Freedom

To be vulnerable in your own home is a terrifying feeling. The walls begin to concave around you and the air becomes thin. There I was, hopeless and afraid. My eyes flooded with salty tears, my fingernails dug into my fair skin; my body boiled like coals over a blazing fire. As I sat petrified in the corner of my kitchen, I knew it was watching. I knew the beast was lurking around the corner. I buried my face into my knees hoping that the beast would go away. However, this wild beast was not one of hair and flesh or claws and teeth. It was a silent beast. In fact, this beast did not exist in reality, only metaphorically. This beast was locked behind a virtual screen: an essay.

I never envisioned a high school literature class to be the bane of my existence until junior year. Everytime I ventured into the classroom, a chilling sensation rushed down my spine and the temperature plunged ten degrees. I recall seeing the terror in my coursemates’ eyes as we waited anxiously for her to arrive. Suddenly, a tall, slender, shadowy silhouette pushed the door open. Pointed black heels clicked on the floor as she marched to her desk. She had long, charcoal hair that fell right above her scrawny waist. Her sharp face tapered at the chin with brown, menacing eyes that stared through your soul. This was my high school English teacher: Miss M.

Before this class, I always thought that English was a breeze. I could spell with ease and memorize vocabulary words like the back of my hand. Yet, I would have never guessed that these words could send me into an infinite hysteria. Most of the material Miss M. spoke of I could not comprehend. She spoke of archetypes, aphorisms, phallic symbols, paradoxes and everything in between. I felt like I was enrolled in a senior-level college class. Each topic went way over my head and anxiety crawled under my skin. One assignment, in particular, would change my whole outlook on English forever.

Miss M. cleared her throat. She sharply stood up from her desk and explained the new assignment: “Recently, we’ve been reading several pieces by Nathaniel Hawthrone. I want you to come up with an essay analyzing one of these texts. However, there will be no rubric or guidelines. I want you to come up with your own idea.”

My heart sank. I had never been a great writer in the first place; especially, without any guidance to follow.

“You’ll have two weeks to come up with a draft, and then present your final essay,” she promptly declared.

I pondered over what to write. My mind was empty. I knew that whatever topic I chose, nothing would impress her. Therefore, I bit off something bigger than I could chew, an idea that would blow her socks off. My concept was something along the lines of “man trying to be God.” The next day, I asked for her opinion:

“This is not bad, however, what if you talked about man having a god complex,” she snidely remarked.

I stared deep into her soulless eyes like a deer in headlights. Her underlying tone suggested that I could have done something more significant. I nodded my head and walked away defeated. Every intelligent thought I owned was integrated in that single idea. Nevertheless, I was only presented with a mediocre reaction. It was not the praise I was hoping to receive and I was back at square one. I had a sub-par idea, no self confidence, no evidence for elaboration, and no rubric to analyze. Heck! I was unsure of what a God complex even was! At that moment in time, I was a balloon. However, not the shiny, red balloon full of helium that little kids awe over during birthday parties. I was the dull, pitiful, blue balloon filled with oxygen. I did not rise high in the sky, but fell low to the ground.

Although I read the assigned text repeatedly, the words mushed into garbage and gloop. I was baffled over my own topic and scrambled aimlessly to find meaning. The infinite vastness of white haunted me as I gazed into my computer screen. My cursor sat there blinking; it taunted me to write a single word. I realized that I had developed a phobia of writing. I realized that the only thing keeping me from writing was the beast that stood before me.

The vicious monster eyed me down for hours as I tirelessly labored over each painstaking word. My eyes trailed up to the corner of the screen.

“10:59 pm” I read.

A fire was lit under me. Tension built up throughout my entire body. My heart started to beat faster. My fingertips began to tingle. My foot quivered back and forth. My cheeks became hot and rosy. My eyes accumulated puddles. My home was no longer a safe haven, but a warzone. Like a ticking time bomb, I exploded. I rushed into my kitchen searching for a sense of normalcy, but there was nowhere to hide. The beast still lingered no matter where I escaped. I was a victim of its torment. I was its prey. As tears streamed down my face, I knew that there was only one way to get rid of the beast: to turn it in.

The next day at school, my battle scars displayed from head to toe. The dark circles under my eyes and the fatigued muscles in my fingers were only a few of the beast’s repercussions. I developed thoughts of withdrawing from the literature class because I thought my life was over.

“Good morning class,” Miss M said as she barged through the door.

With a mug in her hand filled to the brim with piping hot coffee, she advanced her way to the front desk.

“Today we are going to begin a new lesson.”

I was stunned. For the rest of the class she did not mention the essay once. In fact, for the entire year, the essay remained gradeless, unspoken of, even shunned by society. I was trapped in a whirlwind of emotions: anger, frustration, betrayal. If I knew that the beast was going to be locked away forever, I would have never released it in the first place. To this day, I still speculate why the assignment was never brought up again. Perhaps it was something in coffee she had to drink that day, or the flurry of thoughts that clouded her mind, but I learned a valuable lesson.

The process of writing has its ups and downs. Writing under such advanced circumstances pushed me out of my comfort zone. I find fortitude in my peers such as Caitlin Srager, a college student who wrote the literacy narrative, “Extra! Extra! Read All About It.” Within her story, Caitlin writes about a summer journalism internship. Although my experience was not professional, I believe that Miss M pressured me as much as Cailtin’s co-workers plagued her. I understood the intimidation in Caitlin’s voice when she explained that “they were going to demolish every writing habit I had learned throughout my life,” (Srager 6). I was reminded of this traumatic feeling through Miss M. Although I thought I knew how to write, my ideas and sentences when put down on paper were never good enough.

Frankly, I do not think I am a good writer and I have come to terms with it. I will never be the sought-out journalist or creative novelist that Miss M urged me to be. I am okay with that. What I learned from that high school literature class is that writing is nothing to stress over. After reflecting on my experience with the beast, I realized that I am strong enough to tame it. In the vast picture of life, one essay or one beast will not shape my future. I may never write a perfect essay, but I won’t let it define who I am. I am free from the beast.

Work Cited

Srager, Caitlin. "Extra! Extra! Read All About It!." From Shakespeare to a B-Flat: Reflections on Reading and Writing, compiled by Emily Wierszewski, Seton HIll University Writing Program, 2020, pages 6-8.