I recently found myself engaged in the following conversation; ‘which parent do I most resemble?’ Majority rule states that my older sister Liz and youngest sister Breanna most resemble my mother. Liz has her exact hands and teeth and Beanie (as she is more commonly known) looks very much like her in general – both have the same chocolate brown eyes. Katy looks the most like our dad – she has dimples, a very similar nose and perhaps the same shit eating grin that he has. Then there is me, the 2nd oldest of the four girls. Never mind the fact that I am taller than both of them, I do not particularly resemble one over the other – instead I am absolutely a composition of the two. This exercise has of course led my highly over active mind to ask another question: “what am I made of?” Genetically speaking I have the answer, I know who I came from - but that is only a small part of the equation. What is it that inherently makes me, me?
This isn’t an easily answered question and in no way do I intend to crack the code to human behavior in a single evening rant - but do feel the need for a little self examination and emotional spring cleaning. And so I turn the microscope on myself again and challenge you to do the same. To say the past year of my life has been tumultuous would be a bit of an understatement. It has been a wild roller coaster of professional and personal upsets, of course positive things have come from a handful of those tribulations but I sense that I have changed in small ways as a result of it. That sentiment is likely the thesis of this entry; that the experiences each person encounters along the way are what ultimately make them who they are.
In an attempt to make my point, I will air a little of my own dirty laundry. I can be a very envious person; it transcends a multitude of categories but is mostly rooted in appearance. I am very aware of how superficial that sounds but it doesn’t make it any less true. I don’t remember being this way as a child but would argue it took hold as I began my very long struggle with weight, diet and exercise. I have always taken a fairly surgical approach to fixing problems in my life, pause for laughter, but I tend to be the most rational of my family. And so when I found myself to be significantly heavier than my naturally thin sisters I researched how I would change and I did. Not to say I would ever take it back, but the painfully ironic outcome is that those couple years where I felt like more of an outcast than I can ever fully explain made such a crippling affect on me that I seem to carry that struggle with me into nearly every single thing I do, to this day. During that time I became incredibly envious and to some extent resentful of my sisters who seemed to have it so easy, as if to say that if you are thin everything else in life is peaches. This is neither rational, nor true but it is a reality that I had trained myself to secretly believe. I wouldn’t even pretend understand the chemistry of a 14 year olds mind, but for one reason or another those 12-18 months forever changed me, in both positive and negative ways; envy being one of the most negative, followed closely by a lack of self confidence.
Enter the college years and an insecure 18 year old with a lot of hang ups and alcohol did not mix well. I spent a good 16 months of my college career numbing myself to feel comfortable in my own skin. It was exhausting to be uptight and pretentious and self deprecating all the live long day and so when we partied, I often times became self destructive. Not to say I sat in the corner of my room with a flask but I allowed myself to drink far more than I should have and ultimately made decisions I would have never otherwise made. It was a painful downward spiral, one from an outsiders perspective that likely looked like a pathetic mess. Thankfully I had a handful of people close to me who were willing to see past the mess and realize I was hurting, they stood by me. With no shortage of tears, I slowly began to pull myself out of this cycle but the emotional scars remained and joined those scars from my formative years. Sort of like an emotional avalanche, your character is affected by the crap you go through down the mountain – picking up dangerous speed and size on its way down!
NOW. Neither of those stories are in anyway flattering and were both incredibly abbreviated in an attempt to save myself a shred of dignity, but I tell them to say that we all have our crosses to bear. That beyond the physical elements that make us who we are; Erin Kennedy: 5’10”, brown hair, brown eyes, 2nd oldest of four girls, it is the emotional experiences we encounter along the way that define us. Having weathered quite a few shit storms in my 27 years of life has certainly made me a more compassionate person; of course I make judgment calls when I shouldn’t but try to remind myself that those who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones. Each and every person you meet has a story, they have struggled, they are forever jaded in some way by an experience, they have fallen and gotten back up and that they are doing the best damn job they can. “Let he without sin cast the first stone” – not a single one of us is perfect.
As the very wise and handsome fictional character, Don Draper of Mad Men once said; “when a man walks into a room, he brings his whole life with him.” Life is complicated and it’s a beautiful mess. It is easy to be overly critical of the mistakes we continue to make and to berate ourselves for possessing undesirable qualities but remember that you can only apologize so much for who you are. Not that this is a license to be a total douche bag 24/7 but do give yourself the benefit of the doubt every once in a while, just like everyone else you are doing the best you can. I do realize that I am also built on the foundation of many wonderful attributes, I only reflect on the negative for the purposes of my argument that we all have a past that impacts who we are. Unfortunately, I will likely eff up again in the future – probably the near future and those experiences will add another layer into the quilt of my personality and when that happens I will need to re evaluate. Again. I like to think that we are all pearls in the making; an accumulation of layers around a stone, a tribulation, a heartache, a history. In the end we are all unique, rare and beautiful.
