This piece is personal story about trying so hard to be accepted thatI forgot to be me. It travels through a painful darkness of disconnection toward bright reunion with myself. Along the way, I started illustrating stories that I needed to tell. Those drawings let to comics. So many comics. Here, I am sharing some of those early illustrations alongside more recent work. I am so glad you are here. Thanks for engaging!
Ever since I can remember, I was told that I was, in fact, weird. In those early years, I also got a lot of “Wow! your nose is big!” And while I grew into my nose, it took me an incredibly long time to grow into my weird.
Instead, I fought it. Each comment was a clue to what was weird, and with each clue, I tried with all my might to tuck that part of me away.
Lost in classroom daydreams, I reimagined a future where I could be so un-seen, I was ignorable. Ignored by jock-bullies, ignored by Daryl’s older sister Tanya who relentlessly taunted me with afterschool fight threats.
I tucked and tucked the weird deep down, but every now and then it would build up inside and like a spatter cone and splat out. The summer before 7th grade, I renamed myself from “Becky” to “Beci”. The only time I attended a summer day camp, a counselor couldn’t read my handwriting and called ‘Butch’ to the join the Cougar group. A roar of wild laughter followed me as I lined up. Teachers would stumble on the spelling for years, “Bech-ie?” they would call out like a question during attendance.
A few years later, I started collecting the weirdest clothes I could thrift. Out of nowhere I would ditch my 90s grunge wear for ridiculous shiny, wildly patterned polyester bell bottoms, with a neon orange turtle neck and white floral vest. When the ‘weird!’ and paper spit bombs were launched at me - at least I had the armor of a reason, like a weird name or wild outfit. I could feel safe with that. Without them, I was left to believe just being me was wrong. And feeling that was feeling shame, before I had a name for it.
Shame is a dark and dirty place to spend formative years.
It wasn’t long before depression landed. I didn’t know why. It was a heavy blanket but I quickly discovered the distraction and social rewards of workaholism. I got my first job at 14 and worked my max legal hours. By 16, I picked up more hours and if I wasn’t in school, I was working. If I didn’t have time to be alone with my thoughts, there was no time for the shame or depression to catch me.
People don’t care how weird you are if you work hard.
By the time I graduated high school and got to college, I kept it up. If I had a spare moment I volunteered, joined a club. Despite my best efforts of hiding in overperforming, the bad brains would creep up and grab me. I would be swallowed by a fog of self-doubt and voracious self-criticism, sometimes for months at a time.
After college, I sold all my belongings and moved across the country to escape the shame and rebirth a new me. Weird “Beci” no longer, I became a socially acceptable and mature, expert people-pleaser known as “Rebecka.”
A clean slate.
Sort of.
With a new moniker, I still relied on Beci’s survival skills of workaholism and people pleasing. I would survive the day with those tools and, by late night, I discovered the muting powers of alcohol. I could let out some of my weirdness without shame. Well, until I woke up the next day. But nothing I couldn’t outrun with more work.
It was a cycle that worked for me - until it didn’t.
In my early thirties I brought a child into the world and transported through the portal of motherhood. It was the ultimate job and another one I could hide myself in.
I juggled multiple part-time jobs while raising a family. I worked farmers markets for a local farm for free unlimited veggies. I worked for a local brewery and traded a living wage for great view from the office and beer benefits. I started a baby co-op, trading childcare of childcare and a community garden next to my house to build local food security.
