Thursday 25 November 2010

Colouring outside the lines

I thought it was only my husband who was cultivating a household full of nerds - prepping them for a lifetime of geeky pursuits and school yard crucifixion.
And admittedly he has played a major role.
Case in point:
1.       The Ranga’s OBSESSION with Star Wars. He has only ever seen snippets of the movie, but can still re-enact pivotal scenes using Mega Bloks, plastic golf sticks as lightsabers, and a fake pumpkin as an explosion (flip one over and believe it or not it actually looks like one). He can name all of the characters, and can be found meandering around the house dressed as Darth Vader, draped in a quilt and wearing a bucket on his head.

2.       Miss C’s anal artistic endeavours. Pineman and I both have creative backgrounds. However, I am not the one who paints armies of miniature figurines and teaches the kids bizarre colour names.  Miss C dropped a pencil from our back deck the other day and when I asked her which colour it was so I could go and look for it, she responded with, “snake leather bite”. 
“What the hell is snake leather bite??” I demanded of Pineman who nearly collapsed with laughter (obviously some nerdy in-joke) and replied with, “I think she means ‘snake bite leather’”. Because that sounded far more reasonable!
Anyway, The Ranga banging on about how he can only be addressed as Han Solo, coupled with Miss C’s eternal meltdowns about people using the WRONG colour for faces and everyone colouring outside the lines, got me thinking.
If my children are this anal/nerdy/obsessive then perhaps there is more than one gene pool to blame. So I took a good hard look at myself and this is what I discovered…
I was not cool at school – maybe not the lowest common denominator - but certainly not far off. I played in the school band and sang in the choir. I took part in school musicals (anyone who has seen Glee will understand what that did for my reputation). I represented the school in debating for the annual interschool ‘sports’ visit (yes, in my mind it was a sport). I lived across the road from my high school and my dad was one of my teachers!
Amongst other achievements, I used to have to get up in front of the whole school to accept an ‘attendance award’ each year. Yay for me, fellow students – I have been to school Every. Single. Day. This. Year. Oh, and in case you hadn’t noticed, that’s my dad who just kicked someone out of the assembly.
Any wonder I never had a boyfriend?
And while everyone at university was wrestling in a jelly pit or sculling beer from a communal yard glass, I was in the library conducting research for my assignments. Need I say more?
But what I have found is that years of achievement in my youth has lead to years and years of underachievement in adulthood.
I have hopped from job to job to job, never knowing what to do next, never staying long enough to climb any ladders, terrified of failure, terrified of success.
I have realised that the types of people who truly succeed in life are the ones who are not afraid to push boundaries, take risks and dream big. The types of people who truly succeed in life wear thick raincoats to weather all manner of storms.
I am not that type of person.  My raincoat tears very, very easily, and I’ve never been a big fan of drowning.
I continued to ponder all of these things recently whilst attending Miss C’s school orientation session.
What do I want for my daughter as she embarks on this new and formative part of her life? We are so painfully similar in some respects that it’s excruciating to watch.
I keep telling her that it’s okay to make mistakes and there are different versions of ‘right’. But I’m not sure I truly believe half the stuff I tell her.
I want to let her know that there are so many pathways to achievement. That she has so many options. That failure is not a catastrophic event.
I want her to find something she is passionate about – anything at all – and not be afraid to pursue it.
I want her to feel like she can colour outside the lines, jump in the jelly pit and scull from the communal yard glass (or maybe not the latter – it just sounds naff!)
I want to send her to school armed with a bulletproof vest and the world’s thickest raincoat, to weather all the storms.
I’m not sure what ticks away in that little mind of hers - but when the previously anal artist presented me with a picture of a rainbow coloured mouse recently and said, “I’m going to start doing my art differently because it’s art” – I thought: perhaps the raincoat I’m sending her with is thick enough?

2 comments:

  1. Mel..you are a star!!!!!!!!!!awesome piece again and I suspect that raincoat of yours has thickened over the years too

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  2. Thanks. The thing is...in a lot of respects it is still quite fragile.

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