Growing up I never enjoyed reading (I still don’t read now, unless I schedule it) and I would go so far as to say I hated it. I would read and get bored because what I was reading wouldn’t stick or it was uninteresting to me. It felt like work to read.
Fast forward to high school and in my final year of high school I had plans of moving to Wellington to go to Massey University and live the art student life in the coolest city in the country. I had even planned on working at Footlocker (or Loaded. I’m not sure. It was one of those cool urban streetwear shops) and living with my uncle.
I applied to Massey University, and I was eagerly anticipating my ‘acceptance’ letter. When the mail for that day finally arrived, I got my letter and a big tattoo parcel. Usually, I’m stoked to get a tattoo parcel, but today I couldn’t care less about that, and I wanted to open my letter with confirmation that I was going to Massey. I opened it up, anxiety and excitement simultaneously running through my body, and to my pure dismay I wasn’t accepted into university and my dream was suddenly shattered. It felt like I had put all my eggs into this basket and my future was relying on this working out.
I remember feeling angry and vowing that I would never study, and I’d just tattoo instead, in some sort of “screw them, I don’t need them, they need me attitude.”
I didn’t get in because I didn’t have university entrance. I was short by 4 or 8 reading credits if my memory serves me correctly.
Back at school my English teacher said all I had to do was complete 12 book reviews. 12 BOOK REVIEWS! She may as well have asked me to run for Prime Minister. I hadn’t completed 1 whole book in my life, let alone 12, and have to write a review of each.
I remember thinking this would be an impossible task, but she gave me a bunch of books that she thought might interest me, so I started reading and attempting this mammoth mission.
I started with reading a Lance Armstrong book, and early in my reading I knew I couldn’t finish this 12 book review mission because I was already sick of reading a couple of chapters in.
Not long after this I hatched a plan. I had a cousin who loved to read. He practically read as much as people are on their phones today. I told him about my predicament and asked if he could do my book reviews, and in turn, I would tattoo him. It would be a mutually beneficial exchange, and I thought he understood the exchange as much as I did, in that it would be our little secret and we wouldn’t tell anyone.
Things were going good and he completed my reviews, and I tattooed him (I’m fuzzy on the dates. I may have tattooed him a few months later, I can’t remember), and I thought that was it.
One day I was with my mum and she said she’d heard something disturbing about me. I immediately knew what she was taking about, and I felt guilt, shame and fear. What would she say to me and what would she think. I expected her to yell at me, but she spoke and said she was disappointed with me. It was cheating she said, and I felt like I had let her and my whole family down. For years I felt like I had done the equivalent of robbing a shop or stealing a bunch of money. I felt anger toward my cousin for talking about it to others, but it wasn’t his fault or responsibility to maintain my lie.
Unknowingly, this telling off from my mum made me feel like I had to work even harder to prove that I was a good person and it would somehow make up for cheating. I thought that by being way better than everyone in my art class at university, I would balance out the guilt I felt. I ended up becoming more egotistical and I carried this feeling for a couple of years.
I don’t regret doing it and I’ve accepted what I’ve done.
After talking with my trauma coach about this, she said it was a good example of the real world and how collaborating and exchanging skills and knowledge is a good thing.
I like this reframing of a situation that used to be embarrassing for me.