I started out as “the smart one” in my family. My little sister had waist-length golden hair which automatically made her “the pretty one”. Eventually, though, she got a bad perm, had crooked teeth grown in and started getting much better grades, so she became “the smart one” and I, an extremely bratty teenager, became “the mean one”.
“The mean one” title stayed with me for quite a while. I didn’t get along well with anyone in my family and I wore a constant expression of peevishness. I was happy around my friends, but most people only saw a sullen girl who had a bad attitude about most everything.
Of course it was a façade as adolescent angst sometimes tends to be. Deep down I wanted to be cheerful and sweet but I just couldn’t get over myself until I went away to college and grew up a lot.
It seemed, though, that my family didn’t notice much of a change. Even though I was thoughtful and friendly most of the time, “the mean one” was still who I was for years afterwards. I still think my mother believes that’s my default personality.
Like so many grown women I fight against the label I was given when I was younger. I try extra hard to be friendly to new neighbors and ward members. I’m the first one to sign up to bring dinners to sick people and new moms. Obviously my mother doesn’t know most of what I do—I don’t do it for her. Really. But part of me, this tiny naggy voice, wants to prove with every smile and casserole that I am kind. I am thoughtful. I am “the nice one”.
Occasionally someone will compliment me on a considerate thing I’ve done and it catches me so off guard. I am usually stunned into silence. “Really?” I think to myself, “someone thinks I’m nice? They don’t know. They don’t know that I’m the mean one.”
The school of hard knocks has taught me a lot of empathy. I have learned through my own experiences how vital service is, and what an answer to prayers it can be. I’m not serving others in order to prove something to the people who knew me 25 years ago. But there is the shabby part of me that desperately wants to show myself that I am more than just an old label.
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