I’ve been flipping out a lot lately about people mistaking me for someone else. I’ve been hurt that people didn’t take the time to really look at me, see me, blah, blah, blah.

I have nobody to blame but myself. If I hadn’t been working so long and hard at becoming invisible, there is no way anybody would have mistaken me for anybody else.

I remember 7th grade, when I got to drag my bass in front of the whole student body and play it (prolly with the Orchestra, for goodness sake!) in the cafeteria in front of everybody. Any shred of coolness I had ever imagined I’d possessed melted away that day.

By 8th grade, I did everything I could to disassociate from that nerdy, different girl. I learned to talk about soap operas I’d never watched, pretended to have ridden school buses I hadn’t ridden, wore a big manly coat all the time, just to look tough.

Who was I fooling?

But by 12th grade, I’d achieved my goal. I was anonymous. More peopel knew my freshman brother than knew me. That didn’t help with my secret goal to make the homecoming court, though. . .

I followed suit throughout college. Senior year in college, everyone in the music school was mixing me up with Monica, a first year grad student. So I had been in the music school for three years, lugging my bass, by the way, but was getting confused with a brand new grad student who played violin and was a few inches shorter to boot. Awesome.

But now I have things I’m trying to accomplish, and I’ve been selling myself short by trying to hide and fit in. Have you ever seen The Princess Diaries (Full Screen Edition)
The main character in that movie perfected the art of being invisible, but she had the calling of princess. Her grandmother, the queen, showed up in her life to train her to rise to her calling.

I wish I had a queen somewhere in the family to coax me up out of the mediocrity I’ve chosen. If I had a penny for everyone who ever told me I had potential, talent–I’d be a billionaire.

I’m reading this amazing parenting book: NurtureShock: New Thinking About Children
explains how someone can hear all that vague praise and end up paralyzed.

Imagine that. Read a book to help you raise your family and get untangled yourself.

How have you sold yourself short?