Who am I?

(Originally published 1/31/2008)

A boy I had just begun seeing decided to join me back home in Memphis for New Year’s Eve. My mother, of course, wanted to meet the latest in my long line of husbands, so she cooked dinner and invited other relatives over to visit. The dinner was rather uneventful, thankfully, and at some point afterwards Kevin and I decided that we were going to sneak away to meet up with some old friends of mine for a few drinks.

As I left the room to refresh myself before heading out, I announced that I was going to get ready, to which Kevin quipped, "See you in a few hours." To my utter confusion, his response got a huge laugh out of the room full of my relatives. I turned from the bottom stair, asking no one in particular just what that was supposed to mean. "I don’t take long to get ready," I said defensively, to which they all laughed even harder. "Whatever," I huffed, leaving the room. A few hours later, we left the house.

This hadn’t sat well with me. And I brought it up later that night over cocktails with friends of mine whom I’ve known for at least fifteen years, to which they all agreed that, yes, I take forever to get ready. My frustration didn’t lie in the fact that I may or may not need more time prepping myself than an Oscar nominee on an award night. I couldn’t care less that it has taken me upwards of an hour and a half before to prepare myself for the grocery store. What bothered me was the subtle realization that came along with having others point this out to me.

Something that was openly flawed about me had never even occurred to me. And how many other terrible things about myself that I’d never dreamt to consider were out there? Besides the laundry list of things wrong with myself that typically mull over and dissect like a scientist, what else was there?

The next morning I was discussing with my mother how I believed that Kevin and I were a good match, trying to relate his low-key, no-frills demeanor to my own personality. "We’re both just very laid back and low maintenance," I said. My mother stared alarmingly into my eyes and asked me to repeat myself. When I did, she reached out for my hand and, staring with elevated concern into my eyes, told me, "No, son, you are not. There is nothing low key or low maintenance about you. Whatsoever. At all!"

And with that, I was in crisis mode. How could someone as so self-identified as myself, so certain of their own lot in life and the things that they can and cannot do, be so blatantly wrong about any aspect of their own personality? There are things that I cannot do, things of which I’ve been comfortably aware all of my adult life. I cannot tolerate Gloria Estefan. I cannot save money. I cannot say no to a cute boy. Such things are core to who I am as a person. And the things that I can do I’ve always been certain of as well, like make people laugh, or find traces of reason within confusion, or drink eight pitchers of beer and still know where I parked the car. Being self-aware had always been my thing. I knew myself inside and out. I was never the one to apologize for who I was, what I believed in, or what I wanted. I was a woman coming of age in a Lifetime movie even as a teenager.

And with that self-awareness had always been the assumption that I was as cool as a cucumber, as chill and relaxed as the guy I bought my weed from in college. Am I not the guy that just tosses on a ball cap and heads to Starbucks? Aren’t I the dude that lounges in the background, never causing a fuss? I’m the guy who’s cool leaving the house without a belt, the guy who doesn’t floss his teeth everyday, the guy who wears tee-shirts he got for free at the car wash. Aren’t I?

I was reminded of my friend Katie who, all through high school and college, described herself as an "outdoorsy" girl. Despite having never been in any tent but a beer tent at a music festival, Katie truly believed that at her core, she was Jane Goodall. This attracted all sorts of men to her, such as athletes, granola boys, and the rocker-types, all of which were turned on by her ability to "rough it," to lay back and be "one of the guys." It was bound to eventually happen. And one day one of Katie’s suitors took her up on one such camping trip, outdoors. They slept under the stars and went mountain biking. Katie even urinated in the bushes. But when the weekend came to a sweaty, non-tooth-brushed end, Katie booked five days at the spa and now won’t even agree to attend an outdoor barbeque.

So, just as Katie was forced to reevaluate who she thought she was, that day staring into a mirror at the image of her unshowered self, her hair matted to the side of her greasy face, I too needed to come to terms with who I actually was versus who I had always claimed to be. And after a dozen or so last-minute opinions from other friends, all of whom agreed with my mother that I was anything but low-key and low-maintenance, I began to adjust to my changing self-image. Big deal if I’d let slip past me aspects of my personality that were less than appealing. Weren’t there enough parts I adored about myself to more than make up for these newly discovered personal flaws. I thought so.

And since I had to be somewhere in four hours and needed to get ready, I quickly adapted to the new high-strung impossibly spoiled brat that I’d always been and went about my aware, self-examined day.