One of the encounters I dreaded while growing up was interacting with any adult. In fact, I still do sometimes. I just felt so uncomfortable because it was either they were making me look stupid, making dry jokes and more or less forcing me to laugh, or scolding me without reason. So, I tried my best to not offend the adults around me. “Be good, and you will not face their wrath”, I thought… think. Say the right things, so you won’t be scolded or be told you look stupid. If they say something you are unsure of, laugh because it could be a joke. You don’t want them to feel slighted, do you? Take care of them, so you won’t be blamed.
To save myself the trouble of acting right, I avoided anyone I considered to be an adult. Anyone who was older than me, especially those in their twenties upward. I did not want to be friends with an elderly person and met their niceness with great suspicion. “Why do you seem happy to see me? I must have done something wrong, and you are happy about the impeding hard words you would soon bestow upon me”, I would think. “Why is this woman/man asking after my affairs? Do they think I am hiding something?”
Let me tell you that as I grew up, it did not get better. When I was younger, I was quite the smarty-pants. So, I was given two separate double promotions on the grounds of being too brilliant for my class. If I could turn back the hands of time and knowing what I know now, I would have begged them – begged them – to let me stay in those classes and grow up with my peers. Being promoted in such a way put me two to three years above my peers. I felt the significance of this when I got to JSS 1 (Junior Secondary School). I was suddenly the “baby of the class”. Till I graduated from university, I was always the “baby of the class”. That label annoys me so much.
The result of this is that I saw my classmates as adults. It made it hard to interact. Them reiterating that label made it even worse. I definitely do not blame them. Life just happened to me in that way. I was skittish around them. Ensured their “elderly” requirements were satisfied. Tried not to offend them, tried to be obedient, tried to be silent.
I tried to fit in, but could not because I was in the midst of the very adults I was thoroughly afraid of. In JSS, the adults were in my class and the other classes above. In SSS, they were in my class and the other classes above. In university, they were in my class and the other classes above. Now, outside the university, it is every one who looks to be in their twenties or above. The mental load is crazy.
I figured out long ago that this was a “me” problem. It is something I have to tackle on my own, and I am trying. But, between one childhood baggage and the other, I feel like I am pulling a hundred logs behind me, one at a time, but need to get all of them to the finish line at the same time (picture this). A fool’s task.
I had two encounters with people I consider “adults” today. They brought back these memories I wish I could get over already.
These are 500 words (or more ?)! Talk to you tomorrow!