How Could My Shadow Be This Long At Noon?

This week’s prompt has caused hours of deep reflection. I knew I had shadows. I knew I was haunted and affected by them. I wasn’t sure what traits I have that fit the definition. Then once I was sure of the traits, I looked back at what caused them. I looked back at how they have created the me which I am.

I remember having a chat with my cousin while in my early twenties. She is four years younger than I am. She pointed out to me that she and most other cousins were always given myself and my brothers as the model of what they should be. She told me they often heard “Why can’t you be more like them?”

I painted her a different picture of our family. But looking back I should have realized I had the same feeling. I grew up in a middle class family when being middle class was a good thing. We owned our house from when I was three years old. We had a park that was less than a ten minute walk to get to. That park had a swimming pool, a skating rink, a golf course, baseball diamonds, and room to play football. Our house, with three boys all basically the same age, was the start of most neighborhood adventures. With just a few more you could get a game of anything going. We also lived right in the middle of the block so we were a gathering place.

So I imagine that many are wondering how such a world could have created shadows. I wondered that also until things unraveled later. Much of my shadows were a result of my relationship with my father. Others caused mostly by myself. I have three brothers but for the most part due to age there were three boys, since my younger brother was six years younger than myself. The other three of us are separated by only twenty-five months. Yes, three boys in about two years.

We were close, but we were different. Back then I was very extroverted. My oldest brother Tom was very introverted. When we weren’t involved in sports he had a book in his hand. Dennis was also fairly shy but an outstanding athlete. He excelled at everything he did, through most of his life. I was the youngest of these three. The shadows began with me. I have always been competitive. I have always compared myself to my bothers. Nobody made me do this. I did it. That responsibility is on me.

With my parents, there were six of us. I was raised by two genius parents. My mom even skipping two grades in school and turned down university because back then “moms didn’t do that”. My two older brothers also had genius level IQ’s. So out of a family of six I had the second lowest IQ. Mine is high, but I am not a genius. Again I was the one that compared, nobody made me, and nobody pointed it out. But each report card the evidence was there. It got to the point where I just stopped competing. It wasn’t a competition, well only to me. But eventually I stopped trying to get top grades. I figured if I didn’t try hard, I didn’t fail.

I was also the third best athlete out of the oldest three boys. My oldest brother was a valuable member of the high school swim team. The second, captain and most valuable member of the track and cross country teams. He was later inducted into the high school hall of fame. I stopped trying out for teams before I made varsity.

My father and I always had a contentious relationship. I recently decided that his love language was money and control. He was a self-made millionaire. He grew up poor and shortly after he retired he was a millionaire. Money has never been a major issue to me. I am comfortable but have no interest in ever being a millionaire. Again I did a good part to create this. If my father was home we always ate dinner together. Food was always given to you. You were not allowed to serve yourself. We never lacked food but you were given first portions and if you wanted more you needed to ask my father. I have had weight issues most of my life.

I have been working on all of these issues from my thirties on. I look back and think the reason I never married was because I didn’t want to become my father. I love sports and I am still competitive. I do not like me when I win and I do not like me when I lose. I tend to not compete. I do not gamble even a dollar. I will usually watch my sports teams the day after. So I know to only watch the wins. I am better with all these things because I have been working on them.

I am so glad the prompt was for what they are, and not how we deal with them. Most of the revelations came from a bout of clinical depression in my middle thirties. That pointed out that I needed to work on my shadows or I wouldn’t make it out alive.