This is mine, it's a memoir.
If you read it all, props to you. It's long.
When I was a child, I didn’t think much about being beautiful. My parents always told me that I was. God told me I was lovely. I was satisfied, filled, and it showed. I excelled in numerous areas of my life, and had the opportunity to develop as a person. I began to play soccer. A decent soccer player, though not the best, I was content with my abilities, and believed that I would improve further given the proper time. I flowed into that season quite naturally, and I feel as if it marked a starting point. When I first took an interest in soccer was when I first took an interest (albeit subconsciously) in making myself into the beautiful person I wanted to be.
I had always been competent in school, but at that point I became more interested in being a learner, not simply a student of passing grades. Homeschool gave me the opportunity, to some extent, to choose what I studied. My mother helped me to decide on British and American literature studies, grammar studies, and splendid classical literature to peruse. Frequently, I absorbed the same book multiple times, allowing it to become a cherished and well-worn part of me. I took classes and wrote short stories that eventually evolved into an interest in writing a novel of my own. Without encouragement from anyone, I found a website that told me that I could write a fifty thousand word novel in thirty days. Seeing as this seemed like a reasonable goal, I set out after it. In due time, the tiny mountain goat in my heart achieved the crest of his mountain. I finished my novel in the thirty days of November. The advice given by the program was, I’m sure, highly reliable. They recommended that one wait for a few months, and afterwards submit his or her writing to their staunch inner editor for processing. I had no such patience. I edited my work, indeed, but only for grammar and punctuation mistakes. When I had finished, I sent the final product to an online publisher and received in return a physical copy of my book. I remember holding it, almost dizzy with success, and looking at the fragile paper cover, and wondering what my next novel would look like.
During the same period of time, my ever-expanding mind demanded that I become a crafter, as adamantly as the mind of a dog desires to chase cars or his own tail. Not only did I learn to crochet, but I also became violently interested in the art of yarn. I attempted to knit, and tried rather hard to embroider, but they only served to draw me back into my first love, crochet. Countless trinkets and bits of fabric littered my room, colorful yarn made a plush and many-textured bed in every corner. Walking through certain areas became difficult, as one could hardly avoid dramatically impaling his or her feet on a needle of the sewing, crochet, knitting or plastic kind. There remain, in a box under my bed, several dozen crochet stuffed dogs, a few odd granny squares, a misshapen hat or two, and a couple pouches or purses that are nearly unrecognizable- my early attempts. My later pieces are easier to understand, consisting of blankets and wearable pieces of clothing, such as a striped sweater and the hat that I wore yesterday.
As a child, I lived well. Adding to the talents mentioned above, I began to play piano. Despite some struggle with a lack of interest, I became accustomed to playing, and I grew to deeply enjoy the experience. My afternoon schedule varied, but I do remember that a large part of that midday time was often spent in the woods surrounding my house, doing something that I now like to call ‘pretending’. I say that it was pretending because that is what it was, and yet it seemed to be much more. My siblings and I built cities, complete with museums of animal bones, fortresses of brick and straw, and swings of vine with holes dug underneath as we grew taller, so that our feet wouldn’t hit the ground quite so hard. Those days are tinted hazel in my memory, and they have a smell of warm sunshine on dried leaves, that fills my heart as I remember them.
All good things must come to an end, and the end of my creative struggle did come. At some point, somehow, I became aware that there was a world outside my little glass sphere. There was a world that did not consist of admiring friends and parents. This unforgiving world did not believe that crocheting, playing the piano, ‘pretending’, and being interested in the finer points of English grammar were skills to be thought well of. In fact, these were things to be mocked. Never did I stop being interested in those things. However, I think I tried to be. I became discontent, and stopped viewing myself as beautiful or accomplished. On occasion I believed I wasn’t worth much at all. It didn’t happen all at once. It was like sitting in a room, busily occupied, around late afternoon into evening time, and with no artificial lights. The darkness comes on you so carefully and then all at once, and you wonder how long it has been there. My identity was like the light, and it slowly fell from me. I suddenly wondered who I was, and why I was important. Sometimes I think that maybe it was my sense of accomplishment that made me feel like I was someone beautiful. Perhaps I needed it to slip away to discover how truly beautiful I was. To discover how truly beautiful I am, for I still inhabit that wandering soul. I am beautiful, and yet everyday I am told in a different way that I am not, because there is someone else more so. I have talents, and yet I am told everyday that I have them not, because someone else is better more so. The world that lies outside my doorstep would steal my beauty, and see it fade unused. I desire to unleash it. I only want to know how.
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