Sometimes I feel like Melinda; speaking is often overrated. Now writing and reading, on the other hand, they always have a purpose.
When reading books like this, I like to put myself in the mind of the main character. People tell you they want to help, they want to make things better, that they "understand what you are going through". I like to think that all of that is true, but who can really know what you are going through? We all react to situations differently. I guess that's what makes living like Melinda simple and hard at the same time. If Melinda thought her friends might act the way Andy did about her rape, would she want to go through the hassle of telling them? Would it even make her feel any better? Probably not. It would probably only emphasize the fact that she was alone.
I think the most unfortunate thing is that it took Melinda months to find some sort of outlet for her pain. Though people told her to speak, she couldn't ever find anyone to really listen to what she was saying...well, I guess in reality she wasn't physically saying anything, but her actions and sudden depressive state spoke louder than any words she could have muttered. She finally took to art, though she didn't even think she was very good at it, and as a reader, it made me happy that she finally had a way to escape her painful reality.
Writing and reading have always been my escape from reality, but I guess this story has been a bit of a Catch-22 for me. Do I read and become lost in Melinda's sorrow, or remain detached and unable to escape my own? I'm going to count my blessings that my pain isn't as immense as Melinda's.
Still, even with some sorrow in my life, I find myself filling with hope at the end. Even Melinda, who refused to speak a word of her pain for a year, was finally able to share her story and truly escape from her own pain.
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We read to know we are not alone. - C.S. Lewis
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This is what makes it very difficult to work with youth in pain: "People tell you they want to help, they want to make things better, that they "understand what you are going through". I like to think that all of that is true, but who can really know what you are going through? We all react to situations differently." Our experience does not translate to theirs and sometimes that they're just not yet ready. Melinda methinks gets herself ready (gardening, etc.).
ReplyDeleteWhat would she have done without art class? It would have been a very different book.
So why the heck do some schools cut rather than expand their art classes?
I think that since adolescents are often misunderstood (by parents, teachers, peers, etc), it is easy for adults to make the assumption that non-core classes aren't more than an easy A. They see creative expression as teen angst, or refusing to follow the commands of every adult as moodiness, but they are just the little things we do to find out who we are and just make it through life.
ReplyDeleteIt's funny. It's almost as if as soon as you become an adult you forget what it was ever like to be a struggling, misunderstood, wallflower-of-a-teen. Maybe we should get our memories checked...