I went out for a long run today and listened to a couple episodes of, "This American Life." It made me think about my own story. I wrote this for a class at The Pit (improv in NYC). I never got to perform it because I transferred to LA right about that time. It goes like this:
I'm from the south side of Chicago. The rich smarties from the north side coin it the wrong side of the tracks. They make assumptions about you before you even open your mouth. It's hard to get too pissed off about it because a lot of them would be right. We didn't go on family vacations. We ate a lot of canned food. We wore hand-me down clothes. We got the belt when we were bad, which was pretty much all the time.
Where I come from, The American Dream is to do better than your parents. Make more money. Get a better education. Buy a bigger house. Drive a better car. And then get married and have kids and be just like them. Only better.
My parents set the bar nice and low for me. For one, I was conceived in a cornfield off the side of a highway. My mom had me when she was 18 and then my brother at 19. So, as long as I didn't get married or pregnant before 18, I was well on my way.
Also to my advantage, my parents didn't go to college. So, here too, all I had to do was show up and graduate. That part was actually kind of tricky for financial reasons. For one, my parents decided to move to Atlanta when I was a senior. They all of a sudden decided Chicago is way too cold and announced one day, "we're moving south." I was like, "but, I'm a senior in high school". It didn't matter. They were on a mission to find a better life. And it didn't include me, which was cool.
I moved in with one of the families I babysat for and worked at the local K-Mart, squirreling away every dollar I could so I could afford to go to college. My dad drilled it in my head -- you need an education for any doors to open.
He presented me and my brother David with the typical lower-middle-class college plan called, "Join the Army." David joined, thinking it would be an easy two years. But then war broke out in the gulf and he got sent to Kuwait. He was a frontline tanker, although he says he spent most of his days in the desert burning shit. Literally, that was his job -- he was the shit burner for the whole platoon. That really wasn't my style, so I found another way to put myself through school - working two jobs and cheating and stealing as much as I could get away with.
I started out at Northern Illinois University (NIU) in Dekalb, where Cindy Crawford is from. That may be the only interesting thing about Dekalb. I didn't last there very long because I ran out of money. I dropped out three times over the next five years. But I was unstoppable. I moved in with my grandparents for free room and board and burned the candle on both ends and the middle until I could finally collect my degree from University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC).
And then, doors did open. I got a good job in the city (Chi-town), which afforded me just enough to buy a federally subsidized house over the border in Indiana.
All the pieces had come together. My life was nearly perfectly complete. All I needed now was a man.
And then I got the ring. A $40 gold band from the K-Mart jewelry department. I was so touched, because this blue light special epitomized the dream. It told the world, yes, we're broke, but our love is real and will prevail over all.
Scott picked me up from work one Wednesday and stopped off in Grant Park on the way home. He was so nervous. He proposed to me there through a poem he had written on notebook paper. I stopped him midway through and questioned, "this whole thing isn't going to rhyme is it?" He looked up from bended knee, with his big brown eyes and shaky hands and slowly nodded. It was dreadful. But sweet. I let him continue. And then I said yes.
Besides, it was time. We had dated since forever. I was to marry Scott, the fat kid from grammar school.
Well, he wasn't fat anymore. He was more, the balding guy from the finance department. But still very lovable, and more importantly, very much in love with me. Whatever I wanted to do, he wanted to do. Whatever I liked, he liked. If I was mad, he was mad on my behalf. When I was successful at something, he was proud. It was like having two of me around. I loved our conversations. And as luck would have it, they were mostly about me.
So, at 25, I would become the world's most beautiful bride. The Lockport Township High School Prom prince and princess would marry and bring their 8-year courtship to a close in true storybook fashion.
I took out a loan against my 401K for a down payment on a castle in Dyer, Indiana. And no fairy tale wedding would be complete without a horse-drawn carriage. It was to bring me and my dad to the ceremony and later ride me and my prince off into the sunset.
I invited 300 people and planned every little detail down to the chicken dance.
I had seven bridesmaids, each representing a chakra. I got all the details from a Shirley MacLaine meditation and workout video. Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet. Each color has an energy that coincidentally corresponded to each of my friend's dominant personality traits. And, if you blend all those colors together you get 'white', which would be me -- a blinding beam of Light.
So, here we were. My big day. I fast-tracked the American Dream. I had arrived. I was already light-years better than my parents, and in just minutes I would become a whole, complete person. A married woman.
But all those shots of Jaegermeister on the ride up with my dad in the carriage had my head spinning. This was no longer just any adventure. I was about to turn a chapter I didn't know the first thing about called, "the rest of my life." And yes. I was scared.
