My educational journey began when I was a toddler, prompted by the incessant repetition of a four-word phrase with which I drove my mother crazy. “What does that say?” I’d want to know, as my chubby little finger pointed at the sentences in the storybook Mom was reading to me. “What does that say?” I’d wonder out loud, looking up at Dad’s name patch on his Army fatigues. “What does that say?” I’d ask, every other second, as Mom and I wandered down aisles of colorfully-labeled bottles, boxes, cans, and jars at the grocery store. Everywhere we went, everywhere I looked, there was a wonderful wilderness of words to be explored, and my adventurous young mind wanted to know, with increasing impatience, “What does that say?”
Exhausted by my ceaseless inquisitions, my mom taught me to read when I was three years old. I learned quickly, and before long, I was learning other skills quickly, too: colors, numbers, shapes, sorting, advanced trigonometry… Well, ok, maybe not that last one, but I did find my first week at kindergarten to be a complete and utter bore. While all the other children were happily eating paste, and separating the red blocks from the blue blocks with wonder and amazement, I was chomping at the bit to learn the answer to that age-old question, “How much is two plus two?” I didn’t want the teacher to read to me during story-time. I wanted to read the book for myself. In fact, I wanted to write my own stories!
So, after enduring about a week of the kindergarten equivalent of underwater basket weaving, my mom petitioned to have me tested for possible grade advancement. It took a few weeks, but her request was finally granted, and when all was said and done, I tested between the fifth to eighth grade levels in many areas, and was promptly promoted to first grade. I was so excited to have the opportunity to learn new things!
I have mostly fond memories of my years during elementary school. I was always at the top of my class, and my friends looked up to me because they thought it was cool to do well in school. I was polite and well-mannered, so my teachers enjoyed having me in their classes. School was a place where I could feel confident and accepted, and since I loved to learn, it was one of my favorite places to be.
My success did have a few drawbacks, though. The older I got, the higher I was placed on a pedestal, in terms of grownups’ expectations of me. Whether they intended to or not, my parents, teachers, and Sunday School leaders put more and more pressure on me to be perfect. And after all, why shouldn’t they? I got perfect grades and had perfect behavior. One principal even called me to the front of the school auditorium, during an assembly I will never forget, and told the entire student body that he expected everyone to strive to be as perfect as Sarah Fox. My pedestal was thrust so high into the atmosphere at that moment that I’m surprised my nose didn’t start bleeding! At nine years old, I was a model student, and—pardon me while I switch metaphors here—an amateur weightlifter. I felt the weight of my own potential on my shoulders, and it grew heavier year after year. By junior high, it was crushing me.
Seventh grade was a miserable time in my life. I moved to a new state, new culture, discovered I was supposed to shave my legs, and worst of all, learned that academic excellence was the calling card of freaks, geeks, and weirdos. My first weeks of junior high were an alien experience of being bullied and ridiculed by the delinquents and the cool kids, and befriended by the equally bullied and ridiculed dorks who rode the bus, and hadn’t gotten the memo about shaving their legs yet. If seventh grade was a game of Wheel of Fortune, “nerd” was the final word, and I was the winning contestant!
In eighth grade, I lost my virginity…my academic virginity, that is. I got my first B, and in short order, even my first C. Being smart and getting good grades were heinous crimes in my adolescent community, and when I stood before a jury of my peers, they unanimously declared me guilty of being a schoolgirl in the first degree, and sentenced me to strife without parole.
I found out it’s really tough to lift weights when your hands are cuffed behind your back, so I offered a plea-bargain. I agreed to tone down the book smarts, and did nine months of community service learning how to be too cool for school. I started swearing, ditched class a few times, and abandoned my nerd friends for the privilege of being a peripheral member of the in-crowd. To borrow from the scriptures, “I gained the whole world…and lost my soul.” Eighth grade was both the best and worst time of my whole student career.
The thing about being placed so high up on a pedestal is that you have so much farther to fall, and the impact of the crash is all the more traumatic. I guess I didn’t so much fall off my pedestal as jump off. By ninth grade, I hated who I’d become in order to be accepted. Popularity didn’t matter, because I couldn’t accept myself. So I jumped. No longer was I the ‘wonder girl’ who every student secretly envied and every adult openly applauded. I was just…I don’t know. I still don’t.
My high school years were spent in a state of amnesia. I have hardly any recollection of that time in my life, aside from knowing how miserable I was, and how much I hated school. I’d lost my identity, my confidence, my friends, and my potential. I begged my parents to let me home-school, and they finally relented my senior year.
Twelfth grade was a time of quiet victories for me. Being the only member of my class, I was voted Most Congenial, Best Smile, and Class Clown, and was valedictorian at my graduation ceremony. When I received my diploma, it was like winning that silver Lombardi in the Super Bowl of Life. I’d defeated the delinquents, who had the home-field advantage, but lacked the dedication to win; I’d defeated the cool kids, who were faster than me, but lacked endurance; and I’d defeated the grownups, who knew how to compete—and win—but had forgotten how to play “for love of the game.” My cheerleading squad—the nerds of the world—was there in spirit, celebrating my victory with me.
After the euphoria of graduating from high school, I was convinced I had reached the height of success, so I decided to rest on the laurels of my accomplishment. I pretended to be a college student for a few semesters, just for fun. I worked, I played, and I lived. I wanted nothing to do with responsibility, because I was afraid of climbing back onto the pedestal. I continued my game of ‘make believe’ throughout my twenties, getting married, pregnant, and divorced along the way. I’d recovered some of who I was during my senior year of high school, only to lose it again at the hands of the new bully in my life: my husband.
My marriage was like wearing a new set of handcuffs. My divorce brought me freedom, but it wasn’t like having the key that quickly and smoothly unlocks the cuffs. It was as though I’d had to cut them off myself, with a dull handsaw. To say it was painful is like saying Keanu Reeves’ acting is kind of wooden—gross understatements on both accounts (although the Reeves one may be worse…tough call.) However, it is said that “what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger,” and I can personally attest to that. Ask me to lift weights now, and I’ll tell you to add a few more pounds on each side of the bar, because I know I can take it!
After my divorce, I was forced to face reality; no more pretending for me. I was a single parent, I had few marketable job skills, and I had freshly-acquired strength and experience that needed to be shaped and conditioned. I was thirty years old, and found myself in the unexpected position of being a student once again. But the great thing about going to school as an adult is that the dorks and delinquents and cool kids don’t factor into the experience anymore, and the grownups aren’t my overzealous fan club—they’re my peers. I am free to be as perfect or as paltry as I want to be! I just want to do the very best I can.
My educational journey began in my youth, but it certainly didn’t end there. I am still traveling, still learning. Till the day I die, I will still be asking, “What does that say?” and I know that discovering the answers is going to be one amazing ride!
