citizen of the planet

I was just reflecting on this a little bit earlier.  Some days I wonder what life would be like if I continued living a somewhat cowardly existence by continuing to put up with the people who made me feel inferior, or like there was something fundamentally wrong with me.  I think back then all I wanted was a little approval.  Really, isn’t that what all of us want?  In the end, we all just want people to like us for who we are.  And yet, years ago, I was in some situation where I just didn’t feel right.

Back then, due to circumstance I was always the odd one out.  It’s hard when everyone else is working on one thing and you’re off in your own world toiling away on things that they couldn’t care less about.  It was in this environment that I was trying to find a way in.  Despite my serious nature, in a home setting I’m easy enough to get along with.  My will to please was running rampant.  In particular, there was one person with whom I used to be close with, but over time it turned into personal rejection after personal rejection.  Despite this, I didn’t really realize right away that my life didn’t have to revolve around these people.  Looking back, my heart kind of breaks for that old Jason.  Poor, poor fool.

It wasn’t until a chance encounter, and invitation to watch Idol with people that I didn’t know that well, that it dawned on me that life outside of the bubble was entirely possible.  I realized that there are people out there that could possibly accept me in all of my eccentric and maladjusted glory.  That’s when I started extricating myself from the poison.  Case in point that no one really cared: I haven’t received any contact at all from any one of those old people.  Sure, communication is a two way street, but I’m not letting them off the hook.  Seeing as how the relationship was lopsided away from my favour, I’m not the one that needs to reach out.  Screw that.

So, if I had stayed in that situation, I would be a totally different person that I am today.  First of all though, I question whether I would have been able to put up with all that for much longer than I did.  I surely think I’d be more messed up than I already was.  I have a need for people to like me.  Without having that need fulfilled, I think I’d mentally feel like a total failure.  I’d still be trying hard to please them.  The level of absurdity of the lengths I’d go would probably be higher.  Overall, I don’t see myself being content, and depression would have sunk in long ago.

Enough of that though.  Yes, all of that is very doom and gloom isn’t it?  Let me state that I’ve very glad that I stepped out of  that realm.  If it wasn’t for that, I might not have gotten closer with friends that eventually became future roommates.  I might not have had the improvements in my grades that I was able to achieve since my mind would have been occupied elsewhere.  I would not have bonded so strongly with my university classmates because instead of spending time in the labs I would have been in the unit with the others.  I am so fortunate that I have these connections with classmates; some of them are still going strong after all these years.  More than anything, I’m glad that I was able to find myself.  I was able to realize that I am worth my time.  I am hardly broken; I am unique.  I suppose then that the experiences I had before do serve a purpose after all.  They’ve made me stronger and more confident in myself.

Everything is changing around me at work!

Yeah, I know I’ve been making a lot of veiled comments about my various situations on this blog, and for the most part all of the comments still hold.  This storm clouds still loom overhead, but at the moment the rain has let up a little bit.  Anyway, that’s not what this post is all about!  No, this post relates back to something that was posted about 2.5 years ago.

OK, so around that time in 2007, the Simpsons Movie had come out, or was about to come out (to be honest, I totally forgot).  One of the tools on the movie’s website was a widget to create Simpsons versions of whoever you wanted.  It wasn’t long before one of our team members decided to create Simpsons versions of everyone.

Do you remember that post?  Maybe?  Well before you click here to go back, do you remember which of these 9 characters was apparently representative of me?  I still think it’s mildly obvious, but whatever.  We’ve already touched on that in the old post.

So, we have a print out of this image posted on the cork board in our area.  Over time, as people left the team, that person or someone else would ceremoniously draw a big red X over their avatar.  In the past few months, we were reduced to just three of these original members.  Then two were left: me and one other person.  Well, as of tomorrow, the other person is leaving the team.  At the end of today, he took the image down, grabbed a fat red marker and crossed out his image.  And there I was, the only one left on the image, still unscathed.

No, I’m not crowing.  I’m not necessarily happy or sad that I’ll be the last of the group.  Heck, it’s not even like I’ll be on my own–a couple of other people have been hired over time, right?  Still, in my mind the symbolism is sort of strong.

It’s truly the end of an era.  I really respect the guy that’s leaving tomorrow.  I won’t be alone in handling things when he leaves, but there definitely will be added pressure on me to perform at a slightly higher level.  As the last guy standing…I guess I have no choice.

Being a student at a Catholic high school meant that I had to wear a uniform.  Really, I think for someone like me it was a godsend (pardon the joke, I suppose) since I didn’t have to worry about what I had to wear, or having to stick out like a sore thumb for not fitting in whatever norms were in place at the time.  Hell, given my track record in elementary, I know it would have been a daily shit fest.  The uniform was sort of like a bit of equalizing armour wrapped in a cardigan.  I figure that when I was starting out it helped me not be prejudged by other people.  For someone nerdy like me it at least levelled things out.