It was a beautiful wedding from what I can tell from the pictures. I looked so happy climbing those steps to the castle. I even lost my shoe on my walk up the aisle. And that was not planned! Actually, it was because my dad kept stepping on my dress. My Uncle Ronny caught it all on video, with some rather disturbing commentary and close-ups about how great my boobs looked.
I took my vows. Actually, I kind of slurred my vows, "With this wing, I thee wed."
You think they'd let me annul it on that alone. Everyone called me Elmer Fudd afterwards. It's gotta tell you something.
Not long after, we had to go through that emotionally exhausting, painful process of getting divorced. I take full responsibility for making such a mess of things. People don't get divorced in the American Dream. I never considered it! And Scott was actually pretty pissed off about it too.
But in my defense, I didn't really have any role models growing up. My mom, I guess. But she scared me a little. You get within two feet of her and she would find a reason to wipe your face with the stink rag from the sink. Naturally, I avoided her. Instead, I lived in story. I played understudy for nearly two decades to Cinderella, Snow White, Rapunzel and You-Name-Her Damsel waiting to be saved by Prince Charming.
It wasn't till we got back from our honeymoon that I stared to rub some of the dream out of my eyes. What have I done?! I was living in Hammond Indiana with my new husband, two cats and 80 year old neighbors who lived in a pink house. Scott mowed the lawn. I did the laundry. Scott finished the basement. I made tofu lasagna casseroles.
Was this the 'happily ever after' they promised? This sucked! I was trapped in suburbia and I knew I would surely die if I didn't get out fast.
A lot of people disowned me. Which is fine, because they couldn't have really known me in the first place. How could they? I didn't even know me.
But that was 15 years ago. Life makes more sense to me now. They say that happens when you hit 40. Oprah says it all the time. I think it's true. And I think it's because everything up to this point starts to stop making sense.
But if I knew that as a kid, I wouldn't want to read that story. It feels sad. A little lost. Kind of hopeless.
So what if the American Dream is part fairy tale? We all live in some fantasy. Mine just happened to include castles and fortune, true love and romantic destiny. I believe we're all following a yellow brick road of sorts. Who is the Wizard of OZ, really? Half the fun is figuring that out for yourself.
Because once you do, you're free to dream a dream that's really yours.
I'm from the south side of Chicago. The rich smarties from the north side coin it the wrong side of the tracks. They make assumptions about you before you even open your mouth. It's hard to get too pissed off about it because a lot of them would be right. We didn't go on family vacations. We ate a lot of canned food. We wore hand-me down clothes. We got the belt when we were bad, which was pretty much all the time.
Where I come from, The American Dream is to do better than your parents. Make more money. Get a better education. Buy a bigger house. Drive a better car. And then get married and have kids and be just like them. Only better.My parents set the bar nice and low for me. For one, I was conceived in a cornfield off the side of a highway. My mom had me when she was 18 and then my brother at 19. So, as long as I didn't get married or pregnant before 18, I was well on my way.
Also to my advantage, my parents didn't go to college. So, here too, all I had to do was show up and graduate. That part was actually kind of tricky for financial reasons. For one, my parents decided to move to Atlanta when I was a senior. They all of a sudden decided Chicago is way too cold and announced one day, "we're moving south." I was like, "but, I'm a senior in high school". It didn't matter. They were on a mission to find a better life. And it didn't include me, which was cool.
I moved in with one of the families I babysat for and worked at the local K-Mart, squirreling away every dollar I could so I could afford to go to college. My dad drilled it in my head -- you need an education for any doors to open.
He presented me and my brother David with the typical lower-middle-class college plan called, "Join the Army." David joined, thinking it would be an easy two years. But then war broke out in the gulf and he got sent to Kuwait. He was a frontline tanker, although he says he spent most of his days in the desert burning shit. Literally, that was his job -- he was the shit burner for the whole platoon. That really wasn't my style, so I found another way to put myself through school - working two jobs and cheating and stealing as much as I could get away with.
I started out at Northern Illinois University (NIU) in Dekalb, where Cindy Crawford is from. That may be the only interesting thing about Dekalb. I didn't last there very long because I ran out of money. I dropped out three times over the next five years. But I was unstoppable. I moved in with my grandparents for free room and board and burned the candle on both ends and the middle until I could finally collect my degree from University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC).And then, doors did open. I got a good job in the city (Chi-town), which afforded me just enough to buy a federally subsidized house over the border in Indiana.
