Primary Post - The Beginning

“Life is not fair.”  -My first leadership lesson, care of my Dad.

Growing up in Northeast Ohio, people were a weird blend of polite to your face and also incredibly rude in revealing their judgemental thoughts without a filter, often over-sharing what they thought about your life, occasionally revealing too much about their own life or condition. Cleveland suburbs are a place where no one is allowed to be better than anyone else, but at the same time, everyone knows better than you about how you should be living your life. 

Just look at how they treat Lebron James - a God and saviour in their eyes - who also made poor choices by leaving Cleveland for Miami or Los Angeles.  

I was about ten years old on a routine trip to the dentist when the hygienist made small talk by asking if I had siblings. I told her I had one older sister and one twin brother, to which she replied, “Oh, so you’re the extra,” with complete conviction of the idea my parents wanted one boy and one girl...and that I was an “oops”.  

This suburban rust belt was the kind of environment where I felt weird and uncomfortable when people said things to me, unsure how to respond and how I was supposed to take their comments, but because they said it with such confidence, I held in my discomfort and became anxious. Looking back, of course I was uncomfortable because other people were completely inappropriate.

A few years after the dental incident, I was working my first job scooping ice cream and picking apples at a small orchard on the outskirts of Cleveland suburbs. I changed my work schedule from time to time because I was also playing high school soccer and trying to balance soccer’s summer ramp up training with a job. A job for which I was making maybe $6 an hour. Maybe. In the fall and winter, the ice cream shop slowed its business, but I still kept in touch with the owners and worked one or two weekends a month. Each year, they sent Christmas cards to their employees. My brother and I both received cards, since we both worked there, but mine had a distinct message included, “When will Carrie think of others other than herself? Merry Christmas. From Steve and Don.”

I still am not sure how a 14 year old was supposed to take that Christmas card note. In their eyes, I was incredibly selfish and the best time to let me know what they thought of me was the holiday season. Since I had my brother to compare cards with, I also knew that this wasn’t a fortune every employee was receiving. This was specially written for me. I felt uncomfortable, but they were the adults and I was a blossoming teenager, so I let that anxiety cycle into angst and disinterest in working for them anymore. Whatever selflessness I had I was not about to expend for their benefit.

By the age of 21 I had left Ohio for Northern California, slowly learning the ways of the rest of the world. I finally was able to identify when it was other people who were inappropriate and react accordingly - with compassion when it was short term and with extremes annoyance when I had to deal with it for more than three days at a time.

I came home for the holidays one winter in college and when I went to the local pool the woman at the front desk told me in depth how bad her sinuses were and how the mucus was building up and needed to be released. Initially, I had that feeling of discomfort, how do I react to someone laying out all the details of their current health problem when I just want to pay to enter the pool and get my workout in? Then, I found my inner voice - Carrie, it’s ok, you are in the Ohio suburbs and people here are weird and over share, just pay the lady, show some empathy, and get in the pool where you don’t have to talk to anyone.

Is it fair that I had over 18 years of discomfort because I grew up in a culture of people weirdly in my business and also wanting to share with me all of their business? No, it’s not fair, but I am lucky I had the opportunity to understand that it wasn’t normal and start to deal with my anxiety.

Otherwise, as the extra with a twin brother and older sister, I grew up as a typical 1990s suburban kid with a lot of outdoor time and too much Nickelodeon. Having two siblings meant that the power dynamics were always shifting, two of the three would pair up and the odd person out was in the wrong. It was usually me and my brother teamed up against my sister or my brother and my sister teamed up against me. It was rarely me and my sister against my brother because my sister and I just did not get along………..Whoever was in the pair had control, whether it was the TV or what game to play next. The pair knocked out the odd person when it came to neighborhood four square on the driveway or butts up against the neighbor’s garage door. 

Overall it was a decent upbringing with little conflict andn few lessons on solving conflict. I heard my parents fight once and when my Dad realized I had been listening at the top of the steps he came up stairs to reassure me that everything was ok between them and calmed my 90s existential fears that my parents were going to get divorced.

Divorce was a huge 90s drama, normally presented in the serious episodes of TGIF Friday sitcoms and in movies as a reason for angst in the kids behaving mischievously (usually early in the movie, with the lead character pouting in his flannel while riding the bus to school. The scene was of courses long before the other 90s movie scenes such as putting exlax in someone’s drink as a form of revenge). I still am working on how to have a healthy conflict. In the past, I would get mad, know I’m right, give the person some good Ohio advice on why they are inferior, then leave the situation/friendship/relationship because obviously if we are fighting we are not good for each other, based on my upbringing with zero arguments and mostly heavy sighs by my Dad. 

The heavy sigh as a form of conflict resolution is only good if you are in the suburbs where you have a large house and yard and can do a heavy sigh, then leave the room to be 50 yards and three rooms away from the person with whom you are in conflict. Currently, as a young person trying to afford to live in a big city, it’s really hard to heavy sigh and see my way out of conflict from the bed where I am sitting with my significant other to the couch 2 feet away in my studio apartment. On a different note, I’m also really good at asking for time and space during conflict, but not wanting to give others the same when they ask for it of me.

I’ve gotten better about solving conflicts my adult workplace, but still have left teams and jobs because of dissatisfaction with particular personalities. I just don’t know what to do when I’m not allowed to exlax my nemesis's drink at prom and snicker when they get the “Oh no my stomach is gargling” face of fear. I also just like collaboration where we can all get along without arrogance - my Cleveland tendencies towards everyone being equal.

But like my Dad said, life is not fair. We can’t leave our childhood knowing everything about the world and how to deal with intrusive cultures. Some people are better equipped for certain environments than others. I may have been delayed in building skills such as communication, conflict resolution, and overall knowing what is causing anxiety, but I left childhood knowing how to create games in the woods and build a pretend Agrocrag out of furniture and pillows.

More lessons would come later and in joining the Coast Guard, knowing how to create fun out of boring times was actually one of the more useful skills I was happy to have had developed.