"Oddinary" or the art of knowing you know nothing

I have “Oddinary” inked in grey on my forearm. I even designed the tattoo myself, in a notebook during class. It felt so edgy. It fitted so well. The wordplay between “odd” and “ordinary” was the title of one of my favourite bands’ albums.

The perfect mix between how I wanted to be seen like and what I actually was.

The grey ink felt right as well, not too eye-catching, enough to show and brag about it, but hide it if I wanted. My parents’ straight tens daughter getting a tattoo wasn’t quite fitting.

Not that my parents were ever really that strict, but I sometimes liked to pretend so. It was all just another part of my character’s profile.

I remember panicking before getting that tattoo, the second guessing of doing something so radical, so permanent. It wasn’t that big of a deal, of course, but it was a little bit of a stretch. You see, as much as I loved building my persona, I never actually thought I was completely ditching my true self, but rather romanticising it.

Romanticising, by dictionary, means making things look like something better than they are. My way of romanticising meant seeing my life as a book of some sort, in which I, as the main character, had expected developments, relationships and feelings. They weren’t necessarily better or idealized, but they fitted the aesthetic. Everything that happened to the main character was part of the plot, so whenever big events occurred and I got overwhelmed, I would exit my body and watch it all unfold as a simple reader, or heterodiegetic narrator, if you will. Slowly, my character was taking form and continued feeding on the prompts.

So I had it all planned out beforehand: I would panic for a full week before getting the tattoo, then become curiously calm the day of, then act like it wasn’t that big of a deal after getting it and start bragging left and right about how cool I was now that I had it. Nothing ever surprised me, for every emotion was thought about before it was felt; romanticised, as in written in an imaginary book of my life that I just had to read, not feel. And for a long time, I genuinely thought that book was published, sold, read and tucked safely on a bookshelf.

But when that prewritten vision of myself completely shifted, by chance, a few months ago, and I no longer knew my persona’s fact sheet or the itinerary of my character’s journey; when what made it happy stopped fitting what made me happy and both doors and fanged jaws I never anticipated opened in front of me, I unequivocally lost myself. And that was the first time in my life I couldn’t romanticise my way out of it.

Certainly, there were other moments before that eventually happened. Moments that hinted my character wasn’t “immortal”. But it was that same book I used to guide me then as well.

And one of those moments happened to be the most ridiculous, catastrophic occurrence in one’s life: teenage love. Although, apart from the second guessing and immediate regret getting tattoos and breakups have nothing in common, I would come to realise that these particular experiences connected dots I couldn’t see then.

A teenage breakup is silly and most of the times you could see it coming from miles away. My high school romance lasted almost two years and, for the majority of that time, it made up most of my personality. Till it didn’t.

My boyfriend was good at everything, better than me, therefore everything I was ever praised for became irrelevant. My character did well on its own, but paled as soon as it got compared to this new, exciting presence. Naturally, I suddenly stopped seeing the point in trying anything new.

That voice creeped in then, a voice that my mind sometimes blended with my own. The readers grew bored. There was nothing interesting happening to their character, therefore it didn’t deserve to lead anymore. It became an impostor, and its story was taken over.

That’s when one of my first out-of-character episodes occurred. I began crying without knowing why. He would watch me without knowing what to do. I’d wake up with no goal, nothing that excited me, nothing I felt capable of doing.

I finally had become a side character in my own book.

None of this was about him though, he could have been anyone. I’ve seen him so many times since then, in so many people that simply happened to be better than me at something. For some reason, my book didn’t work that well in those situations. I couldn’t just chant my little “you will fail, but you get better when you first have to fail” anthem to myself. There was no failing.

 A few weeks later my boyfriend broke up with me.

“It just doesn’t feel right anymore” he said, and I don’t think I’ve ever really gotten what he meant.

But it all snapped back, somehow. The disturbance in the Force, if you’ll allow me to use a little Star Wars jargon, had been eliminated. I could see the timeline form in front of my eyes again: I would cry, want him back, fight a little. Then, I would act friendly, as he did, like it was all cool and we split up on good terms. After that, I’d get cold.

It worked out even better than I thought, for my romanticising had the custom of turning any disruptive factor into something that was meant to happen anyway. Already felt. A cheesy excuse to write some heartbroken love poetry, maybe.

My breakup was, in the greater scheme of things, just another plot point. But because it had been true, this defence mechanisms of building personas and planning feelings activated. I was pleased with myself, happy to those around me, sad for the ex that felt guilty if he saw me suffer.