All the pieces had come together. My life was nearly perfectly complete. All I needed now was a man.
And then I got the ring. A $40 gold band from the K-Mart jewelry department. I was so touched, because this blue light special epitomized the dream. It told the world, yes, we're broke, but our love is real and will prevail over all.
Scott picked me up from work one Wednesday and stopped off in Grant Park on the way home. He was so nervous. He proposed to me there through a poem he had written on notebook paper. I stopped him midway through and questioned, "this whole thing isn't going to rhyme is it?" He looked up from bended knee, with his big brown eyes and shaky hands and slowly nodded. It was dreadful. But sweet. I let him continue. And then I said yes.
Besides, it was time. We had dated since forever. I was to marry Scott, the fat kid from grammar school.
Well, he wasn't fat anymore. He was more, the balding guy from the finance department. But still very lovable, and more importantly, very much in love with me. Whatever I wanted to do, he wanted to do. Whatever I liked, he liked. If I was mad, he was mad on my behalf. When I was successful at something, he was proud. It was like having two of me around. I loved our conversations. And as luck would have it, they were mostly about me.
So, at 25, I would become the world's most beautiful bride. The Lockport Township High School Prom prince and princess would marry and bring their 8-year courtship to a close in true storybook fashion.
I took out a loan against my 401K for a down payment on a castle in Dyer, Indiana. And no fairy tale wedding would be complete without a horse-drawn carriage. It was to bring me and my dad to the ceremony and later ride me and my prince off into the sunset. I invited 300 people and planned every little detail down to the chicken dance.
I had seven bridesmaids, each representing a chakra. I got all the details from a Shirley MacLaine meditation and workout video. Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet. Each color has an energy that coincidentally corresponded to each of my friend's dominant personality traits. And, if you blend all those colors together you get 'white', which would be me -- a blinding beam of Light.So, here we were. My big day. I fast-tracked the American Dream. I had arrived. I was already light-years better than my parents, and in just minutes I would become a whole, complete person. A married woman.
But all those shots of Jaegermeister on the ride up with my dad in the carriage had my head spinning. This was no longer just any adventure. I was about to turn a chapter I didn't know the first thing about called, "the rest of my life." And yes. I was scared.
It was a beautiful wedding from what I can tell from the pictures. I looked so happy climbing those steps to the castle. I even lost my shoe on my walk up the aisle. And that was not planned! Actually, it was because my dad kept stepping on my dress. My Uncle Ronny caught it all on video, with some rather disturbing commentary and close-ups about how great my boobs looked.
I took my vows. Actually, I kind of slurred my vows, "With this wing, I thee wed."You think they'd let me annul it on that alone. Everyone called me Elmer Fudd afterwards. It's gotta tell you something.
Not long after, we had to go through that emotionally exhausting, painful process of getting divorced. I take full responsibility for making such a mess of things. People don't get divorced in the American Dream. I never considered it! And Scott was actually pretty pissed off about it too.
But in my defense, I didn't really have any role models growing up. My mom, I guess. But she scared me a little. You get within two feet of her and she would find a reason to wipe your face with the stink rag from the sink. Naturally, I avoided her. Instead, I lived in story. I played understudy for nearly two decades to Cinderella, Snow White, Rapunzel and You-Name-Her Damsel waiting to be saved by Prince Charming.
It wasn't till we got back from our honeymoon that I stared to rub some of the dream out of my eyes. What have I done?! I was living in Hammond Indiana with my new husband, two cats and 80 year old neighbors who lived in a pink house. Scott mowed the lawn. I did the laundry. Scott finished the basement. I made tofu lasagna casseroles. Was this the 'happily ever after' they promised? This sucked! I was trapped in suburbia and I knew I would surely die if I didn't get out fast.
A lot of people disowned me. Which is fine, because they couldn't have really known me in the first place. How could they? I didn't even know me.
But that was 15 years ago. Life makes more sense to me now. They say that happens when you hit 40. Oprah says it all the time. I think it's true. And I think it's because everything up to this point starts to stop making sense.
But if I knew that as a kid, I wouldn't want to read that story. It feels sad. A little lost. Kind of hopeless.
So what if the American Dream is part fairy tale? We all live in some fantasy. Mine just happened to include castles and fortune, true love and romantic destiny. I believe we're all following a yellow brick road of sorts. Who is the Wizard of OZ, really? Half the fun is figuring that out for yourself.
Because once you do, you're free to dream a dream that's really yours.
