Where I grew up

I grew up in a home where for some reason I was embarrassed to do anything. Everything I did, everything I said, everything I thought was a secret. It still is.

I was incredibly embarrassed of keeping this diary. I had to wait till it has late at night, to sneak around and write without anyone noticing. I was embarrassed to paint, so I had to do it at school. I was embarrassed to watch TV so I never used the TV remote... I always wanted to walk around in my underwear at home; I've always felt embarrassed...

I don't come from a home where I am free to be myself. Judged, questioned... made uncomfortable. Everything is I was embarrassed to ask for the clothes I like. I still am. I was embarrassed to get the haircut I liked. I was embarrassed to bring my friends home or speak about home... or even have my parents come to school for grades.

I think from there came much of my urge to lie as a kid. I didn't like where I came from.

I know now, my mom was severely depressed most of the time... and contemplated suicide a lot. I know she didn't’ got married out of love. My dad is never around in any of my childhood memories... except to watch if I brushed my teeth... which was a traumatic experience.

my parents lacked taste.... they were always behind in any sense of fashion... you ask around my childhood could have very well taken place in the 80's ... plus they never cared much about how the place looked, or how we dressed... most of my clothes where inherited by my older cousins anyway, so they were always old fashioned... we didn't have cable, so we watched a lot of local TV, Peruvian channels mostly...the TV I watched was never in sync with the TV people I met. Watched.

I remember I played some games with my sisters, we had an Intellivision that never worked, and board games got so boring after a while, so we used our toys and made up storyline that were actually part of the TV roast of our own imaginary TV channel: happy channel, and each game we played was an episode of a show we had there. It was all pretty cool actually.

But most of the time my sisters hated me. They said I was little fag every time they could and were so embarrassed I was their brother. They however have each other for better or for worse. So I was forever excluded from, games, conversations, TV shows, friends, visits... They were pretty much geniuses on their own right, I was always left as the dumb old brother. The queer.

I can’t honestly remember my mom or my dad caring for us at all... like, being concerned about a school, or our happiness, or our wellbeing. I only remembered one time my parents were called by a teacher at school or something... and they asked me about it. And I told them that this girl on the bus was calling me names and bullying me.

I was the ugliest kid in school, I remember the girls saying I had like this huge head... which I found so painful (because it was true) I think I became oversensitive to criticism... and kind of forgot to talk to people.

Hence... I looked even more as a moron. I remember once, we went to the Francesa with the school... and most of my friends found it came and went on be themselves, leaving me alone. And there that there was this sign on top of a comic shelve.

"Pay for one... takes two"

And I didn't quite understand it.

"I pay for one... and I get two more? That two awesome to be true!!! I got to ask!"

I know.... I was kind of hardheaded. So I asked this lady about it. And she said something like ¿are you a moron or what?

I told her some lie about being in the hospital... but since then, I never ever asked for help in store... or to the police or anything. The sense of utter stupidity was just too much.

I remember being so lonely and stupid that time... and I kind of punished myself for years for it. I was a moron. An idiot who couldn't read a sign.

I lived with this moron complex, for years and years... I remember it wasn't till second semester in collage. A girl in my photography class asked, actually asked me if I had some mental disability... that I realized how amazingly stupid I appear to people.

School sucked for me... there were some few scarce memories that I cherish... but they are so few and feeble.

Tilatá was a nightmare... I remember never being able to make a stupid friend there. Like... never. I think there were few recesses I spent with people... and it was rare...

I remember I was psychology most of the time in my first school... then..., well they stopped caring. I never spoke much in my therapy sessions either... it must have been frustrating to everyone. I was just sad. By the end of my time there... I was such an outcast... I felt so stupid... I was glad...

then my second school... was, well at least different... co I kind of made friends with the most un cool people... which lasted about a year... and then it was again loneliness... being mediocre in all my classes. I don't think I excelled at anything... besides design and arts which weren't even considered in my school...

God I hate my school. I find it... unbearably boring...

When I think about it, I just have this urge of screaming... like just really screaming so loud I cry. I just never screamed... there were so many things I kept to myself, so many things unsaid, so many things undone, so many wrongs ignored... I was the kind of kid that would take a shotgun to school and kill people. I fantasized with it, on endless times. There is just such a sense of frustration about everything. About not being recognized there as... something special.

I just wanted to say deeply... "You are wrong, you are so wrong... and I am right."

Nausea... from what that school meant... nausea ...with some really bright colors that showed occasionally in the gray mist...

Now I'm home again. Term is over. And I'm alone... feeling stupid. 

(12 days late)