If you tell me I have to do something, I will not. If you tell me that I can’t do something, or that a large group can’t, I will boycott.
This is why I no longer shop at H & M. When two women (on two separate occasions) were told that they could not breastfeed discreetly in the Vancouver location, even though I hadn’t breastfed for well over a year and was never a “we’re out, we’re proud, and we’ll squirt you in the eye” kind of milk nazi, I still said nay.
When I registered at a certain career college at the age of 20, I was ensured by both the administration and their radio ads that I could work at my own pace. Three weeks later was told to slow down. I’d been expressly forbidden from working at an accelerated speed, hyper-focused on the text books and manuals handed out to us. They said that if I didn’t stick to the class’ curriculum, at the same rate as the rest of the students – some of which were battling issues with learning English while also learning medical terminology – then I would not receive credit for the classes that I’d already (for all intents and purposes) challenged. I dropped out.
When my father told me, at eleven, that I was never going to be a beauty queen in response to my question, “do you think I’m pretty?” I went out and got a modelling agent. And worked part-time for two years, completely behind his back, earning enough to have a (mostly) part-time habit in the nasal candy.
I almost failed math in grade eight because of this same trait. I was told to show my work. But how does someone who: a) does it in her head; and, b) is just starting to experience this thing now known as ADD; show their work? There was no work. There was no little ones over the left-most column of numbers, signifying a carried 10. I thought it, it worked, it was right. And I almost failed, after I’d been working two years ahead in the subject for since the end of grade four.
Can’t be a single parent on a lower income, with a child who requires a special (expensive) diet, in one of the most expensive areas (in one of the most expensive cities) in Canada? Watch me.
When a certain ex, in the throws of the rage that I seem to be able to bring about in anything that walks and owns a penis, screamed at me that I should grow the fuck up, stop playing on the Internet and get a real job so that I’d understand how hard he had to work…well, I did grow the fuck up. I did get three real jobs. I didn’t get off the Internet though, and now, I make nearly twice his hourly income. Which means that I don’t work nearly as hard as he does, or as often. Taking the high road means that I swept that information under the rug, temporarily, but I don’t often take that road when my face is being screamed into. One day, he’ll be told how much easier my job is than his and how much more it pays and it will probably be a metaphorical vasectomy for the man who thinks I need to rely upon him for everything.
I don’t know why it is that I’ve been born with an inherent need to do things the opposite of what I’m told. I don’t know why I hear ‘you should…’ and it’s automatically rejustified into ‘never do…’
I don’t know.
I do know that it costs me. Money, energy, relationships.
Not shopping at H & M has meant that I’ve often had to travel further for inexpensive children’s clothes, or settle for closer, more expensive ones. I still owe the balance of that college’s tuition, plus interest. I don’t have a degree, never mind the three I’d planned on getting. I don’t have a boyfriend, because anyone I’ve considered resilient enough to be able to handle me being me just isn’t around for the plucking.
It’s tiring, you know, not fitting into a tiny little box and crossing Ts efficiently. Prize example: when you consider my daughter’s name and the fact that I must cross the middle of the Z and make sure the dieresis is over the E, that’s like, three extra steps to take. In a three-letter name that gets written or typed all the freaking time.
It adds up, the costs. In fact, nearly everything I seem to do, costs a little more, because it’s just a little less easy than the alternative.
And Isobel is the exact same.
It’s been bred into her, apparently, because from day one she’s done things her own way. She’s only slept when she wanted to, eaten when and what and how much she craved. Been as loud or as still as she felt she should be. She’s been exhausting to keep up with and a delight to watch – a child-like version of myself, if there ever was any element of inner-child to me.
She’s just as moody and definitely just as stubborn. She won’t even get onto the toilet from the front of it – has to launch herself onto the Dora seat from the side, just because she will not do it the logical, normal way.
And for the past few weeks, she’s asserted her authority in the most emo-tastic form possible. She’s virtually stopped throwing tantrums when she doesn’t get what she wants or is given structure that she doesn’t agree with. Now, she just falls, dejectedly, onto the floor (a chair, the bed), in a heap of teen-aged melancholy. Limp, a dead-weight of adolescent despair over having a parent who just doesn’t understand.
She’s gonna be both the bane and the trophy of some man (or woman)’s existence, one day. And I wouldn’t change a thing about her.
There’s also a little subtext that anorexia inserts into your mainframe once you’ve been hanging out for a while. It’s a sub-program, it runs adjacent to the hundreds of daily crunches and 100 calorie days – it’s unwavering, for the most part.
