Jumping Too Soon
“So much of what is neurotic or damaged about me is the thing I tap into to be creative or to write or to create comedy, it’s all from the wound in some way. I find myself swimming in it creatively and in my imagination to create stories. “
-Writer, director, comedian, Judd Apatow (from Sam Harris’s Making Sense podcast interview)
There are moments in our childhood that shape our lives. realizations: first time I saw a cat… first time I sat in a movie, first time I went out to eat, the first time I made my parents laugh.
Begin Again
Some mindfulness teachers teach that there is no “self,” but that doesn’t stop my fascination with the neuroses that seems to follow me around. I may not have a self, but I am a person with quirks. They are a cocktails of ADHD… the H standing for Highly Sensitive and not-soendaring personality flaws When I’m in a mindfulness zone, I watch them as a benevolent observer. When I’m not, I feel damaged, awkward, and outcast.
There are moments in our childhood that shape our lives. I clearly remember the first time I sat in a movie 101 dalmations– I was hooked and I became a cinephile, I remember vividly the first time I saw a kitty kat, and I’ve been in love with cats and owned them ever since. And I remember the first time I made my parents laugh.
“Laughter is carbonated holiness.” ~Anne Lamott
Humor
Although there are exceptions, in the 60s and 70s, kids weren’t a high priority so making my parents laugh was pretty much the only way I could get their attention other than putting a thermometer on a lightbulb to feign a high temperature.
Humor can help us skirt reality, channel anger, and process awkward circumstances with laughter instead of suicide. I used humor for skirting, channeling, processing, and to connect with parents preoccupied with tennis, the stock market, and what the neighbors thought.
At three-years-old, there is reel to reel film evidence of me wearing my dad’s boat-sized shoes and a rubber nose with mustache glasses dancing around the living room, my mom laughing demurely. To make my parents laugh was a newly found three-year-old discovery that I found delightful and if you had given me a cigar, I’d have willingly headlined at the local comedy club.
When I was five, we moved to from New Jersey to Miami and my family joined Kings Bay Country Club where kids waited in line at the high diving board for an exhilarating jump into the Olympic sized pool beneath. When it was my turn, I’d climb to the top, dance in clown-like antics, then purposely fall into the chloride sea, making sure I pushed off from the pool floor fast enough to catch my parents laughing. That was the important part.
Does Not Rebound Quickly
One time I jumped too soon. I just missed landing on top of six-year-old Eliot Kleinberg. Mrs. Kleinberg came over and in a New Jersey accent shouted,” You almost killed Eliot!! What is the matter with you, you’re a terrible little girl.”
My parents shook their head at me in disapproval, then put magazines in front of their faces. I did see Eliot, but it was shortly after I jumped off the board so all I could do was wiggle in midair as best I could to avoid him. Gravity doesn’t work that way. Wiggling did nothing to change where I landed, which was close, but not on top of Eliot.
I did not like being yelled at by Mrs. Kleinberg. It ruined the rest of my swim. I wasn’t used to being yelled at because my midwestern parents never did it. They disciplined me with passive aggressive looks of disappointment. I thought the words “terrible little girl” was terribly unnecessary hyperbole – although I did not know what hyperbole was back then. I did not rebound too quickly from the Kleinberg incident. As mentioned earlier, I was highly sensitive, and we hang on to embarrassment as long as is earthly possible because self-torture is an effortless by-product of being highly sensitive.
Impulsiveness
What I didn’t know was that the diving board incident was a precursor to other instances where I jumped into things too soon. Unsuitable jobs, unwise purchases, … hot tubs. A few years ago, it was a destined to fail romantic relationship. As a child, I believed that when you ask a prince, “So how long since your last relationship ended, your majesty?” he would answer honestly. This guy told me he was out of a relationship for two years, so I went ahead and let infatuation blind me because he was the lead singer in a rock and roll band, and you know how that is. Turned out his last girl broke up with him two weeks prior to our first date and he was still seriously, SERIOUSLY, hung up on her.
He was desperate not to be lonely. He had no courage to give it time, go it alone and heal, nor to be honest with me … when she wanted him back. He chose me as the placeholder, the fool, the rebound. As I mentioned earlier in this very same chapter, I do not rebound well. My delusional thinking flared up and I was certain my charms would overcome his pining for her. You know, that old fairy tale. Nope.
Aversion to Being Ignored
Relationship Physics: When someone who was dumped (him) gets into a new relationship (me), the party who dumped him (her) often thinks twice about the breakup because this new love interest (me) seems to have discovered something appealing about the dumped one (him) that the dumper (her) took for granted. “Her” wanted him back, so she stealthily played on his aching affections. Because he realized she was jealous, I got a free trip to New Orleans as his ploy to deepen her envy. I didn’t know this until well into the trip. Once very attentive before his ex-wanted him back, he now treated me like an annoyance and spent an inordinate amount of time responding to her posts on social media. That’s nevert a good sign. The jazz, jambalaya, and beignets almost weren’t worth the heartbreak. Almost. Then he invited both of us to his next CD release party and I, with poor judgment despite a red flag the size of Jupiter waving in my face and covering my neighborhoo. When he sang a song he wrote for her right in front of me I walked up to his face and said, “Bye.”
Snarky
If he was ever in a pool under a high diving board, I would jump right on top of him even if his mom was watching. That’s a snarky thing to say but I was snarky as a child too – and there ya go, snarky then, snarky now. I am a terrible adult.
Writing Inclined
When I was in Junior High School, I would write and illustrate elaborate notes for my friends complete with satire, gossip, and commentary on boys. There were news stories, multiple choice questions, fill in the blank, doodled pictures with captions. I loved writing then and am a writer now.
So, it should come as no surprise that if you use me as a rebound to a relationship you aren’t over, I will write about what a coward you are and it might end up somewhere public. Like here. Beware of relationships with writers.
Creative
When one jumps off life’s diving board, one might get a scolding from Mrs. Kleinberg and a heartbreak from the lead singer in a rock and roll band. Stories. Everywhere, every day, there are stories to write about. … and things to eventually, laugh about.
A highly sensitive person in a family that finds high sensitivity irritating can become alienated and lonely. As humor hurdles over, in between, and under the pain and in these downsides of existence, it cultivates in to a stand-up comedy act, a handy coping mechanism, or amusement that lends perspective.
In the book Delivered from Distraction, Drs. Edward Hallowell and John Ratey mention that ADHDers typically have zany senses of humor. Humor is often a gift of attention challenged. Our busy brains can spontaneously put random, seemingly unassociated items together in funny ways that entertain those around us and relieve us from being banished from the kingdom.
