kindergarten.

Kindergarten

Two huge things happened to me in Kindergarten. I distinctly remember both of them. I guess they were so traumatic to my little brain that the experiences stuck. For good or for bad, welcome to my kindergarten experience. Mom and Dad put my sister and me in a private Christian school for the first few years of our schooling. For the most part, I loved being with everyone in the group environment. But even in the midst of that, there was darkness. I remember that there was one day when some parents were around (maybe it was a birthday party day?) and one mom came over to talk to me at my desk. She brought up a generally safe conversation topic. The mom: “Joy, what’s your favorite color?”Me: “Purple.”The mom: “Oh! That’s nice! Is it because it’s royal?”Panic ensued in my mind. And from that moment on, my favorite color has been red. See? Trauma. (If you can’t tell, I’m smirking right now as I write this)The other moment of darkness from my schooling days came when we were discussing letters in our class. Mrs. Meredith, my teacher, asked a question that I knew the answer to. I couldn’t control it. The answer boiled up in me and rolled out of my mouth before I could follow the proper hand-raising procedure. I loudly proclaimed the letter “K” for all to hear. The next thing I knew, I was standing on the line at recess in front of the first-grade teacher, Mrs. Peck. It was humiliating. But all is not lost. I turned out ok (I think). I just won’t be blurting out the letter K in public. I learned that lesson.