Special

Never let go.

Dead Leaves (1956) by Remedios Varo

I was assigned a piece about letting go of being special, like this should be your goal if you want to survive as a woman in the world. I am supposed to tell women that they should try to release their tight grip on what they desire, they should tamp down their competitive spirit, embrace humility, recognize that we are all one, shimmering imperfect reflections of each other’s vulnerable souls.

It’s better this way, I am meant to whisper, pretty words on the page to relax you, make you sink into a kind of acceptance, allow you to see that you’re deeply flawed and broken and that’s okay, you don’t need to improve, you don’t have to get better. I am supposed to tell you to go on a walk, bake some bread, watch the birds, while your brother puts on his suit and goes to work, while your friend quits his job to start a company, while your father, the judge, condescends to you about your little projects, while your ex comes through your town, touring with his latest book, and spots you in the back of the bookstore at his reading, and comes over after it’s done to say

You look good.

He doesn’t ask what you’ve been up to for the past decade. He doesn’t ask where you’re living or when you moved there, the kinds of questions that might offer him a glimpse of what you made from the raw materials of your broken childhood, what you crafted out of a series of heartbreaks, what you dug out of the backwoods of your desires, what you recovered, refurbished, recreated, reduced until flavorful, reused until exhausted, recycled until rebuilt, until reborn, until you were recharged and you could rebound into a reimagined, resplendent future.

He doesn’t ask why. (Because you were fucking greedy and competitive and lonely and you found solace in the gluttonous folds of your imagination.)

He doesn’t ask how. (By acknowledging your hunger, by revisiting your perfectionist roots, by refusing to take no for an answer, by daring to want more than you had, by demanding better, by risking rejection, by asserting your convictions, by refusing to surrender, by telling yourself a nasty little story, in the dark of your room, as the taxis trumpeted through the urban wilderness, that you were special, you were brilliant, the world was numb and dumb and you were alive and on fire, a joy-seeking missile, barreling toward the unknown with conviction.)

He just looks at you with a condescending smile. Everything was in its proper place with him, always. He was always the hero, and you were a supporting character. You can see that nothing has shaken his conviction in the years since. His ex still looks good, and that makes him all the more heroic.

But before you can even respond in words, a voice in your head tells you

Looking good doesn’t make you special. So don’t start thinking it does!

This is what so many years of daring have done to you. They’ve turned you into a choosy beggar, thankful for scraps but unable to ingest them without gagging. You were hated for seeing around corners. You were resented for wanting more than this. So you went for a walk. You baked bread. You didn’t overthink it. You surrendered. You let go.

You stopped asking what a girl can own. You stopped wondering what a woman can become. You saw for yourself that the good ones fade gracefully like wallpaper losing its sheen. The pure ones don’t state their needs out loud, or point out that you spelled their names wrong again. Let someone else stand at the podium and hold forth, who wants to be hated? It’s better this way. Savor your mediocrity, accept your humble path, speaking up is unbecoming, showing off is unflattering, you are becoming undone, you are unraveling, stay quiet, never draw attention to everything you are.

But

remember when your teacher put the two boys in the advance reading group

and

you asked why

and

your mother told you

Your teacher hasn’t noticed that you’re smarter than those boys, probably because she’s not as smart as you.

That’s entitlement but it’s also hunger. That’s privilege but it’s also rage against a world that couldn’t take her in, couldn’t digest everything she was, couldn’t do much more than say You look good or You’re the boss (in a tone that said You scare me and You piss me off and You are nothing). That’s greed but it’s also sadness, that’s perfectionism but it’s also heartbreak, that’s arrogance but it’s also pure love, a burning hot desire to let a very small, uncertain you know that not only aren’t you falling behind the boys, you’re far ahead of them already, you’re outpacing the whole class, you’re outrunning the entire town, you’re bounding into a brilliant future, destined to rebuild this world because

you’re special.