In the fourth grade, I wrote a short story about Mars and Venus. One day Mars got so cold it went to look for warmth. In its search, it found that Venus was the perfect match. The two planets ended up falling in love, getting married and having children that became moons.
It was a simple homework assignment. We were to make up a fiction story one page in length with our own original illustrations.
I worked for two weeks on the story making sure every little detail was just how I wanted it. I turned it in with the biggest grin on my face and my teacher asked, “Marissa, why are you so happy?” Before she even got to finish her sentence I blurted out “You’ll love this story. I’m so excited for you to read it.”
She gave me an F on the story, after school detention and a call home to my mother on the grounds that my story was too fabricated and drawn out. On my paper, she commented, “Marissa nice imagination, but it’s too outlandish to ever to read.” I was excepting a good grade. Failure wasn’t an option I had even considered. I felt like my best was inadequate, or that my imagination was this wild thing I had to contain and not let anyone else see. That feeling of inadequacy scared me. I don’t want to be mediocre in life. I want to be extraordinary.
I cried every day after school for a week. I thought my mom was going to kill her. She didn’t, but she did send a strongly worded email to the principal. The letter didn’t really do much, so one day my mom showed up to my elementary school. She marched into the principal’s office and gave him a piece of her mind. She never told me what she said, but I assume it was pretty badass. By supporting my work my mother made me feel like the way I expressed myself and how I expressed my imagination was valid. I could write anything that my peers would consider weird or unconventional and she would see it as a great piece of work.
At the time I didn’t realize this would be the foundation for my self-confidence not only in writing but in other aspects of my life such as fashion sense, taste in music and how to exude confidence. She taught me that it’s okay to be yourself and to express yourself however you feel that should happen.
From then on the fear of someone not liking my work, or thinking I was this weird girl had always been in the back of my mind. My fourth-grade teacher was the first person in my life that had placed a fear of what others thought of me in my head. At the time and for a long time after that failing grade I centered my life around what others thought of me and how I could act like others so I could be more likable and normal.
Growing up I knew I loved to read and write. I read all of the Dr. Seuss books religiously. I felt like he was weird like me, but he didn’t contain it, he wrote weird stuff and I loved it. I first discovered my true love for reading books through a program at my school called “The Reading Star.” When you read more than 15 books you were given a cut out star with your picture on it. With each book over 15, you got a small gold sticker to put on your star. These stars were hung up around our elementary school hallways. There was one wall right near the principal’s office that had all of the “star readers” on it. The “star readers” were kids who read over 100 books. There were only one or two kids on this wall at a time, but when a student got on the star reader wall you automatically bumped up on the popularity scale of the elementary school.
Once I would get home from school I would finish my homework and immediately start to read. I would read the American Girl Doll novels and other books that were on the school’s reading list. These books became an escape from the little girl I was trying to hide from everyone at school.
My brother once asked my why I read so much, and I told him that I was reading so much to become just like the people who wrote the books. At the time, I was just saying this to get my brother off of my back, but after I said it I decided that I wanted to become a writer, so I could give people an escape just like I could escape from trying to be someone else. When I grew older I realized that I wouldn’t be giving people just an escape, but reading helped me discover my passion and if I could do that for someone else I would feel like writing would be worth all the hard work I would put in.
By the end of elementary school, I read 150 books and set a record for the most books read by a student in the program. Now that I had accomplished something that I never thought I could do I felt like maybe this weirdness I thought I had would work to my benefit and I could really accomplish something in the future.
Middle school was rough. I had a giant gap between my teeth covered with metal braces. I gave myself side bangs when I couldn’t even cut my doll’s hair in a straight line, and I had no idea what tweezers were so I rocked a unibrow until my freshman year of high school.
There is a bright side, though. In middle school, I had great teachers that gave me books that are still some of my favorites. One of my favorite books of all time is The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold. This book is roughly 215 pages and it would usually take me about a week or two to finish, but I finished this book in two days. I couldn’t stop turning the page. I never realized books could have this gripping suspense just like an intense action movie that leaves you grabbing your seat. I started to imitate this style of writing. I had a journal I would write in every morning during our homeroom period.
