Then and Now

Am I a freak of nature or nurture?! Are there things about me that I came into this world with and things that are store bought? How does one know? I'll leave the scientific debate to the scientist as I embark on my quest to answer this perfectly good question.

Full disclosure time. I believe in nature versus nurture. I say this after raising two kids that are vastly different but were brought up exactly the same. Meaning I neglected them and or screwed up equally for both! The results were very different for each one of them. I realized then that as parenys we really aren't in control. Contain your collective gasps! Especially those parents giving their child every extra opportunity they can think of, I have only one thing to say to you. It's a good thing to expose your kids to different things but if he is not in his soul a musician then he won't be one. However the kid who did not get piano lessons from age six but is a born musician will be one and he will find his way despite the fact that he did not have that privilege.

So how was I wired when I came into this world? I decided to look at myself from well minute one till the sixth grade. Mini me! I know that I spoke at an early age. An old friend of my mother's always tells me how shocked she was when she came to say hi to me. I was still in my crib at the time and while most kids could talk I answered in a complete sentence. My parents were immigrants. English was not their first language so I think maybe I was born with a gift for stringing words together!

There is an old black and white picture of me at maybe a picnic. I've got a plate of food on my lap and it's outside somewhere. I'm wearing my Keds sneakers and a Danskin set. I love the picture because it wasn't posed. I have a look on my face that is very familiar to me. I am quietly observing the people around me. Like a sponge I watch and listen. Then I store it away until it becomes a character in something I write. Then I'm sure I wasn't aware of what I was doing or why. It was just something I did. Now it's something I do naturally but with purpose.

I day dreamed a lot. There was always a story swirling around in all that grey matter. All kids day dream. I just did more of it. I am convinced, as you can tell, that I was born to do something with the written word. Ironically, speaking, which also involves words is not my forte. Ask me to describe something I am writing and I get tongue tied. It's not pretty! Yet if needed I can write the description. Go figure!

I was never meant to be an athlete. Not an athletic bone in my body. I was never meant to be a singer even though like every other contestant on American Idol I have been singing since I was two years old! Mathematician? God no! My report cards which my Mom saved attest to it. Scientist? As Sheldon Cooper would say "Bazinga!" In other words...no! I think my life has taken me in different directions but I seem to always come back to the written word, Now I'm just a lot wiser and I understand that this is where I am supposed to be! My teachers always talked about my unrealized potential. They may have been on to something!