Prompt – The first time you felt left out.
The third grade was my year, but not the banner kind of year. I began to understand that the world is not only what sits in front of my eyes. There are other layers beneath the seen, humming quietly, sending signals that not everyone can receive or understand or even wants to comprehend.
Another move pressed my family into boxes as we traveled from California to Alaska. The world grew colder and wider. The sky stretched in a way that felt endless. Mountains rose like silent witnesses to something that could not be named. This move felt different. It carried secrets. Each of us held our own private weight, and each of us carried it alone.
At eight years old, I could barely understand the ordinary world that everyone else seemed to agree on. Then something was added. Colors slipped out of their lanes. New surroundings arrived with weight and feeling attached. I began to hear with my whole body. I remembered air. I understood that walls could breathe, floors could whisper, and space held echoes of grief and laughter at the same time. I had no language for any of it, and I would not for years. What I had instead was loneliness, and the quiet fear that something in me was wrong.
The other eight-year-olds in my class spoke of Saturday morning cartoons, which kid cheated on the playground, and who ran the fastest at recess. Their worlds felt simple. Contained. Safe. When I shared my experiences, I noticed the slow and careful distance that formed around me. There was no vote. No raised hands. No secret ballot. Only the quiet math children learn too early…subtraction. A new seating chart formed without the teacher. Conversations paused when I walked by. The circle tightened, and I found myself outside of it before I even knew it was happening.
That was the first time I remember being excluded because I was myself. Not because I misbehaved. Not because I broke a rule. In that moment, I learned to step backward, to become smaller, to study the room before the room had the chance to study me.
However, every story finds its own way to balance loss. When some people leave, others arrive, carrying lessons that are needed. Ms. Mullins, my third grade teacher, was one of those people. She carried lessons, and she carried me, for the entire year. She noticed. She always noticed. During recess she invited me to sit beside her and asked me what the day felt like. Not what happened. Not what I saw. But what it felt like. I told her the room felt loud even when no one spoke. I told her the air remembered things. And she listened. She did not laugh. She did not try to make it smaller. She spoke in words an eight-year-old could hold. “Your brain is paying deep attention,” she said. “That is not broken. That is a gift. You will learn how to walk with it. I did.”
Muddled Soma 