End of the Innocence

At times it is worthwhile to reflect on why you do the things you do, to distill actions and responses down to the essence. When I do I always discover something new about myself, something that lay hidden just under the surface, something unknown and unspoken for years.

That sounds like a big build-up to something very deep but all I was considering was why I chose the photo I did for my blogger profile. Initially I picked it for simple reasons. One, it was cute. I love the pigtail look. Two, I love the red shirt. I look good in red.

But there was something about that particular time in my life that resonated with me now. I wasn't just a little kid anymore, but I wasn't yet jaded. It was the height of child-like innocence, a state of being to which I now aspire. Life was good then, times were carefree, the world was my oyster full of new and interesting things to learn. I couldn't wait to wake up in the morning to start anew, and couldn't bear to go to sleep at night and leave it all behind.

But then there was the day that my world tipped slightly on its axis. The day I realized life was not all black and white. That things were not always as they seemed. That grown-ups would lie and mislead you. I remember it clearly.

Second grade; a hot spring day near the end of the school year. We were studying time. The teacher said a quarter of an hour was 15 minutes. I knew a quarter was worth 25 cents, so a quarter of an hour would be 25 minutes. She told me no, a quarter of an hour was worth 15 minutes. I knew she was lying. And she was telling me this lie with a straight face. And she had that "Oh you poor little thing" sympathetic look on her face. She was trying to pull a fast one on me and I recognized it.

It was that day that I no longer took people at their word. I became highly suspicious and questioned everything. I believed no one about nuthin'.

My faith in people was gone, replaced by mistrust. It was the End of the Innocence.

I was six.

Coming Out of the Closet

Note: This is a long story. Get yourself a fresh cup of coffee and get comfortable, this'll take a while. And no, I'm not fixin' to out myself as a lesbian. Different closet. You'll see.

---

I remember the moment very clearly but not the actual date. I can still see it vividly in my mind's eye. It was some time around 1996. I was standing in front of the bathroom mirror getting ready for work one morning.

I had been under a lot of stress because I had been commanded by The Big Boss to plan and organize a company picnic. I hate doing extracurricular crap like that for work. However, I did what I was told and the picnic was wonderful and went off without a hitch. A good time was had by all...or so I heard. I didn't attend. I hate parties. I would rather have a root canal than attend a party.

So I'm standing looking at myself in the mirror. What a hypocrite I was for talking up this picnic to everyone then not even putting in an appearance. What was wrong with me? Why do I dislike parties so much?

Then I had an epiphany, a seminal moment, a moment of clarity. As I looked at myself in the mirror, I thought, "I am an introvert. I hate parties and always have. I will never be the 'life of the party'. I will never be petite and blonde; no one will ever use the word 'cute' to describe me. I am an old curmudgeon. I will never be a warm -n- fuzzy people person. I will always have this Southern hick drawl. I will never be considered fashionable or sophisticated. I will always be a bespectacled blind bat. I will always suck at sports. I will never be considered athletic. I will never figure out how to play the piano. I will always be #2, never #1, at anything I attempt. I am a 'B' student, not an 'A' student. I will never make a million dollars. I will never own my own business. I will never have children. I am just an average Joe, somewhere in the middle of the pack. This is who I am. This is who I've always been. I will not change. I will not be any different no matter how hard I try. This is me."

It kind of hit me all at once. Like a smack between the eyes.

You see, I had tried all my life to be "normal", to act like the rest of society, but it wasn't me. I knew I was different somehow, but couldn't quite put my finger on it. Trying to be normal was an enormous burden. It took a lot of energy to pretend to be something I was not. I thought I was being honest with how I presented myself to other people, but in fact I wasn't. I think the mask/facade showed. It made folks uncomfortable to be around me. They could see there was something else under the surface, so my apparent dishonesty of actions didn't match my very vocal, "What you see is what you get" mantra. I didn't realize at the time that I had on a mask. I thought everyone was like me, but that most people just had a lot more practice at being outgoing.

