Writing, singing, dancing, juggling, and as of two days ago, knitting. These are what I consider my skills. However, I wasn’t great at any of them when I first started. I was awful at writing when I first decided to start writing poetry. I mean, I was truly awful. My words were way too blunt and repetitive and I had no flow. About a decade of writing later, and I am still learning, but I can control my words. I can shape pictures in people’s minds. I can make my words flow or not to create different effects. I worked for years before I was able to do any of that.
When it comes to singing, aside from relative pitch (I can sing back any pitch I hear), I was truly terrible. I had a weak, breathy voice and I had no confidence. Years of voice lessons and practicing later and I am nowhere near perfect, but I can do amazing things with my voice. Most importantly, I am confident with my voice. I sing whenever I get the chance. I started dancing when I was 3 years old and then took 12 years of lessons. I was no child prodigy nor am I very talented at dancing, but I can follow steps and fake it ’till I make it.
Juggling is one of my newest skills. A few months ago my friend started teaching me how to juggle and I spent hours and hours practicing until I could finally do it. I still don’t have any tricks down except normal juggling, but I’m working on it still every day.
Lastly, knitting. Two days ago I picked up two pencils and a ball of yarn and started teaching myself how to knit. Once I could cast on and do a simple knit stitch, I went out and bought myself knitting needles. I’m still working on my first project, a simple scarf, but it’s amazing to see how my first rows of knits were so sloppy. There are holes and it’s really loosely stitched together. Nevertheless, as I continue the piece, the rows are neater and you can see each knit nicely. It took hours of working with the pencils and hours of working with the needles, but I did the work and I am able to do simple knitting now.
Where am I going with this? Well, I am obviously trying to say that I work very hard to do the things that I can. Before I perform a song, I listen to it at least 50 times, and I sing it probably that many times too. I go through each phrase of the song and practice until I’m proud of it. However, lately people have been calling me perfect. They tell me how I am good at everything without even trying. They use me as a way to pity themselves. They say that they wish they were more like me. They wish they could just be good at everything. They don’t see how hard I work to achieve all that I have. They don’t notice how I put my everything into what I do. I started knitting because I wanted to create things. I wanted to be able to make things. My other skills are more performance, but with knitting I can make things. I have a small dream of knitting scarves and hats for the homeless. Maybe one day I’ll be able to.
I don’t want recognition for all my hard work. All I want is for people to see my hard work and realize that they could do that too. Instead, people see my finished products and say they could never do that. It’s so possible. If they want to learn how to sing they can practice, if they want to learn to juggle they can practice, if they want to knit they can practice! I started with pencils and extra yarn I found, but you can even use string. I want people to be inspired by me, not to feel the pity that they do. Even if I don’t inspire, I just want people to stop pitying themselves because of me. I know it isn’t just because of me, and that those people have deeper problems, but I wish they wouldn’t take them out on me. Anyway, that’s all I have for the day, Happy New Year loves!
-AcuteAnimosity
AcuteAnimosity 