O brave new world

I repeated a grade, deal.
I had a reading disability when I was a kid and I had to repeat the third grade to fix the problem. Now I am an avid reader and a pretty good student. I work as hard as I can, and set goals for myself every school year. Yet, I'm still a year older than my friends and my class. Every time I meet someone new (who's usually younger than me because everyone I hang out with is younger than me!) they eventually find out that I'm just bit older and question as to why I'm in their grade.

To tell them the truth is a difficult process. I feel like an idiot every time I mention it, and I swear I can see their eyes dim or they frown, just a little. I can feel their thoughts wishing they hadn't asked or thinking they have to dumb things down for me. After I tell them I usually end it with something stupid like "Oh but don't worry I'm smart now."

I do wish that I was a stronger person who could keep it a mystery as to why I'm older. Like every time someone asks, I could say a really casual lie and make it all Woody Allen like, and then cunningly switch to another subject without them noticing. Oh if only.

Another problem with being older than my piers is that I feel like I have to dumb myself down in order to be accepted, and I absolutely hate that I do that. By "dumb myself down," I don't mean I try to act ditsy or something, I mean I accept things that people do and say around me or to me. For example, I don't know how many fucking times I've been called "cute." Let me just say that I am not cute, and I can't stand the fact that some people talk down to me like that. I mean, I'm five foot nine, and most of the people who tell me that are younger than me. Younger than me!

Often times I come up with these spectacular comebacks, in my head, to put cute-namers in their place, yet the next day someone calls me cute and all I can do is giggle stupidly.

It's also difficult realizing that my friends are more immature than me. I'm not saying I'm Ms. Master of Maturity, but sometimes I get annoyed of the stupid things my friends say that I so know they're going to regret the second it comes out of their mouth.

I plan on leaving for college and am anticipating the day I'm gone, to get away from the little world that knows me now and enter a new world that is well acquainted with the greater version of me. A new world where I don't have to accept cute as a compliment, and where my age is a mystery.

"O brave new world
That has such people in't!"
- Act V The Tempest
Disclaimer: I've never actually read The Tempest, but I did just finish Brave New World.

My fav. Beatles song Martha My Dear


Btdub: I just watched that Woodstock movie, and I must say, it looked like a lot of fun. *Sigh* I wish I was around back then. I'm not saying it was awesome, but it was an experience.