I pondered on my morning epiphany all day. The more I thought about it the wearier I became. The burden of pretending to be someone I wasn't had become too much to bear. I was tired of lugging that millstone around my neck all the time. It was time for a change. I decided to be brutally honest with myself and with everyone else. I was a curmudgeonly old introvert and that was that.

The next day I told my friends and co-workers about my epiphany. Some gave me strange looks, some looked relieved. Relieved! I guess they were relieved that I had finally admitted out loud what everyone else already knew. Gak! Was my mask that obvious?

From that day forward I freely admitted my curmudgeonly introvertedness to people, at appropriate times of course. It's not like I shouted it from the rooftops or anything. When invited to a party or social gathering I would grin a big grin and reply with a chuckle, "Hey! Thanks for the invite. I appreciate it, I really do. But I'm a curmudgeonly old introvert and I would rather have a root canal than go to a party. I only attend funerals. But I hope your party is wonderful and everybody has a great time. If you ever have a funeral, please let me be the first one you call."

Thinking I was kidding they would reply, "Aw, come on and go. There will be tons of people there. It'll be fun!"

I would retort, "That's your definition of fun. But I'll tell ya what, I'll make you a deal. If I come to your party for three hours and have fun your way, you have to come to my house the next day and have fun my way. We could catalog my South American Spitting Cockroach collection for three hours, just you and me. It'll be loads of fun. I can't wait! Whadya say??? Deal?"

They would roll their eyes and walk away shaking their head.

After I "came out" as a curmudgeonly introvert, some of my friends fell by the wayside. They didn't have the time of day for me after that. But then the most amazing thing happened. Even though I proclaimed to be a loner introvert, people started flocking to me. They wanted to be with me, around me, talk to me. Hey! This wasn't going anything like I had imagined. Introverts like their solitude and here I had a flock of folks that wanted to Velcro themselves to my hip. I didn't understand. I thought that once I was a publicly professed old grump people would leave me alone like I had leprosy or something. Nope. Wrong. They were attracted to me like flies to honey.

What happened, I now see in hindsight, is that I finally presented a cohesive personality to the world. I didn't speak one way and act another. There wasn't the veil of uncomfortable dishonesty that was there before. People actually got what they saw...and they liked it. They liked it a lot. I guess there is a place at everybody's table for a curmudgeonly old grump. Good for a laugh maybe.

Life for me after coming out was nothing short of miraculous. My millstone was gone. I no longer had to expend a huge amount of energy pretending. I had fresh eyes and saw the world in a whole new way. I was energized, motivated. I was finally happy. I could fly.

I feel a huge amount of empathy for my gay brothers and lesbian sisters who are still closeted. I understand (kinda, sorta) the hell in which they live not having the freedom to be themselves. I salute and embrace those who have come out of the closet. Welcome to the world! Let true living begin!

I think lots of people out there (not just the gay folks) are living in a closet of their own making, trying to be someone they are not just because of some societal stricture. Not being honest with themselves about who they are and suffering for it. That's not to say folks should quit trying to achieve their goals. I'm just saying that pretending isn't a good or healthy thing, either for themselves or others.

Take a good look in the mirror tomorrow morning. Is your true self gazing back? If not, open the door and step out of the closet. It may be scary and dramatic at first. Some friends may be lost, but new friends will be gained. I know of what I speak.

Life is good out here in the fresh air.

A Warrior's Album - Part 2

Continued from, "A Warrior's Album - Part 1"

I graduated college, worked various jobs, and found myself climbing the corporate ladder on an executive track. By anyone's assessment I was successful. I was moving up quickly in a burgeoning career, had a big house in a nice neighborhood, two cars in the garage, more money in the bank than I was able to spend. I had gotten married in there somewhere, but later divorced, in part because of the career. I was set to retire early at age 50 with about $2.5 million in the IRA.

I had all the trappings of success, but at the end of the 12-hour work day I came home to my big house to be greeted only by my lonely doggy. What good is a big house if you never have time to spend in it??? The only person who cared whether I came home or not was the doggy, and she didn't care if we lived in a big house or not. I started getting a gut feeling that this was not the way my life was supposed to be, but I could not see a clear alternate path to change it.

