43 (The Annual Birthday Rant)While thinking deeply about myself...
43 (The Annual Birthday Rant)
While thinking deeply about myself for the last year, and struggling through a memoir, a person really gets to know who they are.
I mean, YOU REALLY GET TO KNOW YOURSELF DEEP INSIDE.
With that said, I’ve realized one huge thing and that is that I didn’t really like myself all that much when I was a kid, but by confronting those issues I’ve managed to finally be at peace with myself.
I don’t think I was the only Asian American kid in this country who had moments of wishing they were white because it would have just made life easier. When I reflect on those thoughts now I realize that my views about myself were dictated on how others projected their opinions on to my young impressionable self. Popular opinion dictated who I thought I was, or who I was supposed to be, and while growing up in a small mostly white town you understood that you were different than everyone else, and everyone reminded you of that fact.
When I reflect back on the 80s it was both an innocent and cruel time.
I remember it as a time when a whole country could wait in line for hours and watch a Star Wars movie without cynicism. I remember it was playing video games to achieve the highest score while others cheered you on.
It was also a time when pop culture and movies had a brand of humor that was particularly cruel.
God help you if you were fat, or a woman, or gay. Being the only child of an immigrant family was also a target of ridicule. Asians in films spoke oddly, ate weird food, and were constantly ridiculed for being different. I had to laugh at the Long Duck Dong jokes because not doing so automatically made me “the sensitive one who couldn’t take a joke”
We were the clowns.
I was a clown because that’s what everyone told me I was supposed to be in society and I reluctantly played the role because by not doing so left me ostracized from all the other kids. I believed in the words of others because I had no experience in anything as a kid. I had no sense of self, so I was defined by the words of others.
Now, I’ve accomplished some things I can be proud of, and I’m firmly cemented in my belief that I’m not your clown. I am no longer solely defined by those things the masses tell me I am only good for, while at the same time I realize that my accomplishments are only relevant to a minute portion of the 8 billion people on this planet.
When I talk about my memoir people ask me if I would change anything in life and the answer is still NO. I’ve ended up at this point in my life though the influence of both good and bad experiences and I would never want to disrupt the evolution of how I got to this very moment of being 43, but it was only by digging thorough painful moments in the past and dissecting them and obsessing over them to finally realize that no person goes through life without some scars because everyone’s childhood can be particularly cruel. We as adults eventually take pride in how we endured through adolescence, and it is that which truly defines us.
No one I’ve ever asked ever said they wanted to go through high school again.
So I say this to you if you are a young person in doubt of your own self worth.
Do not pain yourself by the words of others. I know this is a hard thing to do, but if you can tread the waters of adolescence long enough you will eventually transcend from that tiny bubble of a world that you exist in and you will find a future that’s brighter and better because you will have gained strength from your ability to survive it.
We all get our lumps. It’s impossible to go through life without a few, but you will learn to love all those dings and scratches because they are reminders of how strong you really are and life will go on.
Ob - La - Di.
Ob - La - Da.
