The Princess & The Pajama Set
On Saturday, I shared a post to my Instagram Story by Yasmine Cheyenne. It read: “People will try to tell you who you are, and if you don’t spend time getting to know yourself, you might believe them.”
Do you ever hop on Instagram and have the perfect and most timely message greet you at the top of the feed? This happens to me all the time, so much so that…I can’t believe I’m sharing this…I’ve even come to use Instagram as my own Tarot deck. This post by Yasmine Cheyenne is a perfect example of a message that met me at just the right moment, right as the very same realization was awakening within me.
Typically, these Tarot Card-like Instagram posts find me, bestow their wisdom, and then life goes on. But this message…this one wasn’t so fleeting. It lingered through the week and dished up real-world experiences and middle-of-the-night memories that tested just how much I knew myself and just how much I’ve allowed others to tell me who I am instead.
The title for this blog post came to me at 2:30 in the morning two nights ago, alongside a vivid memory from childhood that I honestly haven’t thought about in decades. The memory pried my eyes open and turned my brain on to say, “here’s how you’re going to tell this story.” So here you go. This is the story of the princess and the pajama set.
Earlier this week, I made a pool reservation. There was a planned electricity outage for most of the day on Monday so I figured what better way to ride out the AC-less and WIFI-less few hours than up at the pool with a good book, a steady ocean breeze, and a refreshing dip whenever I needed it. Due to Coronavirus, my apartment has a few protocols for the common areas in the building. It’s been nice because it means as long as you make a reservation you get things like the gym and pool all to yourself for a few hours. But not this time. At least not without a fight apparently.
About an hour into my reservation, I wandered off to the bathroom. When I came back there was a man rinsing off in the poolside shower and the previous peace and quiet had been replaced by blaring music from his bluetooth speaker. My heart lurched in my chest. Instead of keeping my mouth shut and just accepting the situation, I walked up to him and let him know I had a reservation and asked if he wouldn’t mind moving to the other pool instead – something he was not expecting or willing to hear.
In minutes, he went from speaking voice to raised voice to “I’M CALLING ADMINISTRATION!!!” As he spun out and stormed off to get administration involved, I continued to remain calm and appear collected, but deep down I was freaking out. His words were seeping in and doing real damage, causing me to question everything. Should I have kept my mouth shut and just moved myself over to the other pool nearby? Should I have asked the pool staff to speak to him instead? Could I have maybe smiled more as I said it or been friendlier in some way? Am I really asking too much? Am I really acting like the “princess” he just called me?
“Princess.” That word, or I should say the connotation of it, goes way back for me. Growing up, my family often referred to me not-so-kindly as “The Queen.” Every time I stood my ground or asked if we could do something my way, that word was sure to follow. This happened so often that, whether I was behaving like a Queen or not, I was the Queen, the one who permanently thought the world revolved around her.
This brings me to the pajama set and the memory that woke me up in the middle of the night two nights ago. There I was, 10 years old, standing with my mom in a gift shop in Disney World. We were both gazing up at a wall of pajama sets, my mom pointing up at a black-and-white pair that had the words “It’s all about me” written on repeat all over them.
As I mentioned, I had been called Queen, selfish, and self-centered enough times by my family that I eventually just stopped fighting it. In fact, I sometimes even used it as permission to behave that way. It was what everyone expected from me anyway, right? I had embraced it so much so that when my mom pointed up at this pair of pajamas, I actually asked if she’d buy them for me. I remember how gross I felt asking for a pair of pajamas that labeled me the very thing I despised being called, yet I knew my mom would say yes given how “perfect” they were. And sure enough, she did say yes.
As we walked up to the cash register to pay for the pajamas, the cashier made a comment and the next thing I know my mom is explaining the story behind the pajamas and why we’re buying them. I was mortified. I didn’t want to be the “all about me” girl, especially not to a stranger who hadn’t yet put that label on me.
Those pajamas were worn maybe once after we bought them. Every time I thought about wearing them, it felt like putting on prison scrubs and accepting the sentence. Deep down I knew that wasn’t who I was. It was just a self-fulfilling prophecy rooted in the fact that my 10-year-old mind had lost sight of who I am. Of course it did.
So when the raging pool man called me a “princess,” there was a moment where I faltered and entertained the idea that he might be right. And as if on cue, the words of Yasmine’s Instagram post flashed across my mind and reminded me that I do know who I am and that it’s in this knowing that my identity is no longer vulnerable to anyone’s labels and definitions of me. They’re just words after all with no meaning unless I give them one. It’s just pajamas, not prison scrubs.
