How We See Ourselves
Our Self-Perceptions Can Predicate Our Futures — Good or Bad
I was 12 years old when they bussed us, the “poor kids from day camp,” to the fancy mall in Newport Beach, California. It was our field trip. Looking back, I don’t know if the camp advisors wanted to make us feel bad for being poor or inspire us to want no longer to be — as if some had a choice.
I always got excited about this. Cartier. Tiffany. Harry Winston. Dolce & Gabbana. Gucci. Louis Vuitton. On these mornings, which happened once a summer at the day camp my grandparents sent me to, my mom would give me a shiny quarter for the vending arm at the bottom of the mall escalator where I could buy a Nordstrom shopping bag. “Then put your satchel and all the little things you get into it and pretend you shopped there.” It was an odd flex, but I know she wanted me to feel special somehow and we couldn’t afford more than that.
My campmates and I would wander the mall in a group with our camp t-shirts, be allowed to gawk and stare at all the expensive trinkets and wares we couldn’t dream of taking home, and then get ushered to the food court to eat at Hot Dog on a Stick — which to me was the only place in that mall I felt we’d ever belonged.
You see, there was always an eye, or many eyes really whether it be mall security or store security or the swanky shoppers who stared oddly at the grubby kids from the Riverside YMCA. I never went inside the fancy stores but I would put my dirty unmanicured fingertips on the display windows and gawk at the beauty; whimsically imagining myself older and perhaps at a ball with a handsome or beautiful stranger wearing such a gown or a tiara or a ring. Occasionally I’d hear a “tsk tsk” never really knowing where it came from — the security or the shoppers — and I’d put one hand by my side and one hand down by my 25-cent Nordstrom shopping bag.
Eventually, with my empty bag flapping around, we’d make it over to Hot Topic or Spencer’s, the only stores I could afford and, quite frankly, the only ones where I truly wanted things. In addition to the shiny quarter, my mom would give me a 20-dollar bill — a rarity in our family — and tell me to use it for food and the rest for whatever I wanted. I’d gotten my corn dog earlier so now it was time to get some oddball doll or stickers at Spencer’s and usually a Depeche Mode or Duran Duran poster or t-shirt at Hot Topic. I’d then proudly decline the shopping bag offered at those stores. I had my Nordstrom bag. I was a high-fallutin’ poor kid from the east side who had a flimsy paper shopping bag and I was ready to show it off.
Then, like clockwork, while walking through the main mall again with my shopping bag in tow, I got stopped by mall security. They were not kind, gracious, or even registering that I was a child. A camp counselor would always come running and ask the predictable, “What’s the problem?” and the answer would be, “We’re just doing a spot check.” They’d dump my things all over the wooden bench by the fake potted plants strewn about the escalator area. My stickers or small items and appropriate receipts would fly into the wood or the ground, as would the contents of my satchel — usually chapstick, a Hello Kitty wallet, tissues, and my camp badge — and they’d almost punch through the bottom of my little K-Mart purse — as if this scraggly 12-year-old had just done a Cartier heist. When finished, never apologetic, they would drop my now-torn Nordstrom bag and say, “All is good here,” and walk away. I’d put my satchel across my body and wrap my things in what was left of the paper bag, teary-eyed, mortified, and not understanding, and make my way back toward the bus. A day in which I was meant to feel big, made me feel so much smaller than when it started.
As an adult, I recognize all of the little things that were wrong with this field trip in the first place, even if well-intended, and I also recognize my privilege as a white little scraggly girl, and because of that, I probably got off easy each time. But, there is another point to my sharing it. This seemingly mundane little trip left an indelible mark on me, as I stormed toward the bus, thinking, “Someday I’ll come in here and no one will notice me and they will treat me like royalty.” It wasn’t quite imagined like the “Pretty Woman” big mistake scene, but it was close.