In my journal I wrote about fictional worlds such as the ones in the Dr. Seuss books, young women throughout history and their adventures just like the American Girl Doll books, and I would try to write about suspenseful situations like Alice Sebold. My suspenseful situations included missing the morning bus to school and trying to escape my mom when I have forgotten to take the trash out.
At this point in my life, I had no idea you could actually write for a living. In my head, I thought people who wrote books, poetry, and articles just did it as a side job. I guess this idea came from my dad. My dad is in the insurance business – he’s all numbers and analytics. He appreciates good writing, but it just doesn’t make sense to him just like the stock market doesn’t make sense to me.
Middle school was finally over. No more awkwardness that came with my changing body, I could finally have a locker, and I could start looking at colleges. Since I started to search for colleges I liked I had to pick what I would like to spend my time studying. Majoring in English, creative writing, journalism and film all appealed to me. When looking for colleges and majors I decided I wanted to become a writer. I thought why not try to become a professional at something I already do every day?
I was so excited to tell my dad that I was going to become a writer, so I planned out something special. We were going on one of our annual daddy/daughter dates, so I picked to go to his favorite restaurant and then I would pay for desert with my birthday money. I told him right after the desert came out, “Dad, what if I wanted to become a writer when I grow up?” He told me that it would be a waste of time trying to peruse the career full time, and when I grew up I would understand and thank him. I was taken back by what he said. I really didn’t know how to react at first. I was shocked. I was expecting him to be supportive but instead, it was like he was crushing my dream before it even had a start.
I didn’t say anything for the rest of the dinner. When we got home I told my mom what happened. My mom took my dad into their room and I didn’t see them for the rest of the night. I tried to hear what they were talking about, but my mom knew better and whispered the entire time. She later came into my room and told me to ignore what my dad had said because she loves my writing and if is something I am passionate about I should pursue it. She told me “Marissa the world lacks passion. If you can gift yourself passion and inspire others to find their passion you will make the world a better place because you have already made my world a better place.”
My mom also told me insurance wasn’t my dad’s first choice, and she wants me to have my first choice job. I see how much my dad hates his job. It puts stress on the entire household when he comes home from work with a high anxiety level and short temper. My family has never worried about money, and I am so grateful for that, but if I have the option to do something I love for the rest of my life I am going to peruse that, no matter how much it pays.
My senior year of high school I had to do a final research paper in order to graduate. We could pick from a list of books to write about. I chose Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five. I really didn’t know what it was about, but it sounded interesting so I decided to give it a shot. It was something so different from what I had ever read. It was blunt, honest and talked about life and death in a satirical way that I never experienced before. It blew me away. I was reading someone who was writing weird stuff and it inspired me to let my guard down and write the things I wanted to write about no matter how weird or unsettling they were.
Fast forwarding to my sophomore year here at St. Bonaventure I decided to take a poetry course with a visiting professor. One class we were talking about what we like to write about. Everyone said things like nature or family or their daily lives, but when it was my turn I was reluctant to share. My favorite thing to write about when writing poetry is violence. I feel I get such vivid images when I write about violence when I am the least violent person you will ever meet.
I wrote a poem inspired by this conversation.
HEINZ
As you slip your fingers between my thighs
I sigh.
I think about the meatloaf in the oven.
Did I put ketchup on it?
The ketchup is splattered all over the inside of the oven
As if I took a baseball bat to the head of the meatloaf.
Your fingers stuff the meatloaf with pleasure and forgetfulness
as I wipe the blood from the walls of the warm, wet oven.
“Wow, what’s wrong with your head. What the hell goes on in your mind,” said the only man in the class who decided to only write poems about Donald Trump. I replied, “the last man who said that to me ended up in my oven.”
My professor thought this was great. She loved the banter between us. She liked my poem even more.
It was so liberating to feel so much pride in my work. I’m not sure why in this exact moment I decided to take ownership and pride in my work. Maybe I just got fed up with considering myself inadequate, or maybe I just thought the kid was a jerk and deserved to be put in his place. Either way, I’m glad I stood up for my writing and myself.
Now that I have come to embrace my inner weirdness and use that in my writing I feel that I have accepted who I am as both a person and a writer. As Kurt Vonnegut puts it, “We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be.”