A Tale of Three About a One

When am I truly myself? What are the moments or circumstances that allow me to be wholly me? This is a tough one, simply because it is so easy to give a cliche answer that is obvious and applicable to most people — something along the lines of ‘when I feel safe and comfortable in my surroundings’ or ‘when I’m with people I love.’ Those are definitely true for me, surely, but I want to dig a little deeper because I have a feeling that my criteria for being myself are slightly more complex. Below are three stories of moments when I truly felt myself. Let’s see if we can find some underlying trends here. Come, come!

Story #1: Condition For The One

The scene: our small apartment, on a weekday afternoon, about two decades ago.

The characters: my mom, probably exhausted after a long work day, and a preteen me, unreasonably hyped up on sugar or some other magical chemical that compels children to turn into bouncy balls of pure energy. So, here I am, running around like a possessed chimpanzee, singing something off-key and indiscernible at the top of my lungs while quite literally trying to climb the walls. There is a beauty to my madness, especially when viewing it in retrospect. When we grow up, we tend to lose some or all of that uncanny ability to let our spirits completely take over our bodies and just be — following odd, unexplainable impulses for absolutely no reason at all. We forget how cathartic it can be to run headfirst into a wall, just because.

Anyway, at some point, my poor mother, who’s been observing my shenanigans for some time, laughs and says something that has stuck with me to this day. Don’t remember the exact wording, but it was something like, “when you find someone with whom you can be THIS, hold on to him, and never let him go because he is your person.”

Of course, as you well know, I have found him, and I do intend to keep him forever. Poor guy — he did not know what he was signing up for.

Story #2: Am I Supposed To Be The Grown-Up Here?

When I first started teaching, I looked and sounded like the children I was supposed to educate. This is a pretty common issue for most beginner teachers — especially those of us working with upperclassmen, who are usually a measly three years younger than us at the start of our career. So, naturally, I tried my best to make up for this inconvenience by acting like a veritable adult, laying down the law and maintaining strict control over my first classrooms. This worked pretty well at first, and I was happy with my management style, believing myself to be this hardcore figure of authority that no kid would think to test. But then, I entered a school system where this approach to running the show was the expected norm. In fact, apparently, I was not strict enough. I will not go into the details because that would take me down a whole ‘nother avenue, full of political commentary about the current state of the education system, but let’s just say that smiling at children was not encouraged until Thanksgiving.

It is in this environment that I became a proud rule-breaker for the first time in my life. If someone was observing my classroom, which happened way too often, I tapped into my previous teaching persona and acted the part of the no-nonsense educator because it wasn’t only the students who stepped out of line that were routinely punished. I stayed under the radar until I felt confident enough to close my door and lower the window blinds; and then, I let the magic begin. I let go of control and asked my kids to join me in making our classroom our own. I encouraged them to be who they felt like being because for the first time in my teaching life, I felt compelled to be myself in front of them. I taught from a place that was not far from the dwelling of the possessed chimpanzee, and while I did not try to climb the walls of my classroom, I did continue to sing off-key. It was honestly the scariest and most exhilarating experience, letting go of the need to be a whole adult, composed and perfect. Once my kids got to see me be myself in front of them, they began to do the same. And while my classroom may not have looked the way my administration would have deemed appropriate, god damn it, we had some fucking fun. We learned together, and we found our true selves over and over again. It’s one of the things I will always miss most about teaching.

Story #3: You Thought You Could Escape, Didn’t You, Aster?

My earliest memory of you involves two scratchy red armchairs in the lobby of a Sunday school. We both had second period off, and we would hang out in those chairs, and talk about life and nonsense. We were ten or eleven, I think. I don’t think either one of us knew it at the time, but I now realize that that hour was probably the most relaxed hour of my entire week. Being myself in regular school was out of the question — immigration really messed up my social skills. And so, Russian Sunday school was the only time I could interact with people normally, and I looked forward to it all week. Except the sad thing is that this anticipation caused me to be really concerned with how I present myself there. It’s like my lack of a social life in American school made me overcompensate and try to have a perfect social dynamic in the Russian one. And this led me to try very hard to be cool, and outgoing, and exciting all of Sunday, which was actually even more exhausting than being invisible during the week.

I have no idea what about you exactly made me feel like I don’t need to be something, like I can simply be. Whatever it was, thank you. Thank you for giving me a one-hour reprieve from a constant struggle to either dazzle the world or shield myself from it.

Of course, as you well know, you are my first and always person, and there is not even a question about me keeping you forever. No apologies here, you DID know what you were signing up for.

So, What Is It, Really?

I suppose my ability to be myself has something to do with letting go of authority over my image. In story #1, I did not even think about it; in story #2, I did not want it; in story #3, I did not need it. It is when I do not feel the need to control myself and the world around me that I can truly be myself. And that is when the crazy, magical shenanigans are possible.

Love,

-Obnoxious Orchid

P.S: In the spirit of the season, what is your relationship with the supernatural? Which of the many folkloric occurrences and creatures do you hope exist in the real world? Are there ones you suspect are real in some capacity? What are your beliefs about all of this based on? (Yes, you may talk about Sam and Dean, if you wish.)

[Currently listening to: Rainy Halloween Ambiance on YouTube. Cuz, duh.]