My mom likes to tell this story about me when I was in kindergarten. It’s become a manufactured memory for me because I don’t have real memories from when I was that young. I was already reading by kindergarten, mostly due to my older sister helping me and that ‘90s classic program Hooked on Phonics. One day I picked up a book in class and started reading. The book was something about dinosaurs, but apparently I was also reading the Latin names of the dinosaurs. The teacher thought I had memorized something or was cheating somehow, so she sent me to the principal’s office. My mom was called to school, where she had to explain that yes, I could read, and she had me read the same book in front of the principal. I was somehow in trouble for being smart. I think about what kind of life experience my teacher must have had up to that point to assume a five year old was lying about reading a few words of Latin. Does a five year old know what Latin is?
I don’t know what I learned from that experience, but I had a feeling that I didn’t have the words to express at that age. As I’ve gotten older I’ve struggled to describe it. Unfairness. Anger. Shame. Some mixture of all three.
My idol and hero, like that of a lot of ’90s kids, came from Harry Potter: Hermione. She was so smart because she knew how to find the answers to all her questions — in books. She (along with Reading Rainbow) convinced me that all my answers could be best found at the library. But I also saw how Hermione was treated. She was called a know-it-all, she was mocked for her looks, she did homework for her friends, and she prepared escape plans while Harry and Ron only thought of how to get into trouble. She poured out time, energy, and love. It didn’t seem like her friends gave back the same amount of appreciation, and it only came at the very end, without much support or help during the process.
So I made a conscious effort to become smaller. I raised my hand less, embarrassed when it shot up without my thinking about it, like there was a puppet master hiding in the ceiling. I spoke less and watched others get more attention and more laughs. I thought all the time, I know that, but convinced myself I’d be more popular if I was quieter, if I didn’t make other people look less smart. My family looked into me skipping a grade at one point, but I hesitated. How would I make friends as the young smart kid? How would I keep the old friends I had if they thought I was smarter than them? I decided to stay in my own grade and tried to keep my head down.
When it came time to choose my undergraduate major, although I had been passionate about music and theatre, although I had interviewed at theatre schools for a degree in theatre technology, I chose engineering. I always thought of smartness as a narrowly defined set of characteristics: often geeky or awkward, but always in a STEM field. I admired authors who seemed in touch with their emotions. I considered them brilliant, fantastic, and great people, but not smart in the way engineers or computer programmers or scientists were smart.
I was done hiding my brain. I knew some people wouldn’t like me, but trying to please everyone is a losing game. I knew it would be hard to overcome my habits of holding back. Keeping my smarts contained didn’t seem viable after high school. I felt like I could breathe deeply after years of holding it in, and I couldn’t give up that feeling. I was done letting others take the credit or underestimate me.
I wanted a place where I could put a stop to the shrinking I had been doing all my life. Every day I didn’t speak my passions, I felt small. Every day I dulled my mind to blend in, my joy deflated, and I turned to angry journals instead. In a new place, I convinced myself, I could be whoever I was supposed to be without other people holding me back.
Things didn’t really work out that way. The feeling of smallness followed me to undergrad. I held my tongue when working with mostly men in engineering, sexism and ignorance twisting my stomach. I felt dumb when everyone seemed to be approaching the field at a pace I didn’t want or appreciate. I wanted to do things in my own time; my goals were about complete understanding rather than completion time. But the speed seemed to matter.
The only time I cared about velocity was the pace of conversations and discussions I had with my friends. Who had the fastest wit? Who could tell the best quick joke to ripple laughter out from themselves like a stone in a pond? This type of social speed wasn’t valued in my degree program.
I stayed silent when others complained about other classes being difficult but I found them easy. I helped my friends do their homework and asked little in return. I held elected and appointed positions in student organizations, taking on work that should have been delegated to others. I look back on that time, burned out, trying to be everything to everyone except allowing myself to be myself.
I eventually stopped caring about speed so much and embraced all the other things I was good at: music, poetry, essays, languages, and humor. Most of my classmates tried to keep going at full speed; some burned out with the effort. I aimed to be a Renaissance woman and didn’t focus on reaching the expert level of anything. But the sense of smartness still nagged at the back of my mind. Was I smart? Was I average? Was it OK to be smart in some things and average or below average in others?
I made a conscious effort in later college years and after graduation to surround myself with people who had no problems being labeled smart, who reveled in it. Some friends got degrees and some didn’t, but all of them held learning up high like torch bearers heading down to Plato’s Cave. We are enthusiastic about all different topics, fields of study, media, and ways to learn. We live our lives at our own paces, sometimes intersecting but mostly spiraling off wildly in different directions. My friends help me love who I am just as I love who they are.
I haven’t gotten rid of shame, fear, or uncertainty. Sometimes I worry about coming off as arrogant. Accepting labels like smart is scary, and I’m always nervous about expectations. But I refuse to hide myself because others fear condescension or exclusion. I can only be me — anything smaller is too much of a stretch.
