Of the three daughters my parents had, I was the middle child. You’ve heard of the middle child syndrome? Well, it’s real, it’s crippling and I didn’t outgrow it until age thirty or so — about the same time I grew a brain. Okay, to be perfectly accurate, I already had the brain, I just realized it actually functioned at about age thirty.
Within the family, I was known as many things, but at the top of their collective lists would be sensitive and overemotional to which I plead a resounding no contest. I was also laughingly tagged the ugly baby – which I now take objection to.
I don’t recall the first time a member of my family suggested that I was the ugly baby of the family; I only know it was a rather recurrent theme in our home. Every time the photo albums came out, there it was — a general marveling at what pretty babies my sisters were and, yes, you guessed it, laughter and comments about my little, pug nose, pale blue eyes and the fact that I didn’t have any hair. Even when I finally grew hair, it was so white-blonde, you could barely tell it was there.
To be fair, my family probably thought they were handling a basic fact of life with a certain amount of light humor. It’s either that or they’re all cruel and insensitive and surely it’s not that. I write this not to whine, although I’m awfully good at it, but because I think there may be a universal lesson in my Rejection of a long-held notion.
I gave birth to my first child, a daughter, when I was twenty-five. She came into the world with big, blue eyes and a head full of thick, dark hair. In fact, (little side story here) when I was in the final throws of delivery (the baby’s head had just crowned) my husband made the mistake of uttering, “where’d it get all that dark hair?”
Do you recall the scene in The Exorcist when Linda Blair’s head spins around and she spouts off obscenities in a deep, male voice? “Shuuuuuuuut uuuuuuup,” I roared in a voice that bore little if any similarity to my own. Poor man. He cowered immediately, as did many of the nurses in the room. I felt kind of badly about it once the pain had subsided and I no longer wanted to tear his head from his body.
Three and a half years later, I gave birth to twin daughters. It was a labor and delivery that convinced me I must have been a Nazi in a previous life, but that’s another story. The babies had light blue eyes, no hair and, even when they did grow some, it was so white-blonde you couldn’t see it very well. In short, they looked remarkably like me as a baby. And they were beautiful!
Now when I look back at my baby photos, I see a sweet looking baby with a soft expression. Would I have won any beautiful baby contests? Probably not — but I was a far cry from an ugly baby. It just goes to show how much ‘knowledge’ we accept about ourselves that’s based on other people’s opinions or cruelty or both.
Who are you callin’ an ugly baby!
How’s this for a resume?
I’ve had a few jobs in my life — twenty -two or three of them, I think. Is it my fault I was saddled with a chronically short attention span and low boredom threshold? I’ve been thinking about all those jobs and making little scratches to keep count. Remember the scene in Four Weddings and a Funeral where Andy McDowell’s character lists her lovers for Hugh Grant?
One, retail sales — my mother’s store in Indiana; although that one hardly counts since my mother (who put the ‘fru’ in frugal) subtracted food and board from my so-called wages. (I was in high school.) Two, on-campus job in the History Department of Murray State University in Kentucky. It was mind-numbingly boring, and I’m not good with boring. My coping technique was to be late on a pretty frequent basis, and occasionally not to show at all. For some reason, they didn’t choose to have me back the following semester.
Four, cocktail waitress at a bar called Cowboys in Montgomery, Alabama. What an experience that was. The uniform was a short skirt, cowboy boots and cowboy hat, and the hours were long. We worked twelve hour shifts, three to three. I lied about my age to get the job and fell in love for the first time with the bar manager. I left him to go back to college and then he disappeared off the face of the earth. Son of a bitch broke my heart.
Five, waitress at a coffee shop during the summer of my sophomore year of college. The manager turned out to be my first. (Yes, I was a slow bloomer.) He was a totally great guy, and I ended up breaking his heart.
After college, I worked as a counselor in an employment agency, then as an outside sales representative for a technical school, where I was responsible for thirteen counties in Illinois. Did you get that? Responsible for thirteen counties. Me! What were they thinking? Actually, I know what the sales manager who hired me was thinking. Boobs. He had a fixation with the female breast. Big, small, left, right – he adored them all. He had a frequent need to show female employees some vitally important something (a form or contract or chart or graph), which he would hold shoulder high. To see the darn thing, you had to draw close and then he’d stick his elbow over and caress your breast with it. And he’d go right on talking business as if perhaps we hadn’t noticed. It would have been comical if it weren’t so perverted and creepy.
Shortly thereafter, I was offered an inside sales representative position at a different school by a man who impressed me. The job didn’t last very long for either of us because, apparently, there was a rule about not fraternizing with subordinates. I resented being called a subordinate, but I suppose that’s beside the point. The man and I got married and moved to northern California (where he’d been offered a job) and I worked in a real estate office for a short while and then taught drama at a private school.
I’ve tended bar, (job number seven), and sold insurance, (job number fifteen.) I was the Director of Marketing and Sales for a family fun center for a year. It didn’t pay diddly-squat but my daughters thought the fringe benefits were worth it. (Free rides, games and super-cheapo prizes.) Once, for a very short while, I worked at a health club. They fired me after watching me lead an aerobics class, which was a real knock to the ego.
The truth is, my talent in life lies in two areas – mothering and writing — and neither one of them has earned me much income yet. In fact, the first time I handed an actual earnings statement from my writing to the guy doing our taxes, he laughed and suggested I seek work in another field.
I taught middle school in the public school system for a year. That was job number 20. Weight loss counselor, job 21. I waited for the real estate market to bottom out and then I went and got my license. Timing has never been a strong suit – but selling real estate has been solidly okay.
Admittedly, writing has not been a smooth road. Early on, I was taken by agents who charged fees and once, in a big way, by an editing company who was subsequently shut down by the New York State Attorney General. These were painful, humiliating, expensive lessons. I was offered a publishing contract in 2001 for my first novel by a company so notoriously bad, I’m ashamed to name it, and that was followed by an offer for the movie rights. I turned the offer over to a legitimate agent for her opinion, which was that it was the worst contract she’d ever seen.
Fortunately, some truly positive things have occurred in the years since. I’ve contracted with small but good publishers, and good reviews and awards followed. (My all time favorite review said, ‘There are authors who touch the heart, but this one grabs hold of your soul.’)
In December, I finally got picked up by a great literary Agent. I won’t be a show-offy little name dropper here (unless you ask me) but she was on the cover of Writer’s Digest once, featured as a “Superstar Agent.” She’s very hands on, communicative, warm and utterly classy. So, my goal in 2012 is to get the big deal. And then … the book will skyrocket to the top of the charts before being turned into a major motion picture. (Hey, if you’re going to dream, dream big! Right?)
I constantly hope, frequently pray and usually choose to believe that I’m about to get the big break, but the fact is, I may never make much of a living at my writing. And I guess that’s okay. I write because I love writing and because it’s one of the few things in life I do with both ease and great enjoyment. Writing for me is like reading for book lovers; it’s a magical transport to another world — and what a truly amazing thing that is. Of course, making a living at it would be really nice. My resume is long enough.
