Competitive

My a-mom and I were recently discussing my sister's one-and-a-half-year-old son. A-mom had been to visit them and was so proud, and she should be, he's a beautiful, bright child. But she wasn't going on about his pretty blond hair, his bright eyes, or his mostly sunny disposition.

She was proud because she had seen him take a toy away from his cousin. That meant that he was competitive. This was the best thing ever.

Competitiveness has always been stressed above all things in my a-family. I came from a family of girls and we were expected to compete in sports, but oddly not in academics. When the school started a gifted program, my sister was removed because their "little projects" got in the way of sports training. The fact that this might keep her out of better colleges was not taken into consideration, as she wouldn't be allowed to play basketball at a major school. She was groomed to attend a community college where she could make the team. Nothing else mattered.

Early in life I was categorized as "not competitive enough" so nothing I did would ever measure up to the pride my a-parents felt seeing my sisters on the athletic field.

The odd thing is, I was competitive, and continue to be. I have a case full of racing trophies, a few appearances in national car magazines, a box full of ribbons and various accolades for my art, a quite a few published articles on a variety of subjects and fiction. None of this means a thing.

I continue to be competitive as my sisters do not. Neither have gone on to use these skills in business or life. The lessons they learned on those fields did not translate into their lives My continued competitiveness also bothers my a-parents.

They will not watch me race, they do not understand why I maintain a studio, they do not care to read what I write. They think I should "get serious about life".

What that means, I have no idea. I cannot just quit and go to the mall and hang around the country club. I'm too competitive.