The gifted class.

In elementary school, there was a section of classrooms that stood apart from the others.

The kids who went to those classes were quiet, most wore glasses, and for some reason I felt like a buffoon in their presence.

They were "The Gifted Kids".

Dramatic pause.

My brother belonged to the gifted class.

Everyone I knew said he was smart. And he was.

For example, when we were kids I used to barge into his room unannounced which he, quite naturally, hated. From what my friends tell me, when this occurs, most older brothers resort to literally throwing their younger siblings out of their rooms, you know getting in fistfights and what not.

Well,  my brother built a security system connected to his door so that an alarm would sound anytime I (or anyone in the family) entered his room.

That's the way Gifted kids solve their problems...and eventually grow up take over the world ( or if they don't become mad scientists, they simply make the rest of us their employees).

So, in elementary school, I may have used recess to skip about the playground arm in arm with three of my best friends chanting, "We Are Barbie Girls, We Are Barbie Girls..." like some sort of pink-clad Barbie cult. But, in the back of my mind I longed to be one of the smart kids.

I desperately wanted in on the mysterious world of The Gifted and Talented.

Well, to make a long story short- I never made it into The Gifted class and if you had any idea what my GPA was you'd know exactly why I didn't make it.

Instead of succeeding in school, I did what younger siblings are really good at, I adapted.

(The youngest child is generally adept at learning to "adapt" to the people around them. They may become the actor of the family who uses their learned ability to either compliment or manipulate those closest to them.)

Attempting to blend in with whoever I happened to be with, I learned early on to try too hard.

Unfortunately, I still try to hard.

It's just a really bad habit that goes back to pausing mid-skip when the recess bell rang,   looking over my shoulder at a very special group of classrooms, and wondering what those Gifted kids were up to.

I will forever be in awe of those who are blessed with naturally high intellects, listening to a smart person explain one of their theories is like listening to a really good Ingrid Michaelson song. It's all at once beautiful and somehow a little bit humorous.

Even so, it's also perfectly acceptable to be the opposite of Gifted.

“Today you are You, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is Youer than You.”  -Dr. Seuss



Leave a Reply.