The Chronicles of Taylor Cecelia Brook

Age 7ish

God what happened in 1st grade.. Oh yes. I had a super weird class structure and I don’t remember much. I remember we had two teachers and one was a girl and one was a boy and the male teacher was responsible for less students but I was one of them and he sucked. He really liked me but I thought he was a douche bag. And then suddenly he was gone like halfway through the year. So many rumors flew about what happened to him but who knows. Then came a flurry of subs and most of them were pretty decent and then i feel like the other teacher left too? I cant remember for sure but I definitely think that was the case. I remember i had a crush on this one boy and i remember the teacher belittling him for his handwriting and not only did i feel bad for him, it made me feel better because his handwriting was WORSE! And at least i didn’t write in all caps lol I’ll also never forget a teacher one time complementing me on my clean up skills because i folded the paper towel instead of crunching it up into a ball like the rest of my peers and I just burned with shame on the inside because normally i was a paper towel baller upper too but for some unknown reason that day i decided to stop and think about it lol but i 100% felt like a fraud. Why has that still stuck with me? Probably because I have mega issues with shame. Me beacon for shame is very very off and technically i think shame is not a true emotion it’s something we’ve been to conditioned to think/feel. 

Anyway, lets see what else. Oh I think this was the year i did one of my first plays or musicals. But maybe not. I was still riding horses and doing gymnastics and my life really didn’t change much from kindergarten to 1st grade. I remember being annoyed because kids in 1st grade were still peeing their pants… ugh. Oh I think this is probably around the time I was introduced to CDs and CD players and i had one of my own. I don’t remember what I listened to because the boy bands and pop songs came in like 2nd grade etc. I’m pretty sure that I spent lots of time with my grandparents after school while mom and dad worked. And I think dad was still working quite a bit but I honestly don’t remember. We had a pretty cool neighborhood despite all the kids being way older or way younger than me. Such was life, my whole life it’s been like that, even with my family. I do believe this is when I met the neighbor across the street and thus began a friendship that actually still kind of exists to this day. 

What’s super interesting is that I have incredibly vivid memories of kindergarten and 2nd grade but 1st grade is very much a blur. I have very few memories about that year. In fact for a long time I only remember a few things simply because an ornament i made that year triggered a memory for a bit… I wasn’t good with years yet lol I can see the classroom and smell the classroom but that’s kind of where it stops. I was next door to Mrs. Schlicker so she saw me every now and then and that was definitely a highlight. I do remember being afraid to do cool shit on the playground equipment. But I feel like 1st grade was a bit of a basic year. I think that was when I started developing my own opinions about what I wore and what i did with my hair. I was most definitely a tom boy at that point. Not really sure why. I also think this was around the time my dad built me a balance beam for my basement? Maybe I was older I’ll need to ask my mom. But anyway, the slicked back ponytail made it’s entrance into my life that year and I think that baggy tshirts followed their after. 

OH YES! MY gymnastic friends! I actually still follow 2 of them on FB, not that I do much on there. But Yes I was still a mediocre gymnast and the coaches all found annoying. And I understand why as an adult. I was afraid to do things, I HATED putting in any effort, and I was always trying to find ways to get out of things. Oh hey do you see some classic hallmark ADHD symptoms? Oh ya me too. It was so overwhelming to me to put in effort and it was difficult to me because I couldn’t self regulate or pace myself because I had to try to be  perfect…. Without taking any risks. Quite a conundrum. It led to mediocre conditioning that focused on speed and not form. I always ended up feeling sick because I never drank enough water nor did i pace myself. And this was the first year I remember hearing in my head “you’re fat” 

I was standing on the floor at the gym and god the coaches hated me and us some times. It was an incredibly toxic gym environment. Oh ya I broke my pink that year too. Ope sorry back to the point. I was standing on the floor (like the tumbling one)  and we were about to start conditioning and I remember feeling so bad because the coaches just felt mean. They probably weren’t because I was ULTRA sensitive. But Still a good stuffer so I didn’t tell anyone. ANYWAY, I saw some of the other girls and looked at their tummy’s and saw that they didn’t stick out and mine did. That was when the whisper came and the sucking my stomach in began. I lived HOURS in leotards. I spent all day sucking in my stomach everyday from that point on. Fun fact, did you know I still can’t stand the word “belly” because it gives me the ick. Yes cray right? 

Oh ya and this happened this year too. I flipped over my bike handlebars and fucked up my chin. Long story short I flipped into a concrete support beam with my chin then my head. Thank god I head a helmet on. But my chin was fucked up and there was so much blood. And my mom was like a few minutes behind me. And then I remember my mom wrapping her sweatshirt around my chin and then some random person drove us to the car because I couldn’t walk? I don’t really remember why. But anyway, I do remember that I spent weeks looking down because i had this GIANT scab on my chin. It hurt so bad. For some reason I used to tell people I had a metal plate in my chin from that accident. I wanted people to think i was cooler than I actually was. I was so so so so concerned with what everyone thought about me. I wish i hadn’t. I should’ve been so care free at that age and not worrying about sucking in my stomach and why did the coaches not like me. And again… i told no one any of this. I think this also might have been the year my mom had her big miscarriage. Ya it had to be, simply going off of when my sister was born. Anyway, I don’t remember it. But apparently I was worried because she was throwing up all the time, and she’s SO LOUD when she throws up. And then I guess the day it happened I asked her if i was having a baby brother. I have zero recollection of this. I wonder if that was the start of the vomit phobia??? Hmmm maybe. But anyway. I don’t remember any of that but apparently happened. That is a theme in my life, my memories do not match up with the memories of those who were around me at that time. So i’ve also wondered as a teenanger and an adult, wtf was I supposed to believe? It was confusing as fuck. But ya ok i think that is it…… OK BYE