I fear change.
Well, that’s not entirely true. Certain kinds of change I can deal with - for example, when I left home to go to university in a city where I didn’t know a soul, that was fun. When I was temping, I had a new job every few weeks and that was kind of fun. But when the three-digit area code changed for the part of Alberta I grew up in, I completely lost my shit.
The first time I remember being REALLY upset about change was when kindergarten ended. It wasn’t so much that kindergarten was such a gas - I enjoyed some parts of it, but I failed cut n’ paste and I was still mad at my teacher for calling me “gross". What she actually said was “Tu es une grosse fille!” ("You are a big girl!” - I was actually quite tall in kindergarten and was frequently mistaken by other teachers for an errant second-grader) but my five-year-old French ears only understood the “gross” part and I responded by eating all the math marshmallows while her back was turned. To this day, the taste of marshmallows fills me with bitterness.
My mother listened patiently while I sobbed over the ending of kindergarten and fussed over the great unknown of first grade. What if my kindergarten boyfriend Daniel and I were not in the same class (unthinkable tragedy)? Would the cowboy boot-wearing teacher, Mme. White, be as scary as she seemed? Would I be able to make it through the WHOLE SCHOOL DAY instead of just the half-day kindergarten demanded? Would there be math marshmallows?
My mom agreed with me that change could be excited but scary. She then employed the most cunning bit of reverse psychology I have ever experienced: in a tone completely devoid of threat or sarcasm, my mom told me that if I wanted, I could stay in kindergarten for another year.
This suggestion rocked me to my Strawberry Shortcake pyjama-wearing foundation. Stay in kindergarten another YEAR? How great! I would already know where the classroom was! I would work harder at cut n’ paste! I would tell my teacher on the first day that SHE was gross! But as I thought more about it, I realized that a kindergarten victory lap would have its disadvantages. My friends wouldn’t be staying in kindergarten, ‘cause their moms weren’t cool enough to let them. Grade One had longer days, but more field trips. My classmate Bo Fro’s joke about “Fart Edmonton” was the FUNNIEST THING I HAD EVER HEARD - what if he made MORE jokes and I missed them because I was back in kindergarten, grovelling for gold stars from the teacher who’d called me gross? Fuck kindergarten! I’m moving on!
“Well, okay,” my mom said, “if you’re SURE now.”
Well played, Barianne. Well played.
So our little SummerWorks show is over (thanks to all of you who came out to see it!)and again, change, exciting and scary, looms before me. This show - it was a lot of fun. We’ve been working on this thing for 8 months and now it’s finished. What will I DO with my time, now that I’m no longer helping with re-writes, buying granola bars to feed the cast, running around photocopying things, photoshopping pictures, cursing that poor guy with crabs? How long will our habit of endlessly quoting lines from the show go on? How am I going to make a living, now that I have no excuse not to get on it?
It’s at times like these that I have to pull out my mom’s sneaky move and play it on myself. Do I want to keep working on that show indefinitely? No. Do I have lots of other things I need to get cracking on? Sure. Is that MAPLE SYRUP on my chest? How the hell did THAT get there? Must have been while I was licking my waffle plate clean this morning. Mmm . . . waffles . . .and thus, with a bitterness, a little sweetness and a little stickiness, moving on occurs.
Comments:
mmmmm. waffles.
Comment by Chezza — Monday, August 15, 2005 @ 11:12 pm
Perhaps while you’re deciding how to move on, we can fill our time watching your DVD box set of Firefly??
Comment by ers — Tuesday, August 16, 2005 @ 6:12 pm
Ooo, good idea! Let’s make a date!
Comment by Rose — Tuesday, August 16, 2005 @ 6:21 pm
Was that MY shirt you were wearing that now has maple syrup on it? Jeez .. you go to Vancouver for two days and your girlfriend gets maple syrup all over everything …
Comment by Queen Katicus — Tuesday, August 16, 2005 @ 8:56 pm
Oh, honey - the maple syrup on my chest was actually ON MY CHEST. As in, on my skin. No shirts were soiled during the making of this post.
Comment by Rose — Wednesday, August 17, 2005 @ 4:20 am
Oh. Ok, then.
Comment by Queen Katicus — Wednesday, August 17, 2005 @ 6:03 pm