Not So Alter-Ego

So this morning started off normal, a nice Saturday, and as I was doing my Pilates in the bedroom and trying to read at the same time (an art I mastered in seminary and can talk with you about at another time), the thought came to "I've nothing to blog about today. Maybe I'll come across something in my reading." And surely enough, as I read, something cerebral and with a slight slant came to mind that I thought, at some point today, I would get around to blogging about, and I looked forward to it, and I planned that after my shower, I would do just that, blog about it.

But after my shower, as I was picking out what to wear around the house today, a new topic entered my head, and it was too good to pass up. For as I chose what to wear, I realized that for most of the people who know me now, if they saw me in my home on any given day when I don't have to seen in public, they might just burst into complete laughter. Indeed, I am sure I must have introduced Jesse to my true self in gradual stages throughout our three year relationship because I most definitely could not have just confronted him with the reality of ME after our wedding. What, you may be thinking, on EARTH is she talking about? Well, let me explain.

You see, for today, my outfit of choice is as follows, a blue and pink Shane and shane tshirt, pink long underwear with long blue toe socks pulled up over the long underwear so that I can see them. On the toe socks are stitched grey kitty cats and fish, and attached to each toe is a felt cut out of a cat, a cat paw, a ball of yarn, cat toy, or cat bowl. Wearing these toe socks brings me an infinite amount of joy. Along with these, I am wearing my puffy pink bedroom shoes that have poofballs attached to them. A highlight of my year is buying new puffy bedroom shoes b/c I wear them so much, I always wear them out. THIS is a mild day. I could add to this get up bright pink hello kitty pants or any other child-like attire that no respectable 30-year-old woman would be seen wearing in public, but then again, I am not, of course, in public. But was may be different about me is that I have an EXTENSIVE wardrobe of this type of clothing. I have MUCH to choose from. I could go A WHILE without repeating outfits. Trust me. I have outfits for all seasons. I have more than one cat faced winter hats. I have a set of gloves that Justin Ong found on me over the last youth retreat...each finger is made to look like a different finger...and these gloves, although now rarely used, WERE ONCE my normal gloves.

So that's what came to mind this morning as I thought about this. The fact that I have this sort of 'alter-ego' is not entirely unique. Probably many women have that little alter-ego that comes out only when they are alone, but mine has not always been so, how do I say it, 'alter.' And I, unfortunately, have friends, who can attest to this fact. It got me wondering, when DID it become 'alter?' When did I become 2?


I went back through some old pictures, and I see, everything started early...this (picture to the right) is how my MOTHER sent me to school the first day of Kindergarten. The FIRST impression I made upon the peers I would continue on with for the next 13 years of my life (because that's how it works in small-town-suburban-Georgia) was with me dressed like this. Seriously, what did she hope to create? The prom queen? I think not. That lunch box looks innocent, but it had My Little Pony all over it, and I was adorned with three cats on my dress that looks like it came right out of some native Mexican festival? And if you look closely, you'll see a necklace of cats around my neck. My sister says I dressed myself since I was three, but I don't know that any child can do this to herself without any help. Plus, my grandmother says at age four I constantly wanted to wear denim. This picture wasn't taken much after age four, and this is NOT denim. I remember my best friend, also named Megan (but with an 'a') had these pair of washed-out denim cut-offs that she wore ALL the time. I wanted a pair so bad. I thought she was so cool. She also brought her lunch in a brown paper bag. I realize in hindsight that me having multiple outfits and a nice store-bought lunch box might say something about our economic status in comparison to one another or about my parents as compared to hers, but I didn't know that then. I just remember thinking SHE looked cool, and I looked cat.

In my mother's defense, however, when left to my own devices, I didn't come out that well. Proof is in the puddin' in the infamous 'crossdresser picture' as it has so been dubbed by Ray, I think. I forget who said it. I think it was him when I showed it to him back during wedding planning days. The outfit (and lipstick) below was devised COMPLETELY on my own accord.

And that was basically all my elementary school years, complete with the stage of pigtails during the third grade and some random hair-do I tried to copy from Home Alone in 5th grade, only to have my cousins ridicule me. Then there was middle school - too sad to even revisit. I remember a faux-leather jacket, a letter-men jacket with chorus pins, a shirt with neon oranges and lemons on it that I often paired with lime green pants, and a pair of vintage bell bottoms that were my friend's mom's in the 70's and that I CONSTANTLY wore. Yeah. See what I mean? Let's stop there.

Sadly for your ab workout Kim, I don't have many high school pictures here in New York, I can recall what I looked like, however. Let's put it this way, I do not find it hard to believe NOW that I didn't have many boyfriends THEN or that the boyfriends I did have were kind of weird. (No offense Ben Caruana. I think you've turned out swell, but you must admit, we were all a little weird back then). I mean, I wore Hello Kitty to school. And I didn't understand why I wasn't popular? (In fact Ben, thank you for dating me. That was kind of you). Actually, I'm not so sure he is as okay with self-deprecation as I am. Perhaps I should unfriend him on Facebook before he sees this. Oh well Case in point: This is how I dressed to hang out with my friends on Halloween my SENIOR year of high school (not Freshmen year when you are allowed to make idiotic mistakes). By the way, before you ask: No, we were not trick-or-treating, and no, I do not know if any of my friends dressed up.

