On Saturday, I received a phone call from my friend Slimy's mom that almost sent me into a tailspin thinking that my dear Slimy had gone into early labor. All it took was seeing the 513 area code and a questioning "Nat?" on the other line to be prematurely convinced that either 1) something was wrong or 2) Slimy had had the baby. Of course, neither of my conclusions were on target. Instead, my "other mother" called to ask me to come up to the 'Nati for a surprise 30th birthday party for Slimy which was held last night. I happily said "yes!"
The evening at Nicola's - a great Italian restaurant unfortunately located in the not so great Over the Rhine area of Cincinnati - was superbly crafted by Slimy's mother and the surprise of myself and Slimy's best friend from med school went off without a hitch. Also in attendance were many of her friends who are also doctors.
This is when my inferiority complex took a dramatic turn South.
Kate posted today that she sometime felt she wasn't keeping up with the Gen-X pack and for the first time in a long while I think I felt the same.
While sitting at dinner I was 1 of 16 in attendance. Of the 16, I was 1 of 6 who was not a doctor. Of the six, I was probably 1 of 3 who had the least amount of higher education. To sit amoungst a group of doctors was intimidating to say the least. Not that everyone there wasn't fantastic - because they were - but I felt myself retreating into my shell because I felt as if I simply could not relate. Here I am with my BA in Communications from a school I'm sure no one had ever heard of unless for the faint recolection that the Bengals spend their training season there. Have you ever tried explaining to six brilliant doctors what someone in marketing does? Or how about being the only person there who has gotten divorced and is struggling just to make ends meet. "I have this great apartment, which I just love" doesn't really compare to the "we just bought a house" or "the triplets are just great." I think the precise moment of inferiority was when Slimy's dad stood up and recounted just how much she has accomplished in only thirty years. It wasn't boastful or intended to be anything more than a father proud of his deserving daughter, it was just...well, it was lovely.
But I sat there and thought to myself - here are two, almost lifelong friends, whose paths took two completely different directions. For so long they rode side by side together, until one day when we both left for college - her to BC and me to GC.
And you know what, she really has accomplished so much more in her first thirty years than I have. She's worked very hard her entire life to do so. She can diagnose disease and save the lives of children. She has delivered babies and watched people die. She got the highest honors from Vandy's med school. She was chief resident at a top pediatric program. She married a fabulous man who spoils her rotten. She is thoughtful and kind, dedicated and determined. She's done it all herself - and deserves the credit for who she has become.
I don't know, I guess it made me sit back and think "what have I really done?" What have I done that I can be proud of or that has made a difference in my own or anyone elses life for that matter? I don't think this really where I saw myself at the cusp of thirty. I think when I was younger I felt like I could change the world. I was sort of an activist when I was in high school and I knew I was making a difference. For some reason I always thought I would achieve so much more. That I would go out there into the world and I would do something worth while. That somehow, someway I was destined to become someone great and instead I become someone mediocre at best.
Although content, I realized on my way back home last night that I really have achieved nothing that I had hoped to. Well, maybe that's just it. Maybe I didn't (and still don't) really know what it was I had hoped to achieve. Perhaps that's the plight of us Gen-Xers - there are those of us who are born knowing our path and those of us who spend most of our lives trying to figure out a path that resembles anything like the one we should choose.
There is still something in me that says I am destined to be something great. Something that tells me the mistakes of my twenties can be followed up by remarkable achievements in my thirties and beyond...at least there is still hope.
Hope that maybe my next thirty years will make up for the first.
6 comments:
Oh little one....I too have felt as though I was destined for more. I wanted nothing more in life than to tell stories...wonderful stories of those who did not have the means or the voice to tell them themselves. What do I have now? A job that sucks the creativity out of me on a daily basis and leaves me wondering where I went wrong in life. I struggle with the thought of it daily.
But, when I look at it in a not so ugly light I realize these things: I have friends and family who love me for who I am. They don't judge me for what I didn't become. I have a husband, the money pit and two of the coolest dogs ever who fill me beyond what I thought my heart could hold. These things make me a success. Not three degrees, a house on the hill or a BMW parked in the driveway...I am blessed and so are you.
Let us not measure our success by what our peers have. Maybe it is not about what we have, but the lives we have touch along the way. You are blessed with a family that loves you, a dog that won't eat without you, and too many friends to count! Be happy and do what makes you happy!!
This made me cry. I feel the same way at times and i'm only 21.
It makes me cry too to think that my sister doesn't know how much she does for her family. and even though your not off saving the big huge world your off trying to put together the pieces of our messed up family. In your own way you have been the mediator because somehow your the one person everyone seems to feel comfortable talking to about their issues with eachother..and you with your own unique way have helped each and every one of us through really hard times!
So, no you don't have a masters and no your life isn't the way thought it would be at 30 but your family is so proud of you nat! I love you so much it makes me cry and i'm sure the rest of the family could tell you the same thing. Your my sister and closest friend it pains me to think that you think your not changing the lives of people because you are!
I though have felt this way recently. I was at a party on saturday with tim (who just passed his RN boards) and all the people we talked to just got home from some amazing far off land. And in a way i wished i had the money to go, the time to go, and the stamina to build houses in the heat of mexico or whereever. I want to save the world too but you can do it with your circle of infuence. That's what i have learned. though soemtimes it just sounds better if you could say you just got back saving aferican orphans from starvation or building a house for the poverty of mexico. It sounds just as good to God when you tell him you tried to help your hurt family move past the hurt and anger and into healing.
i don't care if you have your masters just like you don't care if i have mine. The people who truely love you will not ask "what do you do for a living?" first and the judge you by that. or "did you go to college? oh really? where!?" and think of you less because you went to a little unknown college! :-)
that's my novel and i'm stickin' to it!
I agree: nobody's keeping score about who has the best homes or cars or the rest of that crap.
When it's all said and done and they put me in a hole in the ground and throw some dirt on top of me, I just hope everybody says I was a nice person.
I really buy into that whole "Pay It Forward" mentality. Whether you're paying it forward by building Katrina homes or by being nice to your neighbor - in my book it's all good.
But I agree, it's so easy to feel insignificant when you're rubbing elbows with rarified air...
Oh boy do I know this story.
All those people have given up something - some sliver of self - to have these things.
I wonder if I should try to get a more demanding higher paying job to give E a bigger house or a private education and it always comes back to the same thing for me: if I do that, I spend less time with her.
So she'll grow up in a smaller house but I'll be at every event she's in and I'll be able to volunteer at her public school anytime I want.
And she'll know I love her not by the size of our house or the kind of car we drive but by the hugs and kisses I give her.
I firmly believe that our lives are a choice. The beauty of that is if we're not happy, we can change it. No matter what it is - we live in a place that if we make our mind up about our professions, our education, our relationships, where we live, we can DO something about it. The choices we make define who we are, and when we don't act on a choice; or wait and do nothing until one is forced upon us; or God forbid, someone else makes the choice for us - that is the only time we can say we have failed. Just my two cents....
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