If, in the entire English language, there was only one descriptive word that could be picked out, shined, and be called my own, it’d probably be this: spoiled. I grew up with, essentially, one thousand futures laid out in front of me, with everything in reach and everything in touch. Here this path led to the medical realm, with access to internships and resource books at every bathroom break, there that path led to law, that one to engineering, that one to design, to business, to economics. The possibilities were endless and quite dizzying, as I could turn my head only a half a degree and find another road. That makes 720 intersecting roads in one tiny circle and yet, the number seems miniscule compared to the constant confusion prancing around in my daily life.
In second grade, my dance teacher told me that I had potential. She fawned over how gracefully I clicked my toes together: look at that little Asian girl, a prodigy, she is! And I was spoiled with unnatural hues of eye coloring and lip coloring and every bit of coloring, so long as it wasn’t skin coloring, and I was rushed, rushed, rushed to front and center, but after a year or so I was back in the back with all the other colored dolls, obediently performing my arabesques; can a prodigy child un-prodigy herself?
In fourth grade, my piano teacher claimed to have taken one look at me and known, known what, I have yet to find out. She said it was my eyes. I followed her instructions and hit the note with my hand, loosening my wrist in the same pattern she did, loosening my shoulders, moving down with my hand and swaying as rhythmically as I could. And she spoiled me with extra lessons and extra candy and begged to take pictures with me after my recitals, and she framed those pictures and placed them on the mantle next to the pictures of her daughter and her husband. But I forgot to practice one week, and the next week, and the week after that my photo was replaced with another fancy girl’s and my lessons had deteriorated to shrink appointments.
In sixth grade, my tennis teacher saw me hit a ball and praised me for hitting it within the painted white lines, even though I had only done what he had told me to do. He coached me hard and he coached me often; he marveled at how quickly I mastered the skills. “She’s got potential,” he would tell my parents, “she’ll get far.” The lessons increased as my skill level stayed steady, and my skill level fell as my attendance to the court dropped to near zero. That’s when I learned how to quit.
In eighth grade, my art teacher told me that if I just drew a bit more, I could succeed in the field of art. He sat me down next to him and instructed me little by little, demanding that I understand that painting the shadow did not simply mean to add black, nor did painting the light simply mean to add white. He mixed the blues and the browns, the reds and the purples; he blended them and with a whip of his wrist a beautiful shade of black found itself underneath the apple on the canvas. But the sketchbooks and pencils that he had spoiled me with lay unused and forgotten, week after week, until he, too, gave up on my potential.
And now, I am idle.
Perhaps if I hadn’t been spoiled, I would’ve worked harder, at least, I’d like to believe that. Perhaps if my teachers had challenged me, hurt me, or caused me to cry, I would have sat down and practiced my potential only a little bit more. Perhaps if everything wasn’t so forced.
I only want someone to believe in me, forever.
