So that�s my C list.

Onward.

Last night, I was driving home from downtown Los Angeles. Heidi, has finally gotten me to join one of their mentoring programs and yesterday was the training. Truthfully, I would have joined one of the programs earlier, but they are in LA and I am in Orange county and it�s about 30 miles so it�s a bit of a drive to have a weekly commitment. Plus last year was such a horror, I had nothing left to give. But when she asked me this year, it just felt right, like reaching out was the only way to shut up the screaming in my ears.

During the training, I had shared about how shy I used to be and how I had overcome that (the short version). It made me think about my family dynamics. There are a couple factors that play in here. 1. I was the 2nd born and last born (AKA THE BABY). 2. I have a mom with a very strong and dominating personality (she was the firstborn and very type A). 3. I had an older sister who had a very outgoing and dominating personality. 4. My sister practically never weighed more than 100 pounds. 5. I constantly battled my weight. 6. My mom was a weight watchers counselor.

In my mind, beauty was associated with size (gee, I wonder where I got that idea?), I was fat so I was ugly. Beyond that, I was shy and introverted, (as explained in an earlier entry) with poor self-esteem and molestation issues. Add the cherry on top of bi-polar disorder and you can imagine the mess I was as a child.

The thing that kept me going was that I was wildly intelligent and imaginative. I escaped to the worlds of my books and the worlds inside my mind. I loved learning and sought it out. I was reading before kindergarten. In first grade, when my parents had their first parent/teacher conference, I asked to go with because the schoolwork was too easy and I wanted to learn, not go over stuff I already knew. The teacher was astonished. I don�t think they�d had that happen too much. I was soon being taught outside the class in 2nd grade math and 3rd grade reading. I was reading high school novels in 3rd grade and college literature by 6th grade. My brain was all that kept me going.

My sister�s personality was so strong. She was friendly, didn�t struggle with depression, was outgoing, made friends easily, and because she was skinny, she was pretty. In my head I used to say, she�s the beauty, I�m the brains (turns out we were both beauty and brains but it took her a while to discover her intelligence and me quite a bit longer to discover my beauty). Her personality cast a shadow so big, I was like a tiny speck of dust underneath the shadow of a 747. In my perception, next to her, I was invisible.

As I�ve grown older, as I went off to college and forged my own way in life, as I overcame my shyness, as I developed my self-esteem, as I lost 160 pounds, as I grew into the Janet that I am now, I�ve learned that the above was never true, or at least, it didn�t have to be. Yes, her shadow was big, but mine was big too. Mine wasn�t hidden under hers, ours overlapped in places and in some places mine showed up stronger than hers and in others hers overshadowed mine. It was just a matter of learning where those areas are.

I had two conversations with people following my family birthday dinner last year. My family birthday dinner took place the day after one of my sister�s concerts. The whole dinner was about her concert. Two of the people present (a family member and a friend) both remarked that they thought that was sad, that it was my birthday and my sister dominated the dinner and made it about her. To me, I didn�t even notice. I was so used to being hidden in her presence. The thought that my birthday dinner was spent talking about her didn�t even cross my mind.

After seeing my sister sing in her band, one of my friends said I should join a band too (as I�m always singing in the car and I sing fairly well � though untrained). But I said no, that�s my sister�s gig. I won�t step on her joy. She can have the band.

There�s a part of me that just surrenders in her presence. I let her be the star of the show. I�ve learned I don�t need to shine in her presence. I shine in so many other places, it�s okay to let her shine, she seems to need it. I am happy to sit in the corner of the room, with a small group of people, engaging in quiet, witty conversation while she entertains the crowd. I�ve also learned that people can see the candlelight I put out even when standing next to the floodlights of her presence. And that some people appreciate the candlelight more than the floodlights.