Attention. That’s what a main character needed. And soon enough I got even more of it.

For a split second there, my diligently woven schemes fell, and that I couldn’t easily forget. But I hammered back the nails and the painting kept hanging on the wall for a little while longer; enough for me to feed my vanity anew: a shining portrait of me wearing a golden medal around my neck, a flower crown on my head, holding a Valedictorian diploma while posing for the camera.

            For quite some time, I used to think of that day as the happiest of my life. I would close my eyes before bed and imagine that crowd in front of me again, the applause, the utter surprise I felt when I received the title. My parents and head teacher knew but chose to surprise me.

“I knew” the teacher whispered when he crowned me, brimming with pride he didn’t deserve to claim.

I was trembling from head to toe; I had no speech prepared, not that there were many words of gratitude to offer to the fucked up post-communist Romanian educational system that was basically academic Hunger Games minus the killing. Mostly.

Still, being appreciated felt good, even when it came from people whose opinions I didn’t particularly care about. Oh, how I loved romanticising that. I recall searching the familiar faces of my proud parents and brother in the crowd, the one of my ex, smiling and clapping (I might have imagined he even felt an ounce of regret), the faces of those that bullied and envied me and those of my closest friends.

The movie played in my head; I was detaching myself again. The overwhelming attention demanded it. It felt so cinematic, how I got that title without me even realising, how I’ve totally forgotten Valedictorian was even a thing. The satisfaction was unbearable, and I kept reliving that day over and over.

I might have figured out now why I kept holding onto that memory, like an anchor keeping me afloat in uncharted waters. I didn’t know then how fragile my plans were, how my own dreams could betray me. I was so certain that what I envisioned for myself was what would make me happy, whole. Being there, congratulated, given as example to the unfortunate daughters and sons of hypocritical disappointed parents gave me a sense of certainty. There was no way a Valedictorian could fail in life, right? A gifted child had its future all sorted out, a bright pathway ahead, full of open doors and waving hands.

I look back now, as I’ve been doing for a while. As you might have guessed, my life isn’t how I’ve planned it. I gave up writing and playing the electric guitar and dreaming about publishing a book. I listen to music I didn’t use to. I dress differently. I do not consider myself pretty or particularly interesting, though there was a time I did. I have no relevant hobby; I gave up on all of them. I see no beauty and excitement in the places I used to. I figured out that my fated successful life wasn’t up to fate at all, but laid in my own hands, and that terrifies me.

So yes, I romanticised my life, up to the point that my standards became higher than I could manage to uphold. I’ve never disappointed anyone in my life but myself.

The voice of my mother congratulating me for what I see as bare minimum haunts me. The love in her eyes when she tells me I work too hard. I don’t. I can’t stand it, mostly because it fills up a latent ego that comes out whenever I am mad at the world and believe myself to be better than everyone else.

Then I fall again. And again.

I am a hopeless romantic cursed with cynicism.

I still think that the people around me are there to toughen me up, to make me attach to them so I can get stronger when they leave. I am constantly prepared to lose just about anyone. I am like one of those cats that bring you dead mice and hope they made you happy. I know they don’t need my mice, but it’s all I have.

Yes, I see. I might not have really changed, I don’t know, but maybe just seeing is enough for now. I am not the student I thought I would be. Or the girl. The woman. The dreamer.

My dreams have shifted and continue to do so. I want to do everything in the world until something makes me tick again. I am constantly torn between what I see myself to be and what I am, forever wondering if the gap between the two is widening.

But I am looking back. I am coming to terms with not having any book to follow. I gave up on expectations. Sometimes I do my best, sometimes I do what I can. Sometimes I do nothing at all and hate myself for it. When my mind races ahead I stop it, I ask it not to spoil the future for me. I’ve burned the prewritten book of my life and started anew, sketching, plotting. My character is adapting, and I think it might soon start to learn there is nothing it can’t overcome, so there might be no point in struggling to predict it all.

I am not happy with myself, but I am taking notes. I am starting to live from the first-person perspective. I don’t know what my gift is or even if I have one, but I know that, in my blandness, I am infinitely special.

I am not a fixed, flat character, but shifting and spinning like a compass, searching relentlessly. I believe that’s where my strength lays, in the search. I might be forever searching, and maybe I can find my peace with that; as long as I don’t get any spoilers.

I have “Oddinary” inked in grey on my forearm. 

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Image source: NYCSTTREET via Pinterest