I’ve been going back and forth about what exactly I should write about today, and I think I should tell you about one of my more interesting and contradictory “rules”. It’s something that’s baffled me a little, but since I’ve started thinking about it, it’s started to make sense, and given me a little bit more insight into the OCD mind in general. I haven’t put it into words before now, but, in the Bible of Penny, it states “thou shalt not bring unnecessary attention to thyself.” What does that mean? It means that I walk quietly. It means that I don’t speak unless I deem it absolutely necessary, and when I do, it’s so soft that people often don’t notice. It means especially that I wear conservative and relatively plain clothing. I don’t decorate myself to any extremes. I stay away from anything that’ll make me stand out at all: sparkly, jangly, and busy are all big no-nos in the Penelope ensemble.
The worst thing that could have possibly happened to this little rule of mine was this: puberty. It was a nightmare when my you know what’s sprouted out of my chest like some kind of mutant cancer. What a terrible joke fate played on me, to have the invisible girl get the equivalent of a neon sign strapped to her ribcage saying “look at me!” It was so strange: nobody had paid any attention to me before. Ever. Girls liked me okay, because I didn’t get in their way, and I certainly wasn’t competition. But guys never noticed I was there. Which suited me fine.
But when I “changed”, everything else did, too. It came on slowly, like the parable of boiling a frog, that more and more eyes were on me. I kind of liked it, for about a month, that is. Then, I couldn’t stand it. What I was used to, was struggling for attention, having to make a serious, and sometimes even painful effort to get people to look at me, to listen to me. This wasn’t normal, this was not okay. I developed an unhealthy slouch, curling in on myself, trying to become as small and invisible as possible. It kind of helped. I also started wearing makeup. I used darker and darker eyeliner to draw whatever stray attention I could to my face, and not anywhere else.
I tell you this, so you can understand to the fullest: I abhor attention. Unsolicited attention, that is.
I am a performer. I absolutely love singing, acting, and dancing. I love being on stage, having everyone looking at me, doing a rehearsed routine or piece. Now why is that? I’m the kind of girl that no one is quite sure when I showed up. I’m the girl that takes invisibility to the next level, a wandering ghost, a silent shadow, that nobody notices unless I let them.
I have social anxiety (go figure, right?). I’m very quiet, I don’t go to parties unless I’m specifically invited, (and there are people I know there). I don’t easily start up conversations with strangers. When I do have a conversation (with anyone), I stumble, I stutter, I take long stretches of time to solidify a thought enough to express it, and by then the moment is long past to utter it. But when I’m on stage, everything makes sense. I’m terrified, naturally, but I know what I’m doing. And I know I’m good. I’m not Christina Aguilera, but I’m still pretty good.
(I can tell when I’m screwing up, but I know that if I don’t tell the audience, they don’t know I messed up. That’s the secret to any of you performers out there, and heck, probably in real life: if you make a minor mistake, it’s okay. Don’t let it stop you, just keep going. People don’t know you didn’t wash your hair today, or your socks don’t match, or whatever it is, unless you tell them. That’s why I get so annoyed when people tell me about their flaws: I wouldn’t know about them otherwise.)
Anyway, if you’ve never performed, on stage, in front of a bunch of people, then I’m not sure I can even describe it to you. The first time I did, it was at some party. I had started learning how to play the guitar about a month or two before, and they asked me to play a song. I was scared to death, but I knew one song, Black Horse and a Cherry Tree by KT Tunstall.
So I started playing.
And then everything went away. I had never felt anything like it before. It was like nobody was watching me. I wasn’t scared, or sad or anything. I was just me. I had never been me in front of anyone before. It was absolute pure bliss. That’s when I knew: this is what I’m supposed to do. I’d always liked music and singing, but I didn’t know what it was like to perform, I couldn’t have even guessed what it was like.
Suffice it to say, performance is my “calling”. Unfortunately, I’ve let anxiety get in the way 80% of the time, but I have made some progress, and I’ve had some really great experiences along the way.
It’s helped me a lot, to have a purpose, to have goals. I still don’t know for sure where exactly I want to end up, but having some general direction to work towards, something to focus on, has been a light in the darkness. When you’re someone like me, you like goals. You like knowing what you want, because when you know that, you can figure out how to get that, and you will do whatever it takes, for however long it takes, in order to get it. Problem is, most of my life, I didn’t know what I wanted. When people asked me “what do you want to be when you grow up?” I had no idea. Ever. I knew some things I wanted to try out, but not what I wanted to be. Now I know. And it is so good to know something in this crazy, messed up, upside-down world.
I bring this up, because yesterday, I was thinking about the movie Phoebe in Wonderland, starring Elle Fanning. Now, this is actually about a little girl with Tourette’s, but Tourette’s is a cousin of OCD, so I find it very applicable. When I watched that film, I didn’t know I had OCD yet. I still thought I was “making it up” (although I have no idea why anyone in the world would pretend to have OCD, unless they were getting paid for it. Or had some kind of Munchausen’s or something.). But when I watched this, it was amazing, seeing someone else going through this, doing “weird” things, not because they wanted to, but because they had to. If you haven’t seen it yet, you should really watch it, it’s a great movie.
 |
| Super good movie. Kind of weird, but good. |
The other thing about this movie, (and why I’m bringing it up) is that when we have something to do, something big, we forget about everything else. They talk about it in the movie, how people with Tourette’s (I think the same can apply for those with OCD) can escape from their disorder when they do certain complex things. In this case, it’s when I’m on stage. When I’m pretending to be someone else, I don’t have my problems anymore. The rules are gone, because I’m someone else, and other people don’t have my rules. The very best is when I’m singing: when I do it right, it’s like all the energy in the universe is rushing through I (in a good way). Something about is pure bliss: the oxygen filling my lungs, the vibration in my vocal chords, the words on my tongue, the character in my head, the music in my soul. It’s wonderful.
I actually have some theories about why that is. I think that most minds, if not all, have to be doing something, all the time, not just OCD ones. We all need something to do. If we don’t, then we get uncomfortable. The problem with OCD minds, is that we get stuck. Our brain picks something to occupy itself, sometimes useful, sometimes not, and then we can’t stop. I’ve noticed, when I’m busy and occupied, I do really well. If I don’t have things to do, that’s when I start ritualizing.
I want to give this advice, not just to those with OCD or Tourette’s, but to everyone else, too. Find out what you want. What you love. Find what makes you happy, and then do that thing. And keep doing it, and keep doing it. If you get the chance, you should read (or listen to) the speech by Alan Watts, titled “what if money was no object?” This has fundamentally changed the way I see the world. It doesn’t matter if you’re rich and have lots of things that everybody’s supposed to want. What matters is if you are happy. Even though I like to relax and “do nothing” for a while, it’s only satisfying for a little bit. I love is working hard, being busy doing things that I, well, love to do. Big surprise, right?
Find something you enjoy doing, and then work your butt off to be the best at it you possibly can. That’s all I can say. I don’t know if it feels the same way with people or marriage (I can only imagine it does), but when I chain myself to the thing that I love, I feel freer than I ever did without it. Weird, huh? But then again, what isn’t?
Penny
No comments:
Post a Comment