Memoir Draft

Growing up, I'm not sure that I understood how quiet I used to be.  I always found peace in keeping to myself and conversing with my thoughts.  I didn't find the need to speak up unless I specifically needed something, and even then I often didn't feel like going to the trouble.  However, I never comprehended how strange I might seem.

If I were to take a few days and tally up how many words someone were to say, and then compare them to my own, perhaps I would have realized the difference between the rest of the world and me.  Actually, I'm surprised I didn't.  Statistics were sort of my thing back then.

Once I became more comfortable with someone or somewhere, I tended to open up a little bit, letting the endless thoughts pacing through my head leak slightly out of my mouth.  By the time I had been going to the same school with the same 15 kids in my grade in Portsmouth, Rhode Island for seven years, I had become pretty comfortable.  Not comfortable enough to share any words with actual substance with anyone, but enough to occasionally make conversation.

Then, one day, my mom sat me down to tell me that we're moving to Michigan where the rest of her side of our family lived.  Though it never managed to make its way out, one thought continue to circulate in my head: here we go again.

We moved on October 21st, 2006.  My first day of fifth grade at this new school was October 25th, a wednesday.  I hated moving, and I hated wednesdays.  Combining them only made sense.

When I arrived to my first day of school, I wasn’t too sure of what to expect, and it didn’t matter much to me what presented itself.  I had a simple strategy, don’t say anything.  I never knew how to say the right thing, so I wasn’t going to try.  Just keep to yourself until you manage to become comfortable with them, I thought.   

I was sent to Mrs. Dutcher's class, immediately bombarded with other students who didn't seem to comprehend that I wasn't in the business of talking to them. Why did they find it so difficult to understand that I wasn't going to talk to them? I'm the new kid, I'm not gonna talk for a while, that is that.

Well, in years to come I would realize why they found it so difficult. In my years to come I would encounter more new students, who were just as social and talkative as they would ever be. They were eager to make a good first impression, whereas I wanted to simply let one sink in over time. I realized from them that I was the strange one, that it wasn't the norm to stay in solitary for weeks before opening up to someone.

At the time, however, I stayed committed to the game plan. I'd let them try to be my friend, because to do otherwise would require confrontation and, well, talking. And talking of course was completely out of the question.

At one point I was approached by a student with a camera, apparently making a video for a class I had yet to experience. He started asking me questions about all kinds of stuff. Stuff I had no answer to. I mean I probably had some kind of answer, but not the kind I would talk about! Stuff like, where I used to live, my old friends' names, my siblings, it was a little ridiculous. But the worst part is that he had the nerve to record it, to document my declination to talk, so that people will remember it once I've conquered my shyness.

One day, Mrs. Dutcher sent me out into the hall to work on something with another student. She wanted Graham and I to measure out the lengths of the Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria, the three boats that Columbus took to the new world, so that the class could see just how big they were. While we were out there, Graham got out of me that we lived in the same neighborhood, had a few of the same interests, and told me that he was actually new to Dexter that year too, arriving just a couple months earlier. Mrs. Dutcher must've had a feeling about us, because we went on to become great friends, and still are to this day.