And for my birthday that year, I ASKED my mom for a cake with a giant cat on it. I remember it had a giant ball of yarn too. I saw the picture today. It looks like a giant poop ball in the middle of a white cake. Seriously. And then for graduation....this is how I looked. Now sure, I wore the vest and glasses and hat b/c Mom bought them to be silly, but I probably would have worn them in public without caring anyway b/c I didn't really care. And do you SEE that hair? Yes, it was intentional. Now don't get me wrong. I wasn't completely a loser. I remember the special music at graduation was a song that I wrote and played on the piano and some of the choir sang it along with me. That was really cool, but then later that night, my boyfriend and I tried to go to the popular kids' party. Somehow he'd managed to get an invitation. I think we were there like 10 minutes. We knew, literally, one person only. Everyone else just stared at us with these faces like 'Why are you here? We aren't friends. We can't be friends with you for like another 4 years when we finally realize that we aren't really all that cool either.' ha. But in their defense, I was probably wearing some hideous shade of mix-matched pink or giant Hello Kitty earrings, and my hair probably blocked people's view of things.

Sigh. As I moved onto college, however, I really began to blossom. I really began to grow into my own. I remember I met my wonderful best friends, Whitney Coleman and Cynthia Wilson. They loved me so entirely for who I was and did not judge me. Whitney even continued to love me when I did this to our shared 12 foot by 12 foot dorm room our sophomore year:

INTRODUCING: THE CUBBY!!!!!!!!!!

The cubby was my 'special place.' I retreated there to sleep every night and to get away from Whitney when she had her evil troll boyfriend, Kendall, over who put my pizza in the refrigerator, or to retreat from our suite-mates, Lauren and Holly, who put brownies in the toilet to look like poo. I think we also hid in the cubby to avoid going out for fire drills. That was the only time anyone else was allowed in my cubby (or anyone wanted to be there). I decorated the walls of my cubby with pictures of cats and posters of cats and dogs and pictures of my friends and memorabilia from basically everything I did every single day of my life. I had tons of blankets with cats on them and stuffed animals and stuffed cat pillows and sheets with cats and dogs on them ALL inside that cubby. You had to climb up to it. The curtains hung from the ceiling. Mom made them. When I was in my cubby, all was right with the world. I have no clue why Whitney didn't call CAPS on me. (The campus psychological services department).

Whitney and Cynthia also loved me when I wore outfits, like I wear around my house these days, out in public. The problem was, I would go to China and come back with all these 'new' fashion ideas that I felt were 'fashion forward' because people in China were doing them, and I was CONVINCED they just hadn't hit America yet. AND, I was right about a few of them. The whole belted dress and belted shirt thing?? Yeah, I so totally did that in 2004. And the whole SHIRT AS A DRESS THING??? Yeah, did that in 2005. BUT, there were a few things, ok a lot of things, I did, that, umm, didn't....how do you say...um, take shape? While the 80's has made somewhat of a comeback in the youth of this generation, I never should have been wearing complete pink or complete orange head-to-toe while in college...and, sometimes, I did...

The boy in that picture was also nice enough to date me even though my shirt said "Hello Kitty" in bright silver sequins across the center and my skirt had a white hello kitty head on the corner of it. All stereo-types of sororities should be banished by the sheer fact that I was accepted into a real one (even though I never really participated b/c I didn't feel cool enough). By the way, I just lied. That wasn't even a skirt I was wearing. It was a 'skort.' I have no clue what kind of shoes I was wearing, but I don't know that they were a good choice. I'm afraid they could have been either my maroon new balances or my purple ones (both pair bought in China)....but did you notice the hot pink flowy earrings? I got them in Mexico (what was up with my refusal to wear things made in America? sheesh!). They WERE pretty... but umm, yeah, that whole thing is a mistake. wow. 

So I suppose it was seminary when I started to act like an adult. Maybe the Yankees scared me. Maybe it was because I was surrounded by godly people and they prayed for me on the first day of seminary when I wore the monochromatic purple outfit and bragged to my family about how pretty it was. I remember always WANTING to be able to be really fashionable, I just didn't know how. I used to buy fashion magazines and study them to try to figure it out. I would research a lot. So maybe it just took time to understand it how to implement it when you shop at target?? Maybe I was always trying? I'm not trying to say I AM fashionable now, but I am trying to say that I seriously HOPE I don't do any of the above anymore, except on my days off...in front of my husband and the UPS guy. Today I am '2,' and no longer '1,' and I think, for all our sakes, it's good that way.

But in reality, this alter-ego is not so much alter as it is natural (sad but true), and the "me" you see on a regular basis is the 'refined' grown-up Megin, but if you came over, you'd see my boxes of trinkets that I can't throw out and that used to adorn the walls of my cubby and my dorm room, and you'd find the draws of pjs and bedroom shoes and toe shocks and headbands and ridiculous jewelry that I don't wear. 

So I guess, in closing, I'll say thanks to everyone who was my friend even if I was a little embarrassing to be around. Thanks to the guys who saw past the pink and the cats and dated me for my personality and wit :). And thanks to my husband who married me even though he knew he'd be getting the above pictured girl at least half the time. Thanks to everyone who remains my friend even though the 'cat's out of the bag.' Ha! No pun intended. haha! ha!  For now, I'm kind of cold, so I'm gonna go put on my pink Minnie Mouse sweatshirt Mom gave me for Christmas. Then I'll be pink head-to-toe again. Hmmm...and now that I think about it...who gave me the sweatshirt? Mom. We are back to the start....we know who to blame...I am my mother's daughter .... :)

Peace Out Yo' and Happy Saturday!