Imposter or Not

I have come to believe the Yellow Brick Road from the Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum, is truly just a metaphor for life. We start our life in that first tiny circular path. Following it, the road begins to expand as do we. Soon the path is quite wide and just curves and winds its way forward.

We meet friends along the way, surprised at times by how we invite them with us on our journey. There are times we get waylaid and times we find the easy way. Sometimes we feel the monsters of the dark forest are after us but with strength and determination we battle onward.

It so describes my life. I can see where the scary woods with the flying monkeys and being captured by the Wicked Witch of the West have been in my life. My companions have been searching, as the lion, scarecrow and tin man did, for courage, intelligence and heart. I certainly am also and choose to move forward when I would rather retreat to my cave, and slam the rock shut.

I love that metaphor of the road and will certainly use it as long as it fits. Does that mean I’m Dorothy? Maybe this week it does. Dorothy is forced to become someone facing the greatest adventures and feels like a phony doing it. She doesn’t have belief in herself but she keeps on doing what it is she feels is necessary to get to her goal-Returning Home.

Isn’t that what we all are trying to do? Find that place which brings us the peace, love, safety, and joy where we feel we belong? I know that’s how it is for me. Without family near I question my physicality. Is this where I belong? Yet, Max and I built this house and I love knowing this is what we wanted and where I still feel I’m home. There are bits and parts of me that remind me of how I was when we started the process. The master closet and bedroom, for example. The builders offered to add the other two feet to make it just that bit bigger but ole’ FOFI, fear of financial insecurity, spoke up and vetoed it. How many times since have I wished I had kicked FOFI in the pants and added those mere two feet to our plan.

Instead, I have a plant hanger outside with a wind chime at the corner of the house to signify its Feng Shui bagua. Every time I mow past it is a reminder of what I let FOFI do and I vow never to do that again.

I’ve been so many things this lifetime, career wise, mostly all to do with office work or sales. I never really thought about it but I think I must have caught the Imposter Syndrome, IS, after college. Those first high school jobs in a bakery and then balancing statements for a company were simply high school jobs, not career oriented at all. After graduating from college my jobs were always jobs to bring in money. I didn’t believe in me as I hadn’t studied for any of those future jobs. I would look at teachers, managers, nurses, doctors with envy because they “were” something. They had a title. I felt I was merely existing, with no clear path.

While living in Iran it was more about the experience than the job. There I typed students’ applications on an old-fashioned typewriter to help them get into a foreign university.

I am a pushbutton lover and so being a clerk, whether in a store, office restaurant, or data entry, was a joy but certainly not what my degree warranted, but what do you do with a speech/communication, Degree of Fine Arts, Department of Language and Literature degree anyway?

So I followed my then fiancé to Dallas and entered the business world, working first in restaurants, then in offices. I was good. I got to push buttons, run calculators, registers, run offices. It never occurred to me that I should have a career. I was of that generation that somehow I follow “my man” and do what is necessary to keep us going.

I worked by rote. Then when it was Max’s turn in my life and there was a time I was to be a representative of pool and spa equipment, IS really began showing it’s ugly head. I felt so out of my league, a woman in a man’s world. Yep, you sure don’t see many women out there designing or building pools and spas or selling the equipment. At least not back then.

We would take our show on the road, inviting pool and spa companies to come and look at our wares and I was to be the expert, answering all manner of questions. All that information I had learned simply froze in my brain, it didn’t feel natural. I will never know how I made it through those years but IS now joined my list of psychologic stowaways, such as FOFI.

When I became a writer at 52, I knew I had found my happy place. Even today, as I sit and write this instead of being out there edging my lawn, I am a happy camper. IS was in that part of the Yellow Brick Road where the flying monkeys and scary witch lived. I know others have it. It’s like going the wrong way down a one-way road. I feel I should know/understand/be able to do something but that block in my head didn’t let it happen. I plugged away every day, hoping miraculously, something would change and I would see the Green Crystal City in front of me.

These last years have been like that for me. I study and study and know I am supposed to be able to do these things but I constantly compare me to others and IS rears its ugly head. Every once in a while I will easily and confidently do my tasks and see hope. It’s as if that magical Poppy Field sleep from the movie I am induced into has been awakened by the falling snow blocking the poppy’s poison, bringing to life that internal part of me that knows this is what I am to be doing and the yellow brick road opens up before me.

However, recently, I became aware IS was slapping me in the face again and I had not realized it had crept back in to my psyche. It’s tricky, it is. But as I looked in the mirror and saw it written all over my face, I began writing of it and talking of it and the funniest thing happened. Unconsciously, I had been letting IS take over my whole being as if all of me was a charlatan. When I began facing it directly a wave flew through me and I absolutely knew it was untrue. Maybe I wasn’t as good as I thought I should be in one area but I know for a fact I am really good in other areas. As for me in general, I came to the conclusion I’m a worthwhile person to know.

Let’s throw another word in here that has become part of this path. I can say, metaphorically, it is the snow on the poppy fields. That word is Trust. By now it’s abundantly clear, I don’t take the easy way. I’ve been pondering and discussing at length with Ellandra all angles of Trust. It’s ironic that Trust works in healing IS because it was Trust I pondered about before I even looked in the mirror to see IS.

My friend, Ellandra, woke me up when she said, “Trust that it was a lie.” In this case “it” is IS. I’ve heard of so many famous people who have struggled with IS, Albert Einstein, Tom Hanks, Arianna Huffington, Lady Gaga, and Maya Angelou to name a few so I am not alone in this malady.

“The Wall of Trust is a surface others could write on.” Ellandra left me to ponder her meaning. I visualized a huge wall which blocks/protects me and others could write what they would on it but I would be safe on the other side. I can trust it. Then I looked at myself again and seemingly for the first time, I acknowledged the real me. The one I know to be true and not the emblematic one IS cloaked me in.

Something unique began to happen. I felt a great deal of Acceptance of me, a physical lifting of the veil of deceit I was wearing. I got so much done as the day progressed because the truth was out. IS, for now, had shown me its curve ball and I hit that sucker away from me, out of the park. Following Acceptance, Gratitude flooded in. I understood it had been my mind using childhood beliefs I no longer needed to wear. I felt released and came to know and accept my learning as the words from the song in The Greatest Showman declared, “This is Me!”.

I had made it to the Poppy Field and fell under its spell whilst I pondered, wandering through the halls of my mind to find answers. This one, figuring out the IS problem and follow-up was a long time coming. As usual, I am not sure where it will lead but the snow did cover the Poppy Field and I and my friends found our way to the Emerald City.

We were about to knock on the vast wooden doors when I realized I was not ready to be within those walls...yet. I’d rather let the Yellow Brick Road take me where it may to see what else I can uncover.

You’re welcome to come along if you’d like. I do know, without a doubt, grand and glorious adventures await.

Roda Hilenski Grubb

Still Asking, Still Learning, Still Becoming