Reinvention

I had a conversation with my mother last week, and I was telling her about my refound enthusiasm for writing and my feeble attempts at playing the ukulele. She mentioned that I seemed to be reinventing myself as a writer and musician, and while it isn't fair to real writers and musicians, I understood the point she was trying to make, that through effort you can change how you see yourself

My first week at college, the dorm advisor collected all the guys on my floor for a little icebreaker. We all sat in a circle in the basement on the in a circle. We went around the circle introducing ourselves to our new floormates. I don't really remember any of the specific guys except for one stand out named Ivan.

Ivan was a weird looking dude. He had the look of a frog that had woken up one morning and decided to be a person. He had a kind of swampy quality that was really off putting. he had kind of moist looking skin and muddy blond hair with glasses that made his eyes seem farther apart than they should have been. He had an english accent and said he was from a small town in England that was famous for being the most haunted town in England. everyone agreed that was an exotic fact considering that this was a regional college in North Carolina. Other than Ivan the closest thing our school had to a foreign student was a guy from Central Pennsylvania.

There was something about the guy that I didn't like, but I just figured a nerd was a nerd whether he was from the middle of North Carolina or the middle of England. Then one night a couple of days later some people were hanging out in the common room and there were some guys from a different floor there. Ivan walked in with a couple of girls who couldn't get enough of his weirdo British stories. One of the visitors shouted at the guy "hey John, they let you into college?" Well Ivan took one look at that guy and ran out of the room.

It turns out that one of the visitors had gone to high school with "Ivan". Ivan's real name was John and he wasn't from England at all. He was from Salisbury (which is the name of a city in the UK, but in this case it is the 24th biggest city in North Carolina). See "Ivan" had been one of those mean kids in high school who was a dick to everyone, but could never figure out why every disliked him. He had decided that starting college would be a perfect time to reinvent himself.

"Ivan" had a pretty decent plan with just two enormous flaws. One flaw in his plan is that he stayed too close to home. He choose a college where half the kids in his high school went to, basically guaranteeing that he would be found out, he should have gone much further away. His big flaw was that he tried to reinvent himself with a lie. He wasn't from some stupid haunted town in England, he was from some stupid boring town in America.

Reinventing yourself or reframing how others see you is a fundamentally American endeavor, but unless you are true to yourself you are bound to fail. You can't make yourself from England when you are not. "Ivan" lasted another 2 weeks at school before dropping out. If instead reinventing himself as some english exile while remaining a mean person, he had just started being nicer and telling the truth about his origins I am sure his story would have been much happier.

That is why when I decided I needed some creative outlet I started to change. I am still the same person, I am just trying to make myself a more complete person. I started playing music because I wanted to do it for myself, and I started writing because I thought I had something to say. I am still Micah P. Cooper. Just a slightly better Micah P. Cooper. I am trying to reinvent myself with the truth and hopefully this story will have a happier ending.