ALL MY TIMES BEING PRAISED!!

When I was younger I had this strange obsession with the Adams Family television show.

Let's not say obsession more like a strange creepy longing toward it, mostly because their weird family interactions always seemed like how mine was supposed to be.

That being said, my siblings and I can say for certain that our parents had never praised us in any endeavor we had put ourselves into and succeeded. Like in the Adams Family the kids are always doing something weird and or close to murder and their parents always regarded them like they were the best children in the world. With my parents, they always looked at us with strange expressions on their faces whenever we burst into the room with a trophy, ribbon, medal or a friggin signed copy of Nelson Mandela's memoirs (true story) all giddy and hyped up waiting eagerly to get that parental nod of approval or "You did wonderful honey good job." What was waiting for us was a raised eyerow and a look that screamed, "So, isn't that what you were suppose to accomplish?" "Why are you behaving like you found the cure for AIDS? And when are you going to get started on that?"

 I strongly believe that such poor enthusiam on their behalf stunted us into really caring about all the things pre-teens and teenegers raved about, like school sports day, school christmas programmes, school easter programmes, just about anything school related or that contributed in us winning anything. So when I was praised for the first time in second year of Febeau Government Primary School by my teacher on my first place position in the class all term round, my heart soared. I mean she spent an entire hour brayying to the other students on how diligence and the desire to learn can get you many things. When she was finished my nose was so long I could smell the green kid in the other class.

That particular day set a standard for me and my studying, everything became about school. My usual inner turmoil about making friends was forgotten because I had found comfort in the pages of my textbooks. But over time that wasn't enough, seeing as teacher apparently do not like it when one student seems to be the only one putting in effort in a class of 34. Go figure. So I sought recognition elsewhere. It started with the other introverts in the school. The ones who spent all lunch time digging up worms in the court yard and collecting them in bowls or whatever container they could their hands on. I was relatively good at it having three brothers who spent a good portion of their days finding the grossest things to plant in my room, clothes, bags, shoes, just about anywhere in my vicinity. It took special skills to get them back with something bigger and nastier. After came the Red Cross, my knowledge of the human body was legendary since my brothers and I got injured just about every other day but that was short lived because my father yanked me out of there my head spun and to this day he has yet to tell me why.

Then came the sports then starting a whole bunch of clubs. Just like there are people who get high off of adrenaline, I got my high off of people saying just two words, "GOOD JOB!"
Even though I am a grown ass woman now I still believe that some part of me still enjoys it when I am praised even if it is some small menial thing.

Also, I probably would have been more awesome than I am now if my parents had behaved like humans instead of poorly made robots.

You all might think I'm whining and complaining a lot about my parents, well tough. I created this blog especially for this purpose but I got distracted along the way, so I think it is about time start venting in my writing to make it therapeutic so I can stop feeling like a misfit. See what I did there?