Thank you so much for the donations to my fundraiser for American Cancer Society! We have raised $220 toward resources to help assist cancer patients and their families.Whether you donate money, time, or just a kind gesture of help to those around you, I will consider this challenge a success. ❤️

After my Mama passed away I really struggled to find the head space and energy to write. Writing can be so personal and honestly I wasn’t sure how to process all the feelings I had, let alone be vulnerable enough to show them to others. I was just exhausted, mentally and physically. So my sister got me one of my favorite gifts, a subscription to Storyworth. It’s a website where you get writing prompts every week about your life and then the stories are printed into a bound book. It was exactly what I needed. I have since renewed my subscription now that I am feeling much more like writing.

For some of this month’s challenges I am going to write answers to the prompts on that website… it’s a way of taking care of two challenges at once.

Did you ever get in trouble at school as a child?

I would say I really peaked in school around the 3rd grade. That year I had the BEST teacher. Her name was Ms. Dawkins and she was quirky, confident and independent… right up my alley! I earned the Citizen of the Year award that year. An award that was nominated by your teacher for being the best citizen of the classroom. Each class got one winner and I got all the 3rd grade glory.

Things only went downhill from there…. my awards and my attitude. When I was in 4th grade my teacher was a lot different. She was older, not quite close enough to retirement to not care, but close enough to retirement to see her mission to help keep the youngins in line. At least that’s how I had seen her as a 9 year old, who knows she could have been my age, 40.

Anyway, one night I got invited to a sleepover party with a couple of girls in my class. I was so excited! It was one of my first sleepover parties! We ate snacks, watched movies (apparently a movie with boobs – more to come on that one later), played MASH and slept over laughing and giggling until late. During the night, I told the girls about my class crush. A cute boy named Justin. He wasn’t the first boy I had a crush on, that was in the 1st grade, but one of the first lucky recipients of my affection 😘

While we were watching a movie, I wrote a note to Justin telling him how I thought he was cute and “liked” him. I also told him all about the night and brought it to school the next day.

I finally got the nerves to give it to him and dropped it off at his desk quickly and walked away. I had no idea the fate of that note until an hour or so later when I got called to the principal’s office. As a last year awardee of the prestigious Citizen of the Year honors I walked in with my head held high. I figured I must be getting asked to run an office errand or other fun task.

That was until the moment when Mr. Zunke started reading some key lines of my note to Justin.

In the letter here are the two lines that I remember the most…

We are watching a movie tonight and it has boobs.

I think Mrs. ◼️◼️◼️◼️◼️is a total BITCH!

Jill 4th Grade

I sat in the chair in the office stone faced. The principal then started asking me if I wrote the letter. Like every newly smart ass kid I denied it, denied it and then denied it again.Eventually I started crying and confessed. I remember it happening in like an hour and I’m sure there was a dark room and a flashlight in my face trying to get me to squeal. However, I think that the more likely time frame was 3 minutes and the lighting in my eyes were fluorescent bulbs.

My dad then walked into the room and the principal made me step out of the room for a minute. When I walked back into the room I sat down and my dad was pissed. The principal talked to me directly and asked me if I wrote the letter and I looked down and said yes quietly.

It was at the moment my dad looked at me and said “You did?”

Apparently he had been arguing with the principal that there was no way I wrote it. But I did. The principal sentenced me to 3 days of in-school suspension and sent me to finish class for the rest of the day.

I sheepishly walked into the classroom and went straight to the teacher’s desk. I walked up to her and said “I’m really sorry I called you a Bitch.” I have never been one to not be very direct, especially to people in authority positions (it’s something I’ve talked to my therapist about – I’m working on it – along with an entire list).

The teacher gave me 3 pretzels after my apology, the prize for that classroom’s good behavior. I think that she gave away pretzels is a good indicator of the excitement in that room.

The next three days were stuck in a small desk in the supply closet. The closet doubled as the school store for pencils and notebooks, so there was a little light. I then had to do my classwork and sit there. I remember the absolute part of it was that they would only allow me to have white milk with my lunch.

I recently asked my dad “Dad, I remember getting in trouble at school but not at home for that.”

His reply, “You were embarrassed enough that you learned your lesson. Also, Jill, she was a bitch.”