Day 139: Never Have I Ever... Felt More Average

I was at the very end of a long table at an Indian restaurant recently for a colleague's goodbye party. At the end with me were three of my female colleagues also under the age of 30. We were chatting and, somehow, the conversation went from which animal we would choose to be to our futures.

One of my colleagues is trying to figure out the best time to go back to school to get a master's degree with a goal of becoming a museum curator.

Another colleague majored in biochemistry and wants to eventually become a biochemical engineer. In the meantime, she's putting the final touches on the two-week trip she's planning to India, Nepal, and Thailand, which she's going on solo next month. She's currently managing an entire digital products department and was just recently promoted for the third time and given an actual office. She's 10 months older than me and oh yeah she's my boss.

And the third just ran her third Chicago Marathon, and just signed up for her first Ironman triathlon in upstate New York. She has a master's degree from Oxford in London and does not want to have kids because she wants to live all around the world after she gets her PhD as she works toward global conflict resolution.

And before any of them could ask me about my future plans, I excused myself and pretended that I had to use the restroom.

Unfortunately that didn't work because when I got back to the table, the conversation picked up right where it left off. The group turned their attention toward me and one of them asked, "Well Erika? Let's hear your plan."

"Um, well, I don't know what I want to be when I grow up," I said, lamely, which of course was met by fake encouraging smiles and nods along with the words, "Well, that's OK." Ha. Like saying something like that at the age of 29 is any kind of OK.

What the hell was I supposed to say? That I would love to write a novel but in order to write a novel you have to have, well I don't know, some sort of idea for a novel? And that I know I don't have not only an idea but the discipline or the confidence? And that I'm happy to have found a job that I actually like and that's pretty much as far as I got?

This conversation stuck in my mind and I couldn't figure out why until it slapped me in the face.

I am so incredibly average it's pathetic.

I'm a white girl. I have medium-length brown hair and brown eyes. I'm 5'6", a little thick around the thighs and midsection. How many millions of other people fit that description?

And it just builds from there. I was wearing my brown Uggs the other day and noticed that I was walking next to a group of women. I kid you not when I say out of the seven women I was walking next to, six had on brown boots.

I wear Nikes, jeans, and solid-colored shirts from Old Navy. I listen to pop music and watch high-rated TV shows. I was raised Catholic. I like to sing and play basketball and eat American food.

Do any of these strike you as different, interesting, or special? That's because they're not. They're all just me being en masse. Being simple. Being average.

Just in case I was just being negative and wasn't thinking clearly, I asked a few people closest to me the following question: "In what instance would you go to me before you'd go to anyone else because I'd be the best person to go to for that particular reason?" Responses included:

• If they had a Simpsons question
• If they needed to know the words to "End of the World" by REM
• If they needed someone to proofread a resume
• If they wanted someone to help with a school paper

So to me that translates into people would come to me before anyone else if they needed:

• To know something about the most popular and longest-running cartoon series (even though I've lost many a time on Simpsons trivia)
• To know the words to a popular song (because that is something likely to happen in the future. That's me being sarcastic.)
• To make sure all the words on a piece of paper are spelled correctly and there is subject-verb agreement
• To ensure that a specific set of rules for the language that we speak that I just so happen to have memorized are followed when putting words together to form a cohesive thought.

This is what the people closest to me think I'm good for. This is what people think when they think of me.

It absolutely disgusts me to think about just how ridiculously average I am. I should stop saying I hate cliches so much because it's hypocritical. I'm a walking fucking cliche. I'm not different. I'm not special. I'm not unique.

And I'm not going anywhere. Literally or figuratively.