Full body scans and an organized closet
Last week, my son closed the chapter on elementary school and is moving on to middle school. On his last day he came home with a certificate proudly displaying he had won the title of, “Class Comedian”.
That evening I dug out my yearbook from the garage and turned to the back to show him a black and white photo of me from the 1900’s, with ratted hairsprayed bangs and “Class Clown: Stacy Sanchez” typed beneath it. Turns out he didn’t just inherit my intolerance for food noises—he also inherited my need to entertain.
Having a sense of humor has served me well and I think he will find that if he hones it as he grows, it will serve him well too. A sense of humor – sometimes even a dark one - can make insurmountable moments feel less daunting. For me, being able to find laughter in the hardest moments of adulthood has made the difference between completely falling apart and being able to make it to the next day.
I credit humor as to why I’ve been able to manage the anxiety that has been a deep part of my DNA since before puberty. As a child, hypochondria and magical thinking were very close roommates in my head. I spent a lot of my day thinking thoughts like, “ if the light turns green by the time we get to it, I will be okay today at school” or, “if I can get to the fridge and back before this commercial ends, nothing bad is going to happen to anyone I love and we will all live long lives free from Cancer.”
When I was eleven, I saw an ad in the paper for “New Cutting Edge Technology: Full Body Cancer Screenings” and quickly added it to my Christmas list. On Christmas morning, I was completely distraught when the gift certificate was absent from under the tree. It was on my list for at least five more years before I finally surrendered hope of ever getting to lie naked (I presume) inside a metal tube while it searched my body to discover I was riddled with tumors.
There were so many things that made living in my own skin uncomfortable. I hated the fact that I was good at a lot of things but great at nothing in particular. I was more creative than a real artist. I was athletic but not an athlete by any stretch. I was a redhead, with glasses and pale skin. My nails were bitten to the nubs, because when magical thinking didn’t work, shoving my fingers in between clenched teeth did the trick. Because of all of this, “funny” was my only ticket to popularity. Comedy allowed me to steal a little bit of the spotlight, even if for just a moment, from the pretty girls.
Cleaning and organizing was a close second to calming the chaos I felt inside. There are worse alternatives, and I’m thankful that instead of pushing walk sign buttons twenty seven times before crossing the street, so as to scare away the scaries, I chose the path of organizing my friend Bridgette’s closet. Cataloging her stuffed animals; first by species and then by color.
It drove my mom crazy that I could go to friends' houses for sleepovers and spend most of the night organizing their rooms when I couldn’t manage to clean my own. If I spent the night at your house in the 90’s, there’s a good chance I refolded your clothes and moved your bed to a different wall to maximize the space.
Thankfully, these days, I get just as much enjoyment organizing other people’s spaces as I do my own. Instead of willing the light to turn green so nothing “bad happens”, I am perfectly content sitting at a red light thinking about the drawer I just decluttered. Or the wooden spice rack where everything is neatly lined up in alphabetical order and the quiet relief of actually being able to find oregano.
Sometimes, the very things that helped us survive childhood become the superpowers we carry into adulthood.
With a little perspective, you start to realize that what once made you feel strange or out of place is exactly what makes you who you’re meant to be and, with any luck, allows you to find comfort in your own skin.
While childhood may be long behind me, you can sometimes still find me sitting in a bedroom, organizing my seven year old’s piles of stuffed animals, first by species… and then by color.
