Listen, child.
I taught you
junk.
Listen, child.
Grading you
made me
complicit in your control.
Listen, child.
you did not, you could not fail
at being human.
Listen hard, child.
This question hangs between us:
Why was
I
not better
than I was?
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I ponder on this poem today. It feeds into my imposter syndrome…..do I really know this stuff? What impact am I having….really? Can’t I just crawl up into a ball and sleep on the bed like the cat?
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My intent was not to bring everyone down a peg. You can be a cat if need be. My problem has always been that I cared too much about whether folks thought I was an imposter, about whether I really did know what I said I knew, about the impact I was having. This poem was my way of pushing back at…myself? That really sounds crazed, but the question stands. Why was I not better than I was? It is a legit question, one that each of us has an idiosyncratic answer to. I cared too much about what anybody thought and in doing this I was not honest with myself about who I was.
BTW, have you thought about who the “child” in this poem might be? My children? My students? My own child self?
Be a kitten, Wendy, and purr. You are no imposter.
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I curled up for a time
But it doesn’t last long
I need to unfurl, unflatten…….and be the best cat I can possibly be.
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I think most of us could find many things in our past that we wish we had done better. I know I spend time daily berating myself for many things done wrong or not done at all.
However, there’s no sense dwelling too much on it. There’s too much to do now, and in the future.
Plus, the list of good things you, I and others have done probably outweighs the bad. We hope.