She told me I wasn’t very good at math.  In a classroom, many years ago, she saw my hair and my dress and sighed, ‘You’re not very good at math, Virginia.”  Eventually she started laughing as she said it.  She played it off as if it were cute, darling, or an okay statement to make about a little girl who has her whole future ahead of her. 

She repeated that statement to me over and over until I accepted it as my truth.  It remained my truth until, at 36 and entirely fed up with the workplace patriarchy, I enrolled back into school.  I needed a switch; craving control over my future and physically sick of feeling undervalued. 

She sat with me in both Linear Algebra and Methods of Calculus, whispering in my ear every time she heard me sigh in frustration.  She sensed my desire to quit.  “You’re not very good at math, V.” I heard her as I jotted notes on the corner of my page.  Except this time, I ignored her and pushed on.  

A world now lays before me.  A world that is not open to girls who are ‘not very good at math.’  I opened that door, leaving her on the outside of this new world.  She’s not welcome in my new world. She’s a lying bitch.

She told me I wasn’t very good at math, but it turns out: 

(a)  she doesn’t know what the fuck she’s talking about, and 

(b) she’s pretty fucking good at math.