Attention-Getter

I come from a large family. I am the third born child and the second daughter. All my life I had to vie for the attention of my parents and grandparents.  My method of choice was perfectionism. The year after my birth my sister Gina was born. I got a new sibling almost every year for the next several years until there were a total of nine of us. As a baby I suffered greatly with asthma, by greatly I mean several times my breath was so difficult to find that I was actually minutes away from death. However, that one deflect in my bronchial tubes actually endeared me to the very people whose attention I sought. I was mostly quiet and could easily have been absorbed in the background of noise and chaos that comes with my family. My natural shyness, neatness and straight A's in school helped form my flawed character of "perfect" child.

By the time I was a teenager perfection was getting  harder to maintain. Though my need for attention had not weaned much. The year I turned fourteen I started noticing my body changing. My breast got larger and perky, my waist got smaller, and my hips expanded into peach shaped roundness. My little slightly protruding  belly  was gone, replaced by a  lithe body of a young woman. One day my oldest brother Jimmy came in the house an announced to me that his friend had made what he considered an inappropriate statements concerning me, and my newly developed body. Jimmy told me he said I had grown up fine with a nice body. He got into an argument with his friend and was in a huff by the time he walked into the door. Jimmy had always been fiercely protective of me. So I pretended to be mortified, but I was secretly thrilled that someone thought I was  fine with a nice body. Little did I know that one comment would created a new character in me. This one even harder to maintain then the first. I went from studious although somewhat silly to teenage beauty.

Looking back I can not remember how I formed this character. I do remember changing my walk so that my hips would sway and my breast would bounce. I walked with books on my head so that every step was perfect and timed. I found a new way to get attention except this time I wanted the attention of a man. A year after my first relationship fiasco and being told by my parents that I could not date until I was sixteen. I went on another quest. I would not kiss or have a boyfriend, but I did go through a excessive longing. I developed a major crush on my mechanical drawing teacher Mr Latika.

Mr Latika wore expensive suits under a body that Mr Universe would envy, and he always smelled of cologne. He had caramel brown flawless skin and soft  brown/gold eyes. He is one of the most handsome men I have ever met. All the girls at Ferndale High, black and white had a major crush on him. He was in his early thirties. Most of the male teachers back then were old and smelled of stale cigarettes and moth balls. Mr Latika was like the handsome guy in the My Mystery Date game that you hoped you would picked. He was the Adonis of Ferndale High School.

My freshman year of high school is the year that the girls had to start taking the usual male only classes. That year it was required that the girls take mechanical drawing and wood shop. The boys had to also take home economics and sewing. Times were changing rapidly- the woman libbers burned their bras, and like a answered prayer I got assigned to Mr Latika's class. I was elated, until I actually had to learn mechanical drawing. The truth of the matter is, I never really wanted to do "men" work. I did not quite understand The Women Liberation Movement. My teenage perception was  of women with swingy loose boobs climbing telephone poles and doing construction work with blistered hands....I wanted no parts of it. After wood shop and mechanical drawing I was even more convinced I would not become a Women Libber.

My first day in Mr Latika class was bliss to me. His voice was like music though his words were Greek to me. He handed out bow pen compasses, pencils, rulers and other small uninteresting tools. I took them with glee. I don't think it would have mattered if he would have handed me a designated grenade. Before the week was out I had come to hate that dreadful bow pen compass. I could not get it to work for me. Despite my new walk and mostly imagined teenage beauty, I was still extremely awkward. I attempted to imitate the beautiful circles, squares and intricate pattern that he made. Mine looked like an odd squiggly mess that a two year old drew. I hated mechanical drawing,  I did not understand, could not grasp it, and I was acutely distracted by Mr Latika's prettiness.

I daydreamed of Mr Latika falling in love with me. We would marry and have beautiful babies, and since my mechanical drawing skills were non-existing I did what any self-respecting teenage wannabe beauty would do. I wowed him with my new-found homemade allure. Everyday when it was time to do our assigned drawings I would raise my hand, bat my eyes and ask him to come and help me. I told him I did not quiet understand. In my mind I was the helpless damsel in distress and he was my handsome "bow pen compass" wielding prince coming to rescue me. He probably thought I was mentally challenged with an eye astigmatism, but faithfully everyday he would  not only start my drawing, but he would complete ALL of my drawings. I loved it! As he worked on my drawing I would learn real close to him and breath in his cologne. One day I even mustered up the courage to touch his arm-as if by mistake. It was firm and solid and I could not stop talking to my friends about it.

One of my best-friends Cheryl was also in the class. One day at lunch as I was going on and on about Mr Latika, she blasted me. She said that I should not call on him all the time, or sniff his cologne that it was disgusting and a little trampy. She did not think it was fair that others in the class worked real hard and I did not. I think that was the first time Cheryl had ever been angry at me, though we had been friends since kindergarten. I apologized to Cheryl and told her to just asked Mr Latika if she needed help like I do. She said she would not lower herself to such cheap theatrics and that I was just an "attention-getter;" Those words seemed to hurt worse than all the previous insults. Mainly because those are the same words my sisters have used when they were being mean and hateful toward me. I could hear it with the same venom I heard so many  times in my life.

To be truthful I never meant to hurt Cheryl or my sisters. I, like them was a child and children need to know that they are loved and important. I needed to know that I was loved and important. So I gave the adults and even my siblings and friends what I needed. I gave them my love and attention. As sad at it might sound, that comment from my brother Jimmy's friend validated me. I felt pretty and confident for the first time in my life. I was able to call on Mr Latika for help without that naggy uncertainty that clung to me like a cheap suit. To this day people accuse me of doing the same thing with Jesus. I have been told many times that I act like I'm the only person Jesus talks to. And just like the situation with Mr Latika, I was just talking about him, because I am in love.

I got a "B," in Mr Latika's class. I never told Cheryl, because she told me that she got a "C". Why throw kindle on a flame.

Fearless