Keeping Up With The Phillips Kids

As some of you know, I'm the youngest of seven children.  My oldest sister always said I had it the easiest, that she had to fight for all the liberties that were handed to me.  Maybe so.  But I had to keep up with my siblings. And on the flip side, my parents learned from the older children so the younger ones had some restrictions they didn't have.  Of course I knew that there wasn't anything I could do that someone else hadn't already done. 

If I had to describe my siblings when they were growing up with just a word or few, here's what pops in my head:
Pat - the trail blazer: the one who went first, fought the parental wars and sometimes pushed the limits
Genny - the good girl: did what she was told, had a lot of work but was always cheerful and kind
Andy - the steam engine: like the trail blazer times ten, highly intelligent, challenging but not challenged
Berni - the accomplished:  everything Berni did was done well, especially school and music
John - the challenged:  the biggest heart as a kid, but he wasn't as well equipped, was it mental or social?
Mark - the balanced: a good combination of kindness, intelligence and messing up now and then

And then there was me.  I guess if I had to describe myself, I'd say I was the chaser.  I was the one who was always trying to catch up to the others.  Never mind that they were older, bigger and had more experience than me.   I tried to be like all of them.  And in some ways I've succeeded.  I think I have a little bit of all of those traits in me.  Fortunately they don't all come out at the some time.  And then throw in some dingbattiness from my mom (not that I'll ever admit it) and some good, old, down home, country sensibility from my dad.

Of course it didn't help in my chase that I would hear from my parents the sentence, "Why can't you be (fill in the blank about something someone did better that I lacked in) like (insert name of sibling here)?"  Maybe that's a natural thing for parents, I didn't like it.  I learned to be my own worst critic, no one's standards for me are as high as my own standards for me.  (This has gotten me in trouble at times in my life with people thinking I hold them up to the same standards I hold myself up to - I don't, they're my standards for me and no one else.) 

So I want to share a story.  Berni was very good in school.  When I brought home straight A report cards (for half of my high school semesters), some of the grades were A-, some were As and there was one A+.  I remember my father asking me why I had A-s and didn't get all As and A+s like Berni.  My mom was there nodding in agreement.  I was soooo disappointed.  Here I thought I had a great report card, one I worked very hard for, and it wasn't good enough for them.  I'll admit it, I know Berni is smarter than I.  That's okay.  We all have things that we're really good at.  I just hadn't found mine yet but I was fairly well-rounded.  (Okay so I'm still well-rounded but in more ways, including physically, but that's another story.)  So, fast forward a lot of years.  I'm 30 years old and I'm applying for a job and I need a copy of my high school transcripts.  My mom is with me, she's retired and we were running errands.  She asks to see the transcripts so I let her.  She is shocked.  She said that she always thought I was a bad student like my brothers and my sister Pat (bad student being defined as getting Bs and Cs).  She didn't realize I had been such a good student.  And I did this and played sports afterschool too.  It's amazing what a few years and perspective have on things.

Well, in case anyone is wondering, I'm no longer a chaser.  I'll never catch Berni and Andy in intelligence and that's okay.  I'll never be the social butterfly that Pat is.  I'll never do anything as well as Genny can do it.  John still struggles but he has found his niche in his mechanical ability.  Mark is still an all-around good guy.  I don't feel like I have to compete or catch up with any of them.  All of that is okay.  We are all unique and marvelous in our own ways (well, mostly, kind-of).  And I have found an ability I have that I doubt many of my siblings can do better.  I can handle "things" that come up.  You can throw "things" at me and they don't phase me.  I don't freak out, point fingers or ask a lot of dumb questions; I just go to work on the issue at hand.  I can think outside that box so far that I leave the boxes for the cats to play in.  Sixteen years in 9-1-1 centers and ten years of emergency management have helped me hone this skill.  I think this is a good thing.