Childhood is Hard Even if You Didn’t Have a Hard Childhood

By the standards of measuring childhood, I had a good one. I never wanted for food, clothes, or love from my parents, although I knew we couldn’t afford fancy $100 jeans the popular kids wore, and always wished my dad was around more instead of at work.

My parents did fight back then, but mom was going through menopause and I’m sure it wasn’t easy raising me. In general, I had every advantage and was set up for a positive school experience, except it didn’t happen. I regarded school as a prison with bullies and kept waiting to live my life until I graduated. It took graduating, then a year on ramping to grad school, and a semester of grad school to finally justify dropping out of school to myself. I’m not sure why I went to so much school (except the expectations of my parents) when I kept telling myself I’d be happier after I quit going to school. Even from a young age, I was always ready for what happened after school.

Meditation, living in the moment, and being happy with where you are weren’t introduced to me until I was in college, and it took several years after to start living by those tactics. But most all I can remember about my childhood was wishing for it to be over.

I’m sure it didn’t help that my mom dressed me in the things that didn’t jive with what the other students were wearing or that my parents were 20 years older than everyone else’s. But I was loved deeply by them and kept safe…maybe too safe, but as my elementary years turned to teen, I…