When I was in preschool my teacher tore up my project because I colored my squirrel bright red. Our squirrels, she told us, were to be colored LIGHT BLACK.
Well, my great grandmother had told me about red squirrels and I was determined to color my squirrel red.
But my teacher ripped the sheet of paper out of my hand and crumpled it up. She did the same to the little girl next to me, who was coloring a rainbow squirrel.
And my teacher yelled at me when my painting wasn't a painting OF anything. Well, all you can do with orange is make oranges or pumpkins, and both are boring, I reasoned. So I just painted. I stretched my soul out through the dripping orange paint brush. And she ridiculed it.
Why did I take these things to heart? Why to this day am I so afraid of doing something wrong that I freeze up?