Reminiscent
I’m feeling reminiscent which isn’t good because I look back at my life and either think I was better off back then or that I was incredibly stupid and naïve. Which either could be true.
My dad doesn’t count Bayou Blue as a strike. I guess more of a foul since the sister church was actually a success. I am of course referring to his firing as a pastor as well as the three strikes and you’re out. I mean if churches are just going to end up firing him maybe that just means it’s not the job for him. Which is kind of sad since he has worked a long time on getting a job like that… I mean seminary which two masters as well as 15 years of waiting with no work is no joke.
I actually look back with distaste at my time in Louisiana. Truthfully, I’d never really want to live there. New Orleans is a wonderful place and the food is wonderful but the people… well. My childhood experience has influenced me into thinking that maybe the people of that state aren’t that bright though it would be unfair of me to bash an entire state since you’ve got your jerks and morons everywhere.
I somewhat blame my parents too. I was truly sheltered as a child. You could probably call me a prude. I would gasp and put my hand over my mouth upon hearing a curse word like some high class pampered rich lady who thought such language was vulgar… well I guess it is but still… it’s not like a bad mouth makes you a bad person. And sometimes I actually feel you need to curse in order to get the point across.
Oh how I’ve changed eh?
I went to a Private school. Even today I remember my last year there as one of the best times of my life. Fifth grade was the best school year I have ever experienced. I had gone to that school since 1st grade and grew up with these same people so we were all sort of close knit. The teacher I had was wonderful. She let me talk about my pet guinea pigs over and over again. I sure did love my guinea pigs.
And then before sixth grade came… WHAM. I had moved off to Louisiana and went to the dreaded public school there. It was actually my first time riding the bus to school. And the kids there were definitely not the goody goodies you’d find at a private school where you were taught the whole “do unto others” theme.
Yet even if we didn’t move my parents told me I would have gone to a public school for sixth grade anyway. Private school was expensive. But I am somewhat resentful to my parents for putting me in a world where I was so sheltered. I mean I am also proud for being forced to learn the books of the Bible in order as well as some Bible verses but… I wish I had been more prepared and understanding that the world wasn’t all like that.
Then again I was only 12. Probably either way I would have been naïve.
My two years in Louisiana bring back a lot of bad memories. Middle school is not a happy time as you are truly figuring out who you are and who your friends are. What’s cool and what is right is not always hand in hand. Cliques are established. If you don’t follow the fads, you’re looked down upon.
And I was the new girl. I was shy. I didn’t understand that clothes made the person. I certainly didn’t understand some of the slang.
It wasn’t just school that made me hate that time of my life. My dad was suffering from chronic back pains and was in so much pain he couldn’t take care of my brother and I. My mother was still back in Georgia trying to sell the house for the first bit of time we were there. So in essence, I was all alone at first. It was horrible. It makes me cry even now to think about it because here was my father a full grown man, the person I admired, crying out in pain in his room. I would slip outside of the house just so I didn’t have to listen to his cries. He’d try to hide his pain but mostly I could tell from his movements that he was hurting. He told me that he felt like someone was taking a knife and stabbing him repeatedly in the back… literally not metaphorically.
We had moved to Louisiana because my dad got a job for two small churches who would both pay half his salary. Then the first church fired him. I was too young to really understand but from what I hear they didn’t want to hear that they were sinners. One member got offended when my dad told her that her daughter who was practicing premarital sex was wrong. Plus, he couldn’t perform all his pastoral duties because… like I said he was in pain. How is he going to make house calls or stay in the church office when he can barely function with the back pains?
But apparently the best doctor in the US for back pains was located in New Orleans so moving to the state of LA was good because we were closer to her and my dad’s back problems were fixed.
When my mother’s job ran out of work for her, we found we couldn’t continue to live on my dad’s part time pay from the remaining church so we moved back to Georgia where my mom picked up her old job that she had two years before.
