Being. Belonging

You know how they make teenage out to be this whole experience of discovering yourself, and establishing an identity, finding who you’re supposed to be? Taylor Swift is saying it. Chicken Soup is saying it.  And you roll your eyes because at one level it’s shit. Cheesy shit. But at another level, it’s not so far off the mark.

You want to start having your own opinions, not just agreeing with the nearest adult. You want to develop your own way of dressing, your own tastes in music, figure out what quirky hobby gives you kicks, get a funky haircut that actually fits, find the fiction genre that you love to bits (that was not intended to rhyme). Suddenly you have a distinct way of talking, you dish out insults that scream originality (if you’re popular enough you’ll even have people picking up your mannerisms), and you’ll figure nobody says the f-word in the exact same way that you do. You are you. The guy that falls for you likes you, your friends all hang out with you and laugh at the particular kind of joke that you make, your ridiculous nickname could never belong to anybody else, and though you pretend to hate it, you actually really love it, it’s a part of that identity you’ve worked so hard to set up.

Your you-ness is the most important, most fragile thing in the world. You bubble wrap it, duct tape it, roll it up in gauze and cotton and seal it away in a cardboard box lined with velvet and wet wipes. You can’t deal with it being disturbed. You’d hate to go through the disorienting process of having it shaken, of having a part of you questioned, of modifying a fragment of you. Every element of your persona needs to stand firm, hold fort. Or else you’re a screw up. You label the box: DON’T MESS WITH ME.

And then, as you’re stepping back and admiring your handiwork, contemplating a career in firewalling and security, you see the millions of other kids in skinny jeans lined up near you, stepping back from identical boxes and you get this warm fuzzy jacuzzi feeling. I believe it’s called security.

And there’s the big contradiction. What happened to all that spiel about you-ness? Originality? Unique identity? How can you find such solace in belonging to a group? In being surrounded by friends with the same tastes and opinions? In fact, you’re scared to stand out too much. If you’re too different, you’re weird. So you play it safe. You’re only quirky within established boundaries. Conformity is all important.

So there’s a standard blueprint for everybody. Superficially, everybody’s the same. You belong. And yet, security is elusive. If you’re all the same, why did she get that and not you? Why are you not good enough? Where do you fall short? The fault’s with that identity you’ve nurtured and protected so carefully. Damn.

There’s not much anybody can do to help untangle that mess of thoughts and ideas. You live with the paradox. Not that it isn’t fun to wallow in it sometimes, but it may also be a good idea to keep this Dr Seuss quote tucked away somewhere. “Today you are You, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is Youer than You.”