I don't think I would have swapped it. Swapped my china dog for the shiny trophy. I was happy with the china dog, he was cute. And I was pretty happy with second place, I knew I was good at schoolwork. But I did wonder if my parents would have been happier if I'd been first. I did wonder if it would have made a difference. If there might have been a fuss made. I didn't want a huge fuss, but a little fuss, a little celebrating; that would have been nice.
I can admit that now, but it's still hard. I think that's when it started. My elusive search for 'the thing' that would make them happy, make them proud, and make
me special. It's taken me more than twenty-five years to realise that it's never going to happen. And if I'd been top of the class when I was five years old, there still wouldn't have been a fuss then either!
There's been plenty of worry over small things and minimising of things that actually were a big deal. That has always been the pattern. Lots of
getting on with it and
"Well, you'll just have to...." The latter one was a favourite; when I was seven years old I thought it was one word - hafto. I heard it so often, I wanted to use it in my writing vocabulary at school. There weren't many choices, there were a lot of
haftos in my young life.
That's what was important. Doing the things I
had to do, even when I didn't know
why I had to do them. The main reason why I had to do them was because of the authority of the person who was doing the asking and the futility of ever questioning why.
Now that I'm grown, I rebel against that voice in my head that says I
have to do things. As a result, my house is not very clean, my daughter often goes to school with her hair unbrushed and I haven't been to the dentist in a l o n g time. I have tried to throw off the shackles of the haftos for the things that have more long-term significance. I don't know if I'm making the
best choices this way, but I'm making the best-I-can-do-right-now choices and aiming a little higher in the future hopefully.
Then there are the things in life (like second place prizes) that warrant a little fuss, or maybe even a big fuss....and I don't know how to do it. I've done my best to put together some sort of birthday acknowledgments for my children and sometimes even for myself. But I still wonder how do you do this thing called c e l e b r a t e???? Seriously people, I am actually asking!!
It is nearly the three year anniversary of this Princess moving to the new realm. Dear readers,what should she do to mark the momentous day?
