Stupid.

My last semester of college was an utter freaking disaster.  A couple of things rose out of the ashes of that mess.  First, was teacher(who taught in the school where the catastrophe took place), whose kids were in the Sunday school class I taught.  She waited about a year, then took me aside and said, "None of that mess belongs to you. It wasn't your fault.  Move forward and teach. Allow God to use that in your life."

The second was a fellow student teacher, who was a grad student in special education.  And she was blind.  As a bat.  For reasons that remain unclear, this woman lived alone and drove.  A car.  Her house was a biohazard.  But of course, she had no idea.  She was a great cook and would bring me food(that I was unable to eat once I saw her kitchen).  She had a cat that was about a million years old and needed to be put down.  But of course, she couldn't see.

Her graduate work was in creating a culturally neutral I.Q. test.  She needed a variety of volunteers from all sorts of backgrounds; which criteria, I apparently fulfilled,.  Several days, during my planning period and lunch, I took a different portion of the experimental test.  One afternoon we went to her house and did the WHOLE of the WAIS-R*. She looked at me and said, "Why are you studying education?  You could do anything you wanted to do."

When I was in 7th grade, I told my mom I was thinking of trying out for cheerleader.  She said," Go ahead if you want; that doesn't have anything to do with me.  I don't know how you are going to pay for uniforms and fees though."

When my high school Drama I class was putting on Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest, I was cast as Gwendolyn.  I asked my dad to come to the performance.  He said, "Naw.  I won't be there."**

His mother took all the girls in the family to Hawaii.  Except me.  And on a visit to her home just prior to the trip, she reminded me, "Don't expect me to bring you anything, either."

 I've seen the pastor gasp like a fish out of water, "Why can't you believe God loves you?"

...'cause I'm stupid.






*Because it wasn't an official administration of the test (I didn't pay someone with a license to administer it, I guess), my results aren't official.

**Sort of in the man's defense, he isn't known for flowery speech.  When his wife was going in for a double mastectomy, he said, "Their gonna cut her breasts off."  Gee.  I got off easy.