V i t a . Way of Life

I was talking to a friend online earlier and was struck with the sudden realization that my family truly doesn’t know me at all.  We were discussing facebook and I had said that I wished to keep my family as out of my “online activities” as possible.  I have a few on there, but they were guilt adds.  My cousin, however, promised to let me know when my grandma was in ill health because she refuses to tell me, she doesn’t want me to worry so far away.  Besides, she’s my cousin and I would have added her anyway, I actually like her.

Anyway, it struck me as odd.  I wasn’t a terribly social child or teen, most of my times were spent with my family.  I was always with them and surrounded by them, so how is it possible they hardly know me at all?  If you were to ask them, “what are her hobbies?” I’d be very interested to see what they’d say.  They probably wouldn’t even know where to begin or would just throw something like reading out there.  I do enjoy reading and that’s thanks to my mother and father.  My mother was very adamant about teaching me early and my dad always got me involved with the library child classes that gave rewards for reading certain amounts of books monthly.  I’ve been an avid reader ever since and was always several grade levels higher than my peers.  It was one of my first hobbies.  Still, they wouldn’t say that because of actual knowledge, but just because they know I bought books at some point when I was with them.

They have no idea that I write.  I’ve been writing for a long, long time both on my own and with my cousin.  We were big on imagination as children.  We had imaginary games that had sweeping story arcs and lasted years.  I miss those days, they were probably my happiest times, completely immersed and lost in a world that didn’t exist but was truly grand.  It was a joint effort and is very much responsible for my imagination not dwindling with age, but growing.

It would be easy to blame my family for lack of interest, but that’s not it at all.  I remember getting awards and hiding them away, sometimes even throwing them out.  I was so keen on hiding my activities.  I have no idea why.  Even when I was in high school (home school), I was required to do a few creative writing projects.  Several of those cases ended with the teachers wanting to keep my work.  My father and my grandfather were right there, but I remember playing it off, making it seem like less of an accomplishment than it was.  I’ve done this with everything, I realize now.

I was in band, I played clarinet.  My parents even bought me one!  It all started in fourth grade and continued until the beginning of seventh grade.  I was pretty good, but my music teacher was terrible.  I was pretty close to the best if not the best of my section.  I did things on stage, in front of everyone, including solos.  Still, I downplayed it, I made it seem like it was nothing and unimportant.  It’s really interesting to think about now… I’d never even realized it.  I remember craving some sort of affirmation, but never understanding why I failed to get it.  Now I think I know, because I was sabotaging myself.

I love music, I always have.  It’s a big part of why I was big in band and chorus (until my voice changed).  Reading music seemed natural to me.  I’m not much of a musical snob, though.  I love most everything, except the repackaged crap they are selling to us now.  Most recent music sucks in ways I can’t even begin to explain, but I digress.  My parents are to thank for this, surrounding me with music.  My mother watched MTV religiously, my dad listened to all kinds of garage bands, metal, and rock.  They loved punk, they went to concerts, they took me to concerts when I was too young to go.  They never censored music, they never made it “age appropriate”, it just simply was.  Still, they don’t know my tastes.  I would deny I liked anything.  I would say it was all terrible to their faces and then secretly steal their CDs and play them until they wore out.

I think it’s because I’m naturally a very secretive person.  I like my hobbies to be mine.  I’m very much lost in my own little world sometimes, forgetting that other people exist around me.  It’s not selfish so much as it is just a lack of connection.  I can read people, I can listen to them, but to actually feel a genuine connection?  It’s incredibly rare.  Usually they’re just scenery or placeholders.  I’ve been mistreated quite a bit by my peers and others, so it’s likely a learned behavior.

I wasn’t being malicious when I was keeping my family in the dark, I was just protecting myself.  Writing is still a very, very soft spot for me and the only person I’ve really come out to was my cousin.  I’ve shown her entire stories and even went so far as to show her some of my stuff that’s online and public.  She’s really been the only one to see the fruits of my labor, but as children, we were very close and hardly ever separate.  I have a connection to her and have no issue defending her or rationalizing her actions.  We didn’t always get along, but that was mutual fault, not just one or the other.  Our family situation certainly didn’t help any, what with our mothers constantly flipping from being at war to at peace to back at war.  They tried to keep us apart and would say mean things about the other to poison our minds, but it never worked.

I think I could go on to publish and my family would still be oblivious.  I think that if I ever actually got any notoriety, they’d be puzzled and confused.  They would say things like, “I never knew she wrote” or “when did she pick up that hobby?”  It’s interesting, to have people so close to you and yet so distant, too.  I tend to do that to everyone, I think.  I’ve all but given up on genuine connections, my husband had to force me to see him.

In some ways, it makes me feel sad and alone, but in other ways, I feel protected.  They won’t know my failures, my missteps, my doubts.  I guess that’s what it comes down to… I’m always trying to prepare for “if I fail”, I never really think about succeeding.