"I Don't Want To Be Good"

The most epic meltdown as a child that I can remember was when I was about four. Funnily enough I don't remember much about it myself -  it was more the numerous recounts of the event as told by my parents, describing the one monumental tantrum they chose to preserve in our family's collective memory.

Blogger @4: Not so innocent

The story goes that I had gotten some money for my birthday; my aunt living far away in Canada always diligently sent her nieces and nephews in Serbia a generous monetary gift each year of our childhood, nestled in a beautiful Hallmark card. The three-figure number (a lot of money for Serbia) precisely outlined by little perforated dots that felt like Braille on the back, the intricate design on the thick stock of the Toronto Dominion bank cheque. 

So my parents asked me - likely as a joke - where would I want to invest my money?

     "JIK bank - a bank in your home!" - I answered right away and they all burst into laughter.

There was a radio commercial for Jugoslav Investment Credit bank that aired constantly. Having stayed home with a nanny while all the other family members were in school or at work caused me to hear the marketing message so many times a day that I even said it with the intonation of the voice actor.  This had brought on an flurry of giggles. 

JIK bank pin

However, my own parents didn't bank with the JIK bank and no one was seriously committed to honouring storing my Canadian dollars the way I had personally elected to as a young investor. When I realized there was no call being made on my behalf (JIK bank's pitch promised they would even send a representative to one's home to open an account!) I immediately opted for that meltdown that everyone remembers till today. The story was that I cried for hours, voice hoarse and eyes red and swollen. My mother made an executive decision to send me to bed without dinner - likely a difficult and heart-wrenching move for her given at age four I was skinny as a toothpick - a hopelessly poor eater. 

All these years later, it turns out that as an adult I am equally unprepared to deal with authority that offers me a freedom of choice within well-established rules, only to neglect honouring it when decision time comes. In minor cases I am talking about offers which 'expired' and can't be honoured even though the fine-print is clear and the date is right. That's when I become a relentless warrior of the customer service line until the issue is resolved to my utmost satisfaction. In major cases -- well, I am not going to be talking about major cases. You get the point. 

I'm not sure if this childhood incident ignited my moderate yet unfaltering type of righteous-rebelliousness to see each "because I say so" type of injustice through until its very end, but this just might be the case. Don't circumstances usually forge the behaviours? Adamantly forbid something and sure as hell it will be done behind your back: Not staying off the grass. Underage smoking. Experimenting with drugs. Not asking your doctor. Driving over the speed limit. Drinking while at work. Using business hours to browse the internet, write a book, sell shakes, jewelry and even real-estate? 

Pretty much every time a parent, a boss or a politician tries to go hard-ass with some safety or productivity or political rule, it backfires. And in case the parent, the boss or the politician showed a smidgen of incongruence with their own rule - the very core of that structure starts to rot, perhaps not visibly at first, but surely leading to an individual if not collective collapse down the road. 

Bottom line - those making up the rules or making accusations better make them and enforce them carefully - perhaps highlighting guidelines that honour integrity, core values and the big picture; ensuring they themselves first adhere to the very last letter of it. You can't take a 'green day' then expect your teenager to stay off weed. It just doesn't work that way!

My guilt-ridden mother tells me she entered my bedroom shortly after she sent me to bed on that day. My breathing was still heavy from all that drama and she wanted to kiss and make nice, thinking I wouldn't be able to fall asleep until we said 'sorry'.

    "Hey darling, I came to say goodnight. I'm sorry you were disappointed. We will talk about the bank tomorrow." She sat near me and tenderly stroked my hair. "Is there anything you want to say to mama?" 

    "Yes." My quiet voice answered and my mom smiled. I shakily drew a deep breath:     
    "Mama, actually, I don't want to be good!" Then allegedly relieved, I fell asleep. 

The way I try to parent my boys is by being fluid. Have the core rules we are proud to honour in our family each and every time no matter our relative rank by age: being kind, honest, hard-working and light-hearted. Light hearted. It is extremely important not to take ourselves too seriously, let alone make comparisons to others. That goes under 'kind': kind to ourselves. Compete today only with who we were yesterday and no one else. And then there are those rules which are welcome to be 'broken' especially when folks with born-into-it status or those with default authority are in question. By example, I often teach my kids "not to be good"-- coaching them to sense and question inauthentic behaviours and one-sided rules, challenging the unfair, exposing the fake and the ridiculous. Like an everyday version of a PG-rated bad-ass, steadfast in being the proverbial 'troublemaker'.
It's my pleasure to be one!

Proudly raising the next generation of troublemakers! 

My Own Personal Guardian Angel

Do you believe in Guardian Angels (G.A.)? 

Trust me, if you had one your entire life you would!

Hello my 9-yrs old self!

Take a look at this kid with pig tails. It is1978 and bell bottoms and pointy collars is so much the raging fashion that my mom thought that only a flower-hat pin was needed in order to make me look picture perfect! We were vacationing in Greece, the Island of Thassos (where my father taught me how to swim!) It might have been my birthday; I'm a summer baby.

