The Product of Developmental Retardation: How Not To Be Like Me

I was reading a Newsweek article today on how a woman's fertility may in some ways be subject to her diet. And no, I'm neither attempting to create little Stephanies, nor using my diet as some sort of natural means of birth control. Anyway, a certain scenario emerged in my thoughts as I read. You see, my sisters stand 5' 10" and 5' 8.5" tall (that .5" does matter). I stand 5' 7" tall. It occurred to me that a likely reason why I may be the runt of the litter is that my father smoked around me - often in relatively closed quarters of the house - for a good chunk of my growing years. This was not the case when my sisters were children. Now, I know this has nothing to do with fertility, per se, but the article got me in the growth and development line of thinking. When I was a child I always said I wanted to grow to be 5'9"... I wonder if I had any true chance of making it there. Maybe I just got more of my mom's genes. She was 5' 6.75".

Another largely unrelated topic that I reflected upon today, among many, many other days throughout my life, involves the concept of identity. I've dealt with a precarious coincidence over the years, one which has caused me to think that it's really no coincidence at all. It seems I've been living a dual identity. For as long as I can remember, nearly every time someone forgets or fumbles on my name, I am mistaken for a 'Jennifer'. This might not seem odd at first; Jennifer, much like Stephanie, is made of three syllables, has the same 'fff' 'nnn' and 'eh' sounds, and I'd consider them to be more common names than not. But this has even happened with people - nay, strangers! - who hadn't really ever heard my name before - people who had never been introduced to me, or who actually mistook me in a public place for a friend of theirs who happened to be named, you guessed it, Jennifer. Let's just put it this way: by the time I was no more than 10 years-old, I had been mistaken as a 'Jennifer' so many times that even at that tender age, I thought those happenstances were extremely uncanny. At that age I had never experienced an 'uncanny' situation nor did I even know what the word meant. But I have a distinct memory of the point in time when I started to be weirded out by this nominal identity that new people who crossed my path clung to. Sure, I've gotten a 'Samantha' a few times over the years - but no more than a few times, and proportionally speaking, those 'Samanthas' in no way even remotely compare to the dozens of 'Jennifers' I've received. And this strange trend still occurs to this day! As often as new people forget my name, I get called Jennifer (and considering ya meet people out at bars or parties, people's memories aren't exactly at their peak, you know how the story goes - I encounter plenty of name-forgetters).

So how has this strange misnomer affected my sense of self? Has it stunted my development or impeded any deep self-exploration in some way? Perhaps it's offered me a more liberating self-perception: I don't have to by any one thing in particular, I can be many things, varying kinds of people within my one person. Then again, maybe it's the reason I talk to myself when I'm alone, as if I have many different personalities keeping me company.