In the summer before fifth grade, I said goodbye to the playgrounds of my childhood, bid farewell to all the friendships I had kindled since kindergarten, and moved from Mamaroneck to Scarsdale, N.Y. During the impatient days of August, I pestered my parents to drive me to see the red-bricked palace that would soon shelter and nurture me for the seven hours of every school day.
Traveling through the night, I plastered my face to the car window. I hungered to see the front headlights illuminate the beautiful words, "Fox Meadow Elementary School." At the sight of the glowing silver letters reflecting in the night, I shrieked in joyous anticipation of the coming school year.
When my first day of fifth grade arrived, I frolicked up the stairs to my new classroom and swaggered ostentatiously into the room to announce my arrival. No one cared. Unfamiliar faces congregated into tightly packed groups that were cemented by years of rehearsal. As I took refuge in an isolated corner, I received my wish of recognition in the form of brief, suspicious glances from those who were to become my classmates. The teacher called the class to order and I was introduced to the most difficult year of my life.
Though my old friends were 10 minutes away, they were too far to save me from my newfound isolation. In the eyes of cemented childhood relationships, I was an invisible entity. Instead of being a cherished partner, I was the odd man out. Instead of playing games with the rest of my classmates, I bounced a ball alone against the schoolyard wall. Instead of eating lunch among friends, I ate alone at a corner table.
During recess, I was relegated to the humiliation of occupying myself by climbing up and down the jungle gym alongside the kindergarteners. At the top, I would look out at my classmates and hope to join in their pickup soccer games for just one day. Was that too proud a dream? Dreams did not ameliorate the reality of descending again to a life that progressively loses its worth. Jealousy of those accepted grows. Every emotion eventually degrades into sorrow and self-loathing.
To sweet salvation, I outlasted the desolate fall and my fellow fifth graders began to notice me. I sought an existence by demonstrating my worth. Slowly etching my image into the minds of my classmates, I became the elementary school comedian who freely disseminated spectacles of unruly, adolescent behavior to giggling spectators. If I was scolded by the teacher, so be it. If I was sent to hall to cool off, it was worth it. My classmates were talking to me.
One day during the brightening spring, I walked out onto the school yard and was invited to join in a pickup game of soccer. I nearly tripped because I ran so fast to the group of my classmates. I became a defender, vigorously protecting my portion of the field with my full body. The sting of the deflected ball on the soccer field below was pale in comparison to the agony of exclusion I had felt on the jungle gym above.
As the school year came to a close, I remember running home joyously to tell my mother I was among the first to be selected during that day's pickup soccer game. It meant so much. I was of value.
Sometimes I ask myself whether saying goodbye to the playgrounds of my childhood was worth it. The unseen wounds of exclusion have diminished in their presence, but are scarred forever in the tracks of my memory. Despite the agony, I have learned to cherish the comfort of acceptance. I have learned to cherish human connection and the happiness it provides.
With the comfort of friends, there are times when I look at those stigmatized as outsiders at Boston College and see my reflection in their faces. As I look into their eyes, I fear that I have become what I detested: an excluder. Nevertheless, I resolve to be the person that I once prayed to everyday to enter my life, a person who could simply show charity toward all.
James Ng is a junior in the College of Arts & Sciences.
2008 Woodie Awards
