Maya Angelou Response

Ever since I was a child I haven’t spoken much. I stood watching the world around me in intrigue, listening to the people who influenced me. I didn’t have the best childhood, maybe that is why I don’t talk much, I can never be sure. I watched people make bad decisions and have learned to avoid making the same. I don’t speak much, and if I was to silence myself permanently I am not so sure it would be much of a surprise to the people around me. All my life i’ve been told that i’m too quiet, and I don’t talk enough. I have learned a lot through observation, most of what I know actually. I wasn’t taught much, just the basic needs of life. The other things I learned by myself, through watching, listening, and paying attention. I’m sure I could go without speaking, some days I do. I usually only speak when I need to, like when someone speaks to me or i’m at my job. I think that if I spoke more I would learn how to communicate with people better, and not just in relation to my vocabulary but learning how words can affect others. I know that after I go a day without speaking my voice feels foreign to me, and sometimes I don’t like it. I think that speaking is important, even though I don’t always say a lot.

I think that talking about bad things actually takes away some of the power it has on you. When you talk about something bad it provides a catharsis, making you feel better in the end. As a result it takes away some of the power it has on you, taking away some of the pain or anger.

I think that dreams do reveal a lot. I have this reoccurring dream every year before school starts that reveals my fear of being lost. I’ve attended ten schools and none of them were as big as this one so when I moved here I was a bit intimidated. I had the dream every year before school started for each of the three years that i’ve been here. I am wondering the halls, searching for my classroom and everything keeps changing and I lose my sense of direction. I search my day away and miss all my classes. Of course it never actually happens, but the dream has yet to go away and may even be there when I start college. Another dream I have is more terrifying and affected the way I treated my sister when we were younger. I remember having this dream about my sister falling off a building and I couldn’t do anything to save her. It happened quite often, and when my sister would lean a bit too far off our bunk beds i’d yell at her and tell her to stop or else she would fall. Of course I got in trouble for telling her what to do, but I didn’t really care. She liked to climb on top of our dresser as well, and I’m not sure what the dream reveals about me but I was scared that my sister would get hurt. I never told my parents about this dream, but occasionally It comes back to haunt me even though she lives so far away now.