Do Not Clip My Wings

A Memoir of a Free Spirit by Sophia

I am trying to figure out how I found Medium, but for the life of me, I cannot remember. It must have been a deep-dive Google search, and I must have landed here for some reason.

I love reading about what other people are doing, so the first article I read, I must have wanted to find out more, so I immediately purchased a subscription to finish reading the article. I wish I could remember the first article, but I speed read using the AI reader, so I read so many I cannot remember!

Looking back at the first article I posted, I think I must have been looking for a way to promote my business, but it turns out that I found inspiring writers and moved away to reading and writing for fun. Then I found out I could be paid for it, and I was like “Right, I will set myself a challenge to write one article a day,” and this is what I have been doing for the last month. I didn’t know how much I would enjoy the thrill of reading and writing with the added bonus of interacting with many writers.

Business and pleasure

Growing up, my household did not encourage education. Don’t get me wrong, they made sure I attended school. But our home was not infused with educational material. There were no books to read. We did not go to the library, and we did not buy books. My parents relied solely on the school to teach us without providing any additional supportive education at home.

Once I left school at eighteen, they expected me to get a job, but I wanted to do a degree. Initially, I did as they said. I found a job for the government, but I hated it. Soon after I left, I did a degree and set up my own business. This was a revolutionary way of thinking, as none of my family worked for themselves, let alone went on to higher education.

I will not list my qualifications as it is irrelevant and does not define me, but I am a qualified teacher and run a tutoring and property business. One of the reasons I like writing for Medium is it takes me away from my businesses and gives me an outlet that has nothing to do with them. I am always thrilled to make money — no matter how much I make!

Marching to my own drummer

I am a person of my word. This can be a curse as I always have to finish what I say I will do or do what I say. You know what I mean!

Anyway, this often makes me unhappy as many people are not of their word or do not commit themselves.

I love to travel, and from age eighteen, I picked up myself and started to travel Europe. When I think of that now, I was pretty young, and my mother did not support this.

Many people want you to live the life they live, not because they do not want you to be happy, but because they think they know what is best for you and what will make you happy.

I have never, ever been happy with people dictating to me. I do not mind open conversations and empathy, but people forcing their views and attempting to clip my wings because they think this is how I should live my life does not resonate well with me.

Let me be.

The path not taken

If I had been encouraged, I would have written more and really enjoyed it as a career. But as a child, I looked for reassurance and affirmation from others. When it did not come, I protected myself by not approaching the subject as I did not want to hear the negative tones of what you can or cannot do.

I desperately wanted to be self-employed and prove to my family and friends that it could be done; I set up and still run a successful business.

Sad, really, as I should not have to prove myself to friends and family; they should trust my decisions. It is only now that they realize I am standing alone, free of the dreaded BOSS, that I can do it.

I encourage any of you who want to be self-employed to plan and prepare yourself, and you, too, can do it.

No one helped me

When I was 7, my mother asked me to recite my ABCs. I do not ever remember being taught it. How could I possibly recite something I was not taught? School life for me, up until 11, was very disruptive as I went to numerous schools, so it probably got missed. I remember thinking, “What is ABC?” I slowly started to recite them, but I could not finish the 26 letters!

I am not sure what I said, but I remember she had a glass of milk in her hand, and she threw the milk in my face. That was to infuse ABCs into my brain. That will work! Right!

I remember going to bed not understanding how I should know something I was not told about, but the following day, she was off to work early, and the ABCs were forgotten.

You’d think she would have tried to help me if she were that concerned!

Setting my own goals

I am, to my detriment, competitive, but not in a nasty way. I want others to do well but hold the bar high for myself and my businesses. I am teaching myself to focus on what I want rather than what others are doing. I am teaching myself that my small gains are what is essential.

I am teaching myself that when learning, mistakes are okay, and I must embrace what I learn from them. This can be frustrating as things only sometimes work out. They don’t go disastrously wrong, but I am not happy when it is not ‘my perfect’.

Outperforming others’ expectations

My school life was crap! Don’t get me wrong, I loved going to school. But not much learning happened, and I was frustrated as I seemed to be behind my peers. Teachers did not praise or encourage me at my school. They had preconceptions of what I could do, which could have been, and needed to be more favorable.

But I was quick to catch on. And in secondary school, I did push hard to excel to the best of my ability. I loved reading and learning and enjoyed the company of my few friends.

I remember standing in the dinner line at school one day, and a teacher asked me what I wanted to do for a living. I said that I wanted to be a journalist. She looked at me, rather incredulously, and I can still see the look now and feel the way the look made me feel.

She replied that she did not see me as one, as I was not nosy enough to be a journalist. I felt hurt and uneasy, as I did not know the head teacher and wondered how she could make this assumption about me- given she had never really spoken to me! I did not know how to articulate my feelings. I was puzzled.

As a child, I did not have the quick answers some of my friends had, maybe because although I had a big family, we did not all live together. I was not used to being quick-witted or even really talking to anyone!

When I finally left, I shocked the teachers and my parents with what I got in my exams! They did not expect me to get such high grades. But I was not happy as I wanted higher! One of the teacher’s mouth was agape the day I received my exam results. They were singing my praises, but it was too late. I had achieved that myself by working tirelessly on my own at home.

I can only say that the in-school assistant who helped me read and was so encouraging was the only person who should comment on my exams — as she did help me.

I’ve come a long way

Growing up, my reading skills were well below my reading age until age 12. I had to be given extra English classes. Being in an Extra English class where the students were learning English as a second language was embarrassing. English was my first language, but my reading skills were identical to theirs.

I would have been fine if I had been introduced to books at home. However, education and passing on knowledge did not happen when I was young, so I had no idea that reading was even a thing people do. It’s sad to think about how I missed out on things like visiting the library or having someone purchase books for me.

My parents were hardworking and consumed by their jobs, so they expected the school system to provide us with all the knowledge we needed. Right! Despite this, I was a quick learner and improved my reading and writing skills to such a level that many in school did not even realize I did extra English!

Nowadays, I read widely and have started researching future technology; surprisingly, this interests me.

I know that the pen is mightier than the sword, and I have used this to help friends and relatives — it is always a joy to help others.

“And Still I Rise”

Jan Sebastian 🖐👩‍🦰 The LARO ✨✨ Johnny Poitras Ashllyn T. Dana Sweet Honeylu Imothoughts Lynn L. Alexander LaurenJane

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