Just Not Good Enough

My name is Lauren. I am a writer. This is my story.

My name is Lauren. I am in high school. I love music and I love art. Everyday, I look at my family: They all have something that they are good at. My mom is a school teacher. My dad is a psychologist. My brother is a musician. They are all phenomenal at what they do. They love what the do and they strive to better themselves at their work. I look at myself, and quote a song by Mayday Parade. It goes, “I know I’m good for something, I just haven’t found it yet.” That statement is the lousy truth.

I tried to do gymnastics in seventh grade. I worked on my flexibility. I would sit in my room and push myself to do a full split. I even got all the way into a full split. I decided to try a tumbling class. I was able to do front and back flips just fine. The problem was, I was about a foot taller than all of the other girls. They were my age, as I was in middle school, sure, but I was just so tall. I stood in seventh grade at 5’8’’. I was huge. The teacher gave me one look, (and I even towered over him) and said to me, “Are you sure you can do this? You’re just really tall.” And he was right. I wasn’t able to achieve greatness because I was just so tall. The other girls looked down at me when I fell on my backside while attempting a round-off back handspring, and with their shimmering blue eyes said to me, “Are you sure you should be here? You’re not very good at this.” And they were right. It was someone telling me I was just not good enough. So I quit gymnastics. I put my dreams of becoming some 5’8’’ tall gymnast behind me, packed my bags, and walked out. 

In grade 8, I was placed into a guitar class at school. We were given books to play from. I could read the music just fine, but my fingers were never cooperating with me. I would try to hit a note and a muffled, butchered sound would ring from my guitar. My guitar teacher tried to help me with my finger placements, but it just didn’t work. I was way behind the other kids in my class. I practiced, and practiced. I brought my guitar home. I would sing, and play to the best of my abilities. The next day at school, the Yearbook Team came into my guitar class. They stopped in front of me and said, “Play us a song then, yeah?” I tried to play something beautiful. Clank, clunk, screech. My guitar rung out a horrible sound. The two people in front of me grimaced, and leaned down to me, and said, “We’ll just go to the next person. You’re not very good at this.” And they were right. I wasn’t good. I’d never be a guitarist. So I went home, and sobbed, and put my guitar on the rack. I haven’t touched it since. It was simply another person telling me that I, frankly, was just not good enough. 


In high school, I tried art, and after taking 3 art classes, and failing miserably, I realized that my art was horrible compared to other’s. I would doodle and scribble and draw things, but I was told by people, and teachers, that it just wasn’t good enough. I got a C on my first art project in high school because my art teacher told me I didn’t follow directions well enough. It was a slap in the face, to me. She may as well have failed me and given me a D in the class because, frankly, she told me I was not fit to be in the class. For the rest of the semester, I struggled looking around at the other kids who were so much better than me. I brought my work home and hid it from my family. I gave a piece to my mom for Christmas, and it has just sat there, in the same exact spot, mocking me for almost five months now. It’s never to be hung up. None of my art ever will. It will forever reside in that same lonely spot on the piano, reminding me how my art was just not good enough. 

I had pretty much given up on myself. I watched my family and my friends do what they loved, and what they were so good at. I watched girls on TV do perfect back handsprings, I listened to my friends play the guitar perfectly, I went over to my friend’s houses where their art was proudly displayed on the walls. They had all found their passion. My mom constantly told me, “You need an activity to do. Why not take another guitar class, or an art class again?” I cried when I told her I couldn’t. I cried when I told her that I simply was not good at anything. I ran up to my room, pulled out my bottom dresser drawer where I kept all of my old journals, and I wrote. I wrote 15 pages in one of my notebooks. I sat there for hours on end, writing poetry, and writing stories. I cried into my notebooks and into my glittery blue pen. And what came out was beautiful. I finally got up the nerve to show some of my writing to my father. I showed him some poetry, and a story I had written. I watched him slowly read the page, his eyes scanning over the words. He looked up at me, and said “Lauren, do you not realize what you have just written?” I looked at him, befuddled, and he replied, “This is art. This is extraordinary. Go write more, please.” So I did. I wrote poem after poem, story after story. He looked at me in awe and showed my mother, who told me with tears in her eyes, “Lauren, this is what you are good at. This is your talent.” So I’ve written a lot. I’ve written for school. I’ve gotten mouthes dropped by teachers. ‘SEE ME’ they would scrawl onto my assignments. I saw them, and they looked me in the eye and said, “You are a writer, Lauren, and you are phenomenal.”

So I write this story to tell you that you are good for something. You are good at the things you do. It took me 15 years to find what I was good at, and I found it. Writing is my passion. I am trying to get into a school in Michigan called Interlochen Arts Academy for creative writing because I think that I am good enough. I know I was good for something, and I found it, and you will too. It may take 5 years, or 15, but please believe me when I tell you that you can and will do what ever you set your mind to. You can get into a good college, you can be a famous artist. You can be in a world known band and you can dance on Broadway. Stop thinking you’re nothing, and start searching for what you love. You are your biggest fan, and as long as you believe in yourself, you can, and will do anything. Please, don’t do what I did. If you want to be a gymnast, GO FOR IT. It doesn’t matter if you’re four feet tall or six feet tall. If you want to be a guitarist, practice. Your fingers will work with you shortly. If you want to be an artist, then work harder. If you do not see the good in yourself, look a little harder, stare a little longer. After all, you’re just human. Achievement will strike you when the time is right, and I promise you, you are good for something. 

Thank you, Lauren.