I had a teacher back in junior and senior high that still makes me feel annoyed after this many years. I see him once in awhile and he knows not to make small talk with me. He tried once after high school and I told him to never speak to me. And, in all our years of dealing with each other he has honored that request.
I bring him up and am going to use him in this story, but “he” will actually be many people that did very similar things to me that made a negative impact in my life. I don’t want to paint teachers in a bad way, because I had amazing ones too. I had adults in my life that made a difference. This time I have to face an aspect of it and try to explain it to you.
I entered his classroom in Grade 7. It didn’t take long and he told me that I chewed gum like a cow. We entered this battle ground for the next 6 years. Him telling me I was a shitty student and me telling him no I’m not. But, he had me over a barrel all those years. He graded me unfairly. I know, oh maybe you weren’t such a great student, but truthfully his classes were my worst. It sent me over the top when he wrote on my essay that it was written well, but he didn’t think I understood what I wrote. Nice. He gave me a 35%. If you didn’t get his poetic whit, he thought I cheated. If I approached his desk he would ask what are your idiotic friends up to behind you. So, I would move to the side and ask him the same question. He’d tell me to go sit down. A boy would break apart a computer disk (yes, I’m that old) and throw the pieces at me. I had plastic hanging in my hair. I finally turned around and said stop it. He kicked me out of class. I got a high mark on a multiple choice and he asked if I cheated in front of the class. There was only this one teacher teaching these particular subjects and there wasn’t choice in anyone else or going to a different school.
But, what my point is….. he worked hard on making me feel bad about who I was. Parts of me did not believe him, but there was a part that swallowed it. I had to eat it when I went to the principal and said he marks me unfairly. The principal said I can’t get involved with marks. I was told I wasn’t any good at writing. I dreamed of writing a novel. I loved poetry. I was told I was a fool. I still wrote.
The part that happened that has crippled me is that yes, I did keep writing. I kept writing for me, but those words didn’t leave that place. I fought a lot of what was said to me during high school and all through my life, but I realized that I believed some of it. I was told I was average. I was told I wasn’t good enough. I was told because I was a girl that I didn’t have to aspire to be much. I wasn’t pretty enough. As my issues grew, I didn’t get down on myself, but I did accept it. I accepted that I wasn’t pretty or special. I wouldn’t accept praise because I’d tell a joke and blow it off. I learned to be ok in my place where society had put me, but the fucking genius part of the whole thing was that I didn’t for the longest time really understood that I HAD FUCKING ACCEPTED IT! I deep down accepted that I was nothing. So, I thought I’d protect myself by keeping to myself. That my friends is a downright mother effing lie to yourself. It caused me pain. Pain that has met me at 40 years old. After this many years when the real pain of it is so long gone I am still immobilized by the fear it created. It created that I was scared of what people thought of me. I feared to risk to put myself out there in case of rejection.
I am not who he said I was. I know now that how people act is not about me, but it speaks volumes of them. I think now about that teacher and I think he had most likely started out with aspirations of doing well with his teaching career. He probably felt he would make a difference to most of the children. I bet in all those 6 years he had me in his class he would have never come to the conclusion that I was one of them. He didn’t nurture me. He didn’t praise nor care about how I turned out. I think he kept me at a passing grade to make sure I moved on year after year. But, his actions now has taught me something so valuable that had high school been but a hop skip and jump I wouldn’t have learned it. I allowed how he treated me to become my voice in my head. He spoke poorly of me and I resisted. But, a small part of me accepted it too. I heard it over the years not just from him, but from family, friends, neighbors, adults and my peers. To everyone else: something was always wrong with me. So, I tried speaking out and got shut down. I hid myself and that caused me pain because though I chose it I still felt rejected by the world. No one noticed I wasn’t around. I started stepping out and big things started to change.
I am on this soulful journey so I have been working on awareness. I meditate. I self-heal. I stay present. All my work has come to a huge head with this area that I had to consider was their truth in the quote as it suggests…Was I willing to stay comfortable and content staying broken? I have had the biggest upheaval with this state of being. In awareness, it seems once you know the truth you can’t pretend you don’t know. It causes the worst kind of pain to pretend to be blind. You can always still see the TRUTH.
We hear all the quotes and phrases that say when you fear it do it anyways. But, I am telling you that I really must do this. I must push past all the broken thoughts I have on being me out there in the big wide world. The world that has social media dill hole’s ready to tear me apart. It has the opposite too; the people that will like what I have to say and want more. In the end, if I can’t keep thriving then my life will run down a path of little resistance. It will stay easy and comfortable. When asked is this all I am really meant to do? The answer is no. I know it is not.
I am more than what they say I am. I am more wise. I have such a gift that is so undeniably special and I am ready to keep releasing it out. I am real. I am true. I am more then what they say I am.
Life’s changing people!!
Never have I felt so shaken to the core of who I think I am and who actually exists. I carry such an appearance of having it together and I don’t. My human self tricks itself into believing that if I don’t say what’s going on then no one knows any different that life appears perfect. But there’s chaos under the calm water. I have looked at myself and in this awareness I am messed up. I have been everything that I don’t like in others…the victim, the blamer, the justifier, etc. 
