Now I Know Where My Klutzy Daughter Got It From

Living Happy Roundup

Carrie Jones

Oct 24, 2022

assorted hot air balloons flying at high altitude during daytime — Photo by ian dooley on Unsplash

A long time ago, my now-dead mom called and the first thing she said on the phone was not:

Hello.
Hi. This is Mom.
Yo.
Pant. Pant. Pant.

NO, THE FIRST THING SHE SAID WAS:

“Well, now I guess I know where my klutzy daughter got it from.” - my mom.

I had no idea who she was talking about. My brain just blanked. It was kind of like when you’re going through an internet wormhole and a page has a hard time loading and you get that page where it says there’s a server problem and the site can’t be viewed. Or you get that little sand glass thing to indicate the program is thinking, thinking, thinking, but there’s a good possibility it just won’t connect and it’ll probably freeze.

Finally, I thought,

“Klutzy? Me? I’m the klutzy daughter? Not Debbie?” - Carrie the confused.

I asked everyone else I knew, who know the Carrie Jones I am now, and they all said, “What?”

With genuine shock.

Which was cool because I like to think of myself as a graceful queen of the house, home, and kayak.

But what’s really got me going is how different people can have totally different perceptions of who we are? And who is right? Are we who we perceive ourselves to be? Or are we who the consensus thinks we are? Both? None?

Apparently, C.S. Lewis tackles this in his book, Till We Have Faces, which I have not read because I’m not really a big Lewis fan. Gasp! I know!

But it all intrigues me so much.

When I was a little kid, there was a girl who thought she was a fantastic singer and had perfect pitch. She was not. People cringed when she sang and she sang a lot. But it didn’t matter to her. She believed that she was amazing.

I was always so afraid that I was like her. That I would believe something about myself that was the opposite of the truth. That fear has kept me back from doing a lot of cool things.

Not everyone (fortunately) has this fear.

There are people out there who believe they are the epitome of good and there are people who think those same people who are the epitome of evil.

One of my daughters has a dad who thinks she is clumsy while I think she is the least clumsy person I’ve ever met.

And I guess it’s perspective. And I guess figuring it all calls for a definition of truth. But those things — perspective, truth — those are big things that are somehow no longer all that easy to define.

Have you ever been shaken to the core by another person’s description of you?

I have. One newspaper reporter wrote about me that I was like Annie Hall, a character from a Woody Allen movie. One mother told me I was a klutz (to be fair, I did break and sprain a lot of things as a kid). One man once told me I was a whore. That one was probably the funniest for anyone who knows me. :) Another man once told me while I was walking down the street with my baby, “You look like a girl who doesn’t have fun.”

But here’s the thing: other people don’t get to define us. We get to define us. We have to take that power. Okay? Be who you want to be. Make yourself the self you want. It can take such a lot of work and time, but you’re worth it. We all are.