The Height of Stolen Safety Scissors

While I was growing up we lived only a few blocks from my elementary school, which I’m sure was because my Mother subconsciously knew she’d be making a lot of trips in to talk to my teachers.

“She stuck her tongue to a pole again.”

“I can’t teach class because she stole the teaching materials.”

“She was trying to kiss someone in the coat room.”

“She brought in Goodbye Earl for Show & Tell and now the other children are running around singing about murder.”

Sue me.

Ever since I was little I’ve pushed the boundaries to see how far I could go before someone dragged me by the wrist back into the realm of what is considered to be socially acceptable.

At six I brought to the table idiocy, kleptomania, assault, and a Charles Manson-esque leadership style.

Twenty years later I still talk about murder way too much and try to kiss the unwilling, but I’ve left behind my propensity for the more high-risk behaviours.

Cue Hilary Duff’s Metamorphosis.

What manifested as an affinity for getting myself into trouble in my younger years slowly transformed into a contest of pushing boundaries, most good and some bad, within myself.

Knowing that it didn’t always turn out as I planned, but that I was able to do the thing people told me I couldn’t do, set in motion an impulse to always take things one step further than what I initially thought possible.

From leaving completing University assignments to dawn the day they’re due to picking up my life in a moment and putting it down in a new country, I have always challenged myself to see just how much I could get away with.

How far I could walk in one direction before the shock collar put on me by my own superego sends me reeling back over the line.

Stealing safety scissors and stealing bases in a game I have no genetic aptitude for satisfy the same innate want formore.

More things, more ability, more power.

Power of self.

It’s a powerful thing to look at something you want and be able to ask, “How will I get that?” rather than “I can’t have that.”

To be able to reach out and touch the barrier that separates you from the thing you want and find a way to move it.

To understand that most boundaries, aside from those that are written in law or staged within intersections, are often set in place by no one other than you.

Optical illusions set in place in response to an overwhelming feeling of “I can’t.”

At six years old I looked at that pole, icy as it was, and said to myself “I can absolutely stick my tongue to that. Try and stop me.”

I proved to myself that I could unquestionably stick my tongue to that pole.

But I couldn’t get myself unstuck.

I pushed a boundary once to realize that it wasn’t a boundary worth pushing.

But so many boundaries in life are.

Applying for the dream job you want but don’t have the credentials for, scuba diving while holding hands with a fear of suffocation, booking plane tickets to places you know nothing about.

Going after the parts of life that you think are off limits just because something inside you decided you weren’t capable of getting them.

Knowing that you’ll either succeed or be escorted right back to the place you currently stand.

Knowing that there is nothing to lose in the pursuit of what you want.

Though I should mention that if the thing you want is twenty-seven pairs of safety scissors or to kiss Brett Lyons in the coat room, maybe just ask instead of taking.

Get your head under water.

Because if your head isn’t under water, how will you know how tall you are?