"I am not what happens to me, I am what I choose to be" I have this quote on my classroom wall and I think on it a lot as I teach. Year after year, I wonder if these ten year olds believe me. I doubt many do. How many adults do you know who still wear their past proudly on their faces, parading around in their stories, never moving forward, staying stagnant in what occurred some time ago? I can see how things can come to define you, if you let them, and I guess the strength comes from not letting it.
I like that I'm giving a fictional character credit for all these sayings, when really I should be praising the author.
But, to the point, I respect people who's past doesn't define them but is a part of their overall story. My own story seems very dull and uneventful compared to some, but I recall a teacher in high school, my Spanish teacher, whose name I can't recall, wanting to label another student and I as children of divorce.
He was a middle aged man with a slight pooch of a belly protruding over his pants. He seemed sloppy yet put together and he always reminded me of Mr. Bean. He was a native Spanish speaker and I don't think he cared too much for children, but tolerated us. He had a gaggle of kids of his own, something like four or five, and was always complaining about them to get a laugh out of us.
He would pass back assignments and call this other student and I to his desk. He would shake his head, side to side, and hand back our decent grades. Then the barrage of strange questions began. How are you so normal? Your parents are divorced, right? Why are you not crazy? We each shrugged and laughed at his odd, harmless, yet stereotypical questions. We figured he was planning to divorce his own wife but wanted to be sure the children would be a-ok.
People often seem to want to lean on their stories, their sob stories, their helpless beginnings, their jilted lovesick vignettes, like a crutch or a cane. It excuses them, or feeds that little gremlin in their heads suggesting it's ok to live in the past and move nowhere fast. I felt this way after my dad's stroke in October, I didn't want to move forward, that would mean admitting the present was real, and I was ready for a crutch, it felt like the only thing holding me up. Slowly, I became stronger and able to accept what had happened. Seeing my dad week after week, regaining what was lost and showing such strength through all the struggle, helped me move forward as well. Back in high school, I remember wondering what if I played that story up, the child of divorce? This teacher seemed to think it was an excuse for something, a pass for playing a fool, perhaps? A reason to do worse in school? I couldn't tell and I didn't give it much thought.
Either way, Dumbledore was a very wise man.
(photos from pinterest)
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