Over 14 yrs of marriage, my husband and I have gone through nearly everything married people can experience: Unwanted pregnancies, death of parents and friends, realization of lifelong dreams, moving into our first house, thrill of our first new car, infidelity, lost jobs, lost friends, new jobs that make you more money than ever before, crap jobs that didn’t even keep you off welfare, hunger, homelessness. You name it and we’ve probably dealt with it.

 

My husband is number 12 of 13 children. There are so many grandchildren and great-grandchildren that I literally don’t know all their names. My husband is extremely uncomfortable in large groups of people, making family gatherings quite excruciating. So much so, that he tends to avoid them altogether. His family doesn’t really understand this.

 

When I was an itty bitty girl I’d bring home all my old workbooks and unused school supplies on the last day of school and carefully organize them. Over the summer I’d play school, which is clichéd for someone who’s studying to be a teacher, but my fantasy world was a little different. I was not the teacher while my toys were my students. I was the student with an imaginary teacher!

 

When my parents would have friends over, my sister would rush to get acquainted with the children that often accompanied them. She’d make up fantastic games to play, but would purposefully block the door to the playroom so that I couldn’t get in, or would otherwise find a way to pointedly exclude me. I remember many a time lying on the hardwood floor in the hall outside the playroom, peering under the door, watching the other kids play. I’d never protest; that was not tolerated in our house. I’d simply lie on the floor and cry quietly. Eventually, I’d get up and tiptoe to the living room, sit on the floor by the couch, and listen to the big people talk. Normally, children were banished from this adult environment, but if I was quiet enough they’d let me stay. The adults often said that I was a mature child, but they were wrong. I was just a wuss.

 

When I was 21 and my husband was 24, we decided that we were done having babies. My husband had a vasectomy the same year and we’ve never regretted it. As much as I love and adore my son, time and life have shown me that I’m much better with kids when I can return them to their parents at the end of the day.

 

I was that girl who sat in the back of the classroom and never said a word unless someone spoke to her first. I was that girl who’d walk to class looking straight at the floor, walking as quickly as possible so that she could get to her next class without being noticed. I was that girl who would sit alone at lunch every day. I missed a day of school in 6th grade and only one teacher marked me absent. No one noticed I wasn’t there. It wasn’t until 11th grade that I began to change. I stopped staring at the floor. I discovered a sense of humor and a bottomless pit of sarcasm within myself that I never knew existed. I also realized that there were people in the world as strange as me.  I was not alone.