Life in a Bubble

Thoughts from someone slightly ahead of his time

I always cared what people would think of me growing up. I guess it’s why I notice things as I’ve become braver, as I age. It’s not so much that I ever backed off my beliefs because of how people would perceive me in my youth. It’s not even that I had many outlandish things to prove to anyone. I just always felt that if I had information to help people, I should share it. I didn’t share much as I figured out the early parts of my life. After the sixth grade I had to transfer schools because I was picked on so badly that I would cry on my walk home. All I knew is that when I excelled at sports, I attracted some more criticism from my peers. My Dad loved coaching my teams, and I think that rubbed some people the wrong way. He wouldn’t let me play travel baseball, so I was an outsider to my local travel teams. He coached my basketball teams too, so going into the seventh grade middle school team I suppose none of those kids wanted me there. They really did a number on my young mind. That’s just how kids are. It really made me internalize my ambitions. The quiet kid with a world of goals. I learned outwardly excelling at something as simple as basketball would attract a hornets nest of critics I never wanted. So, I spent two years playing middle school basketball for a private catholic school — and I was somehow reunited with my Dad as a coach. It was just a temporary…