Live in the Now…(For the Most Part)
A few years ago I had a student bring a first draft that detailed the pain and heartbreak of being cut from the team in seventh grade. The entire piece centered on the awful moment when she received the text from the coach with the names posted of those who made it. She frantically scanned the list, and the tears came when she didn’t read her name. The student went on to detail how she refused to let that moment stop her passion for her sport, and she joined another team, where she felt included and valued.
I felt recognition when I read her words. Do the wounds of adolescence ever heal completely? I’m not sure they do because her essay immediately beckoned from my brain a memory I’d almost forgotten.
My 5th grade spelling bee. I spent my elementary years, and well beyond, being a terrible math student, but I was a strong reader and speller. After (handily) winning my class spelling bee, I was catapulted to the school-wide spelling bee, primed for success. I can still remember seeing my parents in the crowd, crammed into folding chairs. My mom with her big 80s hair, resplendent in a magenta jumpsuit. My dad had taken off work! He was there in his suit and red tie, beaming at me and my genius.
One by one, my fellow spellers rose from their chairs at the front of the gym to tackle the words spoken from the judges table. I could feel the adrenaline coursing through my veins as I rose to spell my first word. I could already taste the victory. The old librarian croaked into the microphone: “Inter.”
I hesitated. My ears heard in-turr. Was she trying to say “enter?” I asked her to repeat the word. In-turr. Flummoxed by this woman’s pronunciation issues, I’d had enough. I chirped my response into the mic with staccato, confident precision: “E-N-T-E-R.” I smiled at my dad, but he didn’t see me. His eyes were closed as he shook his head, his mouth a grimace beneath his mustache. His disappointment radiated all the way to the front of the gym. I sat down dumbfounded when I learned that I had misspelled a word I had never even heard of. Inter (verb): place (a corpse) in a grave or tomb, typically with funeral rites. Ah, yes, inter! That old chestnut! A word I wouldn’t properly learn until I was in the 10th grade studying Julius Caesar. In the fog of humiliation, I almost missed the final insult, which was the word given to the punk kid sitting next to me: waffle.
I explained to my student that the reason this moment meant so much, the reason the failure stung so sharply and haunted me well into adulthood, was because I had failed at the thing I was supposed to be good at. And in front of my dad. Oof.
The stories from our childhood have absolutely shaped us, and it can feel natural to gravitate to these moments. And yet! There is a limitation to this content. I told my student that although I responded to the arc of her story, the only version of her I had met and understood was 7th-grade her. Not the 17-year-old version of her. Which is the one who was applying to college. My spelling bee failure was etched into my brain, and yet, for my college essay I would have to do more than acquaint my reader with 11-year-old me. To merely examine myself through that restrictive lens wouldn’t do justice to the mature, capable person who was aiming for her dream school.
So what do you do when the story in question that feels so important happened ages ago? The answer is easy – you find a way to show and explain how the lessons or impact of that moment exist in your life today. Now. Look for the ripples and consequences afoot in your present. That way, you can still tell the story that matters, but make room for other stories, too.
At 17, my student still played the sport she loved. So I asked her to bring me up to speed on what that had looked like in her life since the seventh grade cut that still stung. She had so much to share, and we found a way to reconcile her past and present, showing how the person who responded to the hard moment was uniquely equipped to tackle the journey ahead. And presto! All of the sudden, her content still evoked recognition from her reader, but now it illuminated the most relevant version of herself: the person she was today, who was aiming for her dream school.