Dad Said: You are not your dress. But I sure felt like it.<\/p>\n\n
My father was a modest man. He had no desire for extravagant things and he had no tolerance for my demand for them. Like most kids, I went to school events. Tons of people showed up to them, including boys or girls I liked, those teachers I had crushes on, bullies and kids who teased everybody. Naturally, it was monumental to fit in. Not in the Christian way my parents always talked about. Without remorse, I wanted to be\u2026 OF the world, not just IN it.<\/p>\n
I had two close friends growing up. Both were named Michelle. These girls were when I got out of the house, my life blood, my family. Their families had far fewer children. Michelle P was an only child and Michelle F was the baby of three. No need to say it, they were both spoiled. The kids at the school called us either the three M\u2019s or M-cubed. <\/em>Personally, I liked M-cubed best.<\/p>\n For our eighth-grade graduation party, we wanted to wear a very stylish, bell-bottom, plaid, pink with more pink and rust stripes pantsuit. So cool. It was almost the eighties, but we still wanted that vertical striped bell-bottom suit. My parents, mostly my father, refused to buy that suit for me. It was unacceptable. I became irrationally upset over the whole thing. When my father said no, I actually said, \u201cI hate you. You never let me do anything.\u201d I remember those words so clearly because I still bemoan the fact that I never apologized. Those were careless, insensitive words. I never said them again, but decades later, from time to time, I still feel regret over having said them at all.<\/p>\n Why did I tell my father I hated him? Because he bought me a new dress for the party, ignoring everything I said to him about going with the new suit with my friends. Michelle F, lived right across the street and he knew and liked her parents. They got the suit for her. My father thought it was unnecessarily expensive. While I\u2019ll admit, I don\u2019t remember the cost, at the time, I would have thought any price payable. These were my friends, and we deserved to do what we wanted. That was the way I saw it at the time.<\/p>\n Well, I got a new dress. I hated dresses. Still do. Worse, my mother picked it out because she generally picked my dresses.\u00a0 I\u2019m guessing, It was easier than having to contend with my attitude. There was never a time where I picked out a dress without first having had my mother harangue me about the merits of girls wearing dresses. I would always ask for pants. Even on Sabbath days, it was a fight about why I couldn\u2019t wear pants. Sometimes, I would say, \u201cI\u2019ll wear a suit, just like the boys.\u201d I had no desire to wear a boy\u2019s suit or even to wear boy pants. I didn\u2019t like them either.<\/p>\n Years ago, when I graduated college, I stopped wearing dresses and skirts. When a friend asked, \u201cWhy did you stop wearing dresses?\u201d I said, \u201cI grew up.\u201d Now, how is that relevant? I had a two pronged problem. One, I had a dress. It was never easy for me to put on a dress. Two, I didn\u2019t have the suit my friends had. This was an unwinnable issue. I could not go out and get the pant suit, and there wasn\u2019t a person on the planet who I\u2019d ask to do it. Even, if I had asked someone, I wouldn\u2019t have been able to put it on my body. Not only would my father, not have it\u2014he might have given me a good spanking.<\/p>\n So, I protested, and protested for at least two weeks. When that didn\u2019t work, I schemed to get out of the party. Nothing took. My father, would say something like, \u201cI bought that dress and you\u2019re going to wear it.\u201d It was his final word, never to be amended. I knew it the minute he came home with it. When the night of the party came, I stayed in my room refusing to wear the dress.<\/p>\n I hadn\u2019t told my friends that I couldn\u2019t get the suit. I was too embarrassed. Despite my efforts, my father came into my room saying, \u201cI\u2019m giving you twenty minutes to put on that dress.\u201d I got dressed. But when it came time for my father to drive me to the party I was all tears.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat is wrong with that dress?\u201d my father asked.<\/p>\n \u201cYou know I hate dresses.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAnd you know you have to wear it.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBut my friends are wearing their new pant suits. I should have one too.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWell, you don\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n I started crying as though he had given me a beating. My father sat down next to me, he said, \u201cAre you your dress?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNo.\u201d I said through tears.<\/p>\n I knew, when he asked me that the logical and reasonable truth was no, but I sure felt like my dress. He was a man who always solved things with questions and years after his death his questions continue to live in me. His questions have become a part of my identity. During my teen years, they kept me from succumbing to peer pressure. Later in life they kept me from making irrational fiscal decisions. Today, they keep me from buying things I do not need.<\/p>\n When I got my first job after college, I bought a used car, and lived in a modest apartment. My co-workers had new cars and lived in better places. Often times, they would say, you should get a new car. We know you can afford it. They were right. I oftentimes, wanted to buy a new car. But I had the idea, that something could go wrong. It was better to keep my living expenses low. To deal with the peer pressure, I often said to myself, \u201cYou are not your car.\u201d<\/p>\n At twenty-six, I began to set my own adult boundaries based on what mattered to me. Many of my friends resisted those new boundaries. They liked me before I said no to doing the things I didn\u2019t want to do. I lost many of my young, professional fun friends that year. But I found myself thinking, \u201cYou are not your friends.\u201d<\/p>\n More than anything that question helped when the economy tanked. I started having thoughts like, \u201cYou are not your bank account.\u201d Although, I really wanted that pantsuit, I realize it wasn\u2019t that important. My Dad gave me something even better. A talking to. For the rest of my life, his question will echo in my mind, getting louder whenever I need to hear it again. I still hate dresses, but my dad has given me a history of making better decisions by reflecting on my notion of self. For this, I say thank you to him because whenever the societal noise gets too loud, I\u2019m able to look inside and separate myself from all the chatter.<\/p> <\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n