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I closed the crack of my hands so I could only see darkness. I was five years old, covering my eyes with hands that smelled like sweat and plastic, from clutching my lunchbox with such ferocity, before I had to put my lunchbox away in my new cubbyhole. I was suffering through the first day of kindergarten. I did not want to look at my fellow students. I was sitting on a small, hard, uncomfortable chair at a tiny table in the back of the class. It was the first day that I had ever been separated so long from my parents and my home. The classroom smelled like modeling clay and newly waxed floors. It was filled with bright pictures of the alphabet and colors. But these pictures seemed sad to me, because I was away from the familiar surroundings of my room. I was trying to pretend that I wasn't in the room, but far away in a more comfortable place.