In the highlight that is my 35th year on this planet, I have finally learnt a lesson that most kids learn in school: that often times the objective of participation is not perfection, but merely group connectedness.
How did I come to such routine mundane illumination in only my 35th orbit around our solar system? Why, by simply being the most reclusive, shy, introverted wall flower that "ever existed". he he
Now I am not about to compete in the Wallflower Shy Olympics (because wallflowers don't compete, because competition brings about attention and even negative attention is still attention, which must be avoided at all costs), but I would like to describe a bit on what it was like to be me when I was a kid.
Firstly I had no idea I was that "strange" because I have been me for as long as I have begun to be. So I make perfect sense to myself. Carla came to visit in 2012. She was my friend from elementary school, and she happened to be visiting from Joburg. I presently reside north of Atlanta, Georgia. So she was a bit far from home and I just was so excited to find her. When I saw her she said "oi vey you have changed"... And I was a bit taken aback, because I have always been this level of epic awesomeness (inside the safe confines of my mind) for my whole life...But she said you did not engage and nobody really knew you. She drew it in comparison to how I was then as to how I am now.
I hated elementary school. I went to this awful (it was awful, there's no other way to describe how stifling a dogmatic charismatic Christian private school can be) tiny school with very little variation on the expected normal behavior required from its students. We were all supposed to love the bible and to raise our hands and sing on the tops of our lungs. Well, I wasn't sure I loved the bible and I wanted to shave my head, pierce my ears, wear Doc Martens and headbang to whatever noisy music made my dad upset.
So somehow along the lines I got this idea I was a bad kid. My mom allowed me a lot of freedom when it came to self expression, and when I was in high school, age 13 and beyond, she helped shave my undercut into my hair, I pierced ears at home (hers included), I had hoards of Dean Koontz, Clive Barker, Dragon Lance Chronicles, any type of book I wanted, I was allowed to watch whatever movies I wanted, go where I wanted (although I rarely went out)... And mostly, like most weirdo's, I just lay in wait and watched and interpreted the world around me in my own fashion.
I had my group of beautiful friends in school, I didn't say boo to a ghost. I didn't participate in anything. School was merely something I endured because I had to. In Standard Eight (tenth grade) I purposefully tried to fail a whole bunch of subjects to prove I was "too dumb for school". My mom of course didn't buy that. She gave me one of her big lectures where I realized she was smarter than I thought and my great plan had failed. I never achieved because I didn't want any attention, but then when you're purposefully failing you get attention on you too. So I pulled my marks up to where I was right in the middle again. People coasting down in the middle rarely get attention brought on to them.
So that's how it all began. My 20's were a strange time of going to university for almost 3 years, thinking I wanted to be a teacher, dropping out, getting pregnant, emigrating to the USA and getting married. Along the way the whole sense of self was lost. My 30's have been another strange time of rejuvenation, where I have had my babies (yes I am raising them still, but not in the same sense that I was before, I am more in the maintenance phase, not the blood sweat and tears phase of actually growing humans inside your skin and tearing them from your flesh)... and now because of the Grace of God (and for no other reason), I am able to correct my "wrongs" and work on myself and become "selfish" and correct the things that have brought me such personal anguish.
In that same vein is finally being physical, using this body, forcing it to be something it has never been before. I never tried anything for fear of failure. I was a great swimmer, but I wouldn't swim because I didn't want to get up on that starting block and have everyone look at me in my Speedo. The fear of people judging me with the same contempt that I had for myself kept me from achieving.
Fast forward to my 35th year where I am weight training at the university of North Georgia with a bunch of beautiful 20 something year olds. Maybe theyre still teenagers. I don't know. I love their verve. Their youth. Their unjadedness. Their ability to be optimistic. They out perform me. When we're doing the drills, I come in last. But I see their heads turning to watch me cross that line. I finish my burpees and squats whilst they are cooling down, leaning against the wall, drinking their water. When I leave they hold the doors for me and their faces turn to implore me to be back. I think initially they thought I would quit, but I keep coming back, and I think it is amusing to them. I am outspoken. I wear these bright colours and have bra straps poking out. I weigh the same as them, and in some cases less than they do. We're all working on the same things, they're ahead of me in their schooling in some places, some of them graduate in two weeks time. But developmentally as humans we're all on a par.
The point of this is that the human experience is so subjective, it can not be rushed. It is perfect in its timing. The point of completion and readiness is so different for each individual that there is no yard stick to which you can hold yourself accountable against for lack of growth or attainment. The point is there is no point in berating yourself for not being what you think you ought to have already been. But at the time that you are able to and ready, you will innately transform into that thing that you are ready to become. It is like a caterpillar forming its chrysalis and climbing inside to sleep before it has fed, the sequence of events is off kilter, and the transformation will be abruptly dashed.
So my thoughts simply are, each of us attains the level of self that we are able to, as and when we can be. Hopefully sooner than later, but not before we are ready.
And when you are ready, may you soar, like that eagle, to heights you always knew you were capable of.
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