Jaci Dawn

I decided I wanted to be a wild stallion running across the wild Nevada wilds by the time I was eight years old. A black stallion at first, then a buckskin, and eventually any color of horse that could be imagined. My girlfriends in elementary school played wild horse with me. We neighed, stomped, and lopes. And the normal kids made fun of us.

It was hard not being normal. I had so much imagination and so many dreams. I could be a coyote or a wild mustang stallion. Anything wild. Anything that I was not. The imagination is such a wonderful escape.

Fifth Grade comes and you are supposed to let go of the imagination of your childhood, but I could not. I preferred that pretend world more than I liked the “real” world I lived in. Bullies. Popular kids. Prettier girls. Girls who wore nylons in 5^th Grade. Girls who got their ears pierced when they turned ten. Children who didn’t have a spastic bladder and a teacher who didn’t believe in restroom breaks during class time.

I peed my panties twice in the Fifth Grade. I felt as ashamed as the boy who was probably Autistic who shat his pants. I wasn’t the same as he was (and know this: we didn’t understand Autism when I grew up. I just knew I wasn’t the same). I simply was afraid to ask to be allowed to go to the restroom. He had a deeper issue. I hope his parents advocated for him the way my parents did when they found out about my shame through gossip and my older brother.

My parents met with the teacher and the principal without my consent. I had no idea they were so angry until the conference was over and the teacher suddenly changed her bathroom policy: if you had to go, you only needed to raise your hand and she handed you a pass. It’s probably the first time I knew how much my parents cared for me.

I remained the strange child. My parents couldn‘t understand me.  I was “sick” most of my 6^th grade year. My stomach hurt so much. I couldn’t go to school. I needed to be hiding in my bedroom, cutting out paper dolls and drawing. Anything that didn’t require actual socialization. There were multiple trips to the doctor who was just that: a doctor, not a psychologist. Eventually a 6^th grade teacher came on board and began to empower me.

I won’t lie: she did a lot of good. But my imagination was still so wild, untamed, and untrained. I could be anyone else in an instance. I pretended to be someone else all the time. A wild horse, a hippie, a coyote. I made up stories in my head and enacted them while walking home from school, trying not to be bullied by the popular kids who were completely normal. I simply wanted to be someone – or something – else.

There were moments when God protected me. I missed school the day a sparrow flew into the band room and all the popular kids threw things at it until it died. I would have exerted myself that day, berating them for their ignorance. I don’t think I was spared: I think they were spared. They didn’t need to know the anger growing inside of me.

Or maybe they did, and God spared them.

We moved away just as I was entering high school. I still fantasized I was someone else, something else. Anyone who was not me. Anyone. Or Thing.

I don’t know when that fantasy left me, and I became aware of reality. I’m not a roan wild Mustang stallion. I’m not another human being trying to make their way through life. I’m just me. Mother of two, mother of three. My oldest now living in Alaska. My son, buried at Fort Barrancas, Florida. My youngest: my niece, living a few miles from me but not speaking to me.

I am wholly me now. I don’t know who I was when I was a child, but it was wonderful.