As part of my job I had to get an executive physical every three years. I guess the company wanted to make sure they were investing in healthy individuals. As part of the exam I had to get a hearing test. This was not one of the quickie hearing screens where you put on the earphones and the nurse asks, "Can you hear the beep" in a noisy doctor's office hallway. This was to be a full-fledged hearing test in a soundproof room at an audiologist's clinic.

As I sat in the large bustling waiting room, I was afforded a few moments of downtime. I began reflecting on my life and what I wanted out of it. There in the audiologist's waiting room, I experienced another profound, life-altering moment of clarity.

---

THE OLD DEAF COUPLE

I noticed them struggling with the double glass doors leading to the waiting room. They were in their late eighties or early nineties and the door was a little more than they could manage alone. Both were shrunken and stooped with age, their height barely above the push bar on the door.

He was dressed in a suit and tie even though it was well over 95 degrees outside. She was wearing her best dress and carrying a large, patent leather, Sunday-go-to-meetin' purse. A used tissue was under the wristband of her watch. It was obvious they had been married about a hunnert years.

They were yelling at each other, but not out of anger. He was deaf as a stone. I could see the wires leading from his hearing aids down to the receiver in his shirt pocket. She was yelling at him because he couldn't hear her, and he was yelling at her because he couldn't hear himself.

He managed to get the door open and was holding it for her.

"LET ME HOLD YOUR POCKETBOOK," he yells at her so she could free her hands to maintain her balance around the other door and over the threshold.

"NO, I HAVE IT. YOU GO ON AHEAD." she yells back.

They managed to navigate the doorway obstacle and shuffle, shuffle, shuffle, shuffle, shuffled over to the first set of chairs.

"IS HERE OK?" he yells.

"YES THIS IS FINE."

"YOU GO AHEAD AND SIT DOWN AND I'LL GO CHECK IN."

"NO, I NEED TO GIVE THEM SOME PAPERWORK THIS TIME," says she.

"Eh???" he says cupping his ear.

"PAPERWORK! PAPERWORK!" she screams. "YOU SIT AND I'LL GO."

"EH???"

"SIT, SIT, SIT. I'LL GO."

He takes a seeming eternity to get his knees bent just right to sit down. He eases down in the chair with her hovering over him, concerned. He finally gets planted and lets out a sigh.

"ARE YOU OK???" she yells a few inches from his ear.

"YES, YES, I'M FINE, I'M FINE."

Another big sigh. Then he looks up a bit worried, "ARE YOU SURE YOU SHOULD GO? I CAN GO SO YOU CAN REST," and starts making motions to stand up again.

"NO, HONEY, IT'S OK, IT'S OK. I'LL GO. HERE, YOU CAN HOLD MY POCKETBOOK."

He sighs back into the chair.

She sets her purse in his lap and makes sure he has a good grip on it. She wipes her palm across his forehead to smooth his few remaining hairs and to wipe away the sweat from his exertions. She takes the tissue from her watchband, licks the corner, and wipes something unseen from his cheek.

Tucking the tissue back in its place, she turns and shuffle, shuffle, shuffles, shuffle, shuffles away, leaving him sitting there clutching her purse.

---

This elderly couple's interaction on an ordinary day, on an ordinary visit at the doctor's office, was a profound event for me. I realized the care and tenderness they showed to each other was what I really wanted in life; not the money, not the career, and not the possessions.

I wanted to be changing my husband's Depends right after he helps me up from a fall in the kitchen. I wanted to be shuffle, shuffle, shuffling out to the porch each evening to catch a cool breeze in the rocking chairs. I no longer wanted to be in the !%*@& corporate world dying of a heart attack at my desk with no one at home to care but the doggy. All I needed was the right man to do that with...and I knew just where to find him.

My life's path was irreversibly altered that day. All I had worked for, all my goals, all my hopes, all my dreams, were reduced to ashes.

A Warrior's Album - Part 1

I've just started reading The Active Side of Infinity (Carlos Castaneda, 1998) after letting it languish on the bookshelf for eight years. I bought the book after hearing Howard Stern mention Castaneda's name during one of his radio shows.

