Am I the Person I Always Should Have Been

… well, partly…  

    "If you are pining for youth, I think it produces a stereotypical old man because you only live in memory, you live in a place that doesn’t exist. I think aging is an extraordinary process whereby you become the person that you always should have been." – David Bowie

    Hmmm, realizing now and acknowledging I am the person I always should have been, is taking me on a new journey. I never liked myself when I was young. I think back on my younger years as a time of unhappiness. This new self-realization helps me understand that, in some respects, I am kind of remarkable because I went against the norm. I was not a follower. (We are not all made to be sheep.)

     In thinking more about this, and remembering my brother saying something about regrets… I can’t say I regret past things because you can’t regret what you didn’t know at the time. If I knew then what I know now, what might I have done differently?

     Working for a newspaper -- (because I now love working for the InterTown Record) but never having read newspapers as a kid, I had no clue. I remember when I was a freshman getting a zero on an assignment to write a review on a newspaper article – needless to say, my parents never got a paper, and I didn’t know how to get one on my own.

     There have been instances in my entire life where something inside me balks at the norm or how others dictate how or what should be done. ‘Course, when I was young, I thought there was something wrong with me because I couldn’t be like others… Why couldn’t I be like the other kids?

     But there has always been something inside me that drove me to be different. I didn’t mean to be, it was just no matter how much I wanted to be like others, I just couldn’t. (See, even today I have trouble explaining it, but I’m beginning to understand it better and embrace it. I have nothing to be ashamed of!)

     In school, art was my favorite subject, along with English. In elementary school, the teachers would sometimes let me stay inside during recess because I was so picked on by others. I’d draw all over the blackboard. (I don’t remember any comments – just that I’d do it.)

     I don’t recall really being taught how to be an artist. I remember being told to do a certain project, but not being given any real instruction. I don’t remember studying the masters or anything like that – except in eighth grade having to write a paper on a famous artist (where again, I didn’t choose one of the more popular.)

     Finding my own way with art was one of the first instances where I remember speaking up for something I created. It was in my sophomore art class, and I still can picture that sculpture in my mind though I can’t remember the material we used, something foreign to me. I’d never made any kind of sculpture and had no idea what to do. So, I made a tall tower with windows carved into the material… (Now I know from watching history shows, it resembled an empty, abandoned relic… maybe why I didn’t get a good grade, ha-ha.)

     What made what I created less artsy than what others did? I told the teacher I deserved a better grade. I’d never spoken up to an adult like that before, but I couldn’t understand how we could be given a grade for something we create? I can’t remember her response, just that I returned to my seat in tears.

     But in looking back at my life, I realize there were many, many instances where I would not follow the crowd. Goodness, no wonder no one liked me, and because I was not like the others, I never felt good enough. However, now I look back and can feel proud that I stood for myself.

     I also realize my mum was something of an oddball. She, too, had her own way of doing things. She, and sometimes my aunt (her twin), would take regular games and recreate them making up new rules. Croquet, Parcheesi, Yahtzee became new games, more elaborated. Croquet became Obstacle Course Croquet using two sets of the game and creating a rambling course around the yard, over, under, and around various obstacles. Parcheesi also became a double game using twice the men and Yahtzee turned into Yap using 10 dice and becoming more like poker.

     Years later, we took Big Board (a takeoff on Monopoly) and made an entirely new board with a parody on local business names. We wrote up our own to-do cards to go with the game… and it could take all day or multiple days to play.

     And, although we played to win, we were not in heavy competition. We played to have fun, not make fun of other players or call them names or wish them ill will. Sometimes we’d even help one another do better, and this attitude is something I’ve carried with me my entire life.

     So, maybe there was something inherited that made me different. My mother certainly wasn’t like other mothers I knew, and my aunt spent 20 years in the army, which made her different. And what was funny, even though they/we made up new games and rules, the rules we made still had to be followed. Interesting.