I often got in trouble for being messy at school. I didn’t understand the problem, and couldn’t see how to be more organized.

The metaphor for my childhood was my chair bag. A chair bag (in case you didn’t go to school in Brisbane, Australia) is a bag that hangs on the back of your chair with all your school supplies in it, kind of like a locker-meets-a-backpack.

It’s meant to be a neatly organized home for your tools of education from which you can grab your pen, your pencil, your ruler, or your glue from its conveniently allocated section. This is not how my chair bag functioned.

I often got in trouble for being disorganized

Anytime the teacher, Mr. Drake (a towering tree of a man), would boom: “Class, bring out your scissors, please!” I’d get a hopeful burst of adrenaline. The kind you get when it’s life or death, and you think you can make it.

While the neat girl sitting next to me would unzip a little side pocket and slip out her smug-looking scissors, I’d plunge my hand into my homemade à la “Coat of Many Colors” chair bag. I was like a deep-sea diver launching off into the utter darkness on a mad mission of trust — trusting that I wasn’t going to be mauled by some eyeless shark down there. I’d heroically dodge jutting metal from roaming spiral notepads, upward-pointing pencil tips like an exploded porcupine, and strangely gooey wrappers.

By the time I’d pull the scissors from my bag and raise them up victoriously like a fisherman without a worm unexpectedly getting a catch — beaming proudly, even though it was writhing, half-opened and dulled — the rest of the class would be close to done with the activity. I was always out of step because of that fucking chair bag.

It felt like my chair bag wasn’t the only thing messy about me

It wasn’t just the chair bag. Everything about me was dirty. I was always covered in dust, and mud, and bruises, and snot, and blood. If someone farted in class, I was the person they’d blame it on. I don’t know if they were right or not, I can’t remember. It seems unlikely I farted more often than others? But… maybe?

It wasn’t only the kids. Every few weeks, Mr. Drake would stand over me. He’d get me to stand up, and he’d ask the class to look at my chair bag to embarrass me. Again, I can’t remember exactly, but he’d boom: “Joshua Thomas! Joshua Thomas!”

I’d stand up, the world would go dark, the playground equipment would squeak to a stop, and the magpies would congregate.

“Do you think this is an appropriate mess?” he’d ask, as though the answer were up to me.

“Um, no?”

I was no fool.

“Do you think that you are above the rules?”

“No.”

“Then why do you think you’re an exception?”

“I tried to clean it…”

“I don’t want to hear your tried-tos. Tried-tos are lies. The truth is, you are lazy, and you think you’re better.”

I wasn’t sure how to tidy up my life

I could never understand why adults thought I was lying. I had never told a lie in my life. I don’t know what he wanted from this exchange. Maybe he thought he was teaching me a lesson, but it felt like he wanted to see tears. I never gave them to him.

I think if I had cried the first time he did that, he would have stopped, having successfully broken my messy spirit and made me an example of what not to be. Instead, I would just stand there, looking at him, curious.

What would make a grown man want to humiliate a kid? I’d wonder.

I was looking at the situation from the outside. Watching myself, watching the classroom thinking, Oh, he thinks I’m doing this on purpose. He thinks it’s arrogance.

I could see that my life was harder because of the messy chair bag. But for the life of me, I couldn’t see how to have a neater chair bag.

My childhood bedroom was like my chair bag but bigger, with a more diverse portfolio of stuff. Vital pieces of board games, uneaten school lunches, and favorite clothes all made a swamp-like effect on my bedroom floor. And my mom, while wanting to break my spirit less than Mr. Drake did, took my messy room personally.