Speaking comes at the cornerstone of childhood development. A good parent knows the best way to open their ignorant, unreceptive, drooling young creature to the world is through communication. The only downside is that, for these drooling creatures, learning how to communicate becomes first synonymous with learning how to whine. 

My mother taught kindergarten herself, and even after leaving to raise her family, she would take in young kids from the neighborhood for a day and tutor them in reading and writing. As young kids, she would ensure we always had plenty of children’s books—and for me especially, plenty of Pete the Cat. Language, for me, came across just finely. When spoken to, I understood every word perfectly, yet when it came to going the extra marathon and speaking on my own behalf, one would have a better time with sauerkraut. I gave terse answers and nothing more, like an aloof flight attendant with always something better to do. Why risk connecting with this human when SpongeBob anticipated my arrival at 10 AM sharp? Sorry, Mother, I have places to be. 

It wasn’t as if I was behind in my practical education. Give the little beast shapes, she’d put the circle with the circle, the square with the square. Give her a pencil, and sure, she could brutally forge her name. Give her arithmetic? Miles behind her already. But, initiate a conversation with her? Oh, her brother would be right beside her, a year older, and gabbing, “Well Mom she meant this and I want this and can we have this and she doesn’t like that but I really do so I should get this and can I do this and I want this to go away but I still like this do you like that too?”.

Come my preschool days of independence, all of the immediate, prefabricated relationships of a family unraveled. That humble red-bricked closet of a preschool became the new arena of knowledge; that tiny barricaded courtyard, the true battlefront for most. My mother confided in me, worried how far I would go if I never picked up conversation; to her, I gestured that I didn’t care where I went as long as I had my toys and dogs within arm's length. The beginning days of preschool operated like a child of Fordism itself: enter, perform the tasks assigned, receive the smiley-face mark of approval, and continue. When asked questions of personal interests, I disappeared within the bricked walls—the absence from action much like the sand which scatters and plummets through the hourglass’s crux. It was wasted time, surely, yet I refused anything beyond my comfortable maladaptation of silence. Bright-colored foam mats and dirty tiled floors made the soil for my rooted diffidence. 

It seemed as if comfort lent me her hammock to rest. Yet, time pursued and the tethers strained; the will of wind omnipotent and uncaring; and the fear of what lay underneath, should the tethers give out, was unbearable. In the deciding case for my next move, I froze. A pit gasped within my gut, snarling at my forever faulty choices—much unlike the promised ignorant bliss of youth. It needs only simple thinking to reminisce without chains; the thought of iron is much lighter than its physical form. One often skips over the pure and simple dread of introduction, initiation, first-times, and futures for the world of the inexperienced; a world of ubiquitous thresholds and breaking points unknown.

Phantoms of these ideas haunted my vague, young subconscious. Of their particulars, I had no clue; I was still just as profound as my peers. Yet, through these large gaps of understanding, I soon summoned the gall to pursue the crowd. Bit by bit. Tumbling headfirst was never quite my style, timid as I was. In the days of summoning courage, my dreams battered from enemies before unheard. Perhaps my voice would fall, my larynx mutiny at the command of my name, or simple hellos. Perhaps, when detailing my interests, I would start hacking hairballs and suffocate like a dusty, wry old cat. Regardless, no nightmares won over the vague, greater fear in the back of my mind: the fear of finality and stagnation. It was motivation enough.

Broaching my peers of fellow drooling beasts, I knew their behavior was that of a sleeping Cerberus—who knew, at what moment or word, what would irk them into fury, into disappointment, disdain? Just last week, I made myself a fool by offering my acquaintance a red marker. He sneered and scoffed at me, for I did not telepathically figure out his favorite color was, in fact, actually blue. That Tuesday, Amanda refused to sit with me because I ignorantly didn’t reciprocate her worship of horses. We did not have much to talk about. It mulled and turned over for days until I reasoned that perhaps an obsession with snakes, space, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles failed to work ever in my favor as well. Yet I could not betray what I held so close for these sticky, spontaneous monsters. They were the most unforgiving of specimens, something I would have to overcome.

After some time, I fooled a girl named Natalie into my shenanigans. Days of modest passing words and introductions went by, and soon came the hallmark of her initiation to the Coolness Club as she revealed her family’s stash of Kool-Aid Bursts. We latched to each other in the way all young kids do to familiarity. From simple allies in recess to the expeditions to each others’ houses, more and more she showed me what a fool I had been. We revered in days of running outside, crawling through the neon nylon tunnels that left knees red and hands, itchy. In our limited sophistication and language, sipping on watered-down Kool-Aid, we soon came to deliberate over our many endeavors, families, woes, dogs, and the clear supremacy of red flavor over blue flavor. Fear holds a rudimentary place in youth. It is the crossing of these thresholds, thereby, that limits and defines the growth of an individual. 

Near the time of graduation, before sending off our little booger-eater selves into the vast and unforgiving world of kindergarten, teachers handed us a piece of paper asking—for the first out of the many times to come—what we wanted to do as we grew older. Colored pencils scribbled in blazing confidence. I turned in the paper, took my gown, my cap, and my certificate; they took my picture, and I bid the establishment ado. My mother took me to ice cream. My brother, that already stinky kindergartener, tumbled along. In that preschool, nested within files, garnished with doodles and diagrams alike, my orange Crayola statement proclaimed boldly: “When I grow up, I want to help bugs.” Yes, this girl was going places.