Character Day

Day 25

Character day. Whatever we want, we’ll be whatever we want. Last day before spring break. A little escape into character. Some of the kids asked at the start of the week if I’d be Gru to their Minions. I have purchased tickets to exactly one of those movies and slept through roughly 90% of it (kid movies in theaters are generally nap time for me) but it was for the kids so why not. It’s not Halloween time so I couldn’t find anything except what could be ordered from Amazon and arrive in two days. Poor man’s Gru teaching fifth grade today.

My Minion daughter and I

It’s fun to pretend sometimes. Be someone else. Play a role. It’s another thing altogether to do it for someone else. I know people who make a life of that. Or have in the past. In high school I was a chameleon and it spit me out the other end just weird. A microcosm of all the identities I morphed into. Purplish brown swirl mash. 

Eventually, in order to find footing, we have to find ourselves again. However buried or broken. Or undiscovered. Shapeshifting lets us fit in while we try to find our place. Some kids seem to know out of the womb and some kids seem to become character actors and stick to it well past schooling. Call them defense mechanisms or paths toward seeking enlightenment, but we are who we are. Even if who we are is nebulous and/or fluid. 

Truth is always right. But for some it’s cloudy. So if you know someone who obviously feels the need to don a mask to face the world, or who gloms on to this trend or that in order to feel relevant, just know there’s a chance they’re in pursuit of something regarding their sense of self. Or maybe they’re just having fun floating until they can see, for themselves, a safe place to land.

“For someone half as smart

You’d be a work of art

You put yourself apart

And I can’t help until you start”