Here is a list of jobs that I've had:
- janitor (ages 9-14: mom's after hours janitorial business)
- newspaper delivery (ages 9-14: helping with mom's second job)
- hostess/bus girl/waitress at Mexican restaurant
- game store clerk (would not wish this on my worst enemy)
- book sherpa for antique book conventions (worked for tips, which were usually lousy)
- adult video store manager (hilarious)
- janitor (student work program in college)
- receptionist (student work program in college)
- vet tech at "The Cat Doctor"
- salesperson at ultra expensive asian "antique" shop (complete with bored, rich housewife owner)
- janitor at a Public Museum (awesome)
- blog designer (worst clients ever)
- freelance illustrator (current)
- t-shirt designer (worst company ever)
- small business owner (current)
But that's just it, isn't it?
Art IS like engineering, or the medical sciences, or plumbing. If you really give two shits about your field, but don't have the means to buy yourself an education, you'd still learn the trade that interests you to the best of your ability. Sure, you won't be able to legally open up someone's chest and start moving shit around, or start building bridges or designing manned spacecraft to carry people to Mars... but you'd eventually know how, which is the important part. Right?
Right?
I read a very interesting article in Psychology Today, The Trouble With Bright Girls, where it is hypothesized that "...bright girls believe that their abilities are innate and unchangeable, while bright boys believe that they can develop ability through effort and practice." I feel like I'm at odds with this very problem; through my adolescent years I was lauded and praised for being smart and talented, but I was never really given the tools to expand upon these concepts, which were fairly abstract to me at the time -- it was just kind of a thing that was. It also became clear that being "smart and talented" was not quite enough to get me good grades in school, and my mother liked to stress that "getting good grades" and "being smart" were the same thing (I later learned that this, in fact, is not the case). So when I was downgraded from the Gifted and Talented program to the Normies program (my word, not theirs) in middle school -- no doubt because of a distinct lack of homework done on my part -- no one really thought to ask what was up. Maybe the school system was right: Jack's a girl of normal intelligence after all! No one get too excited, she's just normal! Everyone get back to work, especially you Jack! That kind of a downgrade is actually kind of a big deal in the mind of a 12-year-old, and it definitely shaped my school years to come: I was average, and that was that.
The main question is, though: did it affect who I am as an adult?
The short answer: Well, yes, duh. Everything that happens to you shapes you in some way. The long answer is a bit more complex. I think I was scarred in some ways by my mother's point of view... as a woman of color in the United States, she did not have the easiest time growing up. She started a janitorial business because her line of reasoning was "I can't do anything else, so I might as well make money doing what I can do."
But mama, I never asked out loud, for fear of evoking the Wrath of Mom, Can't you just learn to do something else? Something that makes you happy? As an adult, I know the answers to these questions: my mother does not take kindly to change to this very day, and she also had two daughters and three jobs that she needed to juggle. She never hinted that these things were a problem, though: taking care of business was a lifestyle in our household. You went to school five days a week, you worked six days a week, and you cleaned the house on Sunday. Also, life probably isn't going to get much better than this, so buckle up.
Fuck, those were some rough years.
Things changed when I moved in with my dad, though. I was 15 years old, mom decided to move to Oklahoma to take care of my ailing grandfather, and dad made one thing very clear to me on day one:
"I didn't make it past my sophomore year in high school, Jack. If you make it past that point, you're already more successful than your old man."
My dad dropped out of high school to join the army, and he made a 22 year career out of being a combat engineer and drill sergeant. I knew this, and I considered him to be successful, but those words stuck with me hard. Those words saved me from the destructive mindset that I had acquired in my adolescence, that my abilities are "innate and unchangeable". More importantly, it helped me come to the understanding that life did not end in high school, and that grades and paperwork were not, and could never be, an accurate measure of who I was. Only I could decide that.
I still struggle with the destructive mindset, though, even in my adult years. Being part of a society that reinforces that bullshit is not helpful. Still, I keep trying to learn new things, I keep running my business (because business is a way of life -- some habits never change), I just... keep... living.
Because in the end, that's all we can do, isn't it?
No comments:
Post a Comment