This post is a downer and a little raw. Please feel free to skip.
I feel in love at 8 years-old.
At 8 I couldn’t read very well, had horrible spelling, illegible handwriting and no self- confidence. See, I wasn’t really good at anything.
My cousin could sing and dance.
My brother was naturally charming and outgoing.
My other cousin was athletic and sweet.
Me? I was the quiet one. The good girl.
Also I was a chicken shit, too sensitive and gullible for her own good.
Now, I supposedly inspired fear to those around me. There is a standing, “Don’t talk to Bre before noon,” rule added to the new employee manual-kid you not.
So I should be happy right? I am not a victim any more. I speak and fight.
But see that kid with all her fears and heartache found something I lost-a real love of writing for the sake of it.
When I was 8 I was asked to write a poem for Valentine’s Day. It was my first creative writing assignment.
The teacher who often singled me out in class and made comments about my reading and writing, sat behind her desk and started at my poem in disbelief.
“This is really good, “she said. Blinked and clearing her throat, as if the words left an aftertaste.
Tingles cascaded from the top of my head towards my felt, weightlessness overcame me and I smiled.
It was the first time anyone ever praised me for something I created. And for the first time I consciously remembered, I experienced joy and pride.
Afterwards, I continue to write and write and write. I wrote silly stories and horrors, I wrote dreams and cartoons, I wrote and wrote and wrote until pens ran dry and a bump formed on my middle finger.
That kid. That sacred little girl hiding from the world in her words, diving into her own universe, became a goddess. Shiva and Athena in all forms. She explored without fear, without realizing her mind didn’t work the same way as others.
Then the kid grew up.
And more people said how nice her stories were, but the girl would receive marks on her paper that read:
A for content
C for grammar
Paper returned to her desk dripping in red and questions of, “aren’t you reading this over.” Misspellings everywhere, misused words, omitted words. The girl tried not to think about the four copies of the same paper, of the hour copying it over and over, trying to fix everything she could find. It didn’t matter what she did, in the end it always happened.
A for thoughts.
D for execution.
“What is wrong with me? ” She thought. Why couldn’t she remember how to spell something as simple as kitchen. Why did ‘existence’ burn clearly in her mind one minute and dissolve the next.
Why did god do this her?
Why make her love words if they hated her? Mocked her? Laughed at the void in her mind, refusing to come when summoned.
As the years passed, the girl thought about abandoning the words. It hurt too much, this one-sided love. Their cruel barbs tearing into her tender flesh.
She didn’t want to, but envy ate her heart whenever she saw others to whom words flew in without reservations and they nestled on their pens. They coddled next to them at night and whispered in their ears. To them they gave confident storks and the automatic flow of thoughts. The others never questioned themselves because for them it is normal, for them there was nothing to question, this is just how things are.
To her they laughed and sneer, and when they did grace her page they would jump and hide, or flip or dive. Never were they the same, never consistent and the girl’s own eyes, the traitor did not see the machinations until the paper returned from the teacher, dripping red.
The battering overwhelmed her weak heart. The consent laugher at her mistakes, the mocking of her sounds, her thoughts, beat her down until the dirty red sand clotted her nose, her throat, her ears.
Only the humming remained.
She stayed this way for a long time. Too long.
Hiding, burying her heart deep into the sand, ignoring the yearning to create.
“What difference does it make?” she said. “ I can never create and do it on my own. I will always need to depend on someone else or the page will bleed again.”
There are too many to whom the words do love, they will never look at me with my broken mind and twisted words.
After all, difference scares us.
Here I am, wrecked down by my own baggage, accumulated over years. I often wonder what I am doing thinking of being a writer. I often wonder why I can’t just let it go and become a computer tech or a software programmer or a graphic designer, anything that would take me away from words. I often wonder why of all the things in the world I had to fall in love with, it is the one thing I can’t do correctly. It is the one constant struggle in my life-outside of weight.
Why does it have to give me so much joy and pain?
I haven’t written my prompt for Saucy Wenches. I started, but isn’t done. I know I said it was done. I am sorry, because it only half done.
It is limp on a page, while I shiver over the thought of editing it. Same with Fever, with Iris, with all my writing as of late.
I am afraid I can’t edit myself. And if I can’t edit, then how can I write? How can I even dare to share my work if it deformed?
Steve, bless you, tried to help me with Fever and did a wonderful job editing it for me. It was astonishing to have normal functioning eyes look over my work and painstakingly edit it.
And even though I am filled with eternal gratitude to him, at the same time, I felt shame.
Shame I could not do this on my own.
Shame I had to rely on someone else.
I cannot rely on the goodwill of another to do this for me every time. It is ridiculous and a horrible imposition. At some point, I will have to edit it on my own and get into a fist fight every single time I can’t spell something, questioning if I phrased a sentence correctly or if I will even see the missing words.
Just thinking about it is exhausting. Doing it feels like a rip current dragging me down to the ocean floor, my lungs collapsing under the weight.
Even now, as I write this a numerous words are underlined. They laugh. Almost full and whole, but slight off-kilter.
And before I edit it, let me give you a taste of Bre unfiltered:
The bagage is now a wall. A real obestical infront of me. I can’t write. Not because the thoughts aren’t there, no because then I have go back and try to fix it.
Steve, a saint, tried to help me with Fever and did a wonderful job editing it for me. It was wonderful to have normal functioaing eyes look over and painstakinly edit it.
But I know that can’t happen every time I write something. I can not rely on someone to do this for me every time. It is ridicouous and a horrible imposstion. At some point, I will have to edit it on my own. Get into a fist fight every single time I can’t spell something, questsionng if I pharsed a senstence correctly or if I will even see the missing words.
I am not sharing this for pity or sympathy. I just need to talk. The words and I have been having this private conversation for so many years and I haven’t been able to talk about it-to anyone. No one I know is going through this. No one I know totally understands and even though they hate me, even though they mock me, words are all I have to help me release the pressure.
The kid and I are talking. It isn’t easy. She doesn’t say much, just spends her time with notebook paper and her pen-writing.
I guess I should do the same.
Thanks for listening.
We appreciate it.
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