The uniform was rather simple.  It consisted of a white shirt, slacks or a kilt, and the maroon sweater (or approved black sweatshirt).  I remember back then the uniform was always a flashpoint between the administration and the students.  I’m sure it’s still that way today, but my memories are from a decade ago.  Shirts always had to be tucked in.  Girls’ kilts had to be an appropriate length.  As a point of rebellion the girls would always hike them up as high as decency would allow–sometimes past, I guess.  There are stories of vice-principals roaming the halls with rulers ready to measure just how far the kilts went above the knees.  If anyone wore pants, they had to be charcoal grey slacks.  I remember a friend of mine tried to get away with some same colour rose stitching on the legs of her pants.  As much as they blended in, I remember her fear of being caught.  Ridiculous!  Why try to exert your individuality over something that you don’t really have much control over?  Aren’t there other ways to stand out?

It’s probably expected, but I didn’t do anything to fly against the rules.  Why would I?  There was no need to get the administration on my ass, right?  Well, my memory is entirely hazy on what happened, but my attitude changed on that front one day.  At some point I began wearing a necktie with my uniform.  I don’t recall the exact point that I started doing so back in high school, but it must have been late in Grade 11 or right in Grade 12.  I wasn’t consciously giving admin the middle finger with it.  There was no revolutionary statement that I was trying to make.  Frankly, I think I just wanted to wear a tie.  I was the only one.  It wasn’t part of the uniform, but I don’t think there was a rule against it.  I wasn’t doing anything that was trying to make the uniform casual or disrespectful, so really none of the teachers could bean me on it.  The tie became my thing.

So, why am I having flashbacks to that period of my life?  Well, over the past month I’ve been watching some old DVDs that someone gave to me of an anime from the late 90s.  The main character for this show is a girl who insists on wearing a boys’ uniform to school.  This is due to the fact that she wants to emulate someone she met long ago as a little child.  She keeps pointing out that there’s not rule against it, but the counsellors keep harassing her about it.  Anyway, somewhere late in the series they talk about another character who gained respect in school by carrying herself with an air of dignity, and doing things for herself and not for the attention of others.  I kind of carried that to my experiences.  The tie wasn’t for anyone but myself.

I’m not saying the tie gained me any respect, but perhaps it helped.  It really wasn’t until late Grade 11 and Grade 12 that I recall feeling like I was coming into my own.  Before that I was still trying to find my way around to see if I fit into any groups.  Really, that endeavour was a spectacular failure, thankfully.  And I say “thankfully” because if I had found a group I think I would have lost out on learning self-reliance.  By the later grades it just wasn’t as important anymore.  I didn’t really fit in anywhere and was more of a floater.  So I ended up just having a “take me for who I am” air about me as I really focused on my academics.  Hopefully it’s not imagined, but all of that gained me some respect.  Perhaps the tie vaulted me to a place where I was suddenly beyond judgment.  I honestly don’t know…

These days, I’m long removed from times where I had to wear prescribed clothing.  Even so, upon reflecting on these days gone by I realize that there are lessons that I can apply today.  I no longer have to don a necktie to get respect.  I know though that maintaining my dignity can go a long way to moulding how others perceive me.  Also, continuing to do things for myself and not for the approval of others just commands respect that can’t be picked up any other way.

I guess, due to the nature of the things Labour Day just ends up marking the end of one parcel of time and the start of a new one. Somehow, even after all this time, the thought of this day still dredges up memories of high school back-to-school jitters, the mental determination to perform, and the freshness of the school uniform after not having worn it for months. I can still imagine the maroon cardigan and the smell of starch in my ironed shirt. Back then, that was my life. I had nothing else to do than to study hard and to get the grades. I don’t think I even had a concept of having good grades getting me into the right universities. No, for the longest time I just did my best in my classes because that’s what school was all about. In some sense, it was all kind of like a game, wasn’t it? Life was simple in that regard.

Fast forward to today, now. Here I am thinking about my career and how I should be positioning myself. I’m wondering about how I should be furnishing my own place, and about what types of maintenance I should be doing around here during these precious days off. I was happy to have time to tidy up. Is that so wrong? I’m pondering my social statuses, and what I can do to present myself in better lights. All of these are such adult concerns. When the heck did all of that really start kicking in?

Seriously. It all kind of just sneaks up on you. It starts off with one thing, then another, and another. All of a sudden you realize that you’re pretty much an adult. I guess it’s sort of like boiling frogs, right? If you dump a frog in hot water, it’ll jump right out. If you put it in room temperature water and slowly crank up the heat the frog won’t jump out.

…or so they say.

If it all came crashing down on me all at once I’d probably freak out and buckle under the weight of it all. As it is, I can kind of shrug it off, thinking “Yeah, that’s what life is like. I’ll deal.” I guess I’m fortunate that my life took the long winding path that it took. It’s not that I wouldn’t have survived if I was forced to mature much earlier, but…at this point I can’t imagine my life turning out any other way, you know?