My daily dose of history, specifically for November 21, informs me that I should be aware that, 44 years ago today, on November 21, 1980, “Millions tune[d] in to find out who shot J.R.”
Aside from the fact that I’m not sure that “millions” tune in anymore to find out what’s going on anywhere on network TV, I don’t know much about J.R. I’m vaguely aware that he was a character in a TV series, Dallas, IIRC, and that he was portrayed by Larry Hagman (who I remember as the son of Mary Martin and as a character on I Dream of Jeannie), but as to the circumstances of his family or his death on Dallas, I’m at a total loss. I’ve wondered if that might be the episode where they guy woke up at some point to discover that the entirety of his popular TV series had been a dream, but I think that might have been another leading man, on another television series of which I’ve never watched a moment: Bob Newhart, maybe.
It’s much the same in terms of a great deal of my childhood, adolescence, and early adult experiences. (Think late 1950s to early 1980s.) I’m forever being reminded that I should remember being a teenager, being awkward, a fish out of water, shy, angry, insecure, and uncomfortable with myself. That I should have loved this or that contemporary musical or entertainment experience (almost none of which I’m familiar with). That I should have reveled in the dysphoria of the times and celebrated my own oddness (I never thought of myself as odd, although I daresay I was a bit out-of-round) as just a part of it.
Sure, sometimes it was difficult, being my own self. Sometimes I let myself down. Sometimes, my friends let me down, or so I thought at the time. Sometimes, my family (or so I thought at the time) let me down. But somehow, I always muddled through.
Thank you, Mum and Dad. I know now that you never let me down, and you always pulled me though, with a firm dose of reality along the way. Thanks to you, I never actually missed whatever it is others imagined I might have missed, and I’ve always been exactly who–and what–I am. A girl. A daughter. A wife. A sister. A [step]mother.
Those are my immutable characteristics. I am proud of them all. I feel disobliged to mess with any of them.
My other (chosen) characteristics know no bounds. You have no idea.
