I know this girl. Well, clearly she’s a woman, considering that she’s over 30. However, this woman I know lives her life as though she’s still in High School. She has the same friends from High School. She went off to college and came back and married a guy she knew from High School–which wouldn’t be so bad except that he’s really not that great of a human being. The fact that she has all the same friends from High School also wouldn’t be so bad if they treated her like she was worth something to them. But she’s a loyal soul. Loyal to a past that has never served her and loyal to memories that are outdated and not in line with the things that would actually make her happy in the current moment.
I bring up this person because I know a lot of us know somebody just like her. I’ll call her Yolanda for ease and grace purposes. Yolanda lives her life completely and utterly in the past. She doesn’t explore her life past what she knows and is most comfortable–even if that comfort is fleeting. I had a conversation with Yolanda the other day, it was random. I showed her this new and totally cute lingerie set I got at a literal steal at H&M. She looked at me oddly. I asked her what was wrong.
She said something like : “It’s cute, but you’re not going to wear that out… I mean… as a top… are you”? She looked genuinely concerned.
I laughed and then looked at her oddly. I was like: “uh, no. I hadn’t planned on it. These are actually undergarments… night clothes…”
She sighed, relieved and said something like: “Oh. Because I remember when you came back from Miami in a bikini top.”
I laughed, “How many years ago was that?” I asked.
She didn’t know, all she knew was that one time a hundred years ago, I wore a bikini top and shorts home from Miami and I will forever be lost to her mentally as someone who would wear a teddy to church.
To Yolanda’s defense, we all make judgements of people based on one or two incidents we’ve experienced with them. That’s why there’s a saying that goes: “you never get a second chance to make a first impression.” It’s true. If someone comes off to us a certain way, we as human beings have a tendency to file them in our heads and feel no need to refile them differently unless by force or by foul.
The difference with Yolanda, I suppose, is that she’s actually a relative. Yolanda has had many experiences with me and has many opportunities to see how I “roll” as the budding fashionista I have a propensity to dabble toward. She’s literally been present as I’ve evolved from my days as an XFL Cheerleader, my days as a hip hop politico on the radio and now my days as a very grown business woman with child. I don’t even wear bikinis or lingerie in photo shoots anymore really. Can I? Absolutely. Will I? Absolutely. But mostly, for years now–since I’ve had Aubrei– I tend to leave the lingerie for very, very personal photo shoots, in my art when necessary and as empoweringly sexy undergarments. I wear more clothes out than I ever have (even my freakum dresses cover everything, dang!) and I only wear a bikini if I’m at the beach. Yolanda knows this. At least,she would, if she were in the here and now. Growing as I grow. My transformation over the years is really not subtle actually. Unfortunately for Yolanda she can’t see the here and now because she lives her life recycling and regurgitating the past.
Case in point, Yolanda and I had a very recent fight. She wanted to make a point about something that she deemed relevant to my current character. Her example was an incident that happened between us about 10 years ago. Really? *SMH*
I don’t know about you, but most of us, are not the same people we were 10 years ago. Hopefully, we’ve continued to grow and evolve into better people, learning from our mistakes a long the way, as to not repeat them again.
Unfortunately, Yolanda is not that soul. She still sees herself with the same lenses she always has. She decides she doesn’t like something because she’s never liked it. She decides she can’t do something because she never could before–and so–she never even bothers to try. She’s always defined herself as lazy and so she does very little, if anything, for herself or to better herself. She likes the same music she’s always liked. She eats the same food she’s always eaten. She keeps the same friends she’s always had and her life. In general (save for her being married), it’s like somebody ripped a page out of her high school year book and Yolanda has had to live in that one page ever since. It’s seems, Yolanda is stuck in the mud of her past and can’t get out. (or doesn’t really want to).
I don’t know why she does this. I can’t imagine what joy she gets out of not ever exploring past that one corner of the life she lives in. Maybe high school was so good to her, she clings to it for fear that if she explored the present moments of her life, they would never add up to those brilliant High School moments. Uck.
Remember Uncle Rico from Napoleon Dynamite? We laughed the hardest at Uncle Rico in that movie, not only because of HOW he said Napoleon’s name, but also because he lived his entire life wishing he could relive his High School football days. He felt like, if he could just go back in time–to the good ole days– he would be all he is designed to be. If he could just relive that one pass he missed or that one throw he messed up, his NOW would be so much better. Uncle Rico went so far as to become a Tupperware salesman to raise money to buy a time machine so he could go back and relive the “good ole days” and thus change his life. The only thing Uncle Rico got instead was 2nd degree burns on his hands and the same life he had all along.
The truth is, I’m not here to judge. Yolanda is family. I love her. I want the best for her. I really could care less if she thinks I would wear I “merry widow” and fishnets to a football game. Is it accurate? No…well…NO. It’s not. The fact that she bases her opinions on things of every nature from outdated resources is like using the Dewey decimal system to find an article on politics, while seated in front of a computer, with Google in your face. It seems silly at first glance doesn’t it? But the truth is, as I said in an earlier post: “people can only see as far as their own limitations will allow.”
There really isn’t anything I can do to change Yolanda’s mind about me and my fashion-ability or who started a fight between us 10 years ago or any number of things she judges me or others about based on an outdated scope she holds on to that makes no logical sense to me, quite frankly. AND, there is certainly nothing I can do to get her to get out of rehashing her past while she dawdles in her present life. She’s got to want to see that she’s doing it and take steps toward the here and now by living in the moment. By seeing things as they are NOW, not as they were 10 years ago. Like Uncle Rico, maybe she’s got to get those 2nd degree burns on her hands (or her heart) before she’ll allow herself to be jolted into the present. When that will happen, God only knows. Maybe she just needs to relive High School enough until she gets totally bored with it and figure out the present is actually where her life IS and every new day can be made better than the day before–If only she made the effort in the present.
“The clock is running. Make the most of today. Time waits for no man. Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. Today is a gift. That’s why it is called the present.”~ From the 1902 book, “Sun Dials and Roses of Yesterday: Garden Delights…” by Alice Morse Earle
The moral of this story? I can’t call it. Just some food for thought. Thank you for reading this though. Peace and Abundant “your life is now” blessings! Love, -e-