“What happened?”
My 3rd grade teacher, Mrs. Neyhart, pointed a concerned finger to my pant leg. A brown (?) orange (?) blotch smudged over my knee. I looked up at her with shy remorse, ignoring my startling appearance but recognizing the seasoned alarm come across her face. Vomit? Vomit. She had been teaching for over 30 years and she could recognize vomit pretty quickly. Maybe it wasn’t. Oh lord, she hoped it wasn’t. Maybe we could get me home before I breathed on anybody. The last thing we needed was a springtime resurrection of the stomach flu.
I quickly recounted the last 20 minutes that I could remember. I had run inside from recess along with my 30 other classmates. We almost immediately lined up near the classroom door for 11:00 lunch. My friend Chris tugged on my ponytail and I made sure to take extra time to turn around and glare at him. Sean and I recounted the slug we found on the blacktop while we made our way through the lunch line. I fished through my jeans pocket for my lunch card and wished mom had put extra money on it so I could get a second cookie. I sat down next to Valerie and on the other side, Ashley started in with her third ghost story for the day. I picked at the Fritos on my tray while planning the next excursion for playing Animorphs with Andrew and—oh.
“Chili for lunch” I quickly assured her.
“Ah. Ok then. Head back to the room, yea?”
I took one more look at the awful orange and scampered down the hall. I was 8 years old, I didn’t believe in napkins, and long division was waiting. It was already a full day.
I can’t say for sure that mom ever wished for a little girl she could dress up in lace and ribbons and bows... but either way, what she got instead was me. Me—the quiet, bookish, barefoot tomboy who despised dresses and thought slippery church shoes were a creation by Satan himself. I wore my hair short until I was 7, waxed poetic on how tea parties were for sissies, and toddled along after my brothers for as long as they would let me. In high school I spent most of my time in T-shirts and tennis shoes and in college I lived all my semesters in a single, threadbare hooded sweatshirt (at the time I wondered why I didn’t get many dates—I think I might have an inkling now). I had insecurities that I struggled with, (big time) but my appearance was never exactly something I cared enough to make a real, concerted effort toward.
Of the vices I could foresee in my life, vanity was not one of them. And yet, here we are. I wear yoga pants to the grocery store but still get anxiety over how I appear to people.
I don’t really have a soapbox to get on this time around (...probably for the best). Mostly, just...mild...uncomfortable...struggling. And failing a lot in the process of trying to figure it out. It’s weird to have spent your 20’s feeling like you’ve reached this glowing summit of self actualization, and then emerge into your 30s tripping over your own feet all over again. It’s weird. Just weird.
Blake can tell you that I cannot stand being treated like I’m stupid to any degree. And God forbid anyone ever refer to me as— MEAN. While we were dating he spent many an evening driving the span between Gladstone and Raytown to bring me my favorite drink because a sales rep had squashed me like a grape and I couldn’t get it together. Half of me wilted, and the other half was plotting creative murder. “Hypersensitive” might be one way to put it. Somehow the identity I previously cobbled together managed to slither away to nest somewhere else.
A good friend. A good worker. A nice person. An intelligent person. Someone who is dependable. Someone who says funny things. Someone who holds her own pretty well. These are the names I want. I’m doing good so that I don’t look like a bad person. I’m not doing it for its own sake. Not all the time. Not enough.
Vanity, you know?
I recently learned that an old friend felt like they wouldn’t have been welcome at the wedding reception, so they didn’t attend. I think a couple of friends felt that way. I’ve spent an unrealistic amount of time being upset about it and when I finally took down the defensive mirrors to the reason why, the picture was pretty gross. I had already been wringing my hands that I couldn’t make family feel more involved when they lived far away, and that we couldn’t find a way to get my grandfather to the ceremony, and that the dress was giving me an embarrassing amount of back-boob. But here. Like so many times in so many ways, I had misplaced my “kindness.” I was more worried that people viewed me as an ungracious bigot than I was that someone else felt unsafe and vulnerable. I was obsessing over a jewel lost from my crown when this—all of this—should have been about people. People who deserve far better than that.
Operating just under burnout has been tepidly exhausting and I think it’s because I’m trying to keep up with this image that I imagine others to have. At times work seems like a chess game because I’m pushed to overstep my bounds, and I don’t want to be seen as this rude person. I take Facebook quips personally and feel an urgent need to assure everyone that no, I didn’t vote for Donald Trump. Self deprecation has become a coping mechanism much like nail biting—except it makes parties a lot more awkward. At least if I can beat someone to finding the flaw, then they know I already take it seriously and won’t need to point it out.
I used to do good just for the sake of doing good. Somewhere along the line, I started to grow out of it.
So while I machete my way across this strange, suburban wilderness, I’m hoping to happen upon the fruit of it all soon. Develop new habits. Reframe perspective. Take the small moments to be quiet and brave.
I do buy makeup on purpose now, so maybe it’s all starting to even out.
