Once Upon a Time

"Once upon a time, there was a little girl named Sarah and there still is." This is the beginning to a story I wrote when I was eight. I found it tonight going through a packet of papers my mom gave me along with some other childhood relics. Like any childhood, there were some really happy parts and some really hard parts.

The crown from my 4th birthday reminded me of one of the really happy parts. I remember that birthday. I was wearing a red dress and my gift was a desk with a peg board under the lid you could put letters into. The desk was green and I remember sitting at it with relatives surrounding me.

Then there were school pictures from late elementary and junior high where I wasn't really smiling because I wasn't really happy. The numerous report cards I found from that period also reflect this. The low grades actually surprised me. I had forgotten I wasn't as good a student, shall we say, as I was in my college and graduate school years. I ranged in B's and C's with some A's and even a D. It goes to show, you never really know what kind of person someone will grow up to be. My marks in punctuation and capitalization were okay but anything but stellar and here I am, someone who loves to edit. I am glad those marks were transient and don't even matter anymore. People may judge us but in the end, it ain't worth beans.

Another item I found in the pile were IEP reports and meeting notices. A little known fact about me is that I was in speech therapy for ten years while growing up. We got it down to saying my r's correctly and I used to have to say r words over and over again. Sometimes, I still slip but it's rare. Figuring out what to say and how to say it is not as rare.

Among the pile of papers, I also found this. It was also written when I was eight and it is as true today as it was then. (Edited for capitalization and punctuation. Not so great at that then, remember?) "Writing is a very good thing. It makes me laugh. It makes me sing and so I'll share my writing with you because it's something I like to do." Truer words could not be said.

And so, "Once upon a time there was a little girl named Sarah and there still is."

365-09 #193