a mentor // (photo a day) november 16, 2011

In the middle of the day today, I went over to the mirror and with a pair of fabric scissors, cut my own bangs.  It seemed appropriate (necessary) at the time.

cut my own bangs today on a bit of a whim.
(or something like it)

I had a strange day today.  I completed my first professional ghostwriting assignment - a non-fiction book.  200 pages in six weeks - and better yet, I'm proud of the result.  The final final pages were sent around 4pm.  I sighed a bit of relief and felt accomplished, and I looked around my home office, out to the trees outside my window, and thought a lot.  I consistently think about all of the people who have affected my path, the decisions I've made along the way, and how I arrived at where I am now.  Today of all days, I was deep in thought.

Around 10am this morning, one of my very best friends called my house and told me that he had bad news.  He let me know that our chorus teacher from high school, Mr. Fleischer, had passed away.  He said, "I called my boss and let her know that I'd be late because my choir director from high school had passed away.  But like... people don't... get what that means." I agreed, and as I sat down in a bit of shock, I said he probably should have told his boss that it was his grandfather or uncle or something.  Neither would have been true, but they would have been closer to the truth.

In my life I've had a series of mentors of sorts; people who have urged me to be better - to reach not only for what i'm capable of, but also what seems out of reach.  Mr. Fleischer was a mentor to me not only while I was in high school, but right after I left as well.  After all, leaving high school is about going on to who you are to become, and I was a bit slow on the uptake with that one.  He saw that, and as he did while I was a student, he took the time to talk me through whatever problems I was having.  My first semester after high school, I went to a college that wasn't a good fit.  Late one Saturday night while at that school, I emailed Mr. Fleischer telling him that I felt lame that I had stayed indoors for an entire weekend passionately writing an essay rather than going out to parties like the other kids at the school.  I felt like an outcast but I had done it of my own will, and told him so in my angst ridden self-pitying email.

That Monday, I got a response.  "Ms. McGrail," he wrote, "It is not upon you to be anyone but yourself."  There was nothing else.

That email and the constant influx of similar sentiments that I received from Mr. Fleischer at that time in my life was the push that I needed.  People can tell you to "be who you are" but it took someone reminding me it was not my responsibility to be anyone else to really light a spark in me to not only leave the school that didn't feel like it was a good fit, but to pursue something that was.  And as I plotted (and landed) my next move, Mr. Fleischer was a constant source of enthusiasm and support.  Days after I learned I had gotten into a prestigious program that was a bit out of my reach but I had gone for, I saw Mr. Fleischer and, giving me an uncharacteristic hug, he said, "That is the best thing that I have heard in a long time." The thing is, I knew he meant it.

As I said, throughout my life I've had consistent waves of people who have cheered me on, offered me support, and demanded that I reach beyond my limits.  People who have demanded that I be great.  In a very large way at a very impressionable and important time in my life, Mr. Fleischer was that person.  Without him giving me the "push" to forget the parties if I didn't want to go to them, sink my soul into an essay if it was what I wanted, and go to school for writing if it's what I needed, I wouldn't have landed at the very many other places with the very many other people that have shaped who I became and will continue to grow into.  Inevitably, without that push and without the many subsequent pushes I've gotten as a result of it, I wouldn't be where I am today.  So thank you, Mr. Fleischer, for the reminder that the life to live is the life that you love.  And really, there's nothing else.