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Posted by lulubunny Promoted 148 days 16 hours ago 1380 views
Lifestyle / General Lifestyle
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For all of those who understand that life is tough - get a helmet.
Most Changed!
When one imagines winning an award -- especially one that is voted upon by hundreds of one's peers -- there is a tendency to draw upon familiar imagery: The Oscars, The Grammys, The Daytime Emmys. Ensconced chucklingly at a power table, or nearest the aisle of front row seats. The large amphitheater. Agowned to the hilt, hair effortlessly in place. Ready?...yes. But not "eager." The sweet, unplaceable scent of one's sure victory hovering in the air, never overpowered by pungent nearby hubris, jealousy and hatred. [See: Glenn Close]
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Now, shake the mind vigorously like a tabletop snowglobe and allow the flakes to slowly settle upon a scene in Anchorage, Alaska. May, 2002. We are all in a recently refurbished movie theater on 4th Avenue, primed now for weddings, conventions and other notable events. I am seated, having flown in from New York City, and am gathered amongst four-hundredish others who have come from around the globe to celebrate tonight one event: the graduation of our high school class some 20 years before.
I sit unaligned - no spouse, no restored clique. Solo. Next to me I have discovered the hilarious Californian wife of a classmate with whom I was never on speaking terms in high school. She and I have become instant soulmates and snide commentators on the unfolding spectacle; she, seeing these 400 people for the first time, and I, seeing the same 400 as ghostfaces I knew half a lifetime ago, yet we both feel like total wisecracking outsiders.
The evening's program is underway and it is time for the "Fun!" Awards. "Most Children!" "Traveled The Most Miles!," "Lost The Most Hair!" Yawn. Clap. Award, Clap. Award. The time has now come for"Most Changed!" As the category is announced, I lean to my new friend and archly snicker, "Oh God, can you imagine getting THAT??"
Suddenly, over the loudspeaker, streaking like a horde of flaming valkyries straight into my soul, I hear my own name being called.
Most changed. Um... Most Changed? No one here by that name. MOST CHANGED??? FUCK!!!!
I know now, looking back, that there couldn't have been money in the budget to have hired a spotlight operator, but in my windowpane-acid memory of the moment, I swear there is a white-hot, bleaching light turned suddenly on me, sitting there, harmlessly, at my small table in this large, large room.
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The Oscars. We watch and imagine the winners' thoughts as they walk -- then trot -- eagerly to the podium. Looking side to side in giddy disbelief, surely they glimpse a former costar or director here and there? All smiling, clapping, clapping and smiling, clapping, clapping and cheering!
I now have some insight into how this moment might feel.
For me, there is no wave of victorious joy to propel me forward. Oh, yes, I see vividly all those faces from my past, jackolantern-like as I stumble awkwardly to the stage. But instead of cheers, I hear only an internal Faustian plea-bargain blaring in my head; a last desperate pitch for a deal with destiny before it's all too late: "Yes! Alright already!! Yes, I know I've changed! OKAY!! But MOST CHANGED?? MOST???? Look at HER!! Look! LOOK!! She's way more changed than I am!! For Christ's sake, I'm not THAT Changed!!"
I cannot now recall my acceptance speech nor anyone or anything I may have thanked from the stage, but I do remember being presented with a commemorative scroll, the kind you received in 5th grade for passing your lifesaving class. Printed, landscape, on faux-parchment paper, gold gothic print, with your name large-type, centered, black letters: WOODY FIRM, MOST CHANGED.
I head back to my seat.
Thus begins a spiral within a curve...a wheel within a ladder...an exacto-blade within a spin-cycle...that has stained every moment until today.
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Most Changed!
Driving stunned in my rental car the following day, round and round my childhood neighborhood, with my calligraphic award lost somewhere the previous night, I ask: Am I the Most Changed? Could I really have changed in the MOST-like way? If I am indeed the Most Changed, then which specific point of being "me" am I being held to/judged against? Changed from what/when? Has this MOST change occurred just now?, or did it began twenty years ago when I changed to suit them, only to slowly come back to being the real me?
