This morning in my Chemistry class, I was talking with a fellow student about her plans, and what she wanted to do after her time at Merritt. She is a super smart student, and gets really great grades, even in Chemistry (!), and I admire her very much because she is working full time as well as going to school full time. I was advising her to join the honor society at Merritt because you can get great scholarships and I know she gets good grades, so they would welcome her joining. I could see her take that in, and struggle with something internally, and then she shared with me how she is the first in her family to go to college, and how her brother is “into drugs,” and so there is a lot of pressure on her to do well and make something of herself. I was even more impressed with her, and told her so. Then I said, “you’re doing a huge thing - you’re changing the narrative.”
Which stopped me in my tracks, because why had I said that? It’s not something that would normally be in my head. I realized that I had said that because Tom said it to me this morning, and it was fresh on my mind and heart.
You see, earlier today I got an email from one of the universities I have applied to, for transfer as a Junior in Environmental Studies, for the Fall of 2020. It’s the first response I have gotten, and I was accepted. I smiled and filed it away, glad but not overwhelmed - after all, I’ve been working hard, doing what I was told to do to transfer, and getting excellent grades - I expected to be accepted. But when I offhandedly mentioned it to Tom, he made me slow down and take it in, really digest it. He was beaming with pride as he said to me, “This is so great! I’m so proud of you! Look what you’ve done - you’ve changed your narrative!” and once he said that, of course I dissolved in tears, realizing that’s just what I’ve done, at the ripe age of almost-52.
I’ve carried a lot of shame and regret with me all these years since I failed at my first attempt at college. It’s funny how that stuff affects a person, and creates these stories that we tell ourselves about ourselves, which may not really be true. My story went something like this: “I’m a rotten student, I really suck at math, I’ve never gotten it, I fail even in classes I like and enjoy because I just suck.” It isn’t much of a stretch to assume that maybe that story carried over into every aspect of my life - relationships, parenting, career. Maybe it shaped my need to overachieve. Maybe it shaped my need to be seen as a busy, productive person. Maybe it shaped my need to be desired and loved. But it was never really truth - it was just a story I told myself about myself.
Last year, I told a friend that this second attempt at college was a sort of redemption for me. But what I didn’t realize until now was that if I succeeded this time, all the stories I told myself about myself might be shattered, and I’d have to create new ones. Like this one: I can do equations, and I can wrestle with a problem until I figure it out, and I’m actually not intrinsically bad at math. Here’s another one: I can see something through to the end, I’m not the quitter I thought I was, and I can actually do something I think is very hard and succeed at it. Here’s another one: I’ve been so busy trying to prove myself to the world, all these years, because I never could accept that I was enough without some kind of accomplishment backing it up, but I’ve just learned that the accomplishment doesn’t come at the end of something, it comes in the process of something.
What pleases me very much is that I have discovered this exactly when my children will be going out into the world with the stories they are telling themselves about themselves, and I hope I can convey this to them properly somehow:
They can change the story any time they want to. I know, because I’ve just done it.