Her Inner Strength

School Life DH (During Hellen)

I remember dad taking me to Kindergarten registration, the room was full of kids my age their parents. There were long white tables filled with backpacks of various colors filled with school supplies, I chose a blue backpack.
The first days of Kindergarten were so traumatic for me, I sobbed so hard I couldn't breathe and had to go to the office, there was too many changes going on at once for little me. Moving at the beginning of starting school at a big school(to me) for the first time was a lot. Not having the emotional support I needed to help with the transition really made it worse.

I remember our first field trip, we went to Harry London Chocolate Factory and the Akron Zoo, Mama got to go with me for that and I was so happy. At the end of Kindergarten, my teacher gave us all goody bags each with a cd of all the songs we'd sung that year in class.

After I got somewhat used to it all, I was a gifted student, quickly I learned how to read and by the time I was in first grade, I was reading chapter books (Charlottes Web was my favorite) while the other kids had the fourth and fifth graders come down and read to them. I'd hear the big kids ask why I was alone and the teacher would say that I could read well on my own. My love for reading started blossoming, the librarian really watered my love for reading.
I got selected to be in a special group of three students to be in a group called "CAB" I don't know what it meant but it was essentially the three smartest kids in our grade.
I was scared to ask to go to the bathroom one day in first grade, I got to the stall and suddenly WOOSH. I pissed my pants before I could even get my pants down or sit on the toilet. I was mortified. I sat in the bathroom for a long time, sobbing. My teacher came in and all I remember is getting home and being grounded. I got called piss pants and a baby.
I remember Midvale Elementary being old, there being swarms of bugs in my kindergarten class, for example. Then one day in first grade, we ended up at this place called the Quaker Dome because our school had been condemned. So we finished the year out there. My class went on a field trip. I remember, we had to pack our own lunches, and while everyone else had good looking stuff, Hellen had packed me a single peanut butter and jelly that had gotten completely soggy and a Gatorade bottle filled with water, thrown in a paper bag. I was still hungry after lunch.

At open house for second grade, I remember one of the teachers saying I had lost a bunch of weight. When we got to the car Hellen said "see, you had a weight problem and people are seeing that you're healthy now, you've lost weight" second grade was a turning point of hell for my life. This is where she'd make me swear on peoples lives, smack my hands for biting my nails. I was pretty much grounded all of my second grade year.

In winter my hands would crack so bad they would bleed, Hellen wouldn't let me use lotion, I had the worst dry skin. I got bullied at school for it. My face and hands were the worst but I can remember my whole body being so dry it would burn. The bus driver, a very petite older lady right on the cusp of retirement , would force me to put this stinky ass lotion on my hands, it soothed the dry skin but it smelled so bad. She felt bad for me and I was terrified Hellen would notice and punish me for it.

Third grade was a blur for me. I don't really remember much. Same with fourth grade, although I think that's around the time I was no longer allowed to go to mama and papas. I do remember sneaking some of my allowance money on the bus and giving it to this girl who said she needed it for something to eat but ended up trying to spend it all on snacks at the snack bar. The librarian that I loved (Mrs. Pittis) figured it out, got my money back somehow and told me she was so impressed that I had wanted to help and to next time just ask to put it into the girls account and to never give someone just money because they will use it for things other than what they said they needed it for. Somehow Hellen found out and I got in trouble for using my own money that I had done chores and worked hard to earn.
During school, once I learned how to write in cursive, I could not write in anything else. If I wrote in print or, if Hellen deemed it wasn't neat enough, she would make me erase the whole paper and re write it.
I wasn't allowed to get homework done ahead of time and had to bring it all home. I had to bring every single book I owned home and I remember struggling to carry my massive stack of books and look after her younger son. She only gave me a whole hour to do all my homework but, she added on reading I wasn't actually assigned and if she deemed I was reading "too fast" she'd make me start over.
In spelling one year, I got to pick a few different "spelling projects" to help me learn how to spell them, Hellen would pick them for me, I wasn't allowed to pick my own. Then, if it was writing sentences for instance, she would tell the the sentence was stupid or not good enough and I'd have to start all over.