Not That Ugly
I was admonished recently for saying I was ugly. She Who Must Be Obeyed had something to say about that and reserved no pepper in telling me so.
Looking back on old photos, she may have been right. From the neck up, about the worst you could say is that I was pretty normal looking, not beautiful, but not ugly. From the neck down, I was evolving into a body, something like a Coke machine. That's not really ugly either. I knew girls from South Jackson and Pearl who would cross the dance floor at Boots Hats and Cane just so they could squeeze and fondle my biceps and trapezius muscles.
Kids with ADHD, and especially kids who stutter, are acutely aware of how different they are. It manifests as a deep-seated fear of rejection.
Even as a child, I was a very pragmatic person. I decided to steer into rather than away from my feelings of otherness. If I said I was ugly first, they couldn't hurt me by saying it. Ugliness became part of my self-identity.
Every child has feelings of isolation. It happens because, at the end of the day, we are all prisoners inside our own minds. To combat this, adults come up with all sorts of plans to make us feel uniform. Part of it is so they can control us (which is not easy to do with most children), but there is also an element of trying to make us feel less isolated and alone.
At my school, we were made to dress alike. There were some areas where you could express yourself beyond your uniform. There were also group activities, choirs, and teams that were bent on making us feel like we were part of a unit, rather than a bunch of broken, jumbled pieces.
I remember the first time I saw She Who Must Be Obeyed out of her school uniform. She'd already begun to distinguish herself from the other girls, but seeing her in blue jeans and a yellow knit top at the skating rink, it was also pretty clear she was starting to grow up. I was beginning to understand what beauty meant as a practical matter.
She'd been in dance classes forever. Sometimes, the other girls made fun of how she walked with perfect posture, but in a pair of roller skates, that's a decided advantage. On the floor of Funtime Skateland, she could glide like a duck flying low over the reservoir, while I mostly just rollerskated right into the wall.
In college, I was determined to study business because my father believed that was the best and safest path for me. Working when I wasn't in class, I was, for the first time, able to spend enough time with my father to get to know him as a person, and I wanted his approval more than anything.
Business school isn't where my gifts lie. I could barely do well enough to stay in it. That the Else School of Management was the hardest in Mississippi didn't help much. When I could, I snuck in classes on art, literature, and theater where my grades were much better.
I took Drawing Two from Lucy Millsaps. She was one of the last direct descendants of Ruben Millsaps, who founded the college. Besides the anatomical studies and figure studies, where you got to see other students you barely knew utterly naked and had to pretend it didn't matter, she also wanted us to do self-portraits.
A remarkably kind person, she gave us the choice of an in-class critique or a private one in her office. Usually, I didn't care, but for the self-portraits, I chose to do it privately.
“I'm concerned.” She said. “Usually, you're very good at drawing what you see, but you don't look like this. You're much better looking.” Then, she pointed out all the ways I manipulated or exaggerated the drawing. “Maybe you could talk to somebody about this,” she said.
Once you self-identify as a beast, it relieves pressure in some places, but adds it back in others. She Who Must Be Obeyed was not pleased. Among other things, I'm honor-bound to be as honest as I can with her. A pledge I reaffirm regularly. We're too old and we've known each other too long for anything else.
In truth, I'm not ugly. I probably never was. I feel ugly because of a complicated set of circumstances, and it makes me feel more manly to say it. Saying I'm ugly feels like it amplifies how beautiful she is, but does it? She's pretty easy to identify as beautiful on her own.
We're all the result of the impressions we made as children. A lifetime can't change that. What beauty is in me flows freely from my fingers. I’m satisfied with that.
