it has been . . . like a year or two since this happened. only now do i write it
because it remained in the back of my mind for the months that i tried not to think about it
because sometimes it was better to forget things for me since it hurt, i suppose

i guess now i want to talk about it because it helps me feel free, i guess.
i could blog anywhere else, but it feels really comforting to have people who don't know me in real life, who can be honest, who don't have to type a comment just to be sympathetic but to actually have an opinion

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i started going to this art studio and it was one of my first experiences ever doing art
before then, i had always been self taught.
my mom and my aunt were absolutely gushing over how kind and respectful and gentleman-like he is because he stepped outside to greet us when we first arrived.

on the first day (our meeting time) everything seemed to go fine. he was nice to me and he seemed to like me a lot. he liked how i could see messages of things and he said i seemed to have a lot of passion in me.

it went well, i'm not going to lie. i thought he was a little off at times but he was excellent. certainly talented. we talked a lot about his past students and funny cheating scandals and he even told me about his all-time least favourite student. i improved a lot. he taught me.

he gave me a little nickname, too--he gave one to all of his students. i won't reveal it here because then if he ever stumbled upon this it would be obvious who i am, and i don't want to talk to him again. but it was ironic i guess and pretty amusing.

i think that's why i never knew when things began to change. he started being cold. he had a medical emergency and after that, i think something changed. he started telling me i had no passion. that i was bad at art. that i forgot everything i told him. he got mad at me for not practicing too much at home because he thought that truly passionate people should draw in the car, on the bus, when they had freetime.

i guess he was right about that, but i was a thirteen-year-old who just started. who didn't know her passions yet. didn't know how to get started. now that i think about it i think it should have been both me and his job to build my passion. if you don't know anything, you can't have passion, right?

anyways things changed and they were so sudden i couldn't even comprehend what was going on.

he would apologize at first and then one day it was the breakthrough. he was talking about this competition and i asked how many of his students won. he said [idk a number]. i told him "only? hahah i will be your [number + 1] winner!"

he left the room and came back after an hour (which isn't normal because you're supposed to like, watch your students, right?) then he told me this would be my last day and that he had texted my mom to come early so they could talk.

and then, me in the room right next to their room, he told me everything he didn't like about me and what he felt like was wrong about me. such as me lacking passion, hurting his pride, hurting him, that we weren't a right fit for each other, that i wasn't a good listener.

i cried all the way home.

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this was just the situation in my eyes. my eyes back then. as a seventh grader.

as i got older i started thinking more about this.

back then it seemed so mysterious because he changed so suddenly.

now it's still a mystery, too. i can only come to three different conclusions:
1) he valued his studio a lot. he raised winners. maybe he thought my growth was slow and it bothered him. maybe he tried to hide it, but after his medical thing he was just done and irritable and snappy. maybe he snapped at me then felt bad afterwards and it was such a cycle that it was just easier to get rid of me so that we wouldn't have to feel emotions anymore.

2) i really did do something. maybe i did start to lack some passion, or forgot to work. maybe he thought it was a priority that i work more at home. maybe he thought i should be better. maybe it was my fault, in a way--i would never know ever, because it wasn't conveyed to me in a way i would understand. i thought he liked me. he did. i guess i may have done something that he never spoke of but it changed his opinion on me.

3) he was bullied by a girl named [ flec ] when he was nine

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it's bittersweet. a few months after he decided to drop me the piece we worked on together won a national award.

i didn't even know until my school announced it and everyone was congratulating me left and right and all the teachers wanted to know more.

that day, i decided that i hate him.

that i won't forgive him.

i couldn't even smile when i got my award. i heard all the teachers whisper "she's just shy" "my daughter was like that too" "we are so proud of her" and i'm not even joking when i say i wanted to kick them all out the window

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i think his pride was too great. i think he was too scared to tell me whatever he didn't like about me so he framed it on whatever i did that very day he called my mom. i think he's immature and that if he gets his feelings hurt by a thirteen-year-old who just wants to have fun at art class, then he should become stronger.

look, he's not even an amateur.

he's an artist who is truly one of the most talented teachers i have ever met.

if he is fragile enough to be ego-crushed by me, it just doesn't fit right. he covered something up, definitely. and just be honest with me if so. i am a very sensitive person. i don't say things to hurt people, and if he had told me, i would have apologized and stopped. and i really doubt i ever said something on a level to receive that kind of treatment considering the person i was.

he covered it up terribly and it confuses me and it hurts even more because i have no idea what ever happened.

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i now am part of another great studio.
i love the people there.
they love me right back (i would certainly hope lol)

even still when i'm at that beautiful studio sometimes when i'm drawing alone in a quiet space i think of him again

i guess those are the moments when i realize that art isn't my passion anymore.

i'll never forget the first time we met. but i'll keep trying..