It’s been more than a year that I arrived in the US. Today, I received news that an childhood friend of mine was coming to visit tomorrow. “What’s so big about that?” I hear people wondering. Well, you’re right, it isn’t a big deal…in itself, at least. But what made a big deal is what feelings it elicits.
Meeting an old friend, for the longest time, was a wonderful concept to me – to catch up on old times, to reminisce over the crazy, fun and entertaining life we had together as kids. However, that seems to be a rare phenomenon. I have always been in search of that one relationship – the one which continued to have value even over the years. It appears, on a daily basis, that such a persevering relationship does not exist. People do forget others. And there is nothing that changes that.
Indeed, not even blood can keep two people close. Sure, if you’re immediate siblings, then there is no question. But as soon as one speaks of first cousins, or aunts, or uncles. things change drastically. A cousin you have grown up with may have already forgotten all about you, and you feel it painfully when you stay with them for a week. In some cases, not even that long – my erstwhile best friend from back home (whom I believed closer to me than my very own sister) was so different when I saw her, just for lunch, that I realized then and there she had become the kind of shallow people that we once used to make fun of.
Why the change? To fit in. Children yearn to be what they are not, and then become exactly that as adults. We mocked the superficial, uncaring world of the ‘popular’ kids, but that did not mean that we did not want to be one of them. We laughed at those people who had drunken sprees with one another on the weekends, but that did not mean we did not wish to be asked to those selfsame events.
Being part of the ‘in’ group DOES mean the world to a person, even if they appear unaffected by the very existence of the group, or show a blatant dislike for it. And this is what changes many of them as adults. We become that which we weren’t in childhood with the belief that this is what will make us happy in the future. and along with that comes a very sad situation – we unwittingly let go of those relationships that could have meant something even more valuable than that which we are now receiving.
Take for example the cousin I had mentioned. Right now, the cousin is very popular, with many friends that he goes drinking with almost every weekend. But at the same time, he competes relentlessly with my sister, who is the least interested in such trivialities, and disregards my existence as well. And yet, as a young man, he was the most warm and considerate relative I had ever had.
Sure, on our own, he may revert to the ‘old’ person, although I must admit that’s only with me. And yet I have seen the other side of him, which has altered our relationship irrevocably. No longer can I trust him to be the person that I once admired and looked up to – the person I loved with all my heart. That person has been hidden so deep within him, that I can’t find him. And even now, I wonder whether the change was worth it.
My sister, I guess, has changed, too. But her very essence remains the same. She is as independent, as confident, and – yes – as headstrong as she ever was. At times, this distresses her. But she never let go of who she was, and – to me and to all her friends that she kept since we were kids – that was her most irresistible trait.
I have to say that I changed, too. I tried to become one of “those” kids – the popular, the favored – and yet my own, inborn naivete and unawareness of the pitfalls that befell those who were popular led to me reverting back to the person I once was. But there was an unexpected boon from all that I suffered after my change…I became unintentionally popular. Question is, did I already have to the skills to do so, or did I gain them through the trials in my life?
But that is another matter altogether. I will not say change is a bad thing. Quite the contrary, it makes life worth living. But how much is the question.
In school, it hurts to be grouped as geeks, nerds, losers, rejects, jocks or bimbos. So we strive to remove ourselves from the group, and in the process we lose our own essence.
At times I wonder, maybe those nicknames in schools – geeks, nerds, losers, rejects, jocks, bimbos – could actually be used for the benefit of the students. The geeks and the nerds are the brains in the school. The losers and the rejects are the last word in individuality and genuineness. The jocks and the bimbos are the social leaders. And each of them are a bit of the other – don’t the nerds and geeks, the losers and the rejects, band together in their own way? Don’t the jocks and the bimbos show their intelligence and skills in some way or another?
Should children feel that the way they are is “not good enough”, or should we engender in them a love for who they are? We weren’t just members of those groups because of the stereotypical definitions of them. We were ourselves within them, and we lost ourselves as we grew up fighting against our own nature to become something we never were in the beginning. We buried within ourselves those very qualities that would have, perhaps, made us as loved as we wanted to be in the first place.
As a counselor, I often found myself telling kids, “You may think you don’t want to be a certain way right now. But believe me, once you’re out of here, there will be no other way you want to be”. Of course, no one believes it at the time. But it is the truth – who you are right now is who you want to be. If you weren’t meant to be that way, you are better off not being that way.
I just hope someday we can get this message to all kids…maybe then we won’t have another or Eric Harris, Dylan Klebold, or Jaylen Fryberg.
Think Again 