Upright Citizens

Boyfriend and I had a great weekend. It was relaxing and languid compared to last weekend's Wedding Hell. We laid around a lot of the time, he watching football, me reading or writing, went on a couple of walks, and finally decided to do some kind of activity on Saturday. He suggested the Upright Citizens Brigade, located in Chelsea in this teeny tiny theater that reminds me of college theaters. It was cheap ($8), easy to find and we were bored. So we went up there and had such a good time. The theater is where Amy Poehler got her start, and Matt Walsh and several other semi-famous people that you kind of nod your head and go "oh yeah..." when someone brings them up.

It was improv based on various audience suggestions, music (provided by the audience) and what I assume to be their own inspirations. It was short, sweet and mostly funny, all of which could be appreciated, since I hadn't felt very well before we went out but perked up once I was out. Sometimes it really does just take some fresh air and lovin' from the Boyfriend to make a day much better.

But what made this particularly interesting was that they called themselves Upright Citizens. Clearly this was a mockery of what was to be an upright citizen, but it still made me wonder. What is an example of an upright citizen? I used to believe that this could be represented by the people we chose to represent us, but I really don't want to think that George W. Bush speaks for the whole, or even half of the United States. I want to think that we are better than the fuel we seek. But maybe we aren't. Maybe we are the figures they represented on Saturday, rulers who beheaded musicians and mothers trying to kick out their thirty-five year old sons. Even as we laughed, I wonder if the nagging feeling was in anyone else. Is this really who I've become? Is this who I'm going to become?

It's easy to say no in the early twenties, but I can feel my idealism changing from when I was thirteen and would pick recylcing out of the trash and yell at the girls using aerosol hairspray in the bathrooms. I remember how solid I was in my beliefs, unashamed when I turned down cigarettes at the Middle School Dance and protested to start a recycling program. Mom told me once that my science teacher said I was the smartest student he had ever had and I thought I was going to be a doctor in Africa saving people that were dying of silly diseases like dysentary and pox, inflictions Americans haven't died of in years. So what happened? In my quest to become an "upright" citizen, did I lose the freedom of thought and duty along the way?

We laugh at our old selves as we shed those skins to become our new selves. We make fun of the way we used to dress, the people we used to have crushes on, the desire to be accepted and part of a crowd that was probably ridiculous and definitely exclusive. But when did I lose that sense of self that used to drive me? I very clearly remember how proud I was of a science fair project that won first place in the county in ninth grade, and how my biology teacher actually let me do my own thing most classes because I was already advanced. But by the time I got out of high school, my science grades had become Cs, or at best B's, and I certainly wasn't anything special any longer.

What happens to us as we grow? Do we dumb ourselves down to fulfill the expectations held for us? Even me, the feminist environmentalist, no longer has posters of Endangered Species on the wall or aquariums in my room. I'm completely different now, reading and writing most of the time but sometimes even finding myself tired of that. Did I secretly want to be dumb? Would it have made a difference if I had stayed involved in math and science instead of turning towards the safety of english and history, facts that were already set, themes that had already been figured out. I stayed involved with various groups during college, but pushed aside and eventually stopped doing the photography that I loved, stopped yelling at people who threw away their recycling as opposed to helping their future grandchildren. It seemed so small and insignificant that it no longer seemed worthwhile.

And that's the saddest part. Watching this small group of people mock what we take for granted, funny as it may be, struck a chord within me about the selves that we lose on the way to being ordinary. So often we push back what makes us unique and do 180s to get away from what we're most talented in. The people that stick with it, no matter what, ignoring the pressure to conform, are considered weird and oddities, eccentrics. And if, after all this, America really isn't so accepting, then what are we fighting for?