I sat in my fourth grade art class, flummoxed. I stared at the large piece of art paper, my 48 crayons standing ready. The assignment: Draw a picture of your dad for Fathers’ Day.
It was 1956 and I was the only kid in the class who had a problem with this. I approached the teacher, careful to keep my voice low.
“Mrs. Albright,” I said, “My father died.”
“Oh, well then,” she replied, “An uncle? Your grandfather?”
I shook my head.
“Do you want to just do a picture of your mother instead?”
Good. Clarity. Permission to do the only logical thing. I turned out a very nice giant head of my mother in her pearl earrings which she rarely wore, but which gave a bit of glamour to my picture. As I glanced at my classmates’ pictures, I had that familiar outsider feeling, my nose pressed to the glass of their normal families.
If you would have asked me then about my life story, it would have been all about differences. I was an only child on the Irish Catholic South Side of Chicago; the second tallest girl in the class, and absolutely no good at high jump. I couldn’t ride a bike. I’d had one briefly, but it got lifted from the storage room at my building. I would blush if anyone so much as glanced at me, which provided a direct window into my insecurities, a source of torture for me. And I was afraid of dogs.
For balance, I was a good student, also a very polite girl and a good friend. I had the nicest mother, and plenty of great relatives even if they were in two different states and I only saw them once a year.
By high school, I would have told you that I was coming out of the shrinking violet stage – I was editorial editor on the school paper, had some dates, and could see a big future for myself. But I still felt encapsulated by the idea that everyone else knew more than I did about how families, and life, really worked.
I can’t pinpoint exactly when I stopped minding my differences. Some of them fell away, others became unimportant, and others became points of pride. I took up Pilates instead of high jump. I rarely blush these days, and can pretty much talk to anyone about anything. My father may have died early, but my mother hung on until she was almost 89.
I have greatly revised my life story with time. I bounced back from my original outsider status. And I know now that my strengths came out of those early challenges. I had to grow a backbone to take care of myself in the world. All that watching other people’s lives developed empathy that I turned into my career as a therapist. I don’t need to make out Gratitude Lists; I have a built-in appreciation for the gifts of life, which I know are all the more precious because they may not last.
As a result I tell myself what I tell my clients: No one else on the planet has seen what you have seen; has encountered what you have, both good and bad. No one else has your combination of gifts and insights, or will ever occupy the spot you stand on. So, forget fitting in. The world would be incomplete without you just as you are, like a quilt missing its most vivid piece.
Note: A shorter version of this piece may be posted by now at www.thisibelieve.org, a reincarnation of the classic Edward R. Murrow radio series from the 1950s. Go to read hundreds of pieces from current contributors and from the original series.
CBH 11-10
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