Remember being young, and wanting to look like everybody else? When you're young, anything that makes you stand out is a bad thing. Being drastically tall with a starving Ethiopian body frame, I was a walking bad thing.
Even to this day, any thoughts of anonymous streaking are tossed out the window. You can’t be a six foot/ size four woman and stand a chance in a police line-up.
Memories ago, everyone around me used to wear these name brand jeans called Girbaud. Don't ask, it's a weird Utah pastime. How does a stupid label makes you instantly cool? There’s no logic to it. It just does. The irrational game of acceptance starts early in life, and tends to get worse before getting better. I still don’t get it, so really, don’t ask.
You take overpriced jeans, combine them with a common sense mother, and you get a missed opportunity for "coolness." But wait...add in my spoiled neighbors, and their hand-me-down clothes, and we're back in business. The business of popularity; mine about to plummet and explode with a distressing combination of oil and water, or in other words, a normal pair of pants with an abnormal body. This was a daily dilemma solved with elementary brain power. All it took was extreme sagging plus belt wrapping. YES! It worked, and I looked ridiculous, but I was wearing Girbauds! I had no rear end, and the jeans barely hit my ankles, but again, I problem solved. I tight rolled them.
I rock.
After a few years of monotony, we decide those "fitting in" days are over, and we enter a new quest. It’s time to stand out and be different. All sorts of weird things start happening, aside from puberty. I can’t even say that word without feeling gross and gangly. I remember a girl coming to school with a piece of toast strung around her neck, like jewelry. I also recall an enormous amount of exposed naked skin. What a strange, insecure time of independence seeking. I could write a whole story about the awkwardness that comes with breasts and the catastrophe of not having them. Everything about this phase is egocentric.
The world is a strange place in the eyes of children. My kids are constantly asking me why that person “has their earlobes stretched out” or “rings in their lips”. They’ll ask directly in front of the perpetrator why he/she is smoking. It’s a reasonable question, but still, embarrassing for me. I wish I knew all the whys. A psychology degree later, and I’m still asking.
“It’s about attention,” I tell my kids. “They’ll grow out of it.” Then I grab my designer purse, jump in my flashy car, blast my music out the window, and head to the beauty salon.
As an adult, I don’t care about blending in, and I don’t really wish to stand out. I want to contribute to something bigger than myself. I want to know that I am leaving an impression in this world. I want to matter, be acknowledged. I want to make a difference. I do not want the highlight of my day to be something that happened on “Oprah.” I do not want to write a story that sounds like it should be read aloud on Oprah… but crap,…it is what it is.
There's a friend and foe to every stage of life. It gives the universe balance. What goes around-comes around, what goes up- must come down, for every good-there is a bad. Food, religion, activity and love all need balance. I obsess over this theory. Sometimes to the point of neurotic, which then take pills to void my nervousness. Run your brain over that paradox. Here's to healing, yoga, faith and family(but not in that order.)
I never want to forget what's important. We speak about these things at funerals. It takes the dead to give direction to the living, and guide our priorities. I need a permanent post-it note reminder, and that is the reason for the giant tattooed yin on one butt cheek and yang on the other.
P.S Don't believe everything you read, it puts you out of balance with reality.
P.P.S I'm not showing you my tattoo
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