You’re Not That Special

The boys and I were watching Bluey recently, as we are wont to do when it appears on stage or screen, and per usual, the show ended with a moment I just loved. The kids were all playing together throughout the episode when one said she didn’t have to play a game a certain way because her parents told her she was special. Conflict ensued, parents were consulted, and her dad pulled her aside. To paraphrase, he said:

“Remember when mum and I told you that you’re special? Well…we lied. You’re special to us. You’re just not special to the rest of the world. All parents think their kids are the most special. But the world’s not going to think that.”

She runs off, joyful and free: “Dad says I’m not that special after all, so I can play the game!”

This is how therapy worked for me: by revealing that I wasn’t all that special. That my reactions–of anger, frustration, sadness, impatience–were actually pretty logical given the circumstances that had led to them throughout my life. That I wasn’t alone in feeling the way I felt. That I wasn’t the kind of person I thought I was–or had been pretending to be–and this was good news indeed. Freeing. I can’t tell you how many times I sat across my therapist and told him a story of how horribly I’d behaved, convinced this would be the one that would finally disgust him, and he’d listen, the expression on his face unchanging, before responding with some version of, “Yep. Makes sense.”

Did he leave me there? No, thank God. He would then explain why, given my story, my reaction made sense. And I’d know myself more because of that. But he didn’t define me by my horrible actions any more than by my (rarer) heroic ones. (There was one ultra-cringe moment when I started a story with, “I don’t know if you’ve read my blog recently” and he just sat there rather than kicking me out. Grace.) He took it all in without blinking, which allowed me to do the same. Now when someone tells me they’re “not that kind of person” I have to wonder if they know themselves at all, because we’re all that kind of person given the right alchemy of circumstance, mood, sleep, diet, and hormones. We’re all capable of awful depths and stunning glories. It’s breathtaking, really, how great and terrible each of us can be, and how freeing it is to realise that rather than be chained to some idea of who we should be. who we think we are.

Recently, after the boys each had…intestinal issues a few days apart, I told them about how I’ve shit my pants as an adult. Multiple times. Like, I’ve maybe led to the shutdown of two restaurants in NYC? (All I’m saying is the timing is suspicious.) And this morning, at my front gate while I cooled down from a run, I blasted a mega-fart before I saw a school-uniformed kid walking by (I should go check if he’s gotten up yet). I’m just saying–WE’RE ALL A MESS. And I’m much more interested in the mess than the mask.

Yesterday I went for a swim in the wintry waters nearby and ran into a friend as I finished. She was bobbing in the water as though she was relaxing in the hot springs; meanwhile I was frigid and desperate to get back to the car, where blasting heat and a travel mug of hot tea waited. She pointed out that my wetsuit may not be doing the job. Le scandale?! My Aldi-purchased, one-size-too-big bargain not good enough?! She showed me hers, that fit like a second skin. Then she bobbed around some more like this was the fucking Bahamas.

On the way to the car, I thought about how I’d been trying to make that wetsuit work for a year, how I’d convinced myself of the deal I’d gotten, only to find that it was probably the reason I injured my shoulder and was actually more cold with it than without it, as it trapped water inside the spaces where it didn’t cling to me. How much of my life I’ve spent wearing ill-fitting suits before realising, because of the grace that poured through others who told me, that I didn’t have to be that person, because the person I was? The one I am? Is already beloved, no matter what she does or doesn’t do, wears or doesn’t wear. No matter how many pants she shits.

I got into the car, but not before I–as the Aussies say–chucked that suit in the bin.

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