Integrity

[stramdagger]

What is the first memory you have of having a sense of being in your integrity?

i just remembered two things:
one: taking one (3 actually)  for the team.   In 7th grade PE, Renee Pullen thought it would be funny to all act like Ms. Romero, our PE coach by mimicking her mannerisms of clapping our hands together and saying "AAHHH..." which was usually

Comments

[dessertwhore]

Hmm, Storm, in my case I didn't have a choice, and I had someone else front for my case, so I'll leave it to you whether this counts. This is actually an excerpt from an interview I'm currently completing:

In kindergarten, when pretty little Dawn Koch and I were seated on the floor in "circle," whispering to one another. I told Dawn something secret, cannot recall what it was. Mrs. Stirrup (crazy that I remember all these names, huh!) asked Dawn to repeat out loud what I had told her. I whispered to Dawn,
“Tell her it’s none of her business.”
“That’s none of your business, Mrs. Stirrup,” Dawn said..
“Dawn! That’s RUDE!” Well, it wasn’t any of her business.
“She told me to say it.”
“Jill, that is RUDE. Go over and sit there in the corner.”

I remember the feeling of being isolated from everyone, afraid and ashamed-and also sure that I was correct. Angry at the injustice, aware, without being able to name it, of the adultism. Why is a child's privacy considered fair game for normalized violation?

That feeling, of being alone with an obvious truth, would resurface throughout my life. My challenge has been to communicate these truths in ways that connect rather than alienate.