2023 Bee Week musings, pt. 2

An abridged epiphany of sorts.

Today is the second day of spelling. And vocabulary, to put a fine point on it. Actually, it looks as though it's done for the morning.

I see people in places of authority like Ben Nuckols and Adam Bonin posting comments on the bee. And I want to post a bit...and can't. Something holds me back. A negative cloud. I become Eeyore. They're signs that I'm on the outside looking in.

An insight into my psyche

Once upon a time, I thought how cool it would be to engage in active self-immolation. Metaphorically, that is. Get myself into a position of authority—or at least on the cusp of authority—then announce to the world exactly why I am unable to fulfill those responsibilities. For example, I think of the idea of running for high public office. Mayor, say, or governor. Then hold a press conference stating that I am unable to hold that position because I once groped the butt of a woman in jest...directly after she said she deals with this from time to time and utterly hates it. (This really did happen. And I thought it would be just fine since I was a gay man. Wouldn't mean anything, right? Clearly, I did NOT read the room effectively then.) Somehow, the sheer tsunami of disappointment in me would be so rewarding, so justifying, so verifying, so fulfilling, so...VINDICATING.

Only issue is, I can't get myself up to the position of authority in the first place. So self-immolation in private, in suburbia, in statisticdom has to substitute for it. It's not as fun. But since I "eat the marshmallow now and don't wait to have two in five minutes," this is what happens.

Where the fuck did this come from?

Super good question. I think it has a lot to do with expectations that were thrust upon me back in the day. I took tests well. The standardized kind. I got put into a gifted and talented program in a really fucked up way. For some reason, in second grade, I got put into third grade for reading and math. I physically walked up to the third grade classroom twice a day for class. Then, because of my ability, I ended up in the gifted and talented program in the spring, which was open to grades 4-6 during the school year and third grade in the spring. For some reason, I did not skip second grade, nor third grade. Just did this awkward reading and math straddle from second grade through third grade and maybe for part of fourth grade. Academically, it was not difficult. Socially, it was suicide. I hated that aspect of it. But emotionally, it set me up for failure. 

I became the wunderkind, the top student academically, the prodigy whom no one could touch. In my mind, at least. And perhaps despite struggling with algebra starting in seventh grade (and especially in eighth grade), I still had the mindset that I was brilliant. And I never hit against a wall that showed me my weaknesses. At least, not in a way that really mattered. Something like getting a C+ in Spanish my first year in high school because I neglected to turn in roughly half of my assignments (despite actually doing most of them, then forgetting them at home) didn't faze me much, since I had been hit with the "absentminded professor" label for years, and this fit in with that perfectly. It took my rejection from Deep Springs to really hit me where it counted, to show me that the life I had been hoping to lead was not to be.

(Stopped on 5/31/2023, before I could finish it.)