Culpeper County High School had church ladies come into health class and tell me to not have sex until marriage. They also told me that women were like crock pots and men were like microwaves. I thought this was hilarious at the time and refused to sign the pledge.
That was about ten years ago. I kind of wonder if it's still like that...
I bring this up for two reasons. The first is that last week I saw The Education of Shelby Knox and I cried through half of it because it made me wish my life was different. Like, you know; I wish I had done something back then. I wish I had resources and support. More importantly, I wished that at that age I had the knowledge of something other than what was being taught to me. I knew something was wrong and I knew I didn't fit in but without the knowledge of the outside world, I couldn't really do anything because I didn't know what to do.
The second thing that made me think of this is that tonight I stopped at Walmart in Culpeper on my way home for the first time in a long time. I heard a woman call my name so I turned around. It was this woman and her kid and I said hello and studied her for a moment. I said, "I'm sorry.......I'm terrible with remembering names......do I know you?" She told me her name and that we went to school together. I asked what she had been doing and she told me she was a full time mom; she had a five year old and a one year old. She looked so different than me; like a woman. A mature women. A mom. I just thought to myself, how did I end up in such a different world than all these people in my hometown? I knew something was up back then but I had no idea what until I left Culpeper. (And let me tell you, it got me into a lot of authority-questioning trouble, too.) How did I sense things were not what they seemed and my peers did not?
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