recreatingreality.com

As younger people we were under great peer pressure to be like everyone else.  We all tried to dress like our friends.  We all tried to talk like our friends.  Remember all those fad phrases?  The idea was to fit into the crowd.  We all wanted to be in the “in crowd.”  Perhaps, there was comfort and security being a part of the whole.

But — there was one girl in my high school class that was different.  I can remember how we all made faces when she entered the room.  Most of us gazed upon her and asked ourselves — or one another, “Who does she think she is?”

As I look back on those days I can only remember this young lady dressing more and more like a young Audrey Hepburn.  She was thin and sleek.  While most of us girls were wondering when our breasts would develop, this young woman seemed preoccupied with which scarf she would drape around her neck.  When we were trying to secretly roll the waist bands on our skirts to shorten them, this young woman never wore her skirt shorter than mid-knee.

When 90% of the girls in the class were battling one another for a spot on the cheerleading team, this young woman was taking the leading role in our school play.  She was definitely marching to the beat of a different drummer.  And, she stood out in the crowd.

I can remember that no matter the situation, the young woman was always calm and very gracious — even as a teenager.  And, secretly all of us who looked like wallpaper behind this stand out envied her and wished we had the courage to express ourselves independently of the others.

Yes, we were cruel.  We would snicker when she would pass by.  As we all left for college, we had our hearts set on becoming teachers or nurses, and some of us reached beyond the traditional roles but not far.  The young lady who had stood out from the rest headed to New York to become an actress.  We laughed at her.  But, she never seemed to notice.

Years passed before her name ever came up in conversation.  The rest of us graduated college and began our adult lives.  Then “she” appeared, not at a class reunion, but back in town — not in person, but on the movie screen.

It was funny, but none of us were laughing.  The odd girl in high school had her name and her face on the big screen.  I would be lying if I said I did not feel a bit of jealousy and definitely envy.

Well, it was a wake up call for me.  I didn’t say so at the time.  I still did not want to go against my friends — peer pressure, I suppose.  But, as I went back to work I decided that it was time for me to break away from the pack.  Slowly at first, but with more intensity over time, I began to change.  I set goals and met them.  I became more assertive.  I won’t say aggressive.  However, I recognized that I, too, am an individual — not just one of the herd.

My change in attitude had consequences.  My change in habit had greater consequences.  My husband could not understand what happened to the “little lady” who had been so happy to watch him play men’s league basketball or spend every weekend cooking out with the same old friends.

My husband had married one woman who was becoming another.  It would have been easy enough to blame him for the failure of our marriage, but it was not his fault.  I had discovered that deep down inside me was someone who had something to offer the world.  I was more important to myself than being the weekend hostess — although I had mastered that, as had all my high school girl friends.

I know times are different now.  People graduate from college and go to where the jobs and opportunities are.  They meet new people and have the chance to start over.

But, the point is that if we are not living our lives, we are just existing, taking up space in the world.  I’m not condoning divorce or any other radical action.  I am only saying that sometimes we all need to step up and say who we are.  We need to take control of our lives and become the person we want to be.

The divorce was not easy on me or him.  I’m not sure to this day that he understands that I had to go.  I had to create the life I was meant to live.  If I have one regret, it is that I did not know who I am when I first got married.  If I have one joy, it is that I discovered me and began to control my destiny.  Change as radical as this does not come without consequences.  It can be painful.

This is not to say that anyone who is reading this needs to make such sweeping life changes.  It is to say that sometimes to find happiness in life you have to break away from the pack.  And, above all “to thine own self be true.”