Genuine.

Some time last week, while I was getting ready for my day, a memory chose to resurface. It isn't the first time it's bobbed to the forefront of my mind. It has lingered persistently, thudding around in my thoughts like a pair of sneakers tumbling in a dryer.

I was in the third grade. We were in art class. We were making these projects that involved creating an image out of tissue paper or construction paper or some such that had been torn into small squares, then glued onto a background, mosaic-like I guess. I don't recall what I made, but I clearly remember a classmate making a slice of watermelon. She had chosen a deep red, a medium pink & a pale pink for the flesh of the melon, in graduating order from darkest to lightest, from the top to the bottom, and a lighter & darker green for the rind. She had brown pieces scattered across the melon for seeds. I admired it.

And then I told her so.

Her response has stuck with me. (Clearly, if I am still thinking about it more than a quarter century later.) She didn't even look up from her project as she said, "You're just saying that so I will compliment yours."

That was it. That was all she had to say.

I was taken aback. I hadn't been fishing for praise. I don't even think that doing such a thing had ever, to that point in my young life, crossed my consciousness. I fell silent again, mulling her reply. And week after week, as we marched into the art room, I would glance at her watermelon hanging on the wall, and I would contemplate what she had said. Every time I replayed her words in my head, it stung.

I've learned in my many years since that day, that people often don't have the most sincere intentions, even when they appear to be doing or saying something nice. They ask how we are because it's socially polite. When someone compliments us, we suspect ulterior motive. They smile to our face and turn right around to throw us under the bus or gossip before we've even fully left the room. I guess, maybe, this childhood classmate of mine had learned this lesson far earlier than I did. Perhaps she had been exposed to it before I ever was. Perhaps she had learned to engage in such behavior entirely on her own. But until the day she uttered the words, it had never even been a possibility to me.

Whatever the case, the moment stayed with me. The instant a singular piece of my innocence was clouded. I never forgot, and daily, I am reminded.

I won't say that I am perfect at it, because that would be mighty hypocritical of me, but I try very hard to be as genuine as I can. I want to be genuine. I want people to be able to take me at my word, without wondering what my angle is. I want my compliments to be taken as sincere. I want my concern to be unquestioningly heartfelt. I want people to think I am kind, because that is who I truly am, and not just a front put on for show. And though it isn't my proudest moment, if someone does something to hurt me or pushes my buttons one too many times, I don't fake nice; I am genuinely standoffish. (My Gram did teach me well: "If you don't have anything nice to say, keep your mouth closed.") (Not to be confused with my generally quiet nature. I like to think there is an obvious difference between the two.) I don't always get it right, but I sure do give it my best shot.

I don't ever want to be the girl I was falsely assumed to be at eight years old. Come to think of it, maybe this is why I'm lukewarm to watermelon even now...