Fourth Grade

I could not tell you much about certain grade levels. No recollection of second and third grade, but 4th grade is when I changed schools. My whole life just uprooted again. Life is funny that way, things happen when we are young that make us just say oh well as adults.

The main thing I remember is starting in a school I didn’t know. I had learned to use jokes and picking on kids as a mechanism to engage with others. I made friends kind of. I didn’t have alot. I struggled and was mean. I was the bully and wasn’t nice. I remember telling a girl she was adopted at some point and she cried so hard. I regret this stage of my life. I wish I would of had a parent to teach me appropriate coping mechanisms.

I was a mad kid. I was mad because my parents weren’t together. I was mad we moved and I lost the little normalcy I had known. I was mad because my mom worked alot and I get it now. She was trying to survive and provide my brother and I with the best life. My dad was there but he was there every other weekend.

I started softball in fourth or fifth grade and that changed my life. I finally found a group of friends and a skill I was good at. I was really good at it. I was in a small town so there wasn’t a ton of competition. I always wonder if I would had been as good if I was in a bigger city. Was I entitled because I grew up in a small town?

Fourth grade was such a life changing experience, for the fact that I was new. I had to learn to adapt. I had to learn who I was and who I was going to be. I started slow pitch softball and found my niche. Writing this I never even put in how much that steered my life in one direction. Do you have a memory that has done that? What is something that impacted your life? Are you Ok with it? Do you wish it was different? I don’t think I would change mine honestly.