Lies of a Third Grader

When I was a little girl (3rd grade) I went through a phase where I told lies. It started with one & grew, grew, grew.
In third grade we moved from the house that we had lived in for years...away from all of my friends, away from the brick road I learned to ride a bike on, away from the lake I learned to swim, float, canoe in, away from the oak trees & orange trees I learned to climb in and away from the banana trees & azalea bushes I learned to kiss under.
We moved into a small cinder block house on a blacktop road in a neighborhood with more houses, more people, more diversity & I developed a lower self esteem (In hindsight, this is what I think) The kids at school & in the neighborhood weren't so accepting of this skinny little blonde who could out run any boy on the block, who could climb trees higher than any monkey in the village & who could care less about barbie dolls & sitting inside with them in their air conditioning to watch TV. In hindsight, I guess they weren't too accepting of our whole crew... they had attitude towards Mom with her ever-changing please-find-me-a-car-that-will-run so that we can drive the neighborhood on trash day to find other peoples' junk to take home, re-do, & then take to the market & sell for cash money, my Sister Singleton with her '57 Chevy & long-haired, barefoot boyfriends, Kimbies with her cigarette smoking social life in the driveway, Curt with his needles & seizures, Chanty Boy with his Mongolian face & enlarged tongue & all that (Curt has Diabetes, Chanty has Down's Syndrome) & skinny little me, wearing Curty's hand-me-downs.
Questions from the kids came...
Why do you wear boys clothes?
Why is your brothers tongue so long?
Why was the ambulance at your house?
Why was your mom's car parked in front of our house?
Why were your sisters riding bikes at like 5 in the morning?
Why don't you watch TV?
Why did you & your Mom take our old broken TV cart when we threw it away?
Why don't you ever have any cookies?
Who were all these people at your house? Why were you all outside until midnight? You mom allows that?!
Why don't you have any real barbies?
What were you wearing?
Why aren't you eating? Can't your parents give your lunch money?
Why aren't you crying yet...crybaby...I said you were white trash, don't you know what that is?
And I had answers, some were true & some were not.
I like boys clothes. He ate too many potato chips when he was little-er. My brother ate a cookie. Her car broke down. They have to go to work at the beanery. I don't like TV, besides we don't have power. We didn't take any TV carts. My mom gives us oranges when we want something sweet...cookies are expensive. They were my sisters friends & we were cooking out...it was a birthday party. I have a real barbie, she just hast has short brown hair. I was wearing my dad's coat, it was cold. Me? No, I'm not hungry. No, I don't know what white trash is & I'm not crying because I don't care. One day I'm going to be a news reporter or an actress.
I told Nana about how I lied about my clothes and about my brothers tongue. She asked me why I lied & I told her that the other kids would make fun of me...playing with me just fine until I no-one could tag me in freeze-tag & then they circle me with taunts & ridicules. I asked her what white trash was & she took me to the mall. She bought me an outfit ... gouchos with a rainbow shirt. She told me that everyone lies sometimes, but that I should be careful because one lie leads to another & they are never quite worth it.
That year for Christmas I got Barbie dolls & Barbie Malls. But none of that mattered, in fact, at Christmas I felt bad, I felt guilty...
That Christmas morning, (really in the wee hours of the night, after everyone had gone to bed) I laid alone on our living room floor and I therapeutically rolled the orange from my stocking in my hands & I stared at the Barbie Doll Mall that Santa had left me & I knew it must have cost a lot of money. I realized it was nothing I wanted at all ... it was what the other kids in the hood thought I should have & being the sucker that I was I thought maybe it would make me more normal. I told my family that I wanted Barbie dolls that year, but I knew when I told them that, that it wasn't true. I told myself that it was what I wanted & I even knew that wasn't true. I wanted to live by the lake, under the trees & by people who accept diabetes, down's syndrome, hippie's & hard-times.
By telling lies to myself, I had manipulated my entire family that Christmas & got just what I asked for.
Gouchos & Barbies didn't change me or the neighborhoods kids' perspectives of me & My World.
By telling the truth, I got picked on some & yes, I got mad but I didn't get sad. They'd call my brother a retard & I'd say 'That's funny retards are supposed to be dumb. He's not dumb, he just has Down's Syndrome...what's you excuse?' I got defiant & I found myself growing less dependent upon other people & even more dependent upon myself. I found myself more accepting of those that were different in ways I didn't understand, even if that difference was that they didn't understand that some people are different from them, physically and otherwise. I found that some people didn't like the truth, it made them uncomfortable and sometimes even scared. I found other people who were intrigued...Some in a morbid way and others for enlightenment. I found that those that didn't like it could leave, there was a place for them somewhere...It just wasn't here with me.
But any which way you slice that cake, in third grade, I found that the truth, while sometimes unfortunate, painful or hurtful, allows for stronger foundations within & that stronger foundations within allow for us to build a greater terrain. I also learned that when you tell lies to yourself, they will overflow to the people who know & love you, they will believe you & that is not always a good thing. Honesty rules.
Thank You To Everyone Who Read & Responded To My Last Secret Post. ILYA.