Stern's guest (don't remember who it was) was rambling on about something and Stern piped up with, "Isn't that just Carlos Castaneda's theory?" Howard Stern may be an a-hole on the radio, but the guy is a sharp cookie and a well-read world-class geek. I hadn't heard of Castaneda so he piqued my interest and I bought the book.

Last night I went to the bookcase to get another book, and Active was next to the one I wanted. Hey, I'll read that one instead!

I wasn't very far into the introduction, page 6 to be exact, when a passage ended my reading for the night and started my brain spinning. By the way, I think a good book should cause you stop reading and start thinking, but I digress. The passage was by don Juan Matus, a Yaqui Indian shaman from Sonora, Mexico.

"Every warrior, as a matter of duty, collects a special album [of events], an album that reveals the warrior's personality, an album that attests to the circumstances of his life."

"The [events] are memorable because they have a special significance in one's life. My proposal is that you assemble this album by putting in it the complete account of various events that have had profound significance for you."

"Not every event in your life has had profound significance for you. There are a few, however, that I would consider likely to have changed things for you, to have illuminated your path. Ordinarily, events that change our path are impersonal affairs, and yet are extremely personal."

I mulled that over for a minute or two, mentally whipping through the major events in my life. Yes they were major, but most unprofound.

Two brief moments in time, simple uneventful moments, did have a profound impact on my life. I still ruminate about them on occasion and have told the stories to a few folks. I'm sure there are more, but these two leapt to the forefront of the ol' gray matter just then. I'll call them The Nickle Raise and The Old Deaf Couple.

---

THE NICKLE RAISE

I was fifteen years old and just starting my junior year of high school. I got a job as a carhop at an old-fashioned burger joint where the food is brought out to the car. Since I was under 16, child labor laws prevented me from working past 5:00 p.m. on school nights, so I worked every Saturday and Sunday until school was out for the summer.

There were three job categories at the burger joint: cook, fountain, and carhop. The cooks had the nasty greasy jobs of running the grill, cooking fries and dressing the burgers. The fountain made the drinks, sacked the food, and handled the money. The carhops delivered the food.

Since I worked only on the weekends, I saw pretty much the same people all the time. There was a day and night shift and the crews were all kids, probably the oldest one was a 19-year-old college girl. We all worked part-time to afford the luxuries of teenagerhood, like name-brand jeans and record albums.

Summer came and I starting working weekdays. The cooks on the day shift were Joan and Barbara, two ladies in their 40s who drove across the county line to come to work there. They worked Monday-Friday, 9:00-5:00, year-round, and had worked there for years.

Minimum wage was increased by $.05, so my hourly pay went from $2.10 to $2.15. I was underwhelmed with the raise. I worked at the burger joint for fun. The owner chastised me once because I had failed to pick up my last three paychecks and it was throwing off his bank statement reconciliation. Five cents more per hour made absolutely no difference in my life.

Because Joan and Barbara were long-time loyal employees, the owner had given them an additional $.05 per hour raise. They were not expecting this and when the paychecks came out, they were excited. I watched them standing there in their grease covered aprons, heads together, faces beaming, examining their checks. I can see them clearly in my mind's eye to this day, this moment of clarity in my life.


It hit me that for these two ladies, this burger joint was their life, their career, the thing they did day in and day out all year long to pay the bills. A grease covered apron was what they faced each and every day when they went to work. This was not a temporary job for them. They would not be moving on to something better. THIS WAS THEIR LIFE, and a nickel raise from minimum wage was the highlight of it.

I was saddened by this realization, and horrified. I don't know what forces of fate had landed these two ladies in the frybucket of life, but there they were. And from the looks of things, there they were going to stay. There but by the grace of God go I, some thirty years hence.

I resolved then and there that I would not be consigned to a life of grease and minimum wage. I was going to college and getting an education. I wanted to have options in life other than a fry cook at a burger joint. I didn't really know what "getting an education" meant at that young age, but I knew intuitively that was what I needed to do.

This brief but profound moment would alter my life's path in ways I couldn't imagine back then, but it set me on a course I would pursue for the next 23 years.

(continued)