The Girl Who Wanted to be Someone Else

Katie McKeever was the new girl in third grade. Katie McKeever was perfect. She didn’t walk, she did back handsprings. She received standing ovation after ovation not only from her peers but from her teachers, some of whom skipped their lunch breaks just to watch her on the balance beam. 

It was at that moment I knew I had to be a gymnast. Unfortunately, a gymnast I was not. I took one fall off the balance beam and had to be rushed to the nurse’s office. 

I still remember that wonderful sound of my flesh hitting the floor. It sounded much worse than it felt, but people ran over to soothe my pain, and pain I had plenty of, it just hadn’t been sustained by that particular incident.

But I soaked it all in as I was carefully lifted onto the nurse’s cot, surrounded by all of my concerned classmates. 

And moments later my mother whooshed in. And she held my arm so lovingly as I limped out to the car. And all was so very wonderful until the doors closed and she let me have it. “Are you out of you mind?” she said. “We can’t afford this! If you’ve got running around to do, I suggest you do so on solid ground!” 

Once we pulled into the Emergency Room parking lot, I confessed in tears that I hadn’t really been injured. That I’d just wanted to be special like Katie McKeever.

"I’m sorry," I said in tears.

“You don’t have to be sorry, darling," my mother said. "If you want my opinion, anyone who resorts to gymnastics is lacking creativity. If you want to join the circus, go ask Katie to show you how. But I suggest you concentrate on ideas instead. Quality people focus on ideas. Not on balance beams.”

"Hmph."

Katie McKeever also had perfect freckles. Maybe, I thought, if I had freckles, I’d have more of what Katie had. 

So, one morning I snuck into my mother’s make-up, found a light brown eye pencil and very carefully dotted myself. 

I managed to keep out of my mother’s eyeshot just until the moment she kissed me goodbye before school.

“What the heck is all over you?” she gasped. 

I tried hiding but she grabbed my face and smeared my cheek. “Freckles? What are you thinking!?"

“Katie McKeever has freckles,” I said.

“Well I can assure you in about 20 years, she’ll be spending a hefty portion of her salary from the circus to have them removed.”

Katie McKeever also had bangs. Perfect bangs that hung so unselfconsciously from the top of her head, unlike my own long hair that just swooped down and buried me. 

Maybe bangs were the answer, I thought. 

So, during gym class, I studied the length of Katie’s bangs as discreetly as I could, found the same space on my own front hair and held it between my fingers. 

The teacher said, “We’re galloping Jessica, not doing our hair,” but I wouldn’t let go. Not through reading or math or for the rest of the day. Not until I got back in the car after school and my mother asked what in the heck I was doing now, and I said, “Bangs, mommy. I have to have bangs this exact length.” 

She removed my fingers, and brushed my hair back into a pony. “No daughter of mine will ever wear bangs," she said.

“But why?”

“Because there’s nothing wrong with your forehead. That’s why.”

At this point I started to cry and my mother pulled over the car. “Darling,” she said, looking at my face. “I know you’re still nine, but you’re going to have to listen with ageless ears, can you do that?”

I nodded.

“You, my dear, were not born to pretend to be anybody else. Do you know why?” 

“Why,” I asked through tears. 

“Because if you were someone else, nobody would get to be you… and the world would be deprived of the most special person I know.” 

Hearing her say this made me cry even harder, because I'd never even considered that I might have been special too. 

“It’s easy to look out into the world and see how beautiful and special everyone is.

I nodded.

"But when look out into the world, you also have to remember that you’re here too. And that’s harder to do, isn’t it."

I nodded again.

"The truth is, honey, that everyone is beautiful and special in their own way. Whether they have freckles or no freckles, bangs or no bangs, talented on the balance beam or talented at making people smile.

Every time anyone expresses who they really are, no matter who they are or what they look like, they shine. And that goes for you too.

Being special and beautiful isn't a contest. And comparison is the quicksand of the mind. It's not a fun place to get stuck in. But there is a way out. And that’s by being willing to recognize all the special and beautiful things you have to offer and finding the courage to share these things with others."

"Thank you."

"Don’t thank me. I’m your mother for god’s sake."

And from then on, I stopped trying to pretend to be someone else and I began to practice being me.

-JLK