A World Without Magic

My entire life I've had this seemingly uncontrollable habit of rebelling against mass emotion. Not all the time, but there's some threshold I haven't identified yet.

I think it's the reason I never could enjoy The Matrix. Or, Donnie Darko. Mary Poppins, Cabbage Patch Kids (although, that's a funny story), The Office all fell into the same abyss. Even New Kids on the Block. Too many people liked them and I fell into the black hole of feeling manipulated to like something. By then, it's too late.

It's not something I particularly like about myself. In fact, when I feel it happening, I usually have to take drastic evasive action to prevent it. It's never-- even in my adolescent years-- made me feel 'cooler' to dislike things that others liked. It was never about that. Actually, I specifically remember faking a crush on Joey from NKOTB. I even had bad taste when I was faking it.

I suppose it comes down to my extreme hatred for cliches and my pin-point ability to identify behavioral patterns in others. The latter sounds like a point of pride when I phrase it that way, but its such a curse.

It's kind of like that moment when you notice that your crush has this annoying habit of licking his lips on every third word. Or, that he always has to smell his food before eating it. It obliterates the magic and the feelings fade out quickly. And then all of a sudden, you're left in a distinctly unmagical world until the next one comes along.

That's what life is like for me. All of it. I'm extremely quick to see these behavioral patterns in people--most of the time accidentally, and I'm even quicker to identify behaviors into categories. It's made me very good at a lot of the jobs I've done, but it's very much like living behind-the-scenes at Disney World. You know it's there, but you'd much rather experience the magic without knowing what created it.

This whole 'having a baby' thing is starting to give me warning signs of the same trend. It's obscene and ridiculous to even subject this life-changing experience to such a shallow habit, but as I mentioned earlier, it doesn't feel within my control.

It's a slow process sometimes and I've started noticing my tendencies to withdraw kicking in and I hate it. I don't want to be just an observer in this. I want to be THERE. In the moment. Feeling every bit of magic and emotion that there is to take in. But even that feels cliched and I resent it.

I've made the mistake of becoming part of this online pregnancy community where I'm watching all of us go through the same things together. A lot of times, that's been great. A lot of other times, that's been annoying. But none of it felt big enough or as though it was decreasing the significance of my own experience...until now.

But I should differentiate further. It's not about the women that I've become friendly with. I'm genuinely happy for them to see them go through their birth experiences and I eat up every word. It's the others.

It's the ones that have annoyed me all along and now I see them speaking words that I might speak, and feeling things that I might feel, and... there's the accidental negative association. Oops. So, my mind makes rules about not wanting to live in a category with them in any way, so I unintentionally place myself into a different one. One that maybe I never wanted to be in in the first place.

I have one hope.

Dave Matthews Band. When they first came out, they were this raging sensation and I couldn't walk 20 feet without hearing one of their songs or seeing some band-related t-shirt. They IMMEDIATELY fell to the "cliche" side and I was closed-off to liking their music because, once again, I refused to be manipulated to do so. When people asked if I liked them, I'd say "yeah" casually, so as not to cause a stir (or a conversation) but the truth was that I didn't even care to because I didn't want to be "another 15 y/o girl who liked DMB." (I knew to call it "DMB".)

But over time, when the screaming and fanatical discussions faded out, I eventually came back to DMB myself. It wasn't an active process, it started out slowly. I heard a few songs on the radio that I liked, then, I bought an album. Soon I was willing to say that "they're talented" (which is my code for 'I might like them soon, but not if you seem really excited for me to') and then...a few years later... I bought some more music, downloaded songs, and went to a concert.

I can now say that I am a DMB fan. I don't own any t-shirts or bumper stickers or anything, but as I type, I have 3 of their albums loaded in my car.

It gives me hope that the magic of being a brand new mother can come back if I remove myself from having to watch a lot of people that I don't know very well experience it. Staying away from becoming "just another".

Part of having a child is being able to see the world through their eyes. And for me, I'm hoping the gift will be two-fold. Not only do I get to re-experience the world with the magic re-applied... but I also hope that I can keep it alive for Maya as long as possible.

Afterall, truth is relative. Sometimes you just want to see Mickey as the large-scale icon that he is, a symbol for everything magical and perfect in its own way. Because, and trust me on this one, when you look too hard and for too long you realize... what you're looking at in that costume is nothing more than a 6 foot fucking rat in tight shorts.

So, it's time for me to defend the magic.