At a very young age I realized that people treated me differently. My white classmates didn't think, talk, nor live the way I did and many distanced themselves from me and regularly belittled me. My Hispanic and black classmates rejected my attempts to hang out with them (except for kids that were from my barrio) because of the color of my skin. That was all before sixth grade....
The summer before sixth grade I became ill. I would randomly loose my breath and simply couldn't breathe. Doctors tried treating me for asthma and various other things, including six horse pills a day, and nothing seemed to help. I started to notice that I would lose my breath most often when I became upset. I noticed if I didn't get upset, I didn't have an episode. As suddenly as it began, I never had another issue after that summer.
The year I started sixth grade was the year that LCISD had decided to put all sixth graders in their own school. The school district had decided on Jackson Middle School which was situated in one of the worst parts of town. We were bussed in from all over the district to go to Jackson. This would be the first year that I would meet new kids from all over the district. Most of my friends from my neighborhood had started maturing and the topic of girls and sports became the only topics of discussion. Sixth grade was also the year that an elective class would be provided: band or theater. I wanted to get into theater but my mother figured that since she already had a flute, that they could afford to put me into band.
So there I was excited to start over to get a new set of friends. I was an eleven year old still several years from maturing the way most of my classmates had, reluctantly entering band as the only male flute player, and determined to feel accepted by those around me. I had everything going my way!
Due to kids being bussed in from all over to one school, the demographic of Jackson was split almost in thirds. There quickly began a separation from the whites, Hispanics, and blacks. Jackson was located in an area that had almost no whites living there and we were surrounded by drugs and violence. The separation was most evident during large gatherings like, lunch, PE, or school functions. I was from an all Hispanic barrio, except for my family, and I had started to think that I fit in best with the Hispanic crowd. In fact, I remember clear as day while during PE several of the kids were playing football, many whites and almost all of the Hispanic kids were left to find something else to play. Someone had brought a soccer ball and suggested that we play whites against the Mexicans. Can you guess what team I played on? That's right primo!! Viva Mexico!! That very game started my love for soccer and it has never stopped. That game also started my path towards believing that it would be possible to be accepted by everyone. Additionally I even started telling people that I was Hispanic and that my family was from Spain.
From my sixth grade year until now I've made it my quest to appear acclimated in every group and or culture I came across. In junior high and high school I tried to convince whites that I was rich and privileged, Hispanics that I was Hispanic, and blacks that I could relate to being discriminated against. There were few exceptions. I went to great lengths to not allow any white friends know where I lived excluding my friends from church. It wasn't until my senior year in high school that I let a girl drop me off at my driveway. It was Christmas break of my first semester in college, that I let my best friend from high school come inside where I lived.
By the end of my sophomore year in high school I felt like I had mastered the art of gaining acceptance in almost any scenario. I had formed relationships with certain upperclassmen that provided protection when I may have been around any gang members. All the popular white girls liked being around me therefore forcing the white jocks to befriend me. I lived in a Hispanic community and I treated everyone from there as family. I became friends with a few other serial social animals (one black, one Hispanic, and one white) that allowed me to go to any party no matter what race was throwing it. During my senior year in high school I thought that I had gained acceptance from any one I had put effort in getting it from.
Interestingly I was still able to gain my new found popularity without compromising the majority of my religious beliefs. I never at one time got involved with any alcohol, smoking, or drugs. It was also known that I was respectful with the girls and that a lot less would happen with them than the girls wanted. That's not to say that I wasn't surrounded by the above mentioned activities. My friends openly drank, smoked and took and sold drugs in front of me and I admittedly at some times even encouraged it. Most of my friends knew I was a Mormon and the only one in my grade. I often would get in debates with other Christians as to whether or not I was Christian. I went to early morning seminary every morning and I would arrive to school more than an hour early between the time I finished seminary to when school started. I spent that time doing homework and going to various school clubs like Science Club, Fellowship of Christian Students, Student Environmental Action Coalition, Spanish Club and Black History Club.
I'm sure many people felt that I was just an above average well rounded kid. The problem was that I had gained acceptance at a price. The price was that I led people to believe that I was something that I wasn't and I had essentially built myself a house of cards that would eventually fall. I obviously had a talent for networking but I had formed it on a person that was not everything people believed him to be. Of course now that I look back on it, I see that most people would not have cared that I was the only white kid growing up in a small trailer with loose plywood floors and ten people in it. I also see that I would have been better off only making half the "friends" I had made over the years. It has been a long process of self reflection. Its not hard for me to see the benefits of telling the truth, its only hard for me to believe that people will still like me the same after having the truth. I wanted to have friends whether or not they were friends with me or who they thought I was.
My mission in Chile changed everything. It was there that I had found the strength to stand for something. I don't think there will ever be another time in my life that I will be able to dedicate myself to one thing the way I did in Chile. I learned that there are many things in life that are worth losing friends over. I also learned that when I didn't try to lead people into thinking a certain way, that people still like me and sometimes even admire me. I learned that I had to be true to myself and then and only then could I be true to others. Ultimately I learned that my relationship with Christ was directly related to how I acted around others. If I truly believed that Christ accepted me for who I am, then I would have the faith to be me.
Since returning from my mission, I married someone that requires me above all else. She does not concern herself with the consequence of speaking the truth, just the truth. I love her for it so much. There have been aspects of my previous life that have reared their ugly head on occasion and she has seen me through. She and I create what I think is the ideal middle ground. While I try to improve on being transparent, she trys to take other's feelings into consideration. We try to help eachother as best we can.
My prayer is that I can continue to identify my faults and have the faith sufficient to change for the better. I appreciate all the comments!
5 comments:
I love you babe.
It was my senior year that I first let someone from school take me home. I remember how nervous I was. And I remember the last time I invited someone from church over. Meghan was spending the night and she found cockroaches in a pan of brownies Mom had made. After that I wouldn't risk it. It was hard never being able to reciprocate invitations. I never told ANYONE how I lived. At college people thought I was rich. Morg was the first person I told and he didn't believe me until he saw for himself. Anyway, I feel your childhood pain bro, different though we are.
It is interesting how we approached our living conditions completely different. We did what worked for our personalities and I think we are better having gone through it even if we still carry a little baggage.
I just found your blog. I must say you write more than you read.
I can relate though. As the kid who lived in the trailer the longest, it seems a little weird that I was apparently the least shy about letting people see where I am from. Maybe because by the time we left, we had a lot more money than when you were there, but the trailer was certainly in its worst shape.
The new blog I started should be a lot of fun and very telling about how we all came to be who we are.
You know I don't read any thing more than scriptures and an occasional auto magazine!
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