blogger profile

Brooke Ilene Snyder

Sales Development Associate/Writer

Hello friends! I am originally from a small town in Massachusetts and have been living in CT for over a year with my fiancé. A bit about me: I am a spirited and sassy 27 year old recently engaged vegetarian part time grad student dog loving aspiring writer who enjoys “good talks” and people...

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When is it GoOD EnOuGh?

Sales materials need revising - again. An article needs editing. Size 4 is just a week away. The picture taken is off center. To-do’s, to-do’s, to-do’s, other to-do’s, weekend to-do’s, phone calls, emails, budgeting. The knots in my neck are multiplying. Oh, Thursday.

“I have so many book ideas, and I kind of know where to get started, but yet I don’t. I don’t know if it’s because I’m afraid, or what, but I am not there yet,” I told my fiancé Randy and my cousin Nicole yesterday.

Randy – “the key word is YET. You will get there. Give yourself a break. You’re working, wedding planning, you’ve got your health and working out, grad school and you’ve got me to put up with. That’s a lot. I’d say you’re doing a great job.”

Nicole – “hey, you should just be proud that these ideas are coming to you. Enjoy the moment. You don’t give yourself enough credit. I wonder what it is in you to always want to get to the next step.”

Hmmm….easy. Childhood. Meet me at eight years old. I was diagnosed with a learning disability in math. I don’t remember the exact terms – most likely due to my learning disability itself. My parents were told by a prominent Boston hospital that I should be placed in a special school because I would never make it to the fifth grade. A psychologist told my mother that I was “flighty.”

Fast forward through the nights at the kitchen table where multiplication cards were scattered everywhere after I threw them on the floor. Fast forward through the weekly tutoring sessions with candy land games and stale green candy in a bowl. Fast forward through the special education department meetings with the IEP plans and the labels. Fast forward through the fight to get a gold star or a “Terrific!” Fast forward through the resource room teachers, or the kids that called it “the retard room,” and the report cards with “3’s” on them in math and problem solving. Fast forward through the tests and quizzes that came back with D’s on them. Fast forward through the time when I asked my mom if she dropped me on my head as a baby or the words, “if I only had a brain,” on the back of my homework. Fast forward through the hours and hours going in early and staying late after school. Fast forward through the Softball, Peer Leaders club, the Student Council, the Newspaper, Volleyball, the Dance Club, Basketball, the PR Society…am I missing any? Probably.

In high school, we were recommended to stay away from a foreign language. Hearing this news, I decided to take Spanish. Fast forward through Honors Spanish and the Intermediate level in College. The whopping 870 I earned on my SAT’s that took me more than the allotted time to finish is simply a number from my past.

But my past is with me each and every day.

When you struggle in school, you learn your strengths real fast. You advocate for yourself. You ask questions. You challenge people to think differently because YOU LEARN DIFFERENTLY. You don’t always trust authority or those with letters that follow their name. You observe life on a deeper level. You feel on a deeper level. You plan, you strategize, and you look for other ways of getting there. You need answers because you don’t like not knowing. You don’t like not understanding. Everyone else seems to get it but you. You stop trying to prove yourself to others and you start racing yourself.

For me, it’s never good enough - Not until I get there, and even then, there’s more work to be done.