“Look at me!”
The great thing about college is
that you start with a blank slate. The bad thing about college is that
your slate doesn’t stay blank for long. One day, during my first semester
of college, as I was hanging out with some of my new friends, a guy started
doing an impersonation of me. “Look at me!” “Look at me!” he repeated as
he bounced up and down. He had discovered and insensitively revealed my
secret.
Everything I do is a pathetic attempt
to get people to “LOOK AT ME!”
I blame my need to be seen on being
a twin. As a twin, people are always looking at you, but they only look at you
to compare you with someone else. Twins are nature’s freaky science
experiment. It is the true story of two fertilized eggs, incubated in one womb,
born into one family, chosen to live in the same world with the same face.
(Please read this like the intro to the Real World) What is even better
is that you, the viewer, decide how you will label these two seemingly
identical creatures. There is the smart twin, the pretty twin, the big twin,
the small twin, the funny twin, the married twin, the successful twin and the
loser twin.
For the past hundred years or so, my
aunt has been a labor and delivery nurse. She has aided thousands of
babies in leaving the comfort of their warm uterus to enter the bright and sterile
world of the uncorded. She is the sole reason I am not attached to my
mother today! Since I attended public school, my aunt was invited to discuss
the birthing process with my 5th grade class. As only a nurse
can, she enthralled the class with her gruesome details of our birth.
Apparently, my twin sister just shot into the world shiny and perfect,
literally the most beautiful and flawless child ever seen. Nine long
minutes later (an eternity in twin time), my aunt helped deliver me, the
ugliest baby she had ever seen. I was born fat, blue and not breathing; labeled
by life the defective twin. I have,
since that frightful birth-day, been striving to over-compensate for my deficient
twin status.
It’s exhausting.
At thirty-two, I still sometimes feel like I don’t measure
up to my perfect twin sister. (Although, to be honest, she probably feels the same about me) If she is the scholar on achieving and maximizing
your dreams, I am the scholar on surviving with broken hearts, broken dreams
and crushed expectations. The crazy thing is we both have a line of people
looking to glean from our expertise. Not measuring up is an issue that even
non-twins, singletons according to Wikipedia, can identify. Some days it seems like everyone else is
living life in Technicolor, while your own life is stuck in black and
white. You find yourself begging for
people to see you, to validate your worth and existence. Running from thing to
thing, person to person, the secret cry of your heart is begging, “Look at me.
Look at me!”
Despite my anxieties and a life that
makes me doubt, I am struck by one unchangeable truth. God sees me. I may have
been an UGLY baby, but I was fearfully and wonderfully made.
O
Lord, you have searched me and
known me!
2 You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
you discern my thoughts from afar.
3 You search out my path and my lying down
and are acquainted with all my ways.
4 Even before a word is on my tongue,
behold, O Lord, you know it altogether.
5 You hem me in, behind and before,
and lay your hand upon me.
6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
it is high; I cannot attain it.
2 You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
you discern my thoughts from afar.
3 You search out my path and my lying down
and are acquainted with all my ways.
4 Even before a word is on my tongue,
behold, O Lord, you know it altogether.
5 You hem me in, behind and before,
and lay your hand upon me.
6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
it is high; I cannot attain it.
Where
shall I go from your Spirit?
Or where shall I flee from your presence?
8 If I ascend to heaven, you are there!
If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!
9 If I take the wings of the morning
and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
10 even there your hand shall lead me,
and your right hand shall hold me.
11 If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me,
and the light about me be night,”
12 even the darkness is not dark to you;
the night is bright as the day,
for darkness is as light with you.
Or where shall I flee from your presence?
8 If I ascend to heaven, you are there!
If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!
9 If I take the wings of the morning
and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
10 even there your hand shall lead me,
and your right hand shall hold me.
11 If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me,
and the light about me be night,”
12 even the darkness is not dark to you;
the night is bright as the day,
for darkness is as light with you.
13 For you formed my inward parts;
you knitted me together in my mother's womb.
14 I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
my soul knows it very well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
16 Your eyes saw my unformed substance;
in your book were written, every one of them,
the days that were formed for me,
when as yet there was none of them.
you knitted me together in my mother's womb.
14 I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
my soul knows it very well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
16 Your eyes saw my unformed substance;
in your book were written, every one of them,
the days that were formed for me,
when as yet there was none of them.
17 How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!
How vast is the sum of them!
18 If I would count them, they are more than the sand.
I awake, and I am still with you.
How vast is the sum of them!
18 If I would count them, they are more than the sand.
I awake, and I am still with you.
(Psalm
139: 1-18)
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