I am a big believer in signs. As in, "signs from the Universe." I'm sure I get this from my Mother. She is a big believe in signs, and also ghosts. Ghosts of loved ones, ghosts of people that are haunting houses, Mediums, psychics -- you get the picture. If I tell her I had a dream about my grandma, she will always say, "She was visiting you!" There are really too many stories to share, which could be it's own blog, I guess, but having "visitors" in your dreams, and sharing a ghost story does not cause much alarm in my family.
But back to my sign. We aren't going to go down the supernatural path with this one. More of "the Universe is sending me a message."
I have lately been going through a sort of personal crisis regarding my professional career (not to be confused with my non-professional career as robe and cheese enthusiast). It's been a struggle to say the least, which has resulted in me losing a lot of confidence in myself and abilities, and basically questioning everything I do. Although, that is actually maybe a little par for the course for me. THIS time though, it's bad. It also caused a two-year long eye twitch. Yes, my eye twitched for two years straight. Every. God. Damn. Day. Talk about signs, that should have been a very big one. Instead of thinking that maybe I was under a lot of stress, I assumed I had a brain tumor. I got an MRI and everything. GOOD NEWS! Not a brain tumor! Just really stressed out.
In the last week or so, things sort of came to a head and a weight was lifted off my shoulders (magically my twitch went away!) But, I am still in a murky state of what's next. As always, the path isn't clear or easy. Hence, me looking for signs.
My parents are in the process of moving. They have actually been in the process of moving for about a year now, and every so often they drop off small bins and boxes of random items from my past. Barbies, yearbooks, letters to old boyfriends. In my last delivery there was even a container of old teeth. I cannot understand what was going through young Bri's brain to actually make the decision to take these teeth (they were molars) and put them in a tiny, plastic box to keep forever. I also have a hard time understanding how these teeth were moved to not only one, but two locations.
In this special teeth delivery bin there was also a paper from AP English. At the top in blue writing from my teacher was, "Writing is good, but paper does not succeed." This of course, piqued my interest, so I read on.
The paper was about the book, "The Heart of Darkness." It should be no surprise to you based on my teacher's comments that I do not remember anything about this book except that I did not like it. I believe it had something to do with a couple of dudes in the jungle, but really had to do with a lot of deep shit, that obviously went over my 17 year old brain. As I flipped to the second page, my teacher wrote an entire paragraph of notes. She began with, "I hope this paper didn't take you long to write; it shouldn't have."
OHHHHH SNAP!!!! Mrs. Thompson is savage AF.
I'm not going to lie, her comments pissed me off even 23 years later. I mean, it probably DIDN'T take me that long to write. I tried to think about myself in the winter of my senior year, and spending a lot of time thinking about "The Heart of Darkness" is probably not what I was doing. I most likely was too busy planning my elaborate tooth terrarium. But, still. Being criticized has never sat well with me. I am just not good at it.
But, this brings me to my sign. Why, at this moment of my life did I find that paper? Why did I even keep that paper? Surely, past Bri would not think to keep just the one paper that I got ripped apart in. Trust me, I am not that evolved. I started to wonder if really my whole identity of being a good writer was a sham. Although she did say the writing was good, but the paper didn't SUCCEED. Maybe that is a metaphor?
I have been turning this over and over in my mind for days. I showed my children. SPOILER ALERT: They do not care. I take that back, Sam was actually concerned for past Bri that this teacher didn't like me. I told him sometimes teachers won't like you and that is okay. So, you know, I got a good teaching moment out of it. Then he said, "Well, look at where you are now!" And, I thought, "God bless his sweet heart."
In conclusion, not 100% sure what it all means yet, but I am pretty sure it's something. Here are my takeaways:
- Just because my writing is good, doesn't mean it succeeds.
- "The Heart of Darkness" is not for everyone and most likely has never been appealing to 17 year olds.
- Do not save your teeth.
- Sam is an angel child, and I must remember this when he does not listen to me after telling him the same thing 34 times in a row.
- I should really stick to writing things I like to write about.