Some days it feels like I am a sort of incompetent circus
performer. One missed exchange with a
sweaty sequin-clad Eastern-Eurpoean from falling into a net, which with my sort
of luck, was not attached properly, smashing epically into the ground, not hard
enough to be fatal, or even newsworthy, but more embarrassing. Like the time I got slow clapped out of the
riding show arena, derby full of dirt and shavings, horse caught by the ring steward,
pride eternally broken.
But, most days that sweaty European with too much body hair
for any sort of one-piece spandex outfit, catches me.
Sometimes the catch is a little more heart pounding than
others, and some days I could basically do the entire act by myself. And sometimes, I get audience feedback about
this ‘life’ I’ve put out for public consumption.
I have been told a few times in the last week something I
found both interesting and totally bizarre.
Interesting because it’s all about me, but also bizarre because of what
these observers told me.
WHY do I think I’m average??
Who told me I was washed-up, a has-been, barely surviving this good life
that I have made for myself.
Um, well, you see to answer that question is a little
awkward for me.
Because well, I think it was the first, second and fourth
voices in my head the informed me I am quite boring. The third is usually pretty optimistic about
what I am trying to do.
Then I pondered this more, in part through a hot yoga class
that was so sizzling I actually thought I had was in the life reflection stage
of dying, when I realized that perhaps, just maybe, normal people don’t have
these many narrative voices running through their heads convincing them of
their inadequacies and questioning their every move.
But then I remembered the time Ekhart Tolle once asked me a
life altering question (in his book. Not
personally. But that would be cool). Who
hears the voice talking in your head? If
there is a speaker, and a listener, that means RIGHT THERE that’s two sub-conscious
narrative threads swirling around EVERYONE’S heads.
Now, mine is more of a quorum. Let’s imagine it as more like parliament, and
less of a philosophical meeting of minds.
Mine are usually observing, commenting, and critiquing everything
I say, do, and think, often out of turn.
Sometimes I even begin to think about things I think other people are
thinking. That’s entirely too much
thinking and narrative for one ombre-headed girl.
Do you guys remember when that weird little green alien in
Flinstones had the good alien and the bad alien on his shoulders trying to tell
him what to do? (Forgive me if that’s the wrong cartoon, or the wrong character
but I’m too lazy and time-crunched to google it.) The battle of good and evil, one teeny tiny devil
on one shoulder, and one teeny tiny angel on your other shoulder, disputing the
choices at hand.
Oh I took Freud and I know more scientifically about his
ideas of ego and id… and I believe a lot of it.
There is the part of your mind that is all about you, being selfish and
driven only be self-satisfaction, and the other side that has societal pressure
and learned behaviours we have deemed ‘good’ that tries, and hopefully
succeeds, in getting us to do the right thing.
Science aside, I still like the idea about little characters
duking it out above our heads.
It’s just that all my voices, or instincts, are as confused
and self-critiquing as the dead space between them.
Instead I feel like I have Woody Allen, awkward and
questioning on one shoulder, and Chelsea Handler drinking and belligerent, on
the other. Throw in a little self-doubting
Tina Fey, a Disney princess or two who longs for romance, unicorns and happy
endings, self-deprecating Conan O’Brien, Jessica Simpson’s astounding ability
to say the world’s most asinine things, but somehow be intelligent enough to
run a kabillion-dollar company, and I feel like you get the sense of the circus
that is, Brittany’s mind.
Every day I run around with these voices and constant
self-analyzing behaviour, and yet I’ve come to the conclusion that I am, in
every part, absolutely normal. (Are you
amused that in once sentence I say ‘voices in my head’ and ‘absolutely normal’…
I am. Anyways before you decide to put
me on some psychiatric hold, know that while I occasionally talk to these
voices, I believe my mind and current mental state is mostly healthy.)
What this long and drawn-out, possibly TMI post is saying is
that we all, in one way or another, deem what we do and how we behave to be
totally unremarkable. (Well, except THOSE people. You know the ones that really are
unremarkable, yet see themselves as ‘special’.)
And that despite constant self-analyzing and periods of paralyzing
self-doubt that bring us back down to the consensus that we are average, we
are, each one of us, beautifully diverse and different. And that attaining this ‘average’ I have put
out in the universe, I feel a rather profoundly positive connotation about
average.
What I’m saying is that sometimes it is too hard to see
ourselves through the lense of a non-partisan viewer. Not a friend, or a family member, but someone
who was just to meet you right now.
What would they say?
And what about your friends.
In my circus of a life, my good friends are the net-attacher-maker-surer. They are there when I need them, to have a
few drinks with, to talk politics and religion (oh yes, I go there. At my house prepare to talk all of the taboo
topics. Whilst eating and drinking copiously. It gets loud and dare I say, fantastically
entertaining) Anyways, what would they
say about you when describing you to someone else?
What about the person you see the most.. who you expel the
deepest parts of yourself to? Mine is my
husband, who despite seeing me bat-shit crazy on occasion, (ahem, three times post-partum
sleep-deprived) in my circus is that guy that swings in to ensure I don’t hit
the net. Time and time again, just when
I wonder if he’ll really catch me, VOILA there he swings, though not actually
in sequins OR spandex.
What I realized during my near death experience right before
final savasanna, is that a life lived right, surrounded by neat, interesting
and diverse people, will warrant you friends and a safety netting that sees you
as so much more than a boring, totally un-exciting person in this world.
Because if they did, first of all they would be REAL ‘richards’
in my books, but secondly they wouldn’t stick around to see what self-inflicted
chaos you have cooked up next.
Or maybe that’s just my friends. Other average guys and girls. Who battle voices, and struggle with demons
and obstacles in their lives, but every day, do their part in their own circus
to make the catch. Who in their lives
lived honestly, have shone a light on the spectacular average people out there.
Well, the lion is rattling his cage, the trick elephants are
hungry, and there are at least four narratives in my head saying I maybe
shouldn’t post this in case most people don’t get it. BUT, I’m gonna go with this one and just hit ‘publish’.
After all, if I wasn’t honest, I wouldn’t be average. ;)
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| Most of the circus animals and their sometimes incompetent ring leader. |
