Participation

I have a little more time now, but I'm a bit sleepy, so I'm not sure it's going to result in better stuff. Plus I'm procrastinating. And I'm hungry.

Wow. Excuses are easy to come by, aren't they?

I can't help but feel insignificant lately. Like nothing I do makes a damn bit of difference to anything. Maybe I'm just feeling a little neglected because I haven't been singled out and praised, no one's saying great things about me, no one's saying I'm just the person they wanted to see/talk to/work with/etc. I feel like the little hamster in the wheel, spinning my legs and getting nothing for my troubles.

I work my ass off in art class. I paint until the colors mix into one and I think I'm about to go blind. And then I keep painting. There's a woman who sits behind me and whines and bitches and moans that she's frustrated and it doesn't look right and there's this wrong and that wrong, causing the prof to come over and spend oodles of time with her. At one point, he was sitting there doing the painting for her. I wanted to scream. It's annoying when people pull that poor me schtick and get away with it so the teacher feels sorry for them and gives them lots of attention when I'm struggling in the corner quietly.

I work my ass off to find things out and put things together and generally be astute and observant. It seems that what I'm really doing is blending in to the background until no one can see me, and eventually can't hear me either. I've always wanted to be special in a way that no one else is, to be recognized for having something that no one else has, or doing something no one else has ever done. But the farther I get, the more I realize I've gone nowhere.

So here I am, with the special needs kids over at the state school, making believe that I am doing things that are worthwhile and hoping that someone will eventually notice. The trouble with this group, though, is that the ones lower down on the scale get all the help and encouragement, the ones higher up get all the coddling, and the ones in the middle (like me) get nada. We stay the same, because someone has to be average, right? Someone has to ooh and ahh at the chosen ones and wish they could be just a little bit better.

So that's it. I try to be just a little bit better and come to find that it's never going to be good enough. Find that I'm not really cut out to do anything or be anyone to anyone or even get an honorable mention. Yeah, I was always that kid who got the trophy for participation. Because if I'm not out there, then who will make the other kids look so brilliant?