Only God Can Judge Me

Two days before my fourteenth birthday, I had become a resident of California. I was overwhelmed by the sheer volume of people, the tall buildings, the traffic, the palm trees, the weather. I had to start school in a couple of weeks and I was nowhere near ready for that.

My dad had enrolled me in a private, non-denominational Christian school. He wasn't really sure what he had gotten himself into, taking me on. We shopped for school uniforms at the uniform supply store and I started school.

The first week was a nightmare. I had uniform store-issued clothes while all of the other boys and girls had more stylish, mainstream options. The misfit from Alaska was now the misfit from California. I was confused, angry, depressed.

The Friday of my first week at that school, I overheard a couple of girls in the bathroom gossiping about me and was crushed. I went home and told my dad that I hated that school and didn't want to go anymore. We got in a big argument, which resolved nothing. Later, after we had cooled down, his only remark was "you fight in a very logical way." While I didn't completely understand what that meant, I took that as a compliment and aspired from that day forward to be sure and be logical.

The school was its' own private hell. Non-denominational meant that they could change denominations depending on what mood the administration was in and what sort of punishments they wanted to put forth. If they wanted to ban certain things, they were Southern Baptist. If they wanted to scare kids, they were Pentecostal. As someone who had very little experience with organized religion, it all felt like confusing bullshit to me.

Conformity was key. We had weekly chapel service on Wednesdays that required the girls to wear long skirts and the boys to wear dress shirt and tie. We were forced to recite "Good Reports Edify and Testify-that spells GREAT" over and over again. When I was a junior, it was found out that two seniors were having sexual relations and they were forced to admit their sin to the entire school, K-12. As I grew more into my high school misfit persona and less of a shy, mousy girl I started getting into trouble. I rolled my shirts to make them shorter, dyed my hair black, wore Doc Martens, got caught smoking. In my senior year I was suspended for three days for refusing to pray. I couldn't wait to get the fuck out of there.

I graduated on honor roll and was accepted into college at San Jose State University. My dad was beyond proud and took me to the nicest dinner I had ever had up to that point, at Van's Restaurant. I wasn't even sure if I wanted to go to San Jose State, that was the first school that accepted me. But he was so happy and proud that that's where I decided to go.

My graduation ceremony was stressful. My mother and her parents and my father's parents flew in from Oregon and Seattle, respectively. My mother and father had not spoken in years, or at least not cordially. My father and paternal grandfather sat on one side of the room at the reception, refusing to talk to my mother and her folks. I spent my graduation day jockeying back and forth between the two parties, ensuring that everyone was having a good time. My dad and grandfather were indignant and rude, too wrapped up in their personal melodramas while my mother spent the day looking stressed and hurt. None of that day was about me.