the difference is more than twenty-one

I was six when I realized that people existed outside of the time that I saw them.

we were driving past my elementary school, across from which my then-best friend lived. she and her family were getting into their car and I asked my mom where they were going. when my mom told me she didn't know, we had a circular five-minute conversation about other people's business, and I then realized that we didn't control everyone else's lives. this was huge! I thought that when my mom called lindsay's mom, it was this instant thing that lindsay was able to come over... because my mom called, my mom said so, and that's all that mattered, that's all that was necessary to my time spent with lindsay. we mattered, we made things happen, we were important.

and I was six when I learned how to ride a bike and tie my shoes, both things that I avoided until I was six, not because they were hard or outside of my abilities, but because I was afraid of trying and failing. afraid of having to practice, afraid of looking like an idiot in front of my mom, my younger brother (who'd already learned such things), and the little old lady who lived next door. I finally became more embarassed by the fact that I was the smartest kid in the class but was still the only person who couldn't tie her shoes or ride a bike without training wheels that I gave in and learned both things. I still carry this trait - this seeking of the situation with less embarassment despite the potential learning lost - though I can attribute the lessening of this trait to years of my mother making me show up to and finish things throughout the years. and to a final realization that I could make myself show up to and finish things, and that I would be okay afterwards.

the moral of both of these stories is that I seem to be spending my life realizing that I am not as important as I think I am: people's lives will go on without me. they have places to be at certain times, obligations to people who are not me; they have things to do, and think about, and talk about that are valued as much as those that I do, think about, and talk about. and because of this, I've realized that those moments when I think I look like an idiot are probably overlooked due to the other person's internal fight against looking like an idiot themselves.

while I still struggle with trying new things out of this internal preoccupation, and am often held back from trying things I would like to try by nothing more than my own issues, I've at least learned to laugh at it. and to ask for help once I've attempted something independently and failed (and laughed about it). because if I really am equally as important as others, the only way anyone's going to know to help me is if I ask; the only way anyone's going to know I screwed up is if I tell them; and the only way anyone's going to benefit from my learning process is if I do it with good humor.

I was also six when I first spelled a word that keeps repeating in my life, one that I'd never seen written but woke up the morning of my sixth birthday and spelled aloud: nick, n-i-c-k, nick. I thought it, I tried it blindly, I succeeded; twenty-one years later, I'm still winning on that one.

I was a pretty great six-year-old. I think I'm gonna be a pretty great twenty-seven-year-old.