It took me a good thirty years to look this girl in the eyes and see what my life's guardian angel always saw: PERFECTION.

My only uncle, the favourite person of my childhood, peacefully fell asleep on December 6th. He had a great family and a great life and although I would have bargained with the heavens to keep him with us just a tad longer, I am grateful he didn't suffer. And I'm thankful we're 'departing in birth order' as my wise ancestors described lucky families. And I am richer for every minute I got to have him. This story is about him.

Imagine a giant teddy bear. Then imagine that he is real, he is funny, he is handy (a mechanical engineer who knew how to fix everything!) Imagine that he has a body-guard streak. And that he possesses the sensitivity rarely found even in mothers of daughters, let alone a father of two boys. And then imagine my luck - that the daughter he never had but always wished for happened to be me!

My Teddy Bear's name was Zoran - a common Serbian name - but for me he was Koka. His lap was my safe zone! As a fairly mouthy child - alas, not much has changed - I used it very often. It was "Geneva" - offering full protection from being disciplined no matter the offence.

Remember that school chewing gum incident? I never told how that ended, did I? I went home and told my parents. They empathized as my mom cut a chunk of my hair while hoping I 'learned a lesson'. Chewing gum was no good for my teeth anyway. 

Then I called Koka. A minute later he was already sitting in our living room sipping coffee.  

"What did you say the teacher's name was?" - he whispered in my ear as I found my shelter right away, retelling the school drama. 

"And this week you go to school in the afternoon? A-hmmm" - his acknowledgment sounded more like he was engineering a project. The eyes behind the thick-rimmed glasses suddenly looked as if they had a powerful calculator at work. 

      "Is she doing this to other kids?" 

      "You have math tomorrow?"

I was running down the stairs with friends after the class, eager to get the best spot under the tree for our magical recess games, when I saw two men in trench coats in the school lobby, looking serious. The somewhat surreal recognition turned into wonder as his barely-visible wink signalled me to keep going to the yard. From under the shade my eyes were glued to the glass door. Like in a silent movie, I saw our fierce math teacher pause as someone introduced her to the two gentlemen. Her blank stare was replaced by a red face, her head vigorously shaking as if she was a child being scolded. Our game started, I got distracted and by the time the bell rang and we rushed back in, the trench coats were already gone. 

My body-guard, my G.A., my Koka was a man of both justice and action. It took him 24h to show up at my school with his much fiercer colleague Miško, the two of them looking all FBI-like demanding the teacher to never, ever punish another child again if she didn't want them to return. Not only did it work, this big mouth here managed to never tell a soul about it - up until right now! 

My entire life Koka has been my safe harbour, my mischief buddy and my confidant. When he caught me crying - mean girls at school were calling me names for my protruding ears (you are welcome to scroll back to the photo above) despite my parents' finding that I actually looked charming, he took me to his plastic surgeon friend who agreed to perform the first aesthetic surgery in Belgrade's Children's Hospital in exchange for a before and after photo for her office. Dr.Gordana Janjić - I have never forgotten your gift! I was 10 years old and coming back to school with my ears beautifully fixed gave me a quantitative confidence boost that ensured the survival of my late starting puberty.  

Still, the real treasure was enjoying Koka as my G.A. long into my adulthood. He was my back-up parent of the best kind. He was the one who taught me how to let go of failed man and marriage. He was the well-needed second grandpa to my son; the kid felt like a little king in his care! He was the favourite teddy bear I never grew too old to hug. And he was my only bank - the one that loaned me the money needed for immigration, even though those years were tough on everyone and that was rainy-day fund. 

My Teddy Bear - Belgrade 2013

The unexpected gift of immigration, after we all survived the initial grief of being separated, is that our forever began right there. As in true life-long friendships, dimensions of distance and time mean nothing. We stayed close and grew closer even though a decade and a half passed before we would see each other again. And when that day arrived and I saw my G.A. waiting for me at the Nikola Tesla International Airport, my heart exploded and rejoiced as I threw myself into the best embrace on Earth. That week in Belgrade my life got prolonged. Endless hours of talking, laughing, drinking coffee, reminiscing our fun times, analyzing tough moments - that week will forever stay preciously stored in my heart. Yes - for the unbelievable abundant love and optimism and energy I'm still kindling inside of me. It will never expire. But more so for regressing into being their 'baby', the youngest of all kids in the family, the one with special privileges and my own personal guardian angel.

The night my Koka fell asleep I woke with an answer to a pressing question I've had for a while. The answer was so crystal clear it brought instant relief that helped me fall sound asleep right away. A few hours later tears streamed down my face as I read the message from my cousin - my loss will always be immense. But somehow I know Koka hung around as long as he could to have this one last real lesson sink in and see the tide change. 

What I feel is true is that there is no departure - we were already pros at long distance! The absence of the physical only means that Koka is so much closer to me now - riding along with me. I'm safe, comfortably nestled in for what's to come, his lap wide as heaven itself.

