Something Else. - Chapter 1

On this fateful, sunny day, she read us that story as she usually did, arms crossed tight upon her black, gap-commercialized shirt, and eyes squinting into the glare of the sun from the never-closed shades. Upon looking back, I immediately think two things-Why are elementary teachers always so young? and Was this the beginning of my problem?

I doubt it truly was "the beginning", if such a thread exists from the mass of tangled thoughts. I guess some things just start on their own-first, as a comment, then, as an idea, and finally sprouting into a full-fledged moral. Or maybe as an idea, and then people say things that tend to support that idea, which leads into the completion of a thought-process.

Anyway, the story was about how Lance had combated cancer, angry friends and depression with courage, and continued on to complete a huge bike race, despite his disability and weakness. He, with nearly every disadvantage God could possibly dish out at one time, he, with a destructive disease raging through his usually healthy body, he, with angry friends and a lack of support, still managed to rise above it. To win a huge bike race. To defeat the monster that threatened to rip him and everything he had always worked for apart.

To be happy.

Do you know what my first thought was?

Rule out what you would first expect. I was not inspired, or amused. I didn't find it interesting, or even inspirational in the slightest.

I found myself furious. A fury fueled by my already-growing sense of incompetence.

Who does this man think he is that he can do all this great stuff despite what he’s been through, and I can’t even bring myself to be happy? was something along the lines of what I first thought. And then:

Am I truly that pathetic that even with all of the great chances and supposed intelligence handed to me, given to me without anything in exchange, that I can't even make something of myself with all that?

Of course, as a third-grader, I didn't think those exact sentences. All the story truly did was that it imparted on me a twisted feeling in my stomach that rose up to grip my throbbing ribs gently, but harshly. But that single feeling of sadness steadily grew into that twisted mess of ideals that lies above this paragraph.

Those ideals retain their grip on my heart. But it isn’t quite as gentle as before.