Do you remember when I wrote about that transition into high school? Everything went pretty smoothly because I was Living With Intention. I had very specific goals, along with clear ideas on how to meet them. In the end, I achieved all of them. (I think I also mentioned on that post that I peaked in terms of smarts at that time... this post illustrates that truth!)
So, I chose a college that was seven hours from home. I didn't want to know a single person there. I didn't want my parents visiting me unexpectedly. I wanted to reinvent myself. Start all over. I thought I was figuring out who "I really was." Or, to put it another way, I wanted to be someone other than who I was. Is this feeling treacherous yet? It should... (cue the spooky music)
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| Freshman Year.... New and Improved? |
I had no idea how dangerous this was. I had no idea the consequences that would result from this reckless act. I had no idea how long the consequences would continue to manifest in my life (we're talking decades, folks). In other words, I was a woman without a clue. The most dangerous kind.
I've thought long and hard about my Life Choices in putting together this Soundtrack feature, and this choice might very well be the worst. Because it was the first. Because if not for this one, the rest might not have happened.
I deliberately chose to become a blank slate, more or less. I kept Music (as I intended to Major in that), but ditched everything else. Everything else. I was on a quest to fill holes I didn't know I had. We can call those holes The Two Ps: Pretty and Popular. In my (warped) mind, I'd achieved things in high school, but I still felt like I didn't have Value. What was missing? I didn't feel Pretty or Popular.
Ergo, the things that must make a person feel valued are... Pretty and Popular.
In some ways, I see this now as an algebra problem. I thought I had all the variables, but I didn't, so I arrived at the wrong answer, but didn't know it. In fact, all of these things were done on a subconscious level. At the time, I had no idea I was doing all of this for The Two Ps. I really thought I was looking for Me (very existential and all that...)
The problems are thus: there are no direct routes to Pretty and Popular. There are no maps. There are no clear-cut directions on achieving these things. My theory was to do the opposite of everything I did in high school, and I would run into it. What I didn't understand is that when you approach life as a blank slate, and you're ultimately looking for something (or someone) to give you value, you are not the one writing on your slate. You don't have boundaries. You are giving your power over to other people to give you Value. Worse, you are allowing other people to dictate who you become as you travel the foggy path to Pretty and Popular.
This mindset is important to understand, because this bad decision is the foundation for my adult life. If you weren't able to see how I run amok and headlong into migraines, I think it's all becoming clear now. Yep, I built my house on sand... and it eroded. Shocking.
Birdie in the hand for life's rich demand
The insurgency began and you missed it
I looked for it and I found it
Miles Standish proud, congratulate me
A philanderer's tie, a murderer's shoe
Life's rich demand creates supply in the hand
Of the powers, the only vote that matters
Silence means security, silence means approval
Watchin' Zenith on the TV, tiger run around the tree
Follow the leader, run and turn into butter
Let's begin again, begin the begin
Let's begin again like Martin Luthers in
The mythology begins the begin
Answer me a question, I can't itemize
I can't think clearly, look to me for reason
It's not there, I can't even rhyme, begin the begin
A philanderer's tie, a murderer's shoe
Example, the finest example is you
Birdie in the hand for life's rich demand
The insurgency began and you missed it
I looked for it and I found it
Miles Standish proud, congratulate me
A philanderer's tie, a murderer's shoe
Let's begin again, begin the begin
Let's begin again
Have you ever attempted to reinvent yourself? If so, how did that work out? Have you ever added up the variables but gotten the wrong answer? Have you ever made choices that caused you to "build your house" on sand?
If you're enjoying these posts, feel free to share your own Soundtrack. This isn't a hop. No requirements at all, but a suggestion to do it one song at a time. (If you participated in the hop several years ago, you can still do this. Just post them one song at a time, with the freedom to add more songs if you'd like.) I'll link to all participants at the bottom of each of these posts:
StMcC Presents BATTLE OF THE BANDS
Cherdo on the Flipside
Great thoughts, its always good to reflect on the past to better understand the present. We've all done things whilst growing up that weren't good for us in the long run. Thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeleteThe sharing isn't over by a long shot. We're just getting rolling here!
DeleteHi, Robin! Forgive the brevity of my comment. This is another travel day for me.
ReplyDeleteYes, indeed, I was quite a chameleon, reinventing myself several times and with varying results. In high school I dumped my best friend, believing at the time that he was holding me back socially. I tried to boost my street cred by growing my hair longer, smoking, drinking and hanging out with a wilder crowd at places like the notorious Shady Dell. Like you I left home and attended a university several hours away from home. It was there that a fellow student, a girl that I found attractive, rejected me, remarking that I looked too much like "Joe College." Her words stung and I responded unresourcefully. In an attempt to be part of what I perceived as the in-crowd on campus, I grew my hair even longer and adopted the look and mannerisms of the counterculture. It wasn't until the early 80s when I immersed myself in the human potential movement that I truly reinvented myself in a way that wasn't destructive.
Thank you, dear friend Robin, and have a happy week ahead!
That's a pretty long comment for a travel day, Mr. Shady.
