lessons.

Last week, I had an enormous blow-up with my fashion illustration professor in the middle of class. She publicly told me that I never listen, I'm never right, and my work is terrible. I left the class shortly thereafter, because I was too mortified and humiliated to stay, especially with the impending wave of tears about to ravage its banks.

While telling a classmate of mine the details of what happened, she said something interesting. "Maybe it's just your voice, Gioia. I don't mean that the way it sounds. I just wonder if people can't handle your forward tone and honesty. You don't beat around the bush, you just come out and say it, and I think most people are intimidated by that."

The old me would have immediately gotten her hackles up after taking in this first sentence, ready to pummel the girl with verbal assaults and death stares. Instead, this new me calmly waited for the rest of her observation, refusing to get worked up over something if the need wasn't there. After hearing her out, I was both thankful and extremely proud that I didn't get defensive or unpleasant, because, truly, I think she might be absolutely right.

I am not one for false flattery or empty words, because words are much too important, sacred even, for something so unworthy. They are the very sharpest of blades, eviscerating the most confident of men to shreds. They are love, timeless and true, expressing to one the inability to live without the other. They are wars, lives, tragedies, miracles. They have told the tales of millions before me, they have graced the stages of world famous venues, priceless pages. They've ruined families, crumbled kingdoms, transformed mere mortals into deities and heroes. So who are we to slander them so? If one has nothing to say, one keeps his words safely behind his lips - and out of courage or cowardice, we are constantly the judge.

Maybe I'm damning myself time and time again as the words pour from my mind to my finger tips on this computer screen, but I absolutely refuse to stop now. In for a penny, in for a pound. I have surrounded myself with those who understand my love for words, my life's need to be honest, because I cannot sleep at night knowing that I have been anything other than the aforementioned. I'm learning that that is not a concept practiced by all.

I know very well that the best defense is a good offense. I used to be that girl that practiced false flattery and empty words, and I didn't like my own company. Six years later, I love me. Afterall, what do you have to live for if you don't love you? So, no, world, I will not apologize for my honesty, for my reality. These words are my life force, these are the things that I want to be remembered for when I leave this earth, because I am just a blink on the face of time.

Cranky illustration professor, you may think my work is terrible, and you may very well be right. But I know one thing, my work and my words are very different. My work is subjective, always at the mercy of the next judge or critic. But my words are my own, and you may judge them all you'd like, but at the end of the day, they still mean the same thing as they did when it started, and that is something you can never take away from me.

Now put that in your juicebox and suck it.

g.