Where Patterns Begin - And How They Finally End

Last week, I wrote about a lifelong pattern of trying to be seen by people who never had the capacity to receive me, and the clarity that came from recognizing it wasn’t a failure, but a lesson. Choosing myself ended that cycle not through confrontation or explanation, but through boundaries, trust, and self-alignment.

What I didn’t write about is where that pattern began.

In a recent writing class, our first assignment was simple: write about a moment from childhood. Many memories are foggy, but the ones that remain are unmistakably clear, the kind that settle into the body and quietly shape a life.

I was always tactile. I loved to build, bake, finger paint, and paper mâché, anything that involved my hands and imagination working together. One memory I can recall with startling clarity is the smell of glue and sawdust as I stepped into Neiman-Reed’s, the hobby shop just around the corner from our house.

It wasn’t just a store. It was a wonderland.

Shelves stretched above me, stocked with paints, model kits, tiny bottles of dye, resin, glues, glitter—endless possibilities. The cool linoleum squeaked under my sneakers, and the fluorescent lights made everything shimmer a little more than it should have. I was seven, and this place felt like my private factory of dreams.

That day, I had a plan, my first real idea for a product. I don’t remember exactly how it came to me, only that it felt important. My mom, my older sibling, and I went to the store on a mission. As we walked the aisles, ideas sparked faster than I could contain them. What if it glittered? What if it were round instead of square? I grabbed more than I needed, knowing I had to start somewhere, just one thing.

Back home, we turned the garage into a workshop, the musty smell of cardboard boxes and motor oil mixed with the sharp chemical scent of resin. My sibling announced he wanted to participate. I said yes without hesitation. They were older, always just out of reach, and I was the little sister, eager to earn my place beside them.

Strangely, when I think back, they almost disappear from my memory.

What remains vivid are the moments with my mom: the two of us hunched over plastic molds, carefully mixing resin and dye, watching the liquid deepen into jewel tones before hardening into something shiny and solid. She helped me get the color just right. I can still remember the weight of those little creations in my palm, the quiet satisfaction of peeling them from the mold.

At school, I sold my creations behind the handball courts, my black-market boutique. I felt powerful. I was making something real. I was making money. Until Mr. Kravitz, yes, that was his name, our grumpy principal, shut it all down.

Still, I came home glowing. Proud. I showed the cash I’d earned, expecting celebration.

My sibling grabbed the money from my hands.

As a woman in her mid-sixties, after losing everything I loved in the Pacific Palisades fires of 2025, I find myself returning to moments like this not just to remember, but to understand.

That day in the garage wasn’t only the beginning of an entrepreneurial spirit.

It was also the first time I learned what it felt like to have something taken from me by someone I trusted. At seven, I didn’t have language for it. I only knew the feeling.

Now, I do.

What I recognize, with a clarity that no longer asks permission, is that this wasn’t just a childhood slight. It was the beginning of a pattern. 

One that taught me, early on, how easily my creativity, my effort, and my worth could be overridden.

And how long would it take to stop believing that was normal?

What moment taught you, early on, what you came to believe was normal?

With love and gratitude,

Susan

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