Today I was driving, my thoughts wandering off randomly and unrelated as they often do, when I started thinking about The Spice Girls.  Not one of the better representatives of the British Invasion in America…I thought with bewilderment at their fame gone by.  Then, Oh my goodness…I think I remember trying to convince myself that I LIKED them when I was a kid. First off this was appalling because they were largely underwhelming in all areas talent-related, secondly none of them are role model material, and thirdly (and perhaps MOST appalling) was that I didn’t even enjoy their music, but the power of my peers’ interest compelled me like a magnetic force to at least attempt getting swept up in the catchy beats.  And as I kept following the rabbit hole of my thoughts, I was transported to a time when that was a common feeling– the feeling of wanting to like something so at least I could blend well with those around me.

So many of those kids whom I held on the highest of pedestals have since been proven “jes like the rest of us” in the stark light of reality, and yet held such a sway over me when we were younger.  The kind of shoes they wore, and their fabulous hair, and yes, the wretched music they listened to, floated in my head like a level of enlightenment I should strive to attain.

This pressure is real as a kid.  No wonder we finish our high school years feeling like we might die if we don’t soon “find out who we are.”  We’ve been trying to be things all along we weren’t even sure we wanted to be.

So I wondered which of my genuine preferences throughout life had been stifled as a result of my sworn allegiance to stay in the life boat.  When did I find out what I actually liked and disliked, what moved me and what didn’t?  How much unearthing is left?

I don’t know why this kind of insecurity propelled me a lot as a kid.  And truthfully, it didn’t cause me to conform completely.  Even back then, I knew my soul couldn’t survive full conformity.  But this is a common case– the case of being unsure of even what MOVES us because we’ve been so worried about convincing ourselves to chase after things that don’t interest the core of us.

I don’t want to get too deep here.  I guess I just want to reiterate the importance of drawing conclusions, of thinking, of confidently holding on to a conviction even if it’s the only one like it in a million.  Because I knew it deep down all those years ago that I thought the Spice Girls sucked and the reason for their fame was as unintelligible to me as foreign languages are to a monoglot.  But in order to spare myself from the hells of a lonely lunch table, I found myself singing such phrases as “If you really really really wanna zig-ah-zig-aahhh.”

I hope I can raise my kids to stick to their guns.  Because easy assimilation into a crowd means the world in school for most kids, and even many adults.  But in reality folks, the lunch tables mean nothing.

“There is just one life for each of us; our own.”-Euripides

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