What is it trying to tell me?

 The writing prompt for today's sessions is: What is it trying to tell me?

Do you have any memories that stay with you, and you're not sure why? Maybe you don't remember much else about that period of time, the people or places that were important back then, or even the context surrounding the memory.

I was eight-years-old living in a small town in Southern Indiana when the movie, Arthur, staring Dudley Moore was in theaters. It was some kind of romantic comedy, and Moore's character was perpetually drunk. I was really depressed around that time. So much so that my mom wanted to take me to a psychologist, which was kind of unheard of back then. Especially for boys. We went to see Arthur, and we left the theater because I was so distraught, not about the movie, but about being alive. I have no other memories about me ever being depressed as a child. We never did go to a psychologist. I was never medicated. And to top it off, I have no idea why my mom took me to that movie. Every once in a while I look up the release date of Arthur to remind myself of how old I was when I left that movie theater sobbing. I don't know why I do that. I don't honesty think it is related to Dudley Moore playing a drunk. Did something traumatic happen around that time that I'm suppressing? I don't know what my memory is trying to tell me.

Do you have any memories that linger, and you don't know why? Is your subconscious trying to tell you something? Why is your brain holding on to that? Please write about it.

Here’s what chatGPT says: 

This prompt asks you to explore a memory that stays with you, even if you don’t understand why. You don’t have to uncover a hidden event or reach a definite explanation. You can write about what you remember, what you feel now, and what you still wonder.

The example is intense, but your memory can be ordinary: a comment someone made, a car ride, a room, a kindness, or a moment when you felt left out or understood.

Try starting with these questions:

• What scene comes to mind? Describe the place, people, sounds, or one small detail.

• What feeling comes with it? Embarrassment, comfort, sadness, longing, confusion?

• What makes it puzzling? Why this moment, when you’ve forgotten so many others?

• What might you say to yourself in that moment now?

You can explore possible meanings without deciding that any one explanation is true. The prompt’s suggestion about suppressed trauma is the writer’s speculation; you don’t need to adopt it.

A useful opening is: “I don’t know why I remember this, but I can still picture…”

If no particular memory comes to mind, you could begin: “When I try to think of a memory that is trying to tell me something, nothing obvious appears. What I notice instead is…” That gives you room to explore a recurring feeling, a period of your life, or even the pressure to find meaning.

When I try to think of a memory that is trying to tell me something, nothing obvious appears. What I notice instead is…fear. Anxiety. I honestly read this prompt a few times this week and nothing appeared, but I kept thinking about high school, what it was like as a student, for me. I guess this is natural, I am a high school teacher after all. (If you asked me in the year 1999, junior year, if I was ever going to teach high school I would have spit in your face) but here we are. The memory that surfaced was crying at the kitchen table with my parents trying to console me. 

I was trying to figure out something. Algebra, Biology, Physics, studying my ass off and only coming up with 83s if I was lucky on tests. Somehow feeling that this was never good enough. My father is trying to teach me math at the table telling me “it was easy” but not actually explaining the problem or how he got it. He was supposed to be a professor? I don’t recall really ever being interested in something? 

I remember doing what had to be done. I remember the following lists. I remember checking off to-do list items and feeling accomplished, and that was really the only time I was happy. I fell in love with the concept of accomplishment. I never developed interests. It was always told to me that I was going to college; I was never given the option of a gap year, or technical school, or work. Would my life have been different had I chosen to fly to Spain when I was 18? How? I guess that’s all in the past now, but I am who I am because I suffered 4 miserable years at the University of Georgia and was forced to pick a major of Education. Moving forward, I think constantly about how the seniors I’ve taught for four years are going to move into their futures. 

I’m already seeing they are entirely uninterested in reading novels and discussing their relevance. I have to have them do that, but they’d rather discuss with me the current election in Brazil and how they just turned 18 and voted absentee because their current president is a certified whack job. Actually, the way this girl described the incumbent Brazilian president sounds a lot like I describe the current American one. She cut the conversation short with me and wrote me a note, in fluent English, that said the other Brazilian girl (both of whom I’ve taught for 3 and 4 years respectfully) is on the opposite side of the political spectrum and didn’t want to hurt feelings. 

These kids are going to be OK. This is the same girl who told me yesterday “My parents said that if I don’t go to college they will kill me.” Wow. I instantly shot back to my senior year. My father said the exact same thing to me. She’s pushing back, maybe. The kids will be OK. 

I say all of this because I have invested time into this community. I know it’s just my work community. If I tell any of this to Cameron he would tell me I’m getting too close to my students and I need to take a professional step back. I do teach them the elements of literature. I do teach them how to find the central claim of an argument. They can do that. They don’t want to talk about that stuff. They know how to do that stuff. They can do that if you make it a class requirement. They WANT to talk about this stuff. They want to talk about stuff that matters. 

I say all of this because I’m torn. I don’t have a specific memory, but I’m driven to many memories of my youth daily. I don’t think I’ve ever thought about the person I could become. I think I’ve always thought about what other people expected of me. I’m in a profession that expects me to provide a service where I am providing a zillion services daily. When is it going to be my turn? What do I really want out of life? I want me.