I’d just attended her May graduation, where she received her M.Ed. Before the crumbs from her celebratory cake were dry she was telling me that she’d applied for an MBA program at the school where I worked. She's quick-witted, but when I raised an eyebrow instead of a snappy retort she shrugged and sighed, “I guess I’m just a nerd, huh?” “No, Sylvia," I replied, “I’m rather proud of you. You’ve always been your own person,"
***
I love being retired, don’t miss the workplace -no, not nary a bit. But I do realize now that the university environment where I worked for 21 years was definitely a misfit’s heaven. Just like the theTV special Rudolph the Rednosed Reindeer and the Island of Misfit Toys, I'd need only glance around the campus back then to know I was comfortably ensconced with other misfits, nerds, different drummers...
According to Merriam Webster a misfit is a person whose behavior or attitude sets them apart from others, often in an way that may be deemed uncomfortable. Now, this is where I would take umbrage, as in my case I am quite comfortable being set apart. I picture an image of the square peg being pushed into the round hole, and by now I’m frankly weary from being pressed or shoved into the wrong spot. Like Sylvia, I’m quite content doing my own thing, never mind the naysayers. I'm happy having virtually no FaceBook or Instagram envy. I am not plagued by thoughts of “missing out,” No, “Great, good for you!” is my mantra, I’d rather not, but I thank you for asking.
***
I love being retired, don’t miss the workplace -no, not nary a bit. But I do realize now that the university environment where I worked for 21 years was definitely a misfit’s heaven. Just like the theTV special Rudolph the Rednosed Reindeer and the Island of Misfit Toys, I'd need only glance around the campus back then to know I was comfortably ensconced with other misfits, nerds, different drummers...
According to Merriam Webster a misfit is a person whose behavior or attitude sets them apart from others, often in an way that may be deemed uncomfortable. Now, this is where I would take umbrage, as in my case I am quite comfortable being set apart. I picture an image of the square peg being pushed into the round hole, and by now I’m frankly weary from being pressed or shoved into the wrong spot. Like Sylvia, I’m quite content doing my own thing, never mind the naysayers. I'm happy having virtually no FaceBook or Instagram envy. I am not plagued by thoughts of “missing out,” No, “Great, good for you!” is my mantra, I’d rather not, but I thank you for asking.
***
From the first time I was peeled, weeping and wailing, from my mother’s leg and forced to attend kindergarten, I recognized that groups of more than 6 were not for me. It turned out the classroom was just fine, as the teacher did the talking and teachers were pretty informative. My discord became more apparent to me in the playground, where I found myself with 74 other 1st graders. I formed one friendship that year, Gregory, who invited me to his house after school. Gregory was a bespectacled, blond-haired, blue-eyed only-child, whose mother pronounced to my mom when she dropped me off at his row house, that “Gregory is a genius, you know.” My mom chuckled over this for weeks, “Say, how’s Gregory, the genius, doing?" she'd ask me, then mutter, shaking her head, "Honestly, these parents who think their kids are really geniuses!” Gregory and I were both “double-promoted” to the 2nd grade a couple of months later.
I switched from public school to a Catholic school the following year, where my only third grade friend was Roxanne. She also invited me to her house, where she lived with her parents and just one quiet younger sister. Later it was a Kathy S., another only child, who invited me over to watch “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.” with her. (Kathy S., who at the ripe old age of 10 told me what a great disappointment her birth had been for her father, as she was the only child her mother could bear and being a girl she would not be able to carry on her father's name - a distinctive Germanic name. And being Catholic, thus not able to divorce and all, why the poor guy was stuck. What kind of parents put this on a little kid?
Anyway, it turns out I had a knack for befriending kids who were either single children or had only one other sibling, not an easy task in the late ‘50s, early 60s in a Roman Catholic school system where most families, like mine, had several children. I grew to relish the quiet and peace of these homes that seemed to offset the chaos and noise of my own household.
I lived nearly one mile from my new grammar school. This school had a 55 minute lunch break. Children were allowed to eat in the lunchroom, leave the school grounds and lunch at home, or as some of the older kids did, walk to a local diner and have a burger and fries. I opted to walk home, eat a quick 15 minute lunch with mom and my younger siblings, not yet in school, and then walk back. It took just under 15 minutes each way so after eating, I had only ten minutes to spare. For me, that was sufficient time to socialize before class resumed, as the break had provided sufficient time for me to ruminate on my morning, process my thoughts, watch the world whiz by...
