Things I was taught. Things I wasn’t taught.
The goal is to illicit fresh and surprising insights into family, community and to the world.
Things I was taught
How to drink hot beverages without slurping and eat mouthfuls of food without smacking. They taught me this so well that I have overwhelming judgement, (sometimes irrational rage), when others weren’t taught the same. Breakfast meetings at a job I once had became a cacophony of slurping and smacking that made me want to run screaming from the room.
How to act like I don’t care, even though I do. How to have a poker face that people mistake for cold indifference but is a deep hurt or a seething anger.
I learned how to find any amount of sidewalk or dirt so as not to step in the grass where there might be dog poop. How people who walk in the grass are suspect and have low standards.
That the way to have a picnic is to pack food and drink, drive to a pretty place, crack the window and eat in the car, away from the bugs and poop. Then, throw the remains in the trash and go home.
That the left lane, the fast lane, is for the fastest car. If you aren’t the fastest car, move over.
How to swallow my feelings to make others feel better. In doing this, I learned how not to be myself around anyone else.
How to have integrity. Do in private what I would do in front of others. I have failed at this many times.
I learned the value of being smart and then judging those who didn’t cultivate their minds.
They taught me the value of education, being a lifelong student, and that college is mandatory.
That certain ideas make people bad. Judgements of character are black and white.
That something can kill me around every corner: planes fall out of the sky and kill everyone below; the ocean hurls rogue logs onto balconies to kill you on your wedding day; an aneurysm is waiting to happen at anytime.
That nothing is fair and I won’t like my life; that I will never get what I want, so don’t even try. Ever. And that no man will ever want me because of my race, no matter how pretty or smart I am and how unworthy he is.
Things I was not taught
How to go for what I want because life is imagination and risk or it is stagnant and depressing.
How to embrace adventure.
How to have self-esteem.
That I’m talented and creative and can get better with practice and that forgetting the lyrics at a recital doesn’t mean I shouldn’t try again.
That I have more to offer men than my body. That some men want to know what is in my head.
How to manage frustration.
How to manage depression and that I can overcome my sadness. That life is supposed to have joy in it regardless of a rocky start.
That nature heals. Our body’s natural state is health—both mental and physical health. Exercise, fruits and vegetables can change everything.
That I’m not crazy.
