Who Had the Greatest Influence on You?

1996 and 1997 were really difficult years for me.

A few months into my junior year (which was 1996), my mom got a teaching job in Dallas and we moved three hours away from Abilene, where we had lived for almost four years. I was the new kid at a new school for the sixth time in sixteen years. I hated it. I wanted to move back so I could be with my friends (and my first real romance…a senior named Nathan who made amazing Cherry Cokes at the IHOP where he worked).

When I enrolled, I learned that since I had been on the honors track my first two years in high school, I could actually graduate early – I would just have to take two English courses to get the four required English credits. That meant I could graduate as a junior.

As I entered into my last semester of high school in the Spring of 1997, I was in and out of an abusive relationship, was still lonely from moving, and had nowhere to turn.

It was also that semester when my senior English class had a student teacher from a local university. His project for us was to keep a journal every day for that semester.

My journal entries started out more like a diary:

“Went to school. Skipped third and fourth period. Went to work. Did homework. Went to bed.”

“It’s my brother’s birthday. I forgot.”

However, we didn’t just keep the journal in class. We read literature and we studied grammar and we wrote an endless amount of book reports. And I don’t remember the context, but at some point mid-semester, the student teacher said something in class that I’ll never forget.

“When you feel something, no matter how good or bad it is, feel it as deeply as you can. And remember it. Write it down.”

After he said that, something magical happened.

I started writing poems.

Abstract, moody, emotive poems.

And those poems — they set me free.

They helped me process my emotions.

They helped me heal.

They probably saved me.

After I graduated, I didn’t stop. I kept writing. I have journals full of poems and prose that carried me through so many seasons – good and bad. Some of the poems you can find here.

And I still write. I feel something deeply and I write about it.

Not because I have to…but because somewhere along the way, I fell in love with words.

Words have become my life.

And it all goes back to the words from this teacher.

In a month or so, I may get a chance to see him after thirteen years. I’m speaking about an hour away from where he teaches.

And it would mean the world to me to tell him how grateful I am for the way he taught us.

I really think if he wouldn’t have assigned us that journal project, and if he wouldn’t have said that thing about feeling deeply, I would probably be an engineer or a police officer or in retail or business.

All of which are respectable careers, but in the end, they weren’t for me.

This blog wouldn’t exist.

My books wouldn’t exist.

My heart – in the way that it feels things so deeply (maybe too deeply at times…but that’s okay with me) – wouldn’t exist.

This teacher had a tremendous influence on me, although it’s taken thirteen years to fully realize it, now that I do, I just want to tell him…

THANK YOU.

So I’m curious.

Who was this person for you? Who left a mark on your heart that is so defining, it’s part of who you are today?