This week's lesson was unexpected. I hadn't planned to start actively "learning" new things until next week, once my room and apartment had been appropriately tamed and my mind was a little more clear. But, this one snuck up on me.
In the process of redeorating/cleaning, I decided to paint some large picture frames to match my new comforter. This is not a difficult task, nor did it turn out to be. When I sat down to get started, I turned on NPR, as it is my constant companion when I'm working with my hands and can't look at a TV. I happened to catch Terri Gross talking with the creator and writer of Madmen and HE taught me something.
Well, okay, maybe he didn't directly, but I took something valuable away from the background he gave on Don Draper. Before we go any further, I should put together a little disclaimer/warning:
:I don't watch Madmen regularly because I don't have cable. Lets not talk about cable. I've seen an episode or two. I also don't know how many of you DO watch Madmen, so if you DO and you haven't seen the end of this past season, SPOILER ALERT, maybe. I'm not clear on what is and isn't a spoiler, since I don't really watch the show. None of this is the point.:
Everyone good? Great.
Apparently the dapper Don is actually someone else, or at least, Don Draper isn't his real name, rather an acquired identity that he has adopted to make a life for himself. The concept of swapping identities is damn seductive! To leave behind your past and your roots, to set out on becoming someone totally different with brand new goals and ideals, sounds pretty fabulous. If you don't like who you already are.
I know that Don/whatever his real name is, comes from a different era, a vastly different background, and is not a real person in the lives-in-reality kind of way. But, he sure is compelling. This season sets up the running theme of Don's disappointment with the plan he was working to build to fit this identity. The slow decay of all those perfect things, and the changing times (I think this season starts in '64) play pivotal roles in his development and arc in the story. The thought of having not only that kind of duality but also that level of self-regret was the catalyst for this lesson.
I tried to imagine, while painting on the floor, if I could pick a new name and a new life, what would I really want? What job would I do? What would that plan be? That got me thinking about what my own real life plan was...
When I was little, probably five or six, I can remember standing in my bedroom, looking at myself in the mirror and imagining myself as 15 years old. In my mind that seemed grown up. I imagined that I would look the same, but my head would be bigger. I didn't imagine what I would be doing or who I might be dating, or even if I would go to college. I just imagined myself the same, but with a bigger head.
Fortunately for me, I have grown proportionally over the years, but it does speak pretty plainly to the way I've always looked at my "future." I'm a very driven person, but I don't exactly have a plan. I landed in Production Management as haphazardly as I landed in intelligent lighting design, and as haphazardly as I landed in my BFA program (I marked the wrong bubble on my application to UT and it was the best error I've ever made).
Did I set out to be a girl who can easily destroy a good pedicure within 48 hours? Did I imagine that I would break some kind of record for how many parking tickets one person can amass in a span of years? Did my principal goals include figuring out that if you are low on money and/or time, you can pretty easily do a small load of laundry in the bathtub as long as its not humid outside and that pasta-sauce can work as a food group? That I would use my college degree to end up sitting on the floor of a small theatre company at 1am assembling a chandelier that only came with instructions in Polish? To endeavor to be the person who is addicted to eyeglasses, pop music, and chex mix? Not by a long shot.
My 15 year-old self wouldn't have had any idea that in 2004 I would spend three nights sleeping on my pull out couch with my first roommate in Chicago under four blankets and a heating pad because our crazy landlord broke our heater in the middle of the winter. I probably also wouldn't have guessed that those three days are some of the fondest memories Katy and I would have of that apartment, and the weird food, and loud cats, and constant watching and quoting of Bridget Jones' Diary, and the galloping around, drinking gin and tonics and singing way too loudly. That probably wouldn't have been in the plan for "things I think I should do when I grow up."
But, those are all a part of my real life, which seems to be far more compelling than a brand new identity. Plan or no plan, I am incredibly fortunate to work in a field that I love, to teach inspired students who are positively hilarious, to be surrounded by friends (and my fella) who have seen the best and the worst of me and still want to hang out, and a family who I just couldn't live without.
The bottom line is that I am a happy woman to be where I am. Chipped toenail polish, parking tickets, and all.
Lesson learned.
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