Growing up, parents of other St. Raymond’s students would come up to my mother saying, “It is so great to watch Elizabeth. She is so comfortable just being herself.” Around the dinner table on those nights my mother would say how wonderful it is to hear the parents say such nice things about me and I would bask in the .3 milliseconds of pride my parents were casting. It was quickly clouded over by the realization that me “being myself” meant I had taken all the scissors and bed sheets out to the garage and had appointments to cut all the neighborhood’s kids’ hair later. Yet, I was still proud that all these parents thought this of me and vocalized it to one another.
I held on to that pride through grammar school, high school, and college thinking that I was in some way advanced in self awareness and confidence. That is, until last week, when I witnessed firsthand what it meant to be ‘so comfortable just being yourself.’
* * *
Our family has recently bought a Mac and in doing so we have discovered our movie making abilities. Yes, Spielberg, look out. No one has taken to this new hobby as much as Grace and our cousin Peter though. They spend hours boxed into the computer room attempting to Parkour off the bed and desk chair. This is fine, but on this particular day it was 90 degrees outside and there is no real necessity to showing the world what a flip looks like in reverse while in a house with no air conditioning.
“Both of you outside. Now,” I called into the room.
They both sighed unnecessarily loud and slummed down the stairs. That was easy, I smiled at my pseudo-mother parenting skills and went back to folding the laundry. Had I actually had any of those skills, I would have waited to hear the slam of the back door.
Five minutes later Grace and Peter were climbing back up the stairs, but dressed in whole new attire. I could hear them discussing, very calmly, what kind of moves they were going to try for this flick. Truly aggravated now, I peeled my legs off the wooden bench and wiped my sweat drenched hands before opening the door to explain to them what ‘going outside’ meant.
When I open the door, I was hit with Grace in her one hundred percent polyester, Halloween, Winnie the Pooh costume fit for a four-year-old paired with Elton John, larger-than-life, clear glasses and Peter in the same, but giraffe style and pink aviators. Due to the fact that they are now more than double the maximum age for these costume, and the fact that it was 110 in our brick oven house, the costumes looked like part of their skin and the wrist and ankle bands were cutting off the circulation to their fingers and toes.
“Take those frickin’ things off!” Just looking at them nearly made me pass out from heat exhaustion, “Get outside and play!”
I snapped a quick pic of the two of them and sent them on their way. This time I heard the front door confirm the two of them left, so I went to load the pictures up on the computer. Not more than two minutes later I can hear a “Hey, Hey, HEEEEEEEEEYYYYY” fly through my window. I let it pass, thinking Grace was just chanting the Unity Call to her neighborhood friends to gather for some street play. But, then it came again… and again. “Hey, Hey, HEEEEYYYYYYYY,” now followed by the beep of a passing car. Crapper.
I looked out my window to find Grace still in her XXS, Winnie-the-Pooh costume shouting at passing cars and running after them with her thumbs in the air.
Sweet Jesus. “Grace! What in God’s name are you doing?!” I look down to Peter fist pumping the sky at Grace’s successful Winnie Run.
She turns toward the window, raising her thumbs up as a reminder to me that life is good, and shouts, “I’m just trying to see how many cars I can get to look at me.”
One, Not hard. Two, Holy Crimany, a DCFS agent is probably on his way to pick you up and bring you to a responsible family! “Get inside!” She shook her head at me and walked inside smiling.
When relaying this story to some family friends that night their response shook me awake real fast, “She is just so comfortable being herself. Isn’t she?”
It took me twenty-two years to realize that being ‘comfortable to be yourself’ is another parent’s way of saying, “It’s nice your child has no reservations of being a complete weirdo. Refreshing.” I will say it took me a couple days to come to terms with the idea that all those mothers didn’t actually think it was super cool of me to wear my hair in twelve ponytails at once or that wearing mismatch knee-highs did not made me look like a super-model… more along the lines of Pippy Longstocking. Yes, she too was left to her own accord. I was right there next to Grace and Peter screaming at passing cars with their responsible, normal adults inside.
So, this Fourth of July I have come to realize that what we are granted as Americans is the freedom to be ourselves; no matter how ridiculous we may look. And that is quite a nice freedom to have.