Trust Me, I'd Rather Be Knitting!

There was this kid in my elementary school who was a total, well, loser. 

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Before any anti-bullying crew jumps with all its might to crucify me, let me tell you that I too, today - the mother, the volunteer and myself a member of a ferocious anti-bullying crew - wouldn't have called him that. But in the cruel world of growing up in Serbia in the early 80’s, when my math teacher caught me chewing gum in grade 5 and for punishment made me spit it into her hand (!?) only for her to solidly embed the pink wad into my long hair so close to my skull that a big chunk needed to be cut off, yeah, that kid was a sorry loser. He was mean and feisty, deliberately insulting the other kids yet with nothing to show for it.  He was by far the shortest in our class, tragically non-athletic and also a really poor student. Where is he now? Just wait!

I don't recall the exact chain events that led to it, but one day my favourite teacher Madame C - who had taught us French for the three previous years - the only young and really cool teacher I ever had (she took my BFF and me to a Classics Nouveau concert when their tour went through Belgrade in 1982!!!) mocked the boy. In front of the entire class. To the hilarious roar and approval of all the 7th graders. I remembered that he actually 'deserved' it, but my stomach churned and my mind screamed at the injustice of it. 

Without thinking, I shot up. I asked the teacher why she had taunted him. I told her it was unfair: she was the adult; he was a child. She was the teacher; he was the student. 

If she was surprised at all by the outburst of a red-faced student activist, this teacher didn't show it. She nonchalantly shrugged and forced a short laugh: "Ha! All right - seems like we have a volunteer!" with menacingly careful enunciation.  "As of today, you will share a desk with him!"  N o b o d y  wanted to share a desk with him. I mean - nobody! My BFF looked at me in disbelief as my shaky hands picked up my belongings to prepare for the dreaded move away from our fun table. 

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The aftermath? My mom came home after a subsequent parent-teacher meeting and told me in chosen words: "Kid - you're screwed! You will have to study for this class like no other - your only chance of survival is if your French mark is 100%!" And it was. As for the boy - I wish I could say that my unexpected kindness changed his ways and made him a more social and pleasant being, but that didn't happen. He continued to be a total jerk to everyone around him - especially me - just to make sure I didn't think he was now obligated to treat me any better than the others. Today he is a judge at the highest court in Belgrade. Dial 1-800-SIGMUND!

Throughout my life, despite throwing myself into the study of botanics and chemistry and other noble things, I frequently ended up being that voice. 

If someone's pushing people and cutting the line, you'll hear me. A mother is oblivious to her child being aggressive in the playground, I speak up. A hit and run of a homeless person? I am the one who manages to snap a photo of the license plate, noting the time, day, make and model. My testifying got the poor woman a year of physiotherapy and massage treatments and a luxurious doggy day care for her only companion. If I witness the injustice, no matter how tough or tricky the circumstances are, I will say something. After all, my mother's entire career has been as a successful lawyer who often represented women pro bono. If not by proximity, I would have had to get some of her justice-league gene through breast milk! 

Please don't get me wrong. I do not plan, plot nor enjoy being the designated Joan of Arc. I am fully aware that in centuries past women like me have been burned at the stake. Even today, elsewhere in the world women’s voices are silenced in the worst ways possible. Trust me, I'd rather be knitting! But for some reason, I have often found myself in situations where saying nothing would have made me an accessory and an accomplice. That simply can not happen. Not to me. 

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And that's not all. Somehow, it seems that the whole world conspires to nudge me into this braver version of myself. The non-fiction addict that I am, the right books and articles drop into my lap. And then the right people to discuss those ideas with. 

From Malala Yousafzai  to Cheryl Sandberg and numerous life and business coaches, trailblazers and she-heroes in between, the message has been sinking in at every turn and every milestone. It certainly shows up at every obstacle. The Universe has made sure I hear it. It also made sure I will lose sleep should I attempt to neglect it.

The more popular choice, the safer choice, the boring choice, the keep-your-gaze-down choice, the "this-too-shall-pass" choice, the "It's a Man's World" choice - these have simply never been an option for me. When nagging starts, I am put into places and situations that make it all but impossible to retreat. I am compelled to make sure my voice is heard. Could I simply be born this way?

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What follows also has a pattern. At the exit of the whirlwind I feel elated and glorious yet utterly exhausted. I get thanked and revered and celebrated. I also get silently hated and scoffed at and plotted against - not everybody will be a fan of each outcome. Before the courage is mustered to go deep and face the truth it is convenient to find someone to blame. How about the one with the loudest mouth? Somehow since my grade 7 incident, that loudest mouth has often been, well, mine. 

Do you believe in the infinite wisdom of the Internet? As it happens - I now do! In the past little while, I've randomly seen/received all of the quotes with which I have adorned this blog post. I call them Quotes Internet Wants Me To See #QIWMTS

Just as I was getting ready to press this 'publish' button, the one displayed at the end showed up. All right Universe - challenge accepted! Let's learn how to do this! 

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