words. Anyone who knows me can tell you that that's a rare thing, I can talk about nothing forever, and when I actually WANT to talk? You've got no chance of getting me to shut up. I'll tell you what I'm thinking whether you like it or not. Apparently I intimidate people with how vocal I am about...just about everything (pardon me if I think that, perhaps, those people NEED to be intimidated, so that maybe they'll learn to speak up, too).

But today I just don't have the words. Today I'm tired. Two weeks ago I fell off of a horse, all that remains as evidence is a scar on my face and a lingering sprained ankle, but healing is tiring. My heart hurts, because caring is tiring. People are strange and complicated animals and understanding them, or at least trying to, is tiring. (I don't think I'm ever going to perfect that skill, but maybe I'll learn to find an off button for whatever makes me want to understand people.)

If I was going to try, I could write about: the mustang roundup (though I already did that, and I just need to edit it from an essay into a blog post), my accident and how much I hate hospitals and bitchy ER nurses, the damned horse that hospitalized me and how much I love him, or how much fake concern from people who hate me annoys me and has made me want to hit something in the past few weeks. If not those, then I could write about how I've been reminded lately why I haven't consistently watched the news in years and why I stick to abstract concepts of social justice rather than current events, because the world makes me sick and I like to cling to what little faith in humanity I have left. Or I could be a bit less tragic, a little more hopeful, try to remind myself that there are things worth paying attention to by talking about the It Gets Better Project (and how much I sometimes love Dan Savage) and all the amazing people who have already participated in it and who are spreading it to reach those who need it. I could say that sometimes Violet Blue, or maybe The Rejectionist, say really cool things.

Perhaps I could try grounding myself in real life instead by writing about Beth DiCaprio who runs the Grace Foundation and continues to give me amazing opportunities to do inspiring things (and has really cool dogs that I want to kidnap).

I could meander into discussing music and how much I love it and need it and really need to acquire more of it. I could tell you how cute my puppy is at great length, because she's damn cute and and a really good foot warmer to boot. Had I the words, I could probably go on about books forever because, you see, I have so many and they're all pretty wonderful. Maybe even a mention of Banned Book Week and how ridiculous banning any form of literature is, though I haven't bothered to read a banned book this week even despite having meant to.

But, see, I don't have the words. I have all these really cool words, strung together in sentences and mashed up into paragraphs, but I don't have the right words. I can't find the ones I want. So I guess that will all have to wait.

How I Got To Where I Am (or My Journey to Unschooling)

College is the goal, the motivator in everything we do from kindergarten until high school graduation. To have attained that goal in some small way by entering the Freshman English classroom is, or should be, the end of a journey from point A to point B and therefore a success story. For me, in this English classroom, it is not. Traditional schooling has always proved to be a stumbling block for me; from the first grade public school class environment to what is referred to as a school-at-home curriculum I have not fit the expectations of the system and have sought alternative educational options, in the process abandoning the idea of completing my entire college education at a four year university for the sake of convenience and monetary constraints.

In a system that teaches to the middle in an attempt to average out the success of all its students there is no place for those who excel or fall behind. If you require any special attention you are pushed aside to be dealt with later, with whatever small amount of energy or resources might be left over after the majority is pacified. At least, that was my experience in the public education system starting at a very young age. Having finished my work early I would be punished for trying to otherwise amuse myself. Misbehaving because of boredom or disenchantment with underpaid and undereducated teachers who had little to no passion for their subject, I was sent to counseling. If I could not conform I must be labeled in a way that could be more easily handled by the administration.

On one particularly memorable occasion the school administration tried to tell my mother that I had Tourette’s syndrome. Well, yes, I did have several motor tics as a child—coping mechanisms developed to help me deal with an environment that made me nervous and uncomfortable. I cycled through bouts of habitual eye blinking and throat clearing, two main tics used to diagnose people with Tourette’s, as well as other twitches, though I can’t ever remember manifesting all of them in the same time period. I suppose I could have had/have Tourette’s, but these were not the reasons that they brought up to defend their opinion. No, they had no real concern for my mental health; they simply wanted to diagnose me with something, anything, to makes their lives easier. If I could be put into a box and medicated then their lives would be simpler. If they could say I spoke out in class and had no respect for them because I was somehow damaged as far as they were concerned then I wouldn’t be back-talking for any legitimate reason like oh, say, they can never given me any real reason to respect them. (On an interesting side note, I have never again experienced any of these tics after leaving school.)

After having completed fifth grade, using a curriculum that I had finished through a brief stint in independent study two years previously in third grade, my parents removed me from public school to use a homeschooling program with course work modeled off of the public school standards. That worked little better than public school had in the first place and was quickly abandoned and followed by a descent into the little known but much despised practice of Unschooling. I spent several years going through a process commonly referred to as ‘deschooling’. I don’t remember much of those years. I slept a lot, I sat around and ate junk food, I watched a lecture series on Ancient Egypt and tried NaNoWriMo for the first time. During that time I refused to go out and socialize or talk to people, especially people my own age. A lot of people would classify that as highly unhealthy, but I’d say they’re wrong. I, as a person who was really fucked up at the time, needed to take that time to get my feet back under me. Trust me, when I came out the other side of that I was a much happier and more functional person than I had been for years before.

As my family got the hang of the lifestyle of Unschooling we discovered that it fit our interests and goals far better than public school ever had, mine especially. For the past four years I have studied what I was interested in, pursued my passions, and learned far more about a broader range of subjects than my friends in public school have ever dreamed. I’ll be the first to admit that there are some subjects that I’m more than a little behind in, but I have every confidence that I’ll easily catch up just as soon as it’s relevant that I apply myself to them. I think the fact that I easily tested into a college freshman English class, scoring nearly as highly as you can on the test (though they wouldn’t let me test OUT of the freshman class, sadly), after having had absolutely no formal English curriculum for the past five years, just goes to show how very little you really need to follow school standards to get the education you want and need.

Next semester I’ll be taking a full course load at the local community college as a highschool graduate, though in some respects I’ll still be taking highschool level classes to catch up, but for now I’m doing what I love: playing with horses, volunteering at The Grace Foundation of NorCal (these first two things tie into each other, which makes me very happy!), reading, writing, having interesting discussions with interesting people, and going on as many adventures as I can while I’m young enough to drop everything and run off to have fun.

Tell me, how is that a less valid way of getting where I’m going? College is still a goal, but it isn’t THE defining goal anymore. I’m partially there already. I’ll make it the rest of the way eventually.