DeleteIt kinda sorta makes me feel better that I wasn't the only one who felt the need to reinvent myself. I'm really glad you figured yourself out in the 80s (was that about a decade of "finding yourself?").
It's taken me longer than that to root out these deeply seated beliefs that simply haven't served me well. However, I think I'm getting healthier for the digging.
The problem, as you saw in my soundtrack and this post, is not in the reinventing, but in the erodable foundation. What you build on it is bound to warp and fall. Unfortunately, you can't make a life by searching the yellow pages for "builders". You can only hope to salvage something from the ruins.
ReplyDeleteYeah, building your house on sand never ends well... I like to think there is salvage OR there is picking up your building materials and choosing to build the next time on solid ground!
DeleteNo boundaries is a scary place to be. So is allowing others to determine your value.
ReplyDeleteMy life started anew the day I accepted Jesus, but I wasn't traveling alone then.
I don't know if this will make sense, but there is knowing Jesus and there is "knowing Jesus." I lived in the former category most of my life. That hasn't stopped Jesus from trying to work through me and for me, but it's only recently that I feel like I "know" him. You're right. That changes everything.
DeleteI've never tried to reinvent myself but we all change as we mature. It's tough when you're so unsure of who you are or who you want to be. Being comfortable with oneself is the only way to peace.
ReplyDeleteListening to your own voice. Appreciating everything about yourself is the way to go. We all have things we don't like, so we can work on them or do something destructive (without even knowing we're doing something destructive).
DeleteI did but in a great way. I chose not to care what others think. It is still a work in progress but as soon as I found there was more to life than those morons in high school, a weight lifted. I never wanted to be popular because I knew that would never happen but I chose to work on me not taking in what people said to me...they no longer mattered. It is a shame when things don't quite work out the way we imagined but I believe in a reason-what-sometimes I am unsure but there is one out there
ReplyDeleteI must say Birgit that not caring what others think would've been the much healthier way to go. It might've happened had I understood that I was trying to fill the holes in my heart created in junior high school. Alas, I didn't. So, these things I was doing were somewhat unconscious. Not completely. I knew I wanted to reinvent myself... it was the WHY that alluded me. In the end, it's always the WHY that matters most!
Delete>>... "when you approach life as a blank slate, and you're ultimately looking for something (or someone) to give you value, you are not the one writing on your slate."
ReplyDeleteThat was very profound, GIRL WONDER!
It's too bad I didn't know you back then because I could have straightened out your life for ya. (That's a joke you won't get - an inside joke between my friend Pooh and I about the night I tried to straighten out his life when I myself couldn't even walk straight.)
I've found the best thing for a person - physically, mentally and spiritually - is to drink a lot of orange juice and eat a lot of salads. If that doesn't work, there's also my own preferred method: lots of wine and Jarlesberg cheese dip.
I'm really enjoying your 'TSOML' series. I will be rejoining soon, but today I have plans to write and post something else - something related to a link I sent you the other night. (By the way, I got E.)
Well, it's raining here again.
This area was in a long, long period of drought... until I moved to town. All it does is rain anymore. It's probably due to my gloomy attitude. You'd think someone would thank me for the moisture but... NO!
~ D-FensDogG
'Loyal American Underground'
You know what Stephen? It's always easier to see how someone else can fix THEIR life much easier than it is to see how to fix your own. Always. So Pooh would've likely been wise to take that advice.
DeleteIf you read my E, you'd remember I'm allergic to oranges, so orange juice... probably not the best way to go. Ironically, my mom just offered me salad and I told her "I'm too hot." I just finished weeding the vegetable garden (on an impulse) and now I'm HOT.
I'm learning some things about myself as I write this series. I've let some friendships go that were really important to me. I need to try harder to reconnect.
I think it's funny that you think you're the cause of the rain. Are you really that important? As in cosmically so???? Hahahahaha. Or as Joan would say, "You're anti-climatic." As in against the weather. (Of course, she meant anti-climactic, but said 'anti-climatic.' I actually meant anti-climatic.)
OF COURSE I'm that important!
DeleteWhat kind of a question was that?
(Don't make me find a Waylon song! Ha!)
"anti-climatic"... I remember that one. That came early and I was already starting to think I was gonna like the 'Joan' series.
~ D-FensDogG
You forgot one of the most important 'Ps'; PERCEPTION. It's really a shame that as young women, no one tells us, well, at least no one that we believe (I'm sure your mother told you, but you didn't believe her, because you thought 'she has to say that, she's my mother'.) that those girls whom you thought (perceived) were Pretty and Popular were just as insecure as you.
ReplyDeleteIf you had known, or really believed that perhaps you could have seen yourself for the pretty girl that I'm sure you were. Popularity is really just a state of mind. Yeah, I know that's a hard one to swallow, but think about it, and think back about those kids in HS that you thought were popular. It was so because you and others thought it, and bought it. Actually, I'm sure by now you have realized all of this. Ah, how much time we waste being Y & S (Young & Stupid). BUT, here's the trick; it's never too late to start thinking of yourself as Pretty and Popular, AND today, you get to decide exactly what that means.
