Introduction
Whenever we had nothing to do in sixth grade Bible class, a couple of friends and I would play hand games. There were the classics that everyone loved like, Lemonade, Miss Mary Mack, and Chopsticks. There was one that was far superior to these classics and all other hand games, though, "Concentration." It was like manna on our four hundred year journey through the desert, Bible class. This was the class that would never end. Hear me out. It was our first class of the day so there was home room (an extra fifteen to twenty minutes). It was a private Christian school, so all of us had taken Bible class our whole entire lives and they all seemed exactly the same. This meant that not only did we have extra time in the class, but we finished all of our assignments really quickly. Most classes merely required us to read the day's Bible reading in the Read the Bible in a Year Bible (because we had a teacher who was only supposed to teach temporarily and didn't have any lesson plans and no one wants to work at a school that can't pay the bills). At the end of the class, our teacher would just read a book or browse the web. Us, sixth graders, were far too young to have a phone (the smart phone thing had just happened a couple years ago) or even, a laptop. So all we could do was talk and entertain ourselves. This is why almost every single class ended in the most competitive game of Concentration the world has ever seen. Can you see it? The three of us standing in a triangle with one hand underneath another and one hand above the other, moving our hands up and down in perfect rhythm to form a steady beat while we speak. In between our words, we clap with the pattern of a musical triplet to form what we knew to be perfection.
"Concentration"
Clap! Clap! Clap!
"Sixty four!"
Clap! Clap! Clap!
"No repeats"
Clap! Clap! Clap!
"Or hesitations." Clap! Clap! Clap!
"Category is:"
Clap! Clap! Clap!
"Animals."
Clap! Clap! Clap!
"Giraffe."
Clap! Clap! Clap!
"Penguin."
Clap! Clap! Clap!
"Dog."
Clap! Clap! Clap!
"Mouse."
The game could go on and on forever and I think that's part of the reason it was so much fun. There was always this unspoken challenge of trying to beat our high score. We would go faster and faster the longer the game went on, leading us to get louder and louder, too. After playing, our hands would be bright red from slapping each other hands as hard as we could (it was just part of the game). In my mind, the word, concentration, didn't refer to the scientific or, even, medical definition relating to focus. It was defined as a game that could completely change the atmosphere from one of academic worry to one of competition and excitement.
My Theory
I know I haven't even started talking about growing up, yet. But, it'll all make sense when I explain why this one word is so important ( and also tell you the rest of the story). There are major events, like three of my dogs dying in the span of a year, and minor events, getting a B one quarter in Pre-Calc, that really changed me and led to me growing up just that much more. My theory is that, instead of reminding ourselves of the emotionally charged memories that are often associated with growing up, our individual understanding and definitions of words can show it just as well.
I believe that every individual has their own personal dictionary of what the words they use, actually mean. It's obvious that everyone has their own word choice and preferred words to some extent, but I think there's something else there. For example, have you ever seen two best friends say one random word to each other and know exactly what they mean? That random word has an expected definition but these two individuals also have their personal definition for that word. If it wasn't their definition, then you would have also known what they were talking about. Not only are our individual dictionaries filled with the words we use but also what we believe them to mean. Generally, personal definitions are not created by active choice. They just become a definition gradually with repeated association between a word and something else. This means that without even realizing it, every person is walking around, communicating in their own version of English. There are three main results of these varying definitions:
They lead to massive communication problems.
They don't cause any problems because the definition only varies slightly from he expected definition.
They change when the original definition is no longer in use and/or the individual is confronted with a new definition. This change may represent a return to old views or a new view of whatever that word is associated with.
Because of this, I've come to associate one of these words in my personal dictionary with my growing up, concentration. Think about it. Concentration, originally meant something to me that wasn't the expected definition. It was very childlike and random. This definition began as the extremely strong association I felt between the game and the word. When that association faded and another one came to be, my personal definition for the word concentration changed also. I, previously, thought that these changes would take just as much time to form as the original definition did, but I was so wrong. My relationship with the word, concentration, changed in an instant, before I even realized it.