That was not a good goal. At all. Not even for a minute. It was based in vitriol vs. value. Given that I was already a kid who came from a household that didn’t have a good foundational value structure (which had nothing to do with our financial challenges), it set my personal growth goals in motion to “show them.” The counselors would talk to me after and say, “It’s okay, they were just doing their jobs.” I’d sniffle and nod, but inside I’d think, “Fuck you, I’ll show them.”
What does that even mean?
Well, for me, it meant a few things. For many reasons that had very little to do with these mall experiences, my career was rooted in survival mode. I couldn’t afford to finish college but by god, I would kick away the doubters and make them see that I could do as good of a job as they did. Most of the time, I did better, and that energy followed me through a very successful career — which, in retrospect, meant very little to me, other than financial survival and a new lifestyle I had rightfully earned. Don’t get me wrong; I like my work and all, but corporate go-to-market in high-tech is hardly saving the lives of babies. I was devoid of purpose.
But it did put me in a position to “show them.” When I first made my little nugget of excess money (excess = money I should’ve saved) I used it to go to the fancy stores, albeit not at that mall, and douse myself from head to toe in labels that I thought said to the world, “I made it!” When all I was saying to the world was “I’m an empty douchebag who hides her insecurity behind labels!” And I did this for years. And years. And years. Over time it became less about showing off and more about simply learning to like certain brands and going out of my way to buy things without obvious labels because I became conscientious about the douchebag part. I started to see others defining themselves with labels and that was an ugly mirror. I know, poor me. Let me get to the rest.
I had to check my privilege. I had to think about where all of this desire for the vapid and unimportant came from. It came up again only earlier this week when I took the train into Manhattan (I now live in what I jokingly call “the sticks of Connecticut” which I do love) and took myself to Paris Court at The Plaza for breakfast. Why did I do this? I wanted a little decadence, sure, but I needed to see if I could still walk in there like I owned the joint and be welcomed as if I had never left.
A mediocre omelet, weak coffee, and an oversized bill that made me wish I’d gone to Pret instead made me laugh at myself and how superficial and useless that was. But, ya know, no one searched my bag.
I’ll always be that scraggly little girl. It doesn’t matter how others see me; how I live my life is based on how I see myself, and my insecurities clouded that mirror for too many years. And, as evidenced by my little Plaza jaunt, they still do, even though I know better now. But, I will always feel more comfortable at Hot Dog on a Stick than at Harry Winston. So, even after that misstep, I was happy to find I didn’t entirely lose myself again.
The point of all this is that we need to be so careful with our children and ourselves in how we shape the values that become our foundational goals for ourselves — and not underestimate how seemingly small things can shift that in the wrong direction. How we see ourselves at a very young age can predicate how we build our futures. I wish I had set off into the world wondering what impact I wanted to make, who I wanted to help, and how, yes, I wanted to escape that impoverished state, but instead of looking at the vapidity it could afford me and making the people who used to judge me feel small, perhaps look at how I could support others.
Now, at 50 years old, and after 25 years of corporate hustling, I am finally doing what I wish I had done 25 years ago: taking a step back in my fulltime corporate career that brought me baubles and bling, and using my time and gifts to help others heal from trauma, explore alternative methods to mental health for those who can’t afford traditional approaches in our terrible U.S. healthcare system, and other volunteer work.
There are common themes among my stories in which I talk about how my upbringing set me into a survival mode that gave me a path of choices that landed me where I didn’t want to be (an alcoholic, a capitalist, a superficial sow, a formerly angry human, a forever alone). I am slowly unraveling them all, and I am grateful to have an outlet to write about them here.
I still have many of the nice things I earned but most sit boxed or locked away, with the occasional barely labeled handbag making an appearance to go with my outfit assembled from Target or Amazon. And I have dozens of shopping bags from some of the finest stores — most of which I use for storage or garbage. Maybe in a way, I did “show them” or can show them something meaningful now — labels and excess mean nothing, and what we do with our time, money, soul, and spirit to help others is what truly does.
Here’s to living at least 25 more years to make up for the last.
