Deep Thoughts....With Jack Handy

GOOOOOOOD MOOOOOOOORNING!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So, today we are going Old School SNL.  Yep, I had an epiphany this morning while helping my 10 year old daughter with her hair.

 I’m channeling my inner Deep Thoughts….With Jack Handy!  Lord help us all!

**WARNING **

The following conversation is estrogen-rich.  Should you have male anatomy, you may find yourself vomiting or experiencing severe abdominal discomfort should you proceed past this point. It is possible that I may go off on some kind of tangent that you, with your testosterone, cannot compute without twisting the entire conversation around to think it is meant to directly target you!!  Wow, that was a sexist comment.  I apologize.  J

However, we are an equal opportunity blog.  You are welcome, even if you have boy parts.  Just don’t say I didn’t warn you!

My daughter finally made it into the school Talent Show.  She is so excited, but she is nervous about singing in front of the big 5^th graders.  As we talked about techniques to overcome her nerves; things like looking over their heads, or focusing on one person in the audience, I found myself recalling my own fears when I was her age.  It was then that something fell out of my mouth that I never even realized until I said the words to her.

I explained to her how I completely understood her apprehension about singing in front of people.  She is singing a duet, which I told her was the closest I could ever come to a solo as a kid, because at least I had another person singing with me.  I always loved to sing, but I don’t think you could have medicated me enough to get me to EVER stand up in front of people and sing a solo!

She smiled up at me as I did her hair and said, “I think you’re just saying that to make me feel better, Mom.” She thought that because she knows the me that I am now.  Not the me that I was in school.  It’s taken me a long time, and a lot of realizations to get where I am.

  I really was such a self-conscious kid.  I’m not sure how I came across to anyone who actually knew me in school, but on the inside, I was constantly wondering what people thought of me. 

Junior High is hard enough for kids, but when all of my friends started getting ‘boyfriends’ (you know, how kids say they are ‘going out’, but they never go anywhere or even play together?) it became more obvious that I didn’t fit in.  Or at least, it didn’t feel like I did.  All of my friends had ‘boyfriends’ but me.  I wondered all of the time just what it was about me that separated me from the other girls?  It really hit me hard, not a single boy EVER wanted to be my boyfriend.  Certainly not the cool boys.  Not the nerdy boys.  Not even the scuzzy boys!  Nope, no boyfriends for me!

Even when I got into High School, I was pretty much friends with everyone.  I had my core group of friends, but I was friendly to everyone and everyone was friendly to me.  I did my best to be nice to even the kids that others may not have been so nice to.  But, still yet, it was like I was the only girl in school who never got asked out.  I was that girl that never had a date to a dance.  I swear, I felt like I was cursed or something!  What could possibly be so bad about me that no one ever asked me out?  Was it because I wasn’t ‘from’ that town?  Cuz, seriously, that’s kinda gross when you think about it.  If everyone there seems to be distantly related, you would think an ‘outsider’ would be a hot commodity, would you not?  LOL

Anyway, moral of the story is, not a single boy in that school EVER asked me out.  Not once.  None.  Zilch.  Zero.  Talk about making a girl self-conscious.  And it occurred to me when talking to my daughter that instead of thinking, ‘Screw em.  They don’t know what they are missing out on,’ I took it to heart and it really screwed me up.  Or, at least, I thought it did.

So, today, talking to my daughter, I realized something.  For years, I thought I was self conscious because the boys didn’t apparently like me.  What I learned, through talking to her, is that the boys were an issue, sure.  But what really had me screwed up was my relationship with my dad.  Little girls and their dads….it’s a really formative thing.  I know….DAMN, right?  Couldn’t it be something easier to control?

My dad was controlling and verbally abusive, except when people were around.  So, of course, when friends were over, they thought he was fabulous!  When they left, he was an A-hole.  Ugh.  So, I realized this morning that the turning point for me, when I finally became the me that my daughter now knows???? Yeah, that happened when I severed ties with the thing that held me back.  My dad.

I know the Bible says to Honor thy father and mother.  I have struggled with that, trust me.  But, once I broke those ties, I saw that I could be free.  I could be who I was meant to be, and slowly, I became more confident.  I found my sense of humor again, and now I am finally a person that I can be proud of.  It doesn’t mean I don’t still wonder secretly what people think of me.  It just means that I can finally say, “Well, if they don’t like me, then I guess I’m okay with that.  Because I am who I am, and that’s just where we are with that.”

Sure, all your life experiences build who you become as an adult.  But, sometimes, it’s those sneaky little suckers like whether or not your daddy makes you feel good about yourself that end up being the little parasite you carry around with you until you finally do a life cleanse and get rid of it!  Kinda like a laxative for your life! LOL

Get rid of the things that hold you back.  If there’s someone in your life that makes you feel like shit, drop em like those ‘skinny’ pants in the back of your closet that you hang on to just to punish yourself.  I mean, seriously, WTH do we do this to ourselves for? 

If we would all just tell that ‘person’, or ‘thing’…whoever or whatever it is….to SCREW OFF!  Wouldn’t we be a lot better off?  How many girls with weight issues have that one demon in their closet that they are too scared to deal with, so it just torments them?  How many? 

I’m not sure why we, as women, are wired this way.  Personally, I choose to blame all the things I cannot explain on Eve and that damned apple.  Some day, when I die, she and I are gonna have a real serious conversation about all the crap we go through because of her!  Painful child birth?  Check.  Periods?  Check.  She’s gonna get an ear full out of me someday. 

Seriously, though.  Find that thing that holds you back.  Then find a way to get rid of it.  It wasn’t easy cutting out an actual human being from my life.  But, I’ll tell ya, it set me free.  So free, in fact, that my own daughter couldn’t believe that I had once been a self-conscious kid who worried about what everyone thought of me. 

So….TO HELL WITH EM, I SAY!  Make the change.  Pull the trigger.

 In the words of Tim McGraw,  “I’m learning who you’ve been, ain’t who you’ve got to be.”

PS:  I saw some of those 'boys' from High School recently.  Most of them have not aged well.  Turns out, I wasn't missing anything after all!  SCOOOOORE!!!!!