In an Instant
All of a sudden, concentration no longer represented the best game ever created for mankind. It became synonymous with my inability to focus or concentrate on anything. It turned from a children's game into a medical word, reminding me of how I couldn't concentrate.
This change happened in 8th grade when I got a concussion. Picture me being athletic and enjoying sports. I know it's difficult, but there was a point in my life when I was really athletic. Please bear with me in all the sports-related words I am about to say (I'm not going to explain their definitions so I'm sorry if this doesn't make sense to you). I had played soccer for nearly 10 years, but because of other commitments had been unable to join pre-season conditioning. I didn't mind because our school had never done it before, anyways. After the first two weeks, I was finally able to go and went to practice the week before our first game. At the game, I wasn't a starter. I was an underclassmen and hadn't been to most of the practices, so I wasn't too upset. In the second half, I finally got to play as a midfielder. It was amazing. I was playing better than I ever had before. It was like something clicked and I wasn't letting my short legs stop me anymore. I was aggressive and, basically, running non-stop. Then, everything changed in an instant. There was a free kick from the other team. This girl kicking the ball was less than ten feet away from me and kicked the ball with all her might in order to reach the other side of the field. Within seconds, that soccer ball landed square on my left temple, but I didn't pass out. I kept on playing for a few minutes but I, eventually, signaled for a sub because I was starting to feel sick and dizzy. My head didn't hurt too much (yet), but I had just recently learned about concussions, and the pain was getting worse by the minute. So I was convinced I had one. Shortly after walking off the field, my pupils were obviously dilated, I couldn't walk in a straight line, the light and the noise were making my head hurt, and I couldn't even think (that made my head hurt, too). Unfortunately, I wasn't able to leave for a couple more hours because there was a second game and we were hours away from home. We went to the doctors' the next day (something I now know you're not supposed to do) and they confirmed I had a concussion.
My life completely turned upside down. I wasn't allowed to leave the house for one or two weeks. The only things I could do were eat, sleep, and shower. By the second week, I was able to listen to music but it still gave me migraines if I listened for too long or focused on the words. I started going back to school on the third week but I wasn't able to do any class work. I would just sit there and write down what homework I would have to do in the future. Each week after that, I added a class until I was able to do all of them but one. Unfortunately, it was April when I got my concussion and my school ended in May. This meant I wasn't able to take two of my finals or finish all of the assignments from those classes until after I had already ended 8th grade. I was a straight A student in self-directed summer school. I remember writing an essay, my final for English, on an airplane to visit family because my teacher needed it for grades that day. I literally crammed a quarter of schoolwork for one and a half classes into two or three weeks. Looking back on it, I'm very impressed because I still had a concussion. I became concussion free either in the end of July or August. I spent four or five months unable and not permitted to concentrate. As someone, who loved school, it killed me. My concentration, became just another symptom to mark on my form at doctor's appointments. The word, concentration, no longer represented the joy I felt when playing my favorite hand game, but I still hadn't figured out how my definition of it had changed.
Moving Forward
Even though this happened nearly four years ago, there are still some symptoms I experience today, that will never go away. These are sensitivity to noise and light, chronic headaches, and difficulty concentrating. I had been a hypersensitive kid but after my concussion all of those sensitivities were ramped up to another level and stayed that way. At the beginning of my concussion, I referred to my sensitivity to sound as an annoying superpower. I could literally hear everything (or at least, it seemed like it). I had only had headaches that were obviously triggered by something else before my concussion. Afterwards, they only continued to get worse (although this could be attributed to some new chronic illnesses I've befriended since then). I had always had difficulty staying focused naturally but I was smart enough to be able to hide it, for the most part. Then, when I got a concussion, I could no longer hide it. It became impossible. One time my friend was telling me a really important story during lunch. We decided to eat outside at the field and there were a couple of large oak trees. The wind started blowing the leaves and I was completely lost in my own head. I interrupted whatever it was my friend was talking about to say, "Wow, the leaves are so pretty." She quickly realized I hadn't heard a word she said and had spent five minutes thinking about the leaves moving in the wind. Today, I could still stare at the leaves for hours and not even realize any time has gone by.
