My world became very big while I was still very small. I think that is why it never really bothered, or mattered much, what others thought about me. I can remember being on the school bus and having the other girls skating that thin line between cruel and honest. I was most likely very easy to pick on, as I stared a lot out of the scratched up safety glass of the bus windows. I was a target that sat still, them never knowing that I wasn't listening to their taunts or threats. It didn't matter. There were much bigger things in the world that those young bullies knew not of yet. There were crumbling down wall, big black hole problems that lurked around even our childish corners, waiting with the acute ability to wreak complete chaos.
There are not many things I remember about my childhood, other than a handful of specific moments in time that changed my life. I have tried to remember special events, grab hold of some memory of holidays or vacations, but they just don't seem to come. And the parts I do remember, they pass through my mind almost like the trees through the scratched school bus glass. Just as benign now as the young girls comments, untouchably floating past me without a cut. Of course, scar tissue is harder to reopen once it's been closed.
So, who am I? I am and have been many things to many different people.
Daughter
Sister
Friend
Lover
Enemy
Confidant
Advisor
Truth teller
Liar
But I believe the thing that fits me best is -- Meredith.
Are there others out there that would add to my list? Most likely. I've been called many things. I've been perceived as many things. I have been unjustly defined and improperly viewed depending on the day of the week. But, I just don't care. Call me what you want. Believe what you want. I really don't mind.
I never claimed to be anybody -- special, disposable, worthy. I am just me and I accept that. I am my faults and my talents combined. I am mistakes and do-overs. I am the sum of my parts. I am a product of my past. I am present. Could I change the world? A nobody? Possibly.
Those who love me, know me. Those who hate me, know me too. And I'm ok with that. I am just me, good and bad -- Meredith.
So. Who are you?
1 comment:
Well, a friend of mine named Meredith wrote this post and she told me it was the perfect nobody and nothing post.
I wrote her back a letter and told her it was NOT the perfect
nobody and nothing post because she hadn't said anything about
being special, or unique, or important, or prison, or gettin' drunk.
Well, she sat down and wrote an ammendment to the post and sent
it to me and after reading it, I realized that my friend had written
the perfect nothing and nobody post. And I felt obliged to include it on this comment.
It goes something like this here:
We are all nobody. I am Meredith. I may change your life and you may never know me. You may change a life of someone who will never know you. If asked those people wouldn't be able to name you or even realize that something you said or did, changed them somehow: leaving you a nobody. But that doesn't mean you don't matter. It means be yourself, your best, even without recognition.
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