Most Changed!
This means that I have changed more than any other person in that room. That's a pretty high bar. After all, this did - no joke - include one formerly timid classmate, now major-market anchorwoman, who was literally taken away by the police in shackles from the pre-Reunion dinner for coatroom-pickpocketing the night before.
Most Changed!
I struggle outright with the concept since the day I received this dubious distinction. My mother, as all -- or most -- mothers would do in her place, was sure that,"Well, you ARE most changed!! You're so much more mature and confident and comfortable with yourself! I'm sure that's what they were seeing!"
Anyone but a mother could see that this was not a kind and nurturing "Most Changed." No, this was a "Most Changed" from the rough end of the spice aisle. This was pepper and anise, capped with turmeric and a scrape of nutmeg for a last hint of "HAH HAH, Fuckin' HAH!!" I won because I lost. This "Most Changed" was a condemnation: "We sent you forth and you did NOT become what we expected. You CHANGED the deal we made with you and WE KNOW IT!"
Most Changed!
This designation is an odd fit in a way, because I actively hate change. Anyone who knows me would immediately attest that I haven't rearranged my furniture in the entire time they've known me. When a favorite magazine undergoes a style makeover, I have tension headaches for weeks. I've moved exactly four blocks in 21 years, and when I did, I measured with a stopwatch the resulting time difference in my walk to the subway. The idea of change is, to be honest, almost impossible for me to process. Because these go here. This does that. We do this every spring. You are mine. That should be set aside in commas, and in italics.
Most Changed!
To have been something once and then to have become something startlingly different over time.
Could be. But I feel deeply that I have always and can have only been myself, through every strange and toughly fought day, across the long arc that is my life.
And so I cop to having been that zitfaced, pukka-shell nerd at the 7th grade dance, wearing the too-snug overalls with rainbow stitching. But I'm guilty too of being Senior Prom King. I have been both Merit Scholar and Freshman Laughing Stock. Who wouldn't want to be the Graduation Speaker?, but who wanted to be the Barely Spoken To? Ivy League graduate or receptionist temp? Corporate Vice President or unemployed barfly. Fat and thin (more fat than thin to be frank). Bouffant and buzzcut. Loved and unlovable, your drunkest and your most sober friend. Savior and charity case. Smugly laughing from the Inside while shivering hopelessly Outside. I have wanted your appreciation and approval always, so sometimes I lurched out to grab it, like a second-guessing Ethel Merman, and other times stood back in the corner and just decided I was worth it. But I have always been all of these things. Just me, trying to hold it together while what you see takes form in its strange, unpredictable way. You may have known me as the meek Before. Perhaps, proudly, you may have heralded me as the triumphant After. But I am really, always, daily, the During.
Most Changed!
So who changed? What changed? Did I? Did "he"? Did they? Did anyone? Did everything? Or is it really just a matter of who was asked to decide, and when were they asked? Ask that seagull you see right now in the sky: "does the seashore change because the tide has receded or returned?"
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I will always remember the angel sent to me that trying night, my new friend and tablemate. This cool, funny woman whom I had never met before but felt more comfortable with than all those I'd known since grade school. I had stumbled back to my seat in a state of shock, the earwax flavor of shame churning through me. As I sat down, I turned to her and stammered "...oh, Fuck! I am The Most Changed!!" But she picked up immediately where we had left off two minutes ago, blissfully unaware of the psychological Armageddon going on in my head. From her salty "Fuck it, I'm just here for the night" vantage point, she looked around at the assembled crowd of my fellow school mates and smokily laughed "Yeah, but can you imagine being voted 'Least Changed??'"
Most Changed. Least Changed (and, for the record, my best friend from high-school won that award. Food for thought?) These are sort of meaningless awards. Can't we all, all four hundred of us, just quietly be issued a pre-printed certificate as we enter the theater, to hang proudly at home...or not...reading:
{YOUR NAME}
"MID-CHANGE"