Eventually, my abilities to focus and concentrate became more noticeably, inabilities. Two years after my concussion I was diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder. I, personally, think it was always there but no one wanted to admit there was something quote-unquote wrong with me and, neither, did I. After taking the horrendous test that showed I had ADD, I still had to go to rehearsal for my school's performance of The Wedding Singer. Taking the test had been completely unplanned nor was I warned that it would be traumatic. So here I was sitting on the floor with my back against a wall of the school and could not stop the tears from rolling down my face. I was mad. I was mad at myself for being fooled into taking a "short and easy test." I was mad at myself for being stupid and lazy (because that's what ADD is often associated with and even though I would have denied it, I also associated it with that). I was mad that no one had pointed this out to me. I was mad because I could have been scoring better on standardized tests. But, then, this upperclassmen, who I didn't know, saw me and sat down next to me against the wall in the hallway. I was worried she would say something mean and was trying to pull myself together, but it didn't work. I told her what had happened and she told me about her life-changing diagnosis. I'm gonna be honest, ADD is not super life-changing compared to some of the diagnoses in my collection. At the time, it felt like the world was ending because of how strongly I connected it to laziness and stupidity. She told me I was smart, but more importantly, she showed me there was still plenty of hope. That had been what I desperately needed to hear and I hadn't even realized it.
Conclusion
It's been two years since being diagnosed with ADD. I, now, manage other symptoms that impact my ability to concentrate like brain fog and dissociation. I've found I forget what it's like to have the ability to focus on things like the average person can (along with forgetting a ton of other stuff, too) and get used to it the best I can. Thinking about the girl who used to associate the word, concentration, with a fun hand game makes me a little sad. It's bittersweet. I, sometimes, still wish I was the girl who associated more words with positive meanings and memories, but I've done a lot of growing up since then, and that's the price you pay for doing so. Growing up tends to change how you view and respond to everything, though, not just the meaning of one little word.
When I was little, I dreamed of growing up and being a badass, independent woman. That dream wasn't anywhere near as easy as I thought it would be. Most of the markers for growing up (the ones related to events and memories) represent some of the hardest and most difficult memories I have experienced. I never thought that living through hard things was a part of growing up when I was younger. I just thought it would be a hop, skip, and a jump right before my eighteenth birthday that people would, suddenly, take me seriously and respect me as an individual. I thought I'd just be moving forward in life, like everyone else, and all of a sudden it hits me, "I'm grown up." But the reality is more of a hop, skip, and a plunge to sudden doom. I don't know where you are in this whole growing up journey, but there's one thing I want you to know (no matter where that is). There is hope–even at your darkest hours. If you have a concussion, there is hope. You will get better. If you have an ADHD diagnosis, there is hope. You can score in the 90th percentile on standardized tests (but those tests aren't really a sign of intelligence anyway). If you have a chronic illness or a mental illness or an abusive family, there is so much hope for you. I don't know exactly what mountains lie ahead of you, but whatever they are, there is so much hope. The pain and the hurt of growing up is what makes it possible and it's also part of what makes it so beautiful. Growing up is also process that never really ends. Looking back at how strong I am, makes me more grateful for myself than anything else and that's beautiful. Sometimes, I wish I could stand with friends and play Concentration, but ignorance really isn't bliss. I may have dreamed growing up would be easy, but that wasn't the full dream. I dreamed that I would be a badass, independent woman. Growing up gives me the opportunity to function as my own person and I wouldn't be able to be as independent as I am today without climbing a couple of mountains. Honey, hear me out when I say this. It is so hard and I wanna give up all the time, but life is so much bigger than that little girl could have ever imagined. It's bittersweet, for sure. We may not get to choose all of our personal definitions or what must happen to us and what we must experience in order to grow up. However, we do get to choose to hold the sweet memories that much tighter. We do get to choose hope.