What Have You Done Today to Make You Feel Proud?
So I step out of the ordinary
I can feel my soul ascending- Heather Small
I like to tell adult friends that I'm proud of them because I feel like when you grow up, you don't hear it as much. To know that someone is really proud of you and what you have accomplished makes you feel good and stand a little taller, whether you are six or 86. So I try to tell people that much as possible. I’ve been told that I have a kindergarten teach slash camp counselor energy, so I’ve learned to lean into it. It feels like giving an emotional gold star to someone who’s been told that they are too old for gold stars and personal pan pizzas from Pizza Hut for reading a bunch of books over the summer. We should definitely give adults pan pizzas for doing things that make us proud. Paid off your credit card? Pizza! Created a beautiful spreadsheet? Gold star!
I often forget to tell myself that, that I should be proud of accomplishing really big things, and I'm working on sharing more of my accomplishments because I usually suppress them until it's absolutely necessary for someone to know. I’m used to keeping my head down and working and then immediately moving on to the next goal without stopping to appreciate it. My personal Board of Directors helps me to remember to give my self a shout out (or they do it for me). It’s weird because I am a public person, people know me, but an extremely small microcosm of them really know what I’m up to and what I’m downplaying out of embarrassment. Not embarrassment over what I accomplish, but the embarrassment I feel over calling attention to myself and cheering myself on. I’d rather plan an intense pep rally for my friends then give myself a simple pat on the back. It’s odd, I know.
How did it start? I can tell you the exact moment that I started suppressing my own bright lights, the things that make me special, things that I can do better than other people. It started when I was 18 years old, and living in the US for the first time after growing up in Europe as part of a military family. I attended college at Winthrop University in South Carolina. After years of living and traveling around Europe, I arrived on campus a really dorky, artsy nerd who wore platform shoes (it was the 90’s, leave me alone), obsessed with Prince and Daft Punk, and ready to make some friends. I must have been a sight. But on the first day of orientation, right at the start of my journey as an adult, I was perceived in a way that I didn’t expect and still don’t understand. We all remember Ice Breakers, right? I LOVE Ice Breakers. This particular one, we went around the circle and shared where we were from and a fun fact. Most of the other students grew up in South Carolina, and college was their first time living outside their home county, much less hometown. I shared that I was from South Carolina, but grew up in Europe, and my fun fact was that I got to go to The Hague with my high school’s Model United Nations team. I thought that was pretty cool.
Some of the people in my circle did not share that opinion. Immediately, I was labeled a “Nazi”. Yeah, you read that right. Me, a Black person, from South Carolina, grew up in Germany so naturally… as I said, I still don’t understand it. I was teased about this for a while until the reality of being in college took up all of our time, academically and emotionally. But I never forgot it, and from that moment, I just stopped sharing things about myself. People of course knew that I didn’t grow up in the states, but I guarded everything else. I learned that it was better to blend in as much as possible, don’t be too different, because being different wasn’t as cool as I thought. The platform shoes were discarded, but that was probably for the best, style-wise. It was a result of immature kids not knowing how to adapt to new scenarios, and when you’re insecure, you deflect by focusing on the insecurities of others. I’ve forgiven those people, and some of them actually grew to be friends, but I never shook that feeling that people just don’t like those that stand out too much. Military kids are really great at adapting to new missions. We learn about the invisibility cloak of Operation Security as babies. I just had to use my invisibility cloak sooner than I expected.
I didn’t realize that I took that behavior into adulthood until a friend that I’d know for five years told me that she had no idea where I grew up, and even that I had sisters. My shrugged response was that it “never came up”. I’m more comfortable with sharing about my childhood, but I still struggle with sharing things that I’m doing that are cool and unique. It feels wrong to boast about learning how to hula hoop fire (I didn’t completely learn this) when other people my age are buying homes, having kids, and caring about retirement funds. This was another moment of unlearning. I think I’m getting better, getting more comfortable with giving myself the gold stars that I save for everyone else. I’m working past thinking that what I’ve accomplished isn’t as meaningful as what everyone else is doing.
So here goes. I’m going to brag about a completely regular week and the things I made happen during that week. Is it going to be anticlimactic? Probably.
I'm really proud of everything I've done this week. I'm in three different writing classes and had a lot of writing to get done for two of them this week, on top of Clemson's Registration Week, the usual isolation struggle, and other things. I powered through my days of basically being an academic project manager for 500 people, and at the end of the day making myself walk away from my desk and take a nap so that I could write for most of the night. I wrote some really great things that I am really proud of. l am proud that I made myself focus on the work that brings me joy with the same (or bigger) energy that I bring to the work that pays my rent. I am working on two very different pilot scripts, with a new Spec Script on that back burner. I remembered to eat (we’ll circle back to that in another blog post)! I am overjoyed to be able to create. I am proud of the ability to invest in my continuing education which is helping me tell my own story in two very different ways. I am so proud that I am DOING THE THINGS. I am proud to add another thing to my growing list of biographic titles - Comedian, Artist, Photographer, Improvisor, Organizer, Comedy Festival Producer, Theater Staff Manager, Drummer, Friend. I am proud to add the title of Writer to the list. Because that is what I do now (along with everything else I listed).
I write and I create because I don’t know how not to, and it makes me so proud of myself.