Are you reading my future blog posts???? Have you hacked my blogger? Seriously, I go a bit crazy with the "P" words on Friday and PERCEPTION was a biggie.
DeleteThe truth is that we are exactly what we believe we are. We achieve what we think we can. It really is a Mind Game.
Hi Robin,
ReplyDeleteThe choices we make in life can make an impact of where we are in our lives now. I know of choices that may have seemed to be a mistake, moulded how my life changed to what could seem to be one of despair.
Yet I know that some of what could of been considered mistakes in my youth, have helped me, in the overall scheme of things, to be a better person than before some awful trauma came upon my life.
I screwed up plenty of times in my life. I have never reinvented myself, only took on board the lessons to be realised and grew in my humanity.
Thank you for a thoughtful post.
Gary
The beauty of every mistake is that we can learn from it should we decide to dig in there and scoop out the lesson. Everything that happens in this life turns us into who we are. The beauty of that is that when we choose to see it in a new and different way, well that changes us, too.
DeleteYes, I tried multiple times to re-invent myself. After being horribly bullied in public middle school, I gave in to my parents' desire to send me to a Catholic high school. I wasn't bullied there, but I didn't have many friends. Middle school had taught me that I wasn't fun, interesting, or welcome. I had already become an introvert and didn't know how to change. I hoped for better when I went to college, but I still couldn't break the pattern of feeling unwanted. Next came graduate school.
ReplyDeleteSomething changed there. I applied for and was accepted as a Resident Assistant in the Honors Tower. I know RA's have a bad rep as being party poopers, but I held a meeting and introduced myself to a group of people who were mostly guys, mostly nerds, and mostly bigger introverts than I was.
A good-looking guy, surprisingly, asked me out for a drink at the nearest bar. I went. As we sat there, a great number of young men wandered over, mentioned that I was their RA and I was the only person here they recognized, could they join us? I became a magnet for everybody else there who needed a friend, because I was friendly and kind.
That could have been a turning point for me, except I started dating that good-looking guy, who ended up destroying my self esteem. But that's a whole 'nother story ...
Just wait, Dianne. We'll get to that part of the story eventually. Your life and mine share some strange parallels!
DeleteWhatever steps you've taken in life, whether you now think of them as "bad" or "good", all worked together to make you the amazing person you are today, so in the end, I'd describe the experiences you've had so far as "right." Your self-awareness and ability to learn from your experiences far exceeds what most people ever achieve... and you're still young!
ReplyDeleteAs for me, I don't think I ever tried to re-invent myself. When I went away to college, I embraced the clean slate idea, in that no one there (except for my roommate) had an inkling about my dysfunctional family life, but I don't think I changed myself any. Then again, I could be fooling myself. :)
The truly funny thing is that I've considered myself fairly self-aware for a long time. And yet... seems like my perceptions on the whys and wherefores keep changing, evolving, expanding. I guess the lens gets bigger all the time. Don't really know, but I wonder how I'll see it all five years from now!
DeleteI too thought I'd reinvent myself going to college, but I ended up simply evolving. I think that's probably the best way to grow and change. It was a slow process, but I did enjoy the freedom and responsibility that came with being on my own.
ReplyDeleteSince I can't change the past, the best I can do is learn from it!
DeleteI think so many people experience college in the way you did...perhaps getting lost in a life they were not supposed to be in. I was not one of the pretty or popular crowd in high school, but this post helps me understand that I accepted myself for who I was, and remained that person in college. For the most part now, old as I am, you get same person I was at seventeen, with a little more confidence. You've just made me feel good about that.
ReplyDeleteHahahaha. I know there is some irony in there somewhere.
DeleteI'm so glad I helped you appreciate how mentally healthy you were by displaying my own degree of illness.
::still laughing::
Robin, I am so enjoying this walk with you through your soundtrack. As seen in most of these comments, I believe everyone has tried to reinvent themselves at least one time or another. My freshman year in high school I became friends with a Prep and a Stoner. Neither girl knew of each other but another Stoner saw me talking with the Prep in class and told the whole Stoner group I was a Narc. I became bullied and threatened and my grades plummeted. I didn't understand why I couldn't have friends in all the stupid groups. We moved an hour east to the country and I was able to somewhat reinvent myself then.
ReplyDeleteOn another note, I suffer from migraines. My mom does too and we call them Headaches from Hell. They usually stem from Barometric headaches and here lately in Dallas with all our crazy rains and weather, I've woke up with a headache every day. I almost had to go home from work yesterday because my head was pounding and I couldn't see. I'm sorry you suffer from migraines.
I was trying to find a nickname for a Harvard graduate, and I could only find "Yalies" from Yale. No wonder the universities were always at odds with each other! Not only are you extremely bright and talented, but you're also very pretty, Robin. I would think that popularity would've come easily for you, because you are so low-key about your accomplishments, and fun to be around. I also tried to reinvent myself in college, and I was fortunate to end up on a wonderful dorm floor. It's true how we all have to learn from our mistakes, though I've continued to make more since college.
ReplyDeleteJulie