Strangely shy is how I would describe it. Literally hiding behind
my mother’s body and averting my eyes as to not make eye contact. It was beyond
not wanting to draw attention to myself, it was wanting to sink into the
background, as in, if I could camouflage my being, that might make it
better.
My friends—most of whom I’d know since pre primary school
was a different story. With them, I was my silly, quirky, but still one of the shyest
ones in the group –when out in public, self. I secretly hoped to have their
confidence, their boldness in living life—as much life as “kids” can assert in
the mid – late 80’s, at least. They were what I aspired to be.
I can remember boarding the bus one specific day in my red
romper and white Keds, “Learning for Dummies” (referencing the L.D pullout
class I was in all of my Elementary years and most of Middle School) was
shouted from the back. I swiftly took a seat behind the driver, in hopes his proximity
would derail further taunts. It typically worked. Shame is a funny thing; the
rush of heat radiating a tingling feeling up my neck as I boarded the school
bus each day in anticipation of being targeted, is exactly the same visceral sensation
I experience at almost 50 when I screw something up. I now understand how the
body has memory.
Fast forward to what seems like a million years later--so
many chapters lie in between the days of weirdly shy and now; I am often too
blurty-outy, too bold for my teens liking, too unaware in the moment to realize
my quirkiness often paints me an outlier. I don’t say this as some kind of “screw
you” that many of us post 40 women seem to come into as we age, but rather, I seem
to miss many of the cues others subscribe to be anything other than transparently
“me,” not out of boldness, but rather in the same way we breathe. We don’t
think about it, or learn it, it just is.
