The mind, especially mine, has a habit of blocking out or blurring the routine together in a jumbled haze, because why would we know every single detail of every single thing that has ever happened to us in our sentient existence? We’re not robots. It’s the rough stuff, the emotional stuff, that we remember. The stuff that even thinking about makes us happy cry, ugly cry, curl our fingers in rage, curl our toes in fright, makes us nauseous or aroused: that’s what sticks out in our mind with crystal clarity.
This? This morning could have been any morning. For all intents and purposes, it was my morning, every morning. In fact, do me a favor: Get a bookmark or a highlighter and between every chapter, remind yourself that for the longest time, this was my morning. If, up until a certain point, I talk about “the next day” or talk about any transition in time, a scene very much like what you just read probably unfolded first: a little bit of existential dread and anxiety, a lot of careful preparation, a terrible meal, and then out the door before dawn.
It wasn’t fair. But it was normal. Blessedly, blessedly normal. It was routine. It was the facts of life.
Before I move onto the second ritual in my everyday routine from BEFORE, I’d like to make a possibly controversial statement:
Amazons are all crazy. All of them. Every single one of them. I have never met an Amazon past puberty that isn’t. “Crazy” does not mean “stupid” or “demented.” As a whole, they’re ridiculously intelligent from a science and technology standpoint.
Many can do Math in base 16 by the time they hit high school, and they’ve got an almost instinctual understanding of practical applications of physics. I’ve seen Amazonian preschoolers who can’t read and who don’t know their shapes or color names make absolutely intricate tinker toy contraptions.
In the most literal sense, they see the world like the rest of us. They know which way is up. They can differentiate between fact and fiction. Statistically speaking, an Amazon is no more likely to hear a dog telling them to go assassinate a celebrity or head of state than anyone else.
Add to that that they’re bigger, stronger, and faster than any non-Amazon and it’s no wonder they’re at the top of almost every pyramid they come across. Lots of brains and the lions’ share of the brawn.
That’s not what I mean by “crazy.” Amazons, by and large, also have a near overwhelming parental instinct. As a whole, Amazons have a drive where they want to mother, smother, guide and control every aspect of the world around them. They want to “correct” and “nurture” and “love” so much that they’ll take almost any excuse to infantilize someone under their power. When you’re an Amazon, there’s always someone under your power.
Sometimes it’s other Amazons: Facelog stories of unruly Amazon teens caught shoplifting and put back into diapers for public humiliation make the rounds all the time. There are always tons of comments about how it’ll “teach them not to be so immature” or that it would be “better to start over.”
It happens to Tweeners, too: the In-Betweeners, or Tweeners for short, have their own balancing act. Bigger than Littles, but smaller than Amazons, they’re literally in-between and caught in the middle of the two extremes. On my way to work, I saw a “Now accepting Applications! Tweeners Welcome!” billboard for a local Littles Daycare. It might have been for employees, it might have been for attendees. The ad wasn’t clear. Maybe that was on purpose. Maybe it was for both.
The school that I had once attended and the school that I worked at both had a Diapered Detention Program; a DDP. Offenders were made to wear diapers and write lines on the chalkboard. (For some reason, it was always a chalkboard, even though every other classroom had infinitely less antiquated technology.) They were then required to wear diapers and get changed by the school nurse for a number of days afterward. Cut down on suspensions.
In my experience, Tweeners were much more likely to be standing at the chalkboard doing lines than either Amazons or Littles. Amazons got in trouble less often. That’s not to say that they were any less likely to get mouthy, mischievous or rebellious than their same-aged smaller-sized peers- just that they were far less likely to see any sort of consequence for it.
Littles? Too often, Littles got taken out of school altogether.
The difference between Amazons and Tweeners compared to Littles was a matter of societal expectations. Amazons, and to a lesser extent, Tweeners, were expected to mature and grow up and bear the burden of responsibility. They were supposed to outgrow and put aside childish things. For them, diapers were a corrective action; a form of social shaming to ensure future good behavior.
Littles? Being a “baby” is considered our default by most people. We’re given enough rope, expectation wise, just to confirm already deeply held beliefs. Any slip up, any faux pas, any mistake, any sign of weakness based on any given Amazon’s perceived expectation on what “adult” is, is automatic justification to snatch us up, “adopt” us (read kidnap), and put us back in diapers and nurseries for the rest of our lives.