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As a young child, perhaps age 6 or 7 or so, I became hyper cognizant of my many imperfections. Perhaps I just didn’t like who I was very much, or maybe I was already beginning to see how I thought other people saw me. Whatever was going on in my little mind, I developed a simple (and secret) system for improving myself.
To my young self, it seemed that out of all the kids I knew in school, there were two girls who embodied Perfection. They were super smart, their movements seemed measured and careful, and all in all they didn’t appear to have unwarranted bouts of immaturity or over-emotionalism. Ah – I had discovered the solution to my personality dis-order. All I needed to do to fix myself was to stop whatever it was I was doing – stop cold in my tracks – and mouth the words “Karen Weber” or “Judy Hill” and I would get an instant reboot. Just the sheer force of their names would conjure some mythical purity and give me a do-over. I could start fresh and strive harder to be just like them – until the next time I messed up.
This went on for months if not years. What a notion. Little Mary going about her day and then suddenly she stops, her gaze leveled on a horizon of hope, and mouths the name of a girl she thinks is better than her. In reflection, I was quite young to already think something was innately wrong with me and to believe that if I only stopped being myself, if I could manifest qualities I saw as external to me, I would be “better.” There were no traumas in my youth, nothing weird about my childhood that would suggest any disassociation or need to substitute my "self" for another. This was just run of the mill childhood perception filtered through the lens of a society that manufactures judgement and comparison as a hobby; a deeply ingrained human response. I had arrived at a verdict: I was not enough. And, even at such a young age, I had given the world around me permission to agree.
We will never know why my particular brand of low self-esteem required such a maneuver. So much of what we believe about ourselves and the world seems to come to us through some sort of osmosis. Indeed, we buy into the collective agreements about so many things. And yet, how often do we question our beliefs or examine our thoughts?
How did all that stuff get into the mind of a little girl to the point where she thought she needed to be someone else?
Let’s fast forward to my mind of a few months ago. When I arrived in Ocala, Florida this past January, I was surprised, if not a bit alarmed to discover how cold the nights could be. The temperatures dipped down below freezing more than once, and that was enough for me to decide I needed a small outdoor thermometer for my car. My friend Mama Donna, in the way only a true friend can say it said – “why? So you can let it tell if you’re cold or not?”
Yep. Pretty much.
Well, I did get the thermometer but I also began to really pay attention to my relationship with cold. If you had asked me six months ago, I would never have said yes to being able to sleep in a car in below freezing temperatures. “I like to be hot,” I’d say. “It’s not warm until it’s in the 80s.” Just to make my point, I’d most likely add, “ I’ll take the heat and the humidity.” In fact, I’ve organized my new life primarily so that I can be warmer.
But, as I watched the thermometer tell me it was mid-30s sleeping weather yet again, I could feel my mental habits begin to change. Perhaps it happened because I naturally adapted or because I was just there and wasn’t going to leave Ocala (Florida for goodness sake!). Perhaps it was because I became mindful of my relationship to temperature. But as the nighttime temps continued their steady and stubborn 30something-ish-ness, something in me acclimated to the point of not really minding it. I began to find it comforting to bunker down under seven layers of blankets, buried in layers of clothing, and learning ways to make my space smaller to retain heat. And then there was the slow morning crawl toward coffee as each part of me greeted the cold in its own restrained way.
Now, I am back in New York State decamped in a renovated, albeit unheated, horse barn for the interim. I am not startled this time, however, to find that the nights hover frequently in the 30s and 40s late into spring. I am, though, amused at my own changing mind as I find the temperatures don’t really bug me that much. It may take a minute (OK 5 or 10) longer to take the plunge out of the blankets in the morning, but the fact is, I would never even know it was 45 degrees if I didn’t check.
Habitual patterns of thought, no matter where they come from, surely do shape our response to the world. Hang on while I zip back in time and tell that little girl she is perfectly pure all on her own.
Don't think I'll need to take a coat.
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p.s. for m ..since you bought the t-shirt and everything ; )