I went to a public school again but this one was much more advanced than the Louisiana school system. I think Georgia as a state is a little more focused on their education systems but the district I was in had excellent schools anyway. We even started going back to the same church but I had been absent for two years so it was hard for me to fit back in again.
Still to this day I wonder what my church friends thought of me. But I was the shy girl and I wasn’t “popular” so I kept quiet and to myself a lot. In school, church or wherever I was mostly making friends with the other outsiders. At that point in time I was making friends with a lot of international students who were learning English for the first time.
By the time high school came I was still an awkward teenager but I was beginning to be a little happier. I was always mad at myself for being so shy and timid. I wished with all my might that I was more confidant and outgoing because it just seemed to be detrimental to me. But I made a lot of close friends and even compared them to precious stones because… for someone like me who was just so shy and didn’t open up very easily, close friends were hard to come by.
My dad suffered again during this time. I was playing at a hand bell concert when all the sudden my father started getting the shakes before it started. I was terrified because I thought for sure what had happened in Louisiana was happening again. He was brought to the hospital by my mom and I played in the concert near tears because neither one of my parents could be there to see it. And I was deathly worried.
He was in the hospital for 3 weeks. My mother would drive my brother and I to downtown Atlanta to visit him. I hated seeing my dad like that. He couldn’t do much of anything. He was mostly out of it. Even now whenever I drive by that hospital I hate it. I hate that hospital for the bad memories there.
My dad had all sorts of tubes and stuff attached to his stomach. Eventually he could come home with an IV stuck in him and those weird tubes and wires still sticking out of him. Apparently something was wrong with his gall bladder. That time was really hard again too. He couldn’t even go up the stairs to my parent’s room, he was so weak so he stayed on the first level rolling his IV rod thing around.
But… another miracle happened. He was supposed to have surgery to get his gall bladder removed but the day before the surgery the doctor couldn’t find anything wrong with him. They had somehow looked inside him again and it seemed like everything was working fine again.
My dad had people all around the world praying for him and apparently it paid off.
Later he had problems with ulcers which might have attributed some to that period of time but mostly, we even the doctors have no idea what was going on and why he was so sick.
And then? Then it was time to move again. I had spent 8th grade through 10th in the same area but now my dad got another job as a pastor… this time in Florida.
I was sad to leave but I wasn’t as resentful as I was from the previous move. Of course I didn’t want to leave my friends but school life wouldn’t be any different. I would still be going to a public school. I was already used to the “unsheltered” life. I was scared because I would be leaving what I knew behind but I can’t remember any negative feelings about the move. I don’t even remember the move itself.
Entering high school at 11th grade it tough. There was absolutely NO way I would be getting a boyfriend having just moved into town. Yes, alas… I had entered my romantic I wanna find puppy love stage. I had plenty of crushes but I mostly hid my feelings. Ah! And to think I even wrote crappy poetry at that time. It’s so embarrassing!
During 12th grade I finally discovered the joys of internet. I have mixed feelings on being able to converse with people on the internet who seem so close and yet are in reality so far away. I have met a lot of wonderful people there. I wish to visit some of them.
But then on the internet I could be cool for the first time. I could be popular in a small group of people. Everyone would recognize me in whatever community I had joined.
Ah, it’s so silly really. But during that time I feel I was finally becoming someone I could be proud of. My secret desire to act silly and to draw attention to myself was finally granted without the risk of ostracizing myself in real life.
Oh but I was really silly during that early time of my “internet life.” Even now I just look back and shake my head smiling at this old me. I pretended to have alternate personalities to show the different sides of me. There was the normal everyday me side (RedLady), the teenager side (There were various names for this one), and the unstable random crazy mischievous but-still-want-to-make-a-point side coincidentally called “Instability.”
Eventually I didn’t need to have all these different sides of me anymore and every angle of me just became “RedLady.” And RedLady then became synonymous with my real name of Meagan. I could act the same both in real life and on the internet. But this didn’t happen till later.
