I have become acutely aware of our separation. I hover on the outside, looking into two worlds. Not belonging to the groovy, hip has-not’s, and not wanted or accepted with the ones who “have”, I now struggle to find my place in between those worlds. Where once was only the “idea” that we were different- a vaguely held concept that those kind of people believed they were above me-there was now hard fact. And learning this, and knowing this, and understanding this . . . shook me to my core.
I had always wanted to believe these feelings and ideas were in my head. Just a symptom of growing up poor-ish, or at least in less than ideal circumstances. A life lived with that deeply ingrained understanding of your place in the world. I never sat down to define myself. I never intentionally put myself into a category or tried to compartmentalize my life-it was just one of those things that was understood. You grow up “knowing” where you fit in. You go to work “knowing” the kinds of jobs you will have. And you love certain kinds of people “knowing” they are like you . . . and brave are the ones who push hard enough, and take the risk to redefine themselves, because they will always be resisting those who want to push them back into their place so they can be the king of their hill.
It is the way of all species.
Only we humans do it with forethought, and consciousness, and often sometimes cold cruelty, in the desire to make more room for ourselves, so we can open our feathers wider, drop our seeds into more fertile ground, and so our egos have more room to grow like over-fertilized chia-pets, and we often don’t care who we cast into the shade, to wither and die without the sun.
I do it too.
5 comments:
I grew up in a pretty strange household, my parents were from very poor families and they seemed to as you say "know their place".They were not well educated and that being poor thing has sort of stayed with me, I feel like I'm wedged in between two worlds and don't fit in either. This is the first time I have heard anyone else express exactly what I have felt all my life!
Tracey, thanks. There are times-like most of the time-that when I am writing something, I am always fighting that little voice saying "you're saying too much! You're gonna freak people out!" I think we are so conditioned to keeping our thoughts and feelings private. And you can't write honestly-unless you are writing fiction (and even then you need to be fictitiously honest - imagine how Steven King probably once worried, and likely still does, what might people think of him!), unless you are real. Anyway . . . Hearing you say that makes me soooooo glad I just am honest. Thanks.
Hey Deb: I have those same thoughts and as you know I pretty much say what I think. Some days I wake up and cringe when I log on to my blog, wondering who I pissed off or offended. But it's my blog, don't like it, don't read it. People have such a short attention span they move on and don't give it another thought half the time anyway. We always think people are paying way more attention to us than they really are and I have moved way beyond worrying what people think of me so it's nice to come across someone saying what they want to, fun to read :)
hi deb,
i grew up in a familiar mindset, just a category, i later realized (much later). i have been amazed over the years about two related things, first the propensity of people to self-categorize... think: the person whose car has 3 bumper stickers - mccain/palin, "you can have my gun when you pry it from my cold dead fingers", and drill baby drill. now i know they may have some redeeming qualities but they've saved me the trouble of getting to know them. the other thing, which is even weirder to me, is the people who insist on categorizing me, despite my insistence that the categories are not true. i have friends who refuse to take me out of categories that they've decided i'm in no matter how much i insist that i'm not in it. i guess i could file that under the concept in the next post... there inability to change. no matter how much i'd like it, they are not gonna change and neither am i.
Tracey I know the feeling of that waking up! That's kinda how I felt this morning. I was not in a positive mood last night, but yah, you are right, these blogs are ours for our own expression. I have been happily surprised by everyones appreciation and support-even when I've written some pretty crazy stuff, and for anyone who has been offended or disagrees with the posting, they have been respectful enough to not criticize (not that disagreement in and of itself would be offensive).
Jim-we do tend to do that don't we? Self-catagorize. It's kinda weird. Cause we have all this freedom to think so many ways, and we self-limit. I remember someone saying to me once about seeing the movie "Brokeback Mountain". This person was very christian. And they said to me: I know I'm not supposed to like the movie, but I did and it was very touching, although I disagree with their behavior"-I thought it was sad. "I'm not supposed to", or "I shouldn't". I think I'm getting off-topic a little. I think it IS possible for people to change, but I also believe it has to be a choice THEY/WE make. No amount of someone saying "hey, that's not cool man" matters, unless THEY/WE think it's not cool and decide not to behave like that anymore. And even then, it's more a monitoring for the rest of your life, that impulse to act in a certain way, not as much changing yourself, as recognizing and controlling your behavior. Phew!!! Good think I'm laying on my couch right now!
Thanks guys for reading :)
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