Parler-vous anglais?

Yes, that is French for “Do you speak English?”

I was awesome at French when it came to learning new groups of words. Vocabulary was easy because it was rote memory. You just repeat it enough times and eventually it sticks.

Where I got stuck was forming sentences, specifically going through different verb tenses. I had the same kind of trouble when we addressed this in English class. Distinguishing from past, present and future is easy, but when you throw in various “perfect” tenses, things get tricky. I stumbled with properly identifying these tenses in English.

Why didn’t Cinderella wear Airwalks?

The shoes I had but different colors.

My church was trying to establish a consistent presence with the youth in our parish. There had been a few different leaders/youth ministers over the years but none at the time lasted more than a year. The constant turnover didn’t help with creating stability in the program and keeping interest.

By tenth grade church leaders were trying again, and there was a guy in charge. I remember we had a social event. It must have been an actual dance because there was dancing that night and I can’t imagine dancing just being a small part of the evening rather than the focal point. Anyway, it’s awkward enough to go to dances, but I was trying to push myself and trying to meet people.

Anyway, what I’m sure was intended to be a fun ice breaker ended up having an isolating effect. Wouldn’t it be fun for the girls to leave a shoe in a pile and the guys pick up a shoe and that’s how the first dance begins? What could possibly go wrong?

Why are school dances so awkward?

Movie: Napoleon Dynamite

Seriously? Why are school dances so incredibly awkward?

If it’s not completely segregated with boys on one side of the gym/cafeteria and girls on the other for a full hour, then it’s a matter of dancing with someone with two feet of space between you.

Or maybe the space thing had to do with the Catholic school dance experience. You have to “leave room for the Holy Spirit,” after all.

I was not comfortable with my body, comfortable in trying new moves. I was the self-conscious kid who very much didn’t want to look stupid.

And yet, I did show up. That’s something. I didn’t just avoid these experiences altogether. (Good job, young Lindsay, for pushing yourself and testing out different environments!)

Becoming a Lady Ram

First, I need to offer a glimpse of playing basketball during sixth grade. It was pretty routine with practices and games. I do remember jumping the bleachers. Seriously we jumped from the floor up to the next bleacher, and then continued jumping up.

It looked something like this video, except we were jumping on bleachers and not the stairs. It required a higher vertical jump. And the part I remember most is how scary it was; I was afraid of completely missing the next bleacher. I never did miss, but that scared feeling never went away.

The body image factor for self-esteem

My parents were concerned about how my height would impact things as I repeated 4K. It did. I was self-conscious about it. But being tall is one of those characteristics you really can’t change.

I attempted to fit in better by slouching and not standing up as tall as I could. I even remember several occasions in elementary school of kneeling to talk to someone much shorter than me just so we were more eye level. Which seems generous, except it sometimes happened while trying to walk. (Oh, that makes me cringe!) It took a very long time to be proud of my height.

Magic 8 Ball says: Concentrate and try again

 

It’s not very often that a teacher recommends a child repeat a year of preschool. I could understand if reading ability interfered so much during elementary school that a child was held back.

But I am such a student, one who repeated 4K. I wasn’t a disruptive student (eating glue, throwing scissors or things like that), but I wasn’t emotionally ready to move on. I got easily frustrated with certain tasks, which resulted in crying spells. I had the bathroom accidents. And there were issues with my fine motor skills that just didn’t put me on pace with my classmates.

When I was older, I knew full well that I had repeated 4K. I just didn’t realize these were sensory processing issues.