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AMDA, Art, Aspirations, Beliefs, Desires, Donate, Donations, Family, Funding, Future, Goals, Hopes, Life-changing, School, Theater, Understanding
Everybody loves a winner, so nobody loved me. Lady peaceful, lady happy, that’s what I long to be. All the odds are, they’re in my favor. Something’s bound to begin! It’s gonna happen, happen sometime. Maybe this time, I’ll win! -Maybe This Time, Cabaret
I’ve never really been a winner. I don’t think I was ever much of a loser, either. In the rare cases in which I joined a competition, my thoughts were typically, “win or lose, it’s just something to do.” If I won, I was pleased. If I lost, I didn’t miss any sleep over it. I never enjoyed board games or video games that involved other people. I’ve never liked feeling competitive, and I still don’t. I suppose that I would have been a bit more of a “winner” in many things had I been more competitive. Of course, as I mentioned, I don’t think I was ever a loser. Not exactly.
I did everything right growing up. I mean, I tried to do everything right. I made straight A’s, typically; though, I did get a C in gym sophomore year. I’d never been forced to actually participate in P.E. classes and opted to either go to my counselor’s office or spend most of my class time on stationary bikes. Of course, I wasn’t worried about that grade. My entire academic career up until that year was spotless. I tried to literally be a perfect student (minus a few attendance issues). I think, for a very long time, I tried to be a perfect everything.
So, I did everything right. I ate all of my food, because there were hungry children somewhere. I did my homework, raised my hand, and didn’t mind being called a nerd. I started reading at three, a fact my mother and I have always been proud to share. I read everything I could get my hands on. Once, I couldn’t have been any older than ten or eleven, I picked up a romance novel at my aunt’s place. I’d read plenty by that point, but she didn’t know. She spanked me for reading a “grown-up” book, then had to apologize when my mother explained that I’d been reading those long enough.
I didn’t get in trouble (meaning, I didn’t get caught breaking rules). I had a few friends, but mostly kept to myself. Under public scrutiny, I was the perfect child. Outside of my home and throughout my family, I was sometimes called a prodigy. People in our town called me “the smart one.” Truly, there wasn’t a subject I found all that difficult. In fact, I found that I was quite often bored in class. I was placed in a gifted class in the 4th grade after taking an IQ test the year prior. My teachers loved me.
After my freshman year, I was forced to move. My mother had decided to go into rehab, so my little sister and I had to live with relatives. My sister went to California, and I came to Illinois. My boyfriend and friends were left behind. I bounced around over the summer until I landed in my uncle’s care. I lived with him and his family throughout sophomore year. For the first time, I had someone ask me about school when I got home. We went for family dinners. We watched movies and went to events together. It felt like a legitimate family, the kind I’d only seen on television. In school, I still kept mostly to myself. I made a few friends, mainly in my French and Geometry classes. One day, I saw a sign about a musical audition. A real musical, something my little school in Mississippi had never done. I decided to walk down the dark hallway, take the turns, and found myself in the choir classroom. The auditions were being held there. I had nothing prepared, so I sight read “Star Spangled Banner.” The response from the music director (choir teacher) and the actual director (theater teacher) was more than pleasant. I had never been in choir, though we did take some basic music classes in elementary. No, I had never really sung for anyone but my sisters. This was a fluke. This was the moment my soul altered, and I didn’t even know. The choir teacher had such a look on her face when I’d finished singing, it surprised me. She didn’t believe I’d never sung, and she “drafted” me into the choir. I also got a small part in the musical. My maternal grandmother came to the show one of the three nights we performed. The entire experience was amazing.
The next year, I joined choir in my junior year. I was a first soprano. I had gotten myself into the Mississippi School for Mathematics and Science. My paternal grandmother had taken me to my interview in Mississippi, but the application, the essays, the project showing my dedication and smarts, I did it all alone. MSMS is a boarding school, so I got my first taste of dorm life. I made a ton of friends and reveled in the fact that our idea of fashion focused on how our lab coats looked. I had a cute flower on the back of mine. Though it was a math and science school, the number of artists there was astounding. It seemed that every other student was a performer, painter, sketch artist, or dancer. Sure, they were all academic geniuses, many brilliant mathematicians, science geeks, computer masters. We had something in common besides just being classmates, we were all nerds with artists’ souls. I loved it, and it quickly became my favorite school. I met my best friend, Angelina, that year, as well.
Unfortunately, life changed again. I had to move again. I had to leave Angie behind, as well as my then fiancé and many other friends. I came back to Illinois to finish high school. I went for a semester, took extra classes to graduate early. It was hard to find people who cared about learning at that school. I made two close friends (one whose father is mentioned in a previous entry). Towards the end of the semester, my fiancé ended things. I had left behind my closest friends, again. I had left my life behind, again. And I had lost my love. I was alone and broken. Again…
I had never thought about it before, but I felt like a loser. Sure, I was a great student. Sure, in whatever endeavor I’d taken, I’d done well, if not excelled. I had never actually “won” anything, though. It seemed like my life was one loss after another, but I hadn’t really lost either. Had I? I felt like I had. I felt like a complete failure because my life was so full of goodbyes. I began to feel that I was born to be a loser. I was born with cocaine in my system and I shouldn’t have lived. I had always thought that I was born to do something great, because I survived when I shouldn’t have. I always always survived. It didn’t matter what was taken from me, how many goodbyes I had to say. It didn’t matter that, from outside appearances, I should have been doomed from the start. No, I really thought I was supposed to be here. Then, for a time, I didn’t. For a long time, I thought God was just playing a game with me, just finding entertainment at seeing just how beaten a person could be. From the moment I was born, to the stories of my childhood from family, to the parts of that childhood that I remember, to now…I’ve always been the odd one out. I’ve always been good at what I do, but I never tried to be the “winner.” I just wanted to be the best that I, alone, could be. For a few years, I had forgotten even that.
I remember now. I know I’m supposed to do something great. I don’t know the best way to word it, but a person like me isn’t created to do nothing. More than that, though, for the first time I want to WIN. I want to beat the naysayers and the people who think that I should just accept the status quo and be poor, uneducated, living on government assistance, and not try to succeed. I want to beat those who say “Who does she think she is?” I want to be the best that I can be, but I also want to be the best in what I do. I want people to remember me. I want to look back at the ones who lashed out at me for being smart, the ones who gossip and lie, the ones who accuse me of thinking I’m a better PERSON because I want to live a better LIFE…I want to look back at them and say, “I did it. I won.” Though I’ve said it before, I want to look at my children and show them living, breathing proof that it doesn’t matter what you’re born into…you can beat the odds and succeed. Most importantly, you can be happy.
Merci d’avoir lu, kittens. ^_^
Adieu, mon amis! ❤
-V.
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