A+ & The Trek North

Grade on listing my weaknesses: A+!

Nailed it!

Homework assignment this week: "What are my expectations?"

When given this assignment on Wednesday, I told my therapist about a "contract" I had with God from the age of toddler-ship to approximately 17.

I prefaced it by telling her that I may need to have my medication dosage raised to higher levels than are recommended by the FDC.

I used to tell God every single night that I'd give Him a rose if he would take away all of my nightmares. 

Every single night.

And, when I would have nightmares I would tell Him that I guess He just wasn't going to get a rose.

From a very young age, I was telling Him how it was going to be!

And then, as I grew older that morphed into me telling God that if I did what was right, I should be blessed with my righteous desires. 

Heidi Ray, F to the Y to the I - it doesn't work like that.

But, bravo on that A+ in bright red!

Before the start of sixth grade, my dad got a job in Salt Lake City, Utah.

We would be moving from Fresno, California to Salt Lake City, Utah.

Now, Geography is one of my strongest subjects.

I could name most of the state capitals to you like a darn boss.

I could tell you about all seven continents, the four oceans, several seas and straits...

I know the difference between Iraq and Iran, thank you very much Alan Jackson!

But, People, I had NO idea what we were getting ourselves into when we moved from the number one murder per capita city at the time, to Salt Lake City, Utah.

There was not a geography, an anthropology, a religion class that could have prepared me for this move!

I remember my first thought being, "Why does everyone look like us?"

Where are all of my black friends? My Jehovah Witness friends? My Jewish friends? My Asian friends? 

Why on Earth is everyone at my new school also at my new church?

Go get your own dang church! Go there! Leave mine alone!

We moved into our "new" house two days before the first day of school.

Our moving trucks had not yet arrived.

That was a blessing in disguise, Folks!

My parents took us down the street to Fred Meyer and let us pick out our first-day-of-school outfits.

A real-life, store-bought outfit!!

I still remember the shirt I wore. White, with some form of lace cut-out sewn to the front with bedazzled gems hot-glue-gunned and splatters of fabric paint. (It was 1988, afterall!) 

I had Jellie shoes.

Actual Jellie shoes!

And shorts.

Real freaking shorts.

Not too-small-for-me jeans that were cut off to be shorts now.

Real shorts! The kind they sell as actual shorts!!!!

Off to school we went.

My brothers and I walked to school.

Say what?!

I could walk to school and not worry about being accosted by the homeless man who peed on the park wall every morning next to our house in Fresno.

I could walk to school and not worry about the other homeless man who hid in the fig orchard across the street from our house and would jump out and snatch kids as they played.

I didn't even have to worry about the Ice Cream Man who parked three houses down from us and spent his "lunch" break trying to get the neighbor girl pregnant in the cold confines of the ice cream cups in the back of the Ice Cream Mobile.

It was really something!

I was sure that this move would change everything!

I would have friends.

Boys would like me.

AND, my daddy wouldn't coach anymore!

Oh, was I wrong.

Even the self-imposed contract I made with God each night could not help this lost little girl, who was me.