Red Crayons

You are way too hard on yourself.  How do I know this?  I know this because you are human.  Humans are too hard on themselves.

I have a friend who says her husband can remember having his diaper changed.  My first thought, as she told me this bit of useless information, was that he had an awful potty training issue.  She assured me that it was simply because he could stir up things from the corners of his one and a half year old brain like it was yesterday.  Yowzers!  I can’t remember too much before third grade!  Prior to that point it is a complete blur, with very few exceptions.

One of those exceptions occurred in Kindergarten.  I can’t remember everything, mind you.  I can only remember the basics, and the feeling.  Oh, the feeling.

It was a balmy spring day toward the end of the school year.  Like most kindergarten-aged kids, I enjoyed coloring.  In kindergarten you do that sort of thing . . . a lot.  The voice of my teacher sliced through the air.

“Who is missing their red crayon?” 

She detained a crimson-colored object in her hand.  I don’t know for sure, but she must have been at her wits end by this time in the year.  I DID know, sure as anything, someone was in trouble.  We had been berated about leaving our crayons around.  A poor soul was now plunging into the depths of horror.  I looked into my crayon box and understood. That poor soul happened to be me.

“Class, someone left their crayon on the floor!  You each need to check your box and make sure it wasn’t you.  We mustn’t leave our crayons lying about!”

My heart slid through my midsection to my right shoe.  What to do?  Trouble!  Oh awful trouble!  Nowhere to hide. 

“Okay class, each of you hold up your red crayon.”

After a brief pause, I raised my wobbly purple crayon into the air.  Can I fool her?

This is where my memory ends.  Maybe what followed was too hard to process in my petrified brain.  Have I done myself the great service of flinging that recollection out with other garbage better suited for the landfill?  Probably not.  I often envision a discussion between my teacher and me regarding color blindness and the possibility that I had developed such an issue.

Why have I retained this remembrance?  Because it worried the pants off me, that’s why!  I felt stupid.  If I’m completely honest, I still feel a little stupid about it.  However, I’m quite positive I’m the only one in the entire world who remembers this issue.  I clutch on to it, along with other “red crayons” in my life.  Why can’t I let it go? 

I’m human. I’m too hard on myself.