A GATHERING OF SIBLINGS
Reflections of Reinvention
Recently, I had the opportunity to attend a birthday party for one of my brothers. We’ve been giving special birthday celebrations for those of us that have turned 60 for almost 3 years. That means that three of us, plus one cousin, have made it to 60. Most of our siblings were able to come for this celebration. Two were not, and they were missed and talked about, lovingly, of course. As I observed my siblings, I saw “Momisms” and “Dadisms” in each of them, and I dare say they see the same “isms” in me. My observation of the entire celebration is that we all had a wonderful time, good food and very good company.
What a comfort that all of them are fine people with separate agendas; and that they certainly do not need to have my same agenda, nor my advice. It’s even conceivable that I am just fine, and can do whatever I choose, including screw up, without the help and/or advice and consent of others. And, yes, it has taken that long to realize that my siblings are just fine. This whole paragraph gives light to the term I’m OK You’re OK, which was originally coined in a book of the same name, by Thomas A Harris, MD in 1972.
Actually, I do vaguely remember reading this book about 38 years ago. In his book, Dr. Harris talks about the movie, “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolf?” I remember seeing that movie as well, and that I was disturbed at how the characters treated each other. It seemed that from this scenario, we are supposed to see that we create our own illusions; and when we are not happy with the illusions we have created for ourselves, then we tend to pick on the illusions that our loved ones (family, friends, neighbors, strangers?) have created for themselves. Shouldn’t we just create newer, better illusions for ourselves; reinvent ourselves? That would have been great, if we had only realized that it was that simple. Sadly, we did not and sometimes still don’t, so we continue to observe and critique others. And that’s only part of the analogy. Hence, the good doctor is telling us that we’re all okay, so we should quit picking on each other, and just appreciate and accept. What a relief not to have to analyze and pick apart!
All of this has made me realize just how difficult it is sometimes, just to be ourselves. It is very complicated. I certainly do not consider myself unique in this. We all care what others think of us, seeking approval for our deeds and actions.
Sometimes, don’t we alter the way we do things, reinventing a part of what or who we think we are? I told you that it’s complicated. We all fancy ourselves as being one thing, or one way or another. During my lifetime, I’ve seen men and boys try to emulate John Wayne, Steve McQueen, Elvis Presley, James Bond, James Dean, Ringo Starr, Steven Seagal, Gregory Peck , Mahatma Gandhi, and even Steve Martin; just to name a few. Women and girls I’ve known have tried to be Princess Grace, Marilyn Monroe, Sophia Loren, Janice Joplin, Nicole Kidman, Kathy Hepburn, Meg Ryan, Angelina Jolie, Doris Day, Twiggy and Julia Roberts; again, just to name a few. But, I’ve never seen anyone try to be Ward or June Clever or Ozzie or Harriet Nelson. I couldn’t wear a dress and a strand of pearls even for one day … personally.
In retrospect of growing pains up to the age of 60, I’ve done the same thing. When being who I am (Who is that anyway?) didn’t work for me, I tried to be like someone else. No. That’s not entirely true. I wanted to actually be someone else…anyone else that might have more success than I thought I was having at the time. And, didn’t we have the strangest notions of what “success” was to us then?
So, here’s where I’m going with all of that. “First, do no harm” comes to mind. It is not up to me to judge, critique, nor to try to persuade anyone to my way of thinking. It makes my life much more comfortable to accept them for just who they are, and by this, find their opinions and values much more interesting. Not only do I like them for who they are, but for their differences as well. What makes more sense is to take all of the information of differences and / or the things that I might disagree with, and process it, not to judge them, but to form my own decisions and choices.
