Girl power

Yesterday I was at the doctor's office with my youngest. He has been sick-ish for a week now and it turns out he has the flu.

He didn't want to talk because it hurts, so he was looking at his phone. I picked up this book from the end table next to the row of chairs where we were sitting.

It was really cool to look at pictures and quotes from girls who were doing all sorts of awesome and

physical things... From sports to making mud pies, to overcoming adversity (showing their scars or posing with a prosthesis or in a wheelchair).

I used to be like those girls until I reached about age 10.

I had wild hair and when my mom cut it off people in our new neighborhood thought I was a boy until I showed up at the bus stop with a dress on for picture day.

I remember when kids saying to me, "I thought you was a boy!" (I was 8 years old and more horrified by his grammar than the fact that he would think I was a boy.)

The 5th-grade spelling bee is my first memory of acquiescing to a boy. He misspelled the word "assassin." I should have easily spelled that word, and I remember fumbling with it, being embarrassed to say "a-s-s, a-s-s"... I don't think I was ready to step into the spotlight, or feared success, perhaps. Or didn't want the boy to be mad at me?

My next word was "battalion," and I had no idea what that was and couldn't spell it, but the boy could, so he won the spelling bee and I got second place. It is the first of many times I remember putting myself in the shadow of a boy.

(Funny, I have been wanting to write more memoir-type stories for a long time, but debated whether I really wanted to dance with skeletons from my past. I have bought domains and let them expire and started blogs and then deleted them. One of my deleted blogs was called "Out of the Shadows.")

I won a $25 savings bond at that spelling bee, which I have never cashed in. I wanted to cash it in immediately when I was 10 years old because I knew it would be worth about $17.50, and for a 10-year-old in the '70s, that was a heck of a lot of money-- a lot more than $25 would be to a 20-year-old.

The font of financial wisdom my mother was (not -- she was horrible with money), she said no.

Living in the shadow of other people can be a dark place to be. For me, it means people pleasing, being afraid to say no, going along with things that I don't really want to do ... just so someone -- often a man -- won't be mad at me, or I wouldn't stand out. This also happened in Camp Fire girls when I suggested the name "Wizards" for our group, and none of the other girls wanted anything other than "butterfly or flower-type" names. I didn't even vote for the name I suggested and went along with one of the other names.

Where did I learn to do that? I am guessing it had to do with seeking approval from parents who I felt wouldn't accept and love me just for being me; that I needed to do something specific in order to be worthy.

(Often, I have felt like a human doing, rather than a human being.)

What would Mr. Rogers say?

"It's you I like."

I remember a 9-year-old me with leaves and twigs stuck in her growing out hair from playing in the "fort" under the giant willow tree in front of the post office in Newport, RI, arms and legs strong and tan from spending so much time outside.

I want to be her again.

Girl power! ⚡