This isn’t an easily answered question and in no way do I intend to crack the code to human behavior in a single evening rant - but do feel the need for a little self examination and emotional spring cleaning. And so I turn the microscope on myself again and challenge you to do the same. To say the past year of my life has been tumultuous would be a bit of an understatement. It has been a wild roller coaster of professional and personal upsets, of course positive things have come from a handful of those tribulations but I sense that I have changed in small ways as a result of it. That sentiment is likely the thesis of this entry; that the experiences each person encounters along the way are what ultimately make them who they are.
In an attempt to make my point, I will air a little of my own dirty laundry. I can be a very envious person; it transcends a multitude of categories but is mostly rooted in appearance. I am very aware of how superficial that sounds but it doesn’t make it any less true. I don’t remember being this way as a child but would argue it took hold as I began my very long struggle with weight, diet and exercise. I have always taken a fairly surgical approach to fixing problems in my life, pause for laughter, but I tend to be the most rational of my family. And so when I found myself to be significantly heavier than my naturally thin sisters I researched how I would change and I did. Not to say I would ever take it back, but the painfully ironic outcome is that those couple years where I felt like more of an outcast than I can ever fully explain made such a crippling affect on me that I seem to carry that struggle with me into nearly every single thing I do, to this day. During that time I became incredibly envious and to some extent resentful of my sisters who seemed to have it so easy, as if to say that if you are thin everything else in life is peaches. This is neither rational, nor true but it is a reality that I had trained myself to secretly believe. I wouldn’t even pretend understand the chemistry of a 14 year olds mind, but for one reason or another those 12-18 months forever changed me, in both positive and negative ways; envy being one of the most negative, followed closely by a lack of self confidence.
Enter the college years and an insecure 18 year old with a lot of hang ups and alcohol did not mix well. I spent a good 16 months of my college career numbing myself to feel comfortable in my own skin. It was exhausting to be uptight and pretentious and self deprecating all the live long day and so when we partied, I often times became self destructive. Not to say I sat in the corner of my room with a flask but I allowed myself to drink far more than I should have and ultimately made decisions I would have never otherwise made. It was a painful downward spiral, one from an outsiders perspective that likely looked like a pathetic mess. Thankfully I had a handful of people close to me who were willing to see past the mess and realize I was hurting, they stood by me. With no shortage of tears, I slowly began to pull myself out of this cycle but the emotional scars remained and joined those scars from my formative years. Sort of like an emotional avalanche, your character is affected by the crap you go through down the mountain – picking up dangerous speed and size on its way down!
NOW. Neither of those stories are in anyway flattering and were both incredibly abbreviated in an attempt to save myself a shred of dignity, but I tell them to say that we all have our crosses to bear. That beyond the physical elements that make us who we are; Erin Kennedy: 5’10”, brown hair, brown eyes, 2nd oldest of four girls, it is the emotional experiences we encounter along the way that define us. Having weathered quite a few shit storms in my 27 years of life has certainly made me a more compassionate person; of course I make judgment calls when I shouldn’t but try to remind myself that those who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones. Each and every person you meet has a story, they have struggled, they are forever jaded in some way by an experience, they have fallen and gotten back up and that they are doing the best damn job they can. “Let he without sin cast the first stone” – not a single one of us is perfect.
As the very wise and handsome fictional character, Don Draper of Mad Men once said; “when a man walks into a room, he brings his whole life with him.” Life is complicated and it’s a beautiful mess. It is easy to be overly critical of the mistakes we continue to make and to berate ourselves for possessing undesirable qualities but remember that you can only apologize so much for who you are. Not that this is a license to be a total douche bag 24/7 but do give yourself the benefit of the doubt every once in a while, just like everyone else you are doing the best you can. I do realize that I am also built on the foundation of many wonderful attributes, I only reflect on the negative for the purposes of my argument that we all have a past that impacts who we are. Unfortunately, I will likely eff up again in the future – probably the near future and those experiences will add another layer into the quilt of my personality and when that happens I will need to re evaluate. Again. I like to think that we are all pearls in the making; an accumulation of layers around a stone, a tribulation, a heartache, a history. In the end we are all unique, rare and beautiful.