School is done and I am feeling reflective. This could get a little sappy. But don't say I didn't warn you.
Man. I can't think of a time in my life when I dealt with more stress than this past quarter. Granted it was all self inflicted stress. I may be making a "B" in a class, and this upsets me. Thinking about how a B is upsetting cracks me up though. I mean, at any given point in my previous academic career I would be stoked about passing, let alone a B.
It feels good to know I can change.
I was having a beer with a friend the other night, and she commented I was one of the hardest working people she knew. I had to laugh, and said something like "That's definitely a new addition to my personality." I later related this conversation back to the boyfriend, and he said "But that's not true. You've always been a hard worker. It's just focus you lacked. Focus is the new addition to your personality. People have always told you were lazy and so you lived up to that expectation, but think about every job you've ever had." And it's true, I've always busted ass at my job, whatever job it was.
It's true about people, we live up to our expectations. I had been told since I was a kid that I was lazy. I don't blame anyone, I guess I was a tough case. No one could see there was a neurological issue holding me back from success in school, they saw a bright child refusing to do what she was supposed to do. I think I never really came clean to anyone about what was going on. I always said I lost my homework, but the truth was I wasn't doing it. And then when it became obvious I wasn't doing any work in school, I acted like it was because I was so above doing whatever silly homework those silly teachers laid out for me. I never looked anyone in the eye and said "I'm not doing my homework because I can't make myself write out all those words." "I'm not doing my homework because I was so spaced out in class I have absolutely no idea what's going on." "I'm not doing my homework because I don't even know what I am suppose to be doing for homework." I can't blame myself though, either, because I was just a scared kid trying to save my ass. I don't know why I thought I would be in more trouble telling the truth; I suspect I wasn't so scared of getting in trouble as I was, even as a kid, afraid of finding out something was wrong with me. I walked around feeling like something was terribly wrong with me and not wanting anyone else to know.
Most of the time I felt like I was crazy. When I was in high school I would have these talks with myself about how this year was going to be different, how I was going to get it together and do well. I was going to make everyone proud of me again, like when I was little. But of course, it never happened, and I couldn't figure out what was wrong with me, so I let everyone else fill in the blank:
I was lazy.
Even after I was in school at Texas State and I found out I did indeed have some learning disabilities (or for the politically correct, "learning differences") I didn't realize I could change. I was at a school I knew wasn't right for me or what I wanted to do in life, and even though i could have made the best of the situation and tried to figure a new plan out, I didn't. I did what I had always done. I crashed and burned and sat around feeling sorry for myself. I was at a state school, known for not being particularly hard, and I couldn't even make it there? It just made me feel lazier and crazier than ever.
Well, I am here today to tell you I, Lindsay Schmitt, am not lazy. I am driven and hard working. I don't know what the future holds for me and my career as an illustrator, but I'm willing to do whatever it takes to fulfill my dream. I know now I was scared for the future before. At Texas State, I was unfocused because I didn't have a clear path I was following. And I need that; I need goals, and I need to believe I can meet those goals. I now understand how very detrimental these things are to anyone's success. You can make goals for yourself, but you have to really believe in your gut you can meet those goals.
Why am I writing all this for potential public consumption? Because you need to know you can change too. Maybe you are like me, and you have believed something about yourself for so long, you think it's like the color of your eyes or the hand you write with; just a natural fact about you and there's nothing you can do about it. But you're wrong. You can change. You can stop sitting around, feeling sorry for yourself and the way everything turned out. It's not easy. You have to witness something in yourself that shows you are able to transform, and this the hardest part.
I also write this because I think people need to understand how the words you chose to use to kids can have such devastating effects. Again, I don't blame anyone, not my parents or teachers or myself; I can look back as an adult and see myself as a trying child no one knew what to do with. In a way, it's kind of flattering everyone thought I was so smart there couldn't really be anything wrong with me. And now that I am where I am, I don't regret a single thing, not even that self-loathing I knew as a kid. It's all shaped who I am and brought me where I am now, and I'm happy with that. But still, we must be careful of the things we chose to say to a child. It's hard to remember how kids absorb every little word we say, even when they don't act like it. But every time you tell a kid "You can't," it's going to drive the nail home in her mind that she can't.
I realize how self-righteous all of this probably sounds. But it's my stupid blog and I can write whatever I want on here.
Okay, no more long ramblings for a while. Now that I am a free woman I will post more things soon, and update more frequently.
