no.2

(sun nov 11th 2006)

now that i think of it, it seems that no. 2 has been a constant theme throughout my life. it started early in my childhood, in school.

in romania, at the end of each school year, we had a prize-giving-ceremony. first, second and third prize. these were supposedly based on your academic achievement; and maybe a little on your "behaviour", meaning how well you conformed. but there where other factors that came into it, as we all knew: how well your parents knew the teachers, how many presents and favors they did for them, the degree of influence your parents held in the communist party, things of that nature.

nevertheless, the end-of-the-year festivities were something we all took very seriously. it was a great honor to win the first prize. i almost always got the sencond. which, to me, was more of a humiliation that if i hadn't gotten anything at all. at least that would've been more anonymous (although it would not have gone over too well with my parents). but second prize put the spotlight on in a way that made me very uncomfortable, showing everyone that i just wasn't "as good". so every time i had to step up to the make-shift podium to receive my prize (a flower wreath on my head, a package containig 2 or 3 politically correct books, and a bouquet of fresh flowers), i did so trying my best to hold back the tears.

one year, i remember, i refused to go. it was too hard, so i just stood in my room in front of the window, looking at the festivities from afar. it just happened that our apartment faced right into the school yard where the ceremony was taking place. i stood there and felt free to cry for once. my mom and dad felt sorry for me and try to reassure me that 2nd prize was okay; they convinced me to go to the cerremony, which i did with a heavy heart, as usual.

so it could've been that my academic achievement was not good enough to win first prize; or that my parents didn't make enough effort to engratiate themselves with the teachers; maybe i did not have the right attitude to quite make it; whatever it was, the reasons did not matter. more than anything else at that time, i wanted to win first prize, i wanted to be popular, i wanted recognition, and i was devastated each year when i did not get it.

years later, although in not as obvious a fashion, i was still trying to be no.1. just something i had to get out of my system, i guess. so when i got my first "real" job, it was great to enjoy a few months of recognition and popularity, while everyone was impressed with my talents and efforts. that is until someone else came along - she was also ambitious, she was also really good, she was a nice person, good looking, fit, etc. etc - everything i didn't want her to be. she got slightly more attention than i did. i could not believe i was going through this again. there were days i'd come home and cry, wishing all the possible ills on her, wishing that she'd just disappear and let me enjoy some of my own spotlight for a while. when this did not happen, we became friends. i got to know her, got to like her (a lot), got to see what everyone else saw in her. this was a little disturbing. i wanted to hate her - it was much more clear cut that way. it helped that i eventually left the country. that way, i did not have to compete with her anymore. i could just like her and be friends without being threatened.

today, i'm trying to piece all this into a (weird) nap-time story for my 3-year-old daughter. don't know why it's coming back to me at this time. maybe it's all the rain, the way it makes me feel. in any case, i have no idea where the story will go as i am telling it. maybe i just want to voice some of the feelings i left unspoken all these years, in an unthreatening environment (how much more unthreatening can you get than a sleepy 3-year-old?). maybe i want to warn my daughter, plant an early seed, so that through my experiences she may see the waste of competitiveness and ambition; maybe if she lives these things through my stories she will be spared unnecessary pain.

maybe it is just that i needed to realize that there is, after all, one thing i'm number one at: i'm number one at being myself. which sounds a little dumb, so maybe i should say instead that numbers just don't matter so much anymore.

maybe being no.2 was an unrecognized blessing all these years, because it forced me to move on, to keep looking. it made me search for something authentic, something meaningful, and lead me to realize that recognition and authenticity occur together only accidentaly. had i received first prize and the recognition i wanted, i may have felt content to take on the role of "best student", or whatever, pigeonholed by somebody else's definition and their expectations. maybe i would've stopped hurting, stopped searching, in short, stopped living an authentic life. or maybe, this is all about sour grapes.

in any case, what's for sure is that on this wet rainy day, it feels sweet to simply acknowledge these things and to realize that somehow, somewhere along the way they lost their power over me.