Famous, Notorious, Adequate, Anonymous

 

            Famous, Notorious, Adequate, Anonymous 

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My friend Cheryl, a former high school classmate, was talking with our ‘girl-group’ this week. She expressed how all her life, when among certain gifted, professional, highly recognized and extremely wealthy people, she has felt inadequate.

Haven’t we all felt that way? Isn’t that a universal feeling, to feel like whoever we are, whatever the circumstances, we are not enough?

Is it just me, or have we all at times felt like frauds and if people find out, oh, my, what shall we do! It is a very real fear.

Maybe not. Maybe it is just me. Back in Jr. High I remember first reading Emily’s “I’m nobody. Who are you?” What a relief. Someone who understands how I feel!

If you are one of us, as a result of my vast age and multi-colored range of experiences, have I ever got good news for you!

But let me give you the bad news first. Any time I want to compare my insides with your outsides, I come out ‘less than’. It’s just one of those rules. No matter what I can do well, somebody else, probably you, can do better. Accept it and don’t give it another thought.

Let me give you some examples and I’ll grab them out of my own life since it’s the only life of which I know well enough to speak.

I’m an adequate cook, farm style, with variations. My friend Kathy is a gourmet cook and everything from her kitchen looks like art on the table. Better or different? Does it matter? We each serve delicious food prepared from our hearts and from our experiences and knowledge.

I know another woman, Deb, who can quiet any baby simply by lifting the child into her arms. She is gifted. But she’ll never be able to package that gift to make her rich and famous.

What I’ve come to believe, and I could be wrong, is that Life is for us to experience. Furthermore, I think we are here to express those experiences. Kathy expresses excellence in the kitchen. Deb has a gift for making everyone around her, not only babies, feel comfortable and relaxed. 

Which brings me to my next point. Life is mean, ugly mean. This is the good news. It won’t seem to be but it is. As soon as I get to feeling I’m pretty good at a task, Life throws a wrench in the works and gives me a job at which to fail, often spectacularly. I confess each wrench to hit the works makes me grind my teeth. Takes a long time for me to learn.

Balance. Life likes balance. If we are really lucky, life throws a lot of mean wrenches into our works, giving us lots of chances to fail and lots of chances to become adequate at this or that.

I’ll never be rich or famous or lauded for expertise. But I’ve been given opportunities to become adequate at a lot of things.

My first year teaching, I was dreadful. I had the chance later to repair the damage. I got to try my hand at sales work among a lot of successful men. In one I was adequate. The other? I’d rather clean toilets. In another job, I learned how much I enjoyed listening to life stories of the elderly. Now I get to be one.

I got to develop elemental life skills into a way to make a living for my family while giving items long past their use-by date new beauty.

Life dumped me into a theater group for which I was not at all prepared. Passion and hard work are great teachers. I became more than adequate.

My life passion, writing, doesn’t bring me a dime, I’ve not published a book, but writing sustains me in uncountable ways. I made a choice years ago at a writing conference. I chose to continue to write for self-satisfaction, unhampered by any need to learn the business.    

My friend Cheryl, who began this conversation, is an admirable woman, had a successful career, a lovely family, has traveled extensively, is active in her community and has strong friendships with people from all walks of life. She’s a success. Best of all, she’s a friend.

We can’t all be a famous “Somebody” but we all can be an adequate “Nobody”.

Sondra Ashton

HDN: Looking out my back door

February 17, 2022

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