Yeah but… my dad got fired again. This time I felt betrayed. People who I thought had been my family’s friends seemingly turned against us by speaking against him. I didn’t really understand. They had paid and caused so much trouble in my life (not just mine) by bringing us all down here to Florida in the first place and now after a little less than a year they are like… we really don’t want you.
I cried a lot. That church kind of ruined me. Again I had been naïve holding to the whole if you are going to be accepted anywhere it would be in a church. Boy was I wrong. After that I never really trusted anybody in a church. I was always thinking they were all a bunch of backstabbers who were hypocrites and only worried about themselves. It was too painful to walk into a church and participate in an organized service because I was so suspicious. Now about nine years later I have gotten over that. But all I can say is… “damn.” It sure did take a while, neh?
Then came college. Oh boy. College! *Laugh* Even after all my “unsheltering” I was still naïve. Plus I was still so shy though now I wasn’t as mad about my shyness. Anyone who tries to tell you that you are grown up at 18 is fooling themselves. You may be recognized as an adult at that age but I still had a lot of growing to do.
Oh I’m not gonna get into some of the things I was stupid about in my early years of college but now that I look back I realize I was being so silly worrying about stupid stuff. College is for meeting people. Being exposed to new ideas. You don’t have to agree with everything but I think the college environment should be diverse with all sorts of people, cultures, and ideas. I am so glad I didn’t go to a private or small college. I mean USF ain’t exactly the most prestigious school I could have gone to but it is still really huge.
But by mid college I was pretty much onto becoming the person I am today. Even now I’m way more confident about myself. I may still be a little quiet and shy but I have learned to make small talk with people. And I’m not scared.
There are a few things that bring back bitter memories that happened while I was in college. My parents moved up to North Georgia where yet again my father got a job as a pastor only to be fired again within a year. I remember being apprehensive and scared that it would happen again… and lo and behold, it did.
I remember a dear friend getting sent off to the mental ward during this time. There was nothing I could do about it either. We don’t talk anymore. It’s kind of sad.
My heart was broken. It sounds so dramatic to say it like that but in the end that’s how it felt like. I look back at the whole situation with mixed feelings. It was kind of silly like most of the things I look back upon in my life.
And now… now the economy sucks. I graduated college and tried to get into the job market but failed. My family is also not doing too well. My father doesn’t have a job as a pastor and my mom who used to make the big money as a computer programmer has been out of that field for almost nine years now and might not be able to go back.
But I’m more confident today. I also don’t idolize my dad as much. I mean I still love him and we are both more similar to each other than my mother and me. But my mom is good for talking about girly stuff. I’m no longer a child and have realized that it’s ok to disagree with things my parent’s do/did. I am my own person now. An adult. I may still be awkward at times but this time as a young adult and not a teenager.
I feel lame and will probably continue to feel lame until I get a teaching job. I’m ready to stand on my own two feet financially and feel kept back about it.
Life is kind of lived in stages I believe. I think Erikson had it right. I look back at young people who seem to be doing the same things I do… especially in regards to alternate personalities or being scared about stupid things.
Well anyway. I just felt like reminiscing today. I am mostly reluctant to mention religion, church life, or God in my posts since I know lots don’t share my same beliefs but then at the same time it is a large part of my life both past and now becoming present.
Sometimes I wonder just how much people know about me. But then again maybe some just don’t care. It’s ok if you don’t. This journal is mostly kept for me to write when I feel like and to occasionally mention major things going on in my life. But most of the time when I write I feel like no one knows what I’m talking about because they can’t read my mind.
I feel like I have become a more admirable person than my previous selves but… I’ll probably look back at how I am now in five years and think the same thing I think now about my negative five years from today self.
My birthday is in 36 days. I’ll be 26. That much closer to death… heh heh. How silly I am. Farewell for now.