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| Self Portrait - Lizzy King, 2013 |
Sometimes we change our minds slowly; we
learn gently, and subconsciously, we may never even realise that our opinions
have grown. Other times, realisation comes like a clap of thunder. We might be
reading something, or sleeping, or talking with someone, and then suddenly, BAM
– the light bulb cliché, the explosion of knowledge. I like to think that those
moments are a good way to map our development as humans. So here’s my
epipha-map.
Epiphany
Number 1: not all families are the same.
In grade 1 or 2 I went to my first sleep
over at a friend’s house. I remember my mum telling me I had to wear knickers
to bed. I never wore knickers with my pyjamas (secretly, I probably didn’t
start doing so till I was a teenager) and I remember being quite weirded out by
this change in my sleeping attire. But that wasn’t the epiphany. Sitting at the
dinner table with this nuclear family of four, it occurred to my small brain
that it was actually probably a bit weird that I called my dad Tony and that he
did most of the cooking. And I remember not liking my friend’s dad because he
had a moustache and liked his lawn more than he seemed to like his family. My
mum did all the garden work, and I actually sort of had it in my head that mums
were outside people in my world and dads were really good at making cheesy
cauliflower. And in that moment I realised that not everyone was like us
(awesome).
Epiphany
Number 2: Fractions and decimals are the same thing.
I was quite a clever kid. I was good at
most subjects at school without even really trying. I was a very good reader, I
liked writing and science things the best, but I also was pretty good at maths
too. Until I was about 10. And then suddenly, maths got hard. I struggled
intensely with anything that combined letters and numbers: 3 + x = 7?! How can
an x be in there?! Xs are for words, not maths. The whole thing baffled and
upset me. In particular, I could not cope with fractions. I got my head around
decimals ok, but spent hours freaking out about fractions. And then my mum spent
a day baking with me. We measured things out with measuring cups, and she
patiently explained how 1/4 + 1/4 could equal 1/2. And I got it. I was happy.
The next day at school we were working on some maths problems and I had a
little “oh!” moment as I realised that 0.25 + 0.25 = 0.5 as well. They were the
same thing. All this time, they were the same bloody thing. I felt like a
genius idiot.
Epiphany
Number 3: Belief isn’t fact.
On school camp, some of the girls were
reading out horoscopes from a magazine and asked me what mine was. I went on a
small rant about the ridiculousness of the belief that somehow rocks in space
could tell us anything about our little mundane lives. Basically, I killed the
fun. My atheist friend looked up from the magazine and said, “you know Lizzy,
the way you feel about horoscopes, that’s the way I feel about Christianity”. I
was pretty pissed and stomped off, I guess not because she’d said it, but
because she’d called me out. I was religious at the time, but that moment was one
of the first times I deigned to consider other people’s beliefs as in any way
legitimate. Not that I suddenly thought horoscopes made any sense (they make
none, to be clear), but in that one sentence, my friend had made me realise
that all belief is kind of ridiculous, and it doesn’t hurt to be a little bit
respectful. (If you’re reading this, Hilde, I give you permission to gloat).
Epiphany
Number 4: I’m not a Catholic.
On the subject of religion, I started
doubting and questioning my faith around the age of 16. At the end of the
school year I went overseas with my choir, and we sang in amazing places across
Europe. We sang a church service in a Catholic cathedral and it was one of the
most beautiful places I’d ever seen. We were told that only those who were
Catholic were allowed to leave the singing to take Communion. So I dramatically
stepped out from my 75 fellow singers, along with 3 or so other students and
walked the length of the cathedral to get my bread and wine in the fanciest
setting possible. And swallowing it was like swallowing chalk and acid. As I
walked back to place I realised I’d done it to be different, to be interesting,
for fun and I vowed never to take Communion again unless I was sure it was what
I wanted. I’ve not touched it to this day.
Epiphany
Number 5: Pride and Prejudice.
The themes are in the fucking title. Right
there, on the goddamn cover.
Epiphany
Number 6: It’s not them it’s me.
In 2009 I got quite sad. And anxious. And
stressed. I was depressed at the end of high school too, but this was a whole
new ball game. I sort of felt like I wasn’t allowed to call myself depressed
because I knew people who’d battled depression for years, and mine came on
quite suddenly. In the space of a few weeks I went from being pretty happy and
ok to locking myself in my room, not eating, hurting myself, being in a
constant state of panic. I probably would not have sort help had it not been
for the paranoia. I had an overwhelming sensation that people, all people,
everywhere, were looking at me. I knew, logically, that they couldn’t be, but
empirically, evidence that I was seeing with my own eyes was that they were. So I went to a psychologist.
It was three or so weeks before I got the courage to tell her people were
looking at me and she said, “have you considered, Lizzy, it’s that you
are looking at them?” No I had not considered this, I admitted. She told
me to practise not making eye contact for a whole day, and see if this fixed
the problem. I walked out of her office and up the street and instantly
realised I was making eye contact with people. So I stopped. It was excessively
difficult, I had been the one freaking other people out all along. I genuinely
skipped home with happiness. While the battle for my happiness took a lot more
than a quick fix realisation, this epiphany helped me so much, that I honestly
don’t know how I would have survived without it.
Epiphany
Number 7: I can’t run out of inspiration.
Almost every time I sit down to write a
blog, I don’t know what I’m going to write about. And it’s becoming a
problematic fear. I won’t go near my computer for hours, I’ll dawdle and
procrastinate and ask people what I should say and read a book and hope it’ll
go away. And then every time, without fail, I’ll open a word document with a blank
mind and suddenly find something to write about. Like just now, when I had an
epiphany about epiphanies, and started telling you about it. There’s always
going to be stuff in my brain and as long as people keep reading (and even if
they don’t), I’m going to keep writing it down.