***
One of my favorite recent films (from 2003) is The Station Agent, a perfect little movie about how misfits find and comfort one another (you know, provide a buffer from the nuttiness of life.) It features Finn, a train-enthusiast dwarf, who inherits and moves into an abandoned, isolated railway station, only to discover that the solitude he relishes, and was certain he'd find in a rural area, is more elusive than he’d anticipated. He first acquiesces into a neighborly-only relationship, which grows into a friendship, with Joe, a talkative young man filling in as a hot-dog vendor for his ailing “Poppa” and, Olivia, who is reclusively dealing with a recent loss. (There are 2 other notable "misfits" Emily and Cleo, woven into the script.) If you haven’t seen it, I heartily recommend it. The film won a few awards, but wasn’t much of a commercial success. But I just bet Gregory, Roxanne and Kathy S., would have liked it.
I have Reliable Husband here in Privatopia and wouldn’t trade him for all the tea in China, India, Sri Lanka and Kenya combined. Although our reading and movie interests are disparate, he always listens patiently to my enthusiastic recounts of my latest passion. But still, I have this notion that there is a Finn, Joe, Olivia, Gregory, Roxanne or Kathy S., somewhere out here in Privatopia, but that I have not yet met her, him or them. People who don’t feel a need to be in groups of 12 or more to be happy, -and I just need one of them, okay- maybe two, just a person who shares my reading interests, a person who enjoys foreign films, a person who embraces diversity in humans, a person who shares the notion that the new series on Netflix, “The Story of Maths” featuring Professor du Sautoy is just about the most interesting thing on television today…
I switched from public school to a Catholic school the following year, where my only third grade friend was Roxanne. She also invited me to her house, where she lived with her parents and just one quiet younger sister. Later it was a Kathy S., another only child, who invited me over to watch “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.” with her. (Kathy S., who at the ripe old age of 10 told me what a great disappointment her birth had been for her father, as she was the only child her mother could bear and being a girl she would not be able to carry on her father's name - a distinctive Germanic name. And being Catholic, thus not able to divorce and all, why the poor guy was stuck. What kind of parents put this on a little kid?
Anyway, it turns out I had a knack for befriending kids who were either single children or had only one other sibling, not an easy task in the late ‘50s, early 60s in a Roman Catholic school system where most families, like mine, had several children. I grew to relish the quiet and peace of these homes that seemed to offset the chaos and noise of my own household.
I lived nearly one mile from my new grammar school. This school had a 55 minute lunch break. Children were allowed to eat in the lunchroom, leave the school grounds and lunch at home, or as some of the older kids did, walk to a local diner and have a burger and fries. I opted to walk home, eat a quick 15 minute lunch with mom and my younger siblings, not yet in school, and then walk back. It took just under 15 minutes each way so after eating, I had only ten minutes to spare. For me, that was sufficient time to socialize before class resumed, as the break had provided sufficient time for me to ruminate on my morning, process my thoughts, watch the world whiz by...
***
One of my favorite recent films (from 2003) is The Station Agent, a perfect little movie about how misfits find and comfort one another (you know, provide a buffer from the nuttiness of life.) It features Finn, a train-enthusiast dwarf, who inherits and moves into an abandoned, isolated railway station, only to discover that the solitude he relishes, and was certain he'd find in a rural area, is more elusive than he’d anticipated. He first acquiesces into a neighborly-only relationship, which grows into a friendship, with Joe, a talkative young man filling in as a hot-dog vendor for his ailing “Poppa” and, Olivia, who is reclusively dealing with a recent loss. (There are 2 other notable "misfits" Emily and Cleo, woven into the script.) If you haven’t seen it, I heartily recommend it. The film won a few awards, but wasn’t much of a commercial success. But I just bet Gregory, Roxanne and Kathy S., would have liked it.
I have Reliable Husband here in Privatopia and wouldn’t trade him for all the tea in China, India, Sri Lanka and Kenya combined. Although our reading and movie interests are disparate, he always listens patiently to my enthusiastic recounts of my latest passion. But still, I have this notion that there is a Finn, Joe, Olivia, Gregory, Roxanne or Kathy S., somewhere out here in Privatopia, but that I have not yet met her, him or them. People who don’t feel a need to be in groups of 12 or more to be happy, -and I just need one of them, okay- maybe two, just a person who shares my reading interests, a person who enjoys foreign films, a person who embraces diversity in humans, a person who shares the notion that the new series on Netflix, “The Story of Maths” featuring Professor du Sautoy is just about the most interesting thing on television today…
***
I told an acquaintance at Privatopia’s Ladies’ bowling league that I’m going to start a new club at Privatopia, one only for introverts, one that will cap its membership at three members. She laughed, so at least she got my joke... I think.
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| even my little grandson knows enough not to stuff a clover shape into a star opening |
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| I saw these misfit toys at the local antique shop |
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