Friday, 12/14

We can all rest easy. The streak will continue for at least another month.

After writing the blog about dark chocolate yesterday morning I went running. Before I did so, I checked the temperature; it was 32.5, which meant it was above freezing, which meant that I could go running in shorts, which meant the streak I wrote about Tuesday can continue.

Yes, I'm a dork. What's your point?

While I was running in shorts yesterday morning I started thinking, which as we know can be a very dangerous thing. I thought about some of the dorky stuff I do (and have done) in my life, and for some bizarre reason that led me to a saying that I've been trying to live up to recently--

Be the person you needed when you were young.

I think that when I was young I would've appreciated someone like the adult me. I was one of “those” kids. I was tall & skinny. I was shy. I read a lot, loved space, and adored “Star Trek”. I couldn't do anything athletic for the life of me, and the fact that I had interests other than most kids meant that I was “different”. I know what it's liked to be picked on, I know what it's like to be talked about, and I know the humiliation of being one of the last people picked for any kind of sports or team activity.

I mean, I know everyone's childhood has its ups & downs. Those were mine.

For whatever reason, I didn't let what happened to me as a kid define who I became as an adult. Slowly but surely, I grew into myself. I had loving parents who encouraged my sometimes strange interests. Meeting new people and finding myself in new situations in college and in the real world helped me develop confidence and an outgoing, optimistic personality. And I met an amazing, athletically-inclined woman who showed me that it IS possible not to be picked last for a team.  And you can have fun while doing it.

Thanks to all that, I became the person I am today. Sure, I'm still a dork. But I'm a dork who's changed over the years. I'd like to think that change has been for the better (I'd like to think I'm up to, oh, being a six out of ten; I'm still a work in progress), but I'll leave that up to you.

That's why when I see young people who aren't sure of themselves or who are trying to head down a path on which not everyone would go, I try to be encouraging. I try to be supportive. I try to let them know that who they are now is not necessarily who they'll grow up to be, and that whatever they're going through at the moment may be something that they'll laugh about in the future. I try to let them know that the people who are disapproving of or tormenting them now have issues of their own to deal with. I try to do this with my nieces and nephews, both here and downstate. I try to do that with some of the kids I get to know on “High School Bowl”. And I try to do that with one or two special young people I've been lucky enough to come across in my life.

I try to be the person they need when they're young.

I don't know why all this came into my head while I was running in shorts on a December morning, trying to keep a dorky streak going that absolutely no one in the world cares about aside from me. Maybe it was just the mental image of a young, nerdy, and non-athletic me laughing at what the older me ended up becoming.

I'm sure the younger me would be glad to know that it all turned out okay. And that being a dork is still something to be proud of, even if it somehow involves keeping track of every month in which you can run in shorts.

(jim@wmqt.com), dork.