Shoelaces for Josie

I’m really good at the comparison game. Or really bad, depending on your view. I’m really good at it, because I compare a lot which is really bad. Physical attributes, cake-baking skills, house-cleaning habits, getting up from spills, hits on the funny meter, being neater, perhaps even a little sweeter. That’s just a short list – made infinitely shorter from the out-of-nowhere urge to rhyme.

I was born into the comparison game. I was not born with things like a set of bodacious ta-tas, an insatiable urge to clean my house twice a week or the gift of sitting around the campfire and telling funny stories. Which is fine, most of the time. Until I run into a situation where I find myself glancing down at my chest and wondering what it might be like to have Hells Canyon-type cleavage or wishing I could use my windows as a mirror for flossing my teeth or being able to wring laughs out of a group with no more effort than taking a breath. (Depending on who you are with that last one. If you’re a dead guy, then taking a breath is probably an almighty big effort. And with the second, if you have no teeth, then you probably don’t want a mirror-like window. And for the first, if you’re a man…I personally don’t think you should be desiring Hells Canyon cleavage.)

The comparison game is depressing for me. Rarely do I ever compare myself with someone where I might “win”. Which, if I did, I’d struggle with admitting that anyway, because who wants to be friends with someone who picks on the little guy while he’s down? You don’t step on people like that. Unless you accidentally don’t see them, because they just tripped over a crack in the sidewalk and you were too busy talking on your cell phone to notice. Hands-free is the way to be!

But also, who wants to be friends with the person who sets themselves up to lose? ALL the time. I just as well walk around with my finger and thumb in the shape of an L on my forehead (Song, anyone? Anyone??) Because you see, I never choose to compare something I’m okay with. I always pick something that I’m staggering along the cliff of insecurity with.

Comparisons are ridiculous. I always fall short, and I’m already quite short enough, thank you. I think it is human nature to compare. Our looks, our possessions, our families, our personalities – we compare, because of that whole keeping-up-with-the-Jones’ type thing.

Well. I don’t want to be like the Jones’. I want to be like me, all my imperfections and shortcomings to boot. So I’m not turning heads and I don’t have a clean house and I’m not stand-up comedian funny? Okay, that’s cool, I can deal. What I can’t deal with is feeling like I’m trying to mold myself into someone’s skin and doing things and pursuing ideals that don’t fit me simply because I came up short when I played the comparison game.