A little big kid

...is what I am. Is the way I've always felt. Never old enough, never young enough. The perpetual awkward teen. Even when I was eight.
Eight was a great year...a lesson-in-life kind of year. I made the best of friends at eight, and also got to know up-close and personal how cruel people can be, for no reason at all. I led a double life ever since I joined school. At home I was exuberant, colourful, in the thick of things - acting in plays, participating in sports, being a tom-boy, group mediator (not leader, mediator), cycling about, being cute... you name it... I was quite the spotlight hog. And in school, things were devastatingly different. The teacher had a tough time remembering my name, I was already proclaimed fat, because well, I wasn't skinny and didn't have 26 ribs poking out of me, the last one to be chosen in any play or sports event, and written off as an average student (the teacher fell off her chair when I just happened to use the term "unfortunately, however" in an answer... was labled the "English-types" ever since). A day didn't go by when I wasn't told I was "irresponsible" ( a real favourite of her's), "silly" or plain "stupid". I was dismissed as someone lost to the world, because of her lack of responsibilty, general retardedness and weakness in Mental Math....and also because I forgot to wear my cardigan for the class photograph : "How highly irresponsible!"
But it was great that this happened. It made me part-rebel-part-outcast and connected me with some of the most wonderful friends ever. Friends who didn't give a damn if I got more or less than them in my history test or whether I was chosen for the relay team or whether people thought I was pretty or whether I was the class monitor. We created an imaginary world for ourselves and that dreary space behind the Planetarium became the coolest place on earth. We exchanged books which were not Enid Blytons, and we played games where there weren't any winners or losers or Donkeys. When one of us got punished, the rest would join in and suddenely being called irresponsible or stupid didn't hurt as much. It puzzled the popular types. It made us feel like goddamn heroes.
I don't think I've changed much since then. I have all sorts of friends, but there are very few who actually get me, or care enough to get me. Even the closest tend to stereotype you. But that's okay. That "I am different...I am unique" phase has died a natural death inside me. Because I'm not. We're all connected in little ways, and I connected with that lot when I was eight most, because I was in need of a connection most back then. It was never a problem making friends. But to find a connection...to find that little something that makes you feel wow...is not easy. Or maybe it's just asking for too much for a little big kid of eight going on twenty-one.