In from school, kilt off, homework done.
Telly on.
The loyal ones sometimes ring the bell.
Home by eight, no later ok?
The rich ones call me poor.
The local ones think me rich.
I think me ugly; spotty; geek.
Stuck in-between
Not knowing who I am.
Who do I want to be?
This black gold brings.
Pre-teens with first world problems.
Poor little rich girls.
Whose private education is looked down on.
Whose parents look down on me.
Success never felt.
Always insecure.
In from work, suit off.
Telly on.
This short piece is from the Glasgowdragonfly archives.
I scribbled it down to the one word prompt “home” with a challenge time to complete it in five minutes.
I could have written about anything, but the memory of home that my mind immediately jumped to was my life living in Aberdeen, Scotland aged eleven.
That time of my life revolved around the trauma of leaving the safe harbour of my local primary school friends to attend a private school in the city, which proved, initially at least, to be a fairly unhappy crash course in the Lord of the Flies!
Yes, first world problems again, but hey.
We all know that the flailing transition from child to young adult is universally tough, but here, posted unedited after it’s rediscovery, what struck me most about myself is the bad place that I must have been in when I wrote it.
A particularly stressful period at work had stirred up all those same self pitying, miserable, critical and insecure feelings of being the outsider child at “big school.”
Thankfully, those feelings are behind me for now (I think)!
Have you got a default emotional setting from childhood that you revert to when times get tough? Does this reflect in your writing? Or do you manage to switch off your own emotion as a form if escapism?
I’m interested 😉
Hope that you have a fantastic week guys!
Glasgowdragonfly's Blog 
I used to immediately default to the “you suck, you’ll never amount to anything” place of my childhood, when things got emotionally tough for me but I don’t really do that any more. It only took thousands of dollars of therapy, lots of meditation, and nearly 50 years, but I think I’ve finally found my “happy place”. 😉 Writing has been very healing for me. Karen
LikeLike
Hey there. You got there in the end! I find writing very good for the soul too. Thanks for stopping by and taking the time to comment here!
LikeLike
Oh yes, I have a default. It’s whip out a book and disappear. Or turn on a favorite movie and disappear. Or get in the car and drive as far as I can manage.
This was an interesting look at comforting default settings.
LikeLike
Hi Natalie, thanks for sharing! Glad I’m not alone in having a default stone to hide under!
LikeLike
Hi, glasgow. My default is “you’re the most awkward person alive.” I was gangly when I was a teenager and didn’t have much talent in social skills. Those insecurities still haunt me 20 years later. But it doesn’t usually come up in my writing. That’s the beauty of being able to edit your interactions with others – you can catch the awkward early and press the Post key with confidence! Cheers.
LikeLike
Know that feeling well James! Thanks for taking time to share your thoughts! I still find myself veering towards “mean girls” type posts (like today) from time to time when I think of my school days 🙂 to whoever said they are supposed to be the best days of our lives – arrrgh!!
LikeLike