Why we are who we are in New Beginnings
- Feb. 15, 2015, 2:18 p.m.
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- Public
I’m definitely sticking with GJJ. I wish the school were at a slightly more convenient location. It’s close to my office, and the school offers classes at 6:30pm and 8:00pm depending on the night. Attending the 6:30pm classes will require extra resolve because I’ll have to leave right around the time all the routes to the school are congested with commuters on their way home.
Nonetheless, I’m going to do it. I’ve found motivation from a source I probably should have outgrown. Martial arts have been something I was interested in since I was a child. I think my draw to it stems from being a rather weak child. My brother is six years older than me. While he wasn’t horror-movie cruel, he was probably more antagonistic than the average older brother. Combine his disposition with his natural athleticism, my natural lack of it, and the size and strength disparity that accompanied our age gap, and learning a martial art seemed the only way I would eliminate those inequalities that made me his personal punching bag. Compounding the matter was my mom refusing to let me take any sort of martial art class. Forbid someone from doing something, and that person will likely become obsessed with doing it.
In my mom’s defense, my brother was one of those super athletes that excelled in sports and played them year round (football, basketball, and baseball). Keeping up with his practice and game schedule was exhausting, I’m sure adding one more activity to juggle was about as appealing as a root canal. Still, my being the last child she’d ever have locked her into overprotective smother mode. Looking back is almost surreal because it seems like my siblings and I had different moms. My siblings had a mother who let them run wild, and I had a mother who was overbearing and micromanaging.
I remember many times when I was a kid, I would be in my room playing or watching T.V., and my mom would come in, see me, then leave. I would ask if she wanted something and she would say as she walked down the hall, “I just wanted to know where you were.” I never really thought anything of that until years later when I came home during one of my college breaks. My mom had recently added a room on the house. It was adjacent to the living room, so it wasn’t an obscure out of the way area. I went into it, lay down on one of the couches, and feel asleep. I was abruptly woken up with my mom frantically exclaiming, “I didn’t know where you were!!” I remember asking her what she upset about, and she answered, “You weren’t upstairs, and you weren’t outside, and [blah blah blah blah] .” I don’t really remember what else she said. I couldn’t hear her over my shaking my head and rolling my eyes.
All of this was years ago. My mom is now deceased and my brother is no longer capable of picking on me. Well, he’s capable of it, but he would get flattened. The super athlete is now an overweight guitarist who drinks too much, and the portly little dork is now a 200lb black belt. It’s funny how the roles reverse. It’s also funny how I’m compelled to distance myself from who I was. I want to do something my mom would unreasonably oppose to prove that I’m not under her thumb. I want to be a person who’s brother can’t pin him on his back and dangle loogies over his face until he says, “David is the most awesome person in the world.” Neither of those things are even remotely possible, yet I’m driven to fight against them.
In addition to everything I just mentioned, I feel a strange compulsion to validate myself to others. Most of my friends and associates are married. Many of them have kids. Many of them are more advanced in their careers despite being the same age as myself or even younger in some cases. I’m not one of those people who resents Facebook. You know the phenomenon I’m referring to. I don’t have sour grapes when someone posts something positive happening. I don’t experience freudenshade when someone shares something negative or fault him or her for trying to depress others. I don’t even mind when people share the inane parts of their days, like how far they ran or what they ate for lunch. However, I can’t help but compare my life to others, and it honestly seems like if I dropped off the planet, and the biggest complication that would ensue would be my office needing a replacement accountant, which could be acquired within a week from a staffing agency.
It just seems like so many other people are leveling up. I want to be good at something, something that takes a long time to become proficient at, something that couldn’t be replaced with minimal effort. I wonder if that desire is something that ever gets fulfilled or if people just figure out that it can never be fulfilled, so they stop concerning themselves over it.
Star Maiden ⋅ February 15, 2015