Deniability only gets you so far in this life. I used to try to deny where I was from...even while I was still there. I spent my formative years loathing country music and nagging my mom to only buy me designer jeans. Hell, I even chose to be liberal. I was convinced I was way more cosmopolitan than the city I was forced to call home and would dream of life in a "big" city up north. Texas runs through my blood. Not metropolitan, urban Texas but rural, west Texas. In a town surrounded by fields of cotton and corn and a house not more than a mile from a dairy, I sweated out my existence just knowing I was better than that. The problem with denying your reality is that eventually it will hunt you down like an escaped con and remind you who you are. I did eventually did make my way north to the concrete jungle of D.C. The problem is that country followed me. While I thought I never had it, turns out I couldn't shake it. I began to get subtle reminders from some country bitch deep inside me that she wasn't going without a fight. Imagine your first "real" job in the world of PR and letting slip rather loudly in a group conversation that you're fixin' to do something. Hoots and harassment do follow. Overcoming a red flush of shame, I vowed to double-check my vocabulary before ever opening my mouth again.
However, the longer I was here an odd thing began to happen. I became more comfortable with where I grew up and the little bit of country that lived in me. I tired of the pretentiousness of DC and began to embrace my working class background. Don't get me wrong, I still don't want to move back to Texas, but I decided the that internal country deserved some airtime, too. It fought long and hard to get here, so a little country slip every now and then isn't so bad.
Why this? Why today*? I was reminded of yet another article I had seen on Britney Spears and suddenly it hit me. The reason Britney and the rest of the normal world are so at odds or in shock over her past couple of years is that everyone is forgetting what she truly is. She's just Texas country with a little trash thrown in. No matter how much she denies it that internal country bitch will rear its head. Star or not...deniability doesn't work forever.
*I also got a funny email this morning from my mom. I won't share, but let's just say it reminded of how every country we are.
Amen to that.
ReplyDeleteThe hard thing, and it comes with time is to be comfortable with both your past and who you are.
Never an easy task that one.
But then it is a worthy task.
To know yourself and accept even the parts of yourself that you may loathe is a victory worth celebrating.
Who knows, those little quirks from your past that you've come to accpt may make you irressitible to someone else.
Cheers
A few things:
ReplyDelete1. loathing country music is a GOOD
thing
2. Designer jeans are hott
3. Isn't Britney from LA? And I love her! Don't talk smack!
4. I've got the country background, too:) Although I'm glad my mom was cool and took us to DC a lot.
I deny your denial.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I thought Britney was Louisiana Trash...
ReplyDeleteI spent years trying to climb out of the mountains of WV.
ReplyDeleteNow that I have...I write about them every day.
I know exactly what you're on about.
Oh I so feel this way being a midwesterner thrown into NYC.
ReplyDelete