Appreciation Post #1

I keep not posting these, because I intended on doing full groups per post... so instead, I'll just do lots of short ones and figure it out as I go along. It's about the journey, people.

My first lenten appreciation goes to my cousin, Thomas! There are lots of things I could say about him; he was the first person to threaten any of my boyfriends (good call on that one), he's awesome about keeping in touch, he's incredibly brave, and he has some pretty awesome dreams he's following. In high school, he managed to find me in 6th period and convinced my whole Spanish class to sing Happy Birthday to me. He's good at making people feel important that way. 

But, I wan't to focus on the two most important things Thomas did for me:

Thomas is the one that got me into theater! When I was 6 years old, I did my first show, and I was just a little indian extra while he was the big bad long John Silver. He never, ever, ever made me feel like I was any less important. He hung out with his little cousin and kept his eye on her, and because of that, I think it was the first activity I ever participated in where I didn't cry the whole time because I wanted to go home. 

After he introduced me to theater, he introduced me to stage crew-- the best time I ever had at the Barrow was when I did lights with him for I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change. He introduced me to all sorts of theater people, and again, never made me feel like I was the dippy little cousin following him around. Even though theater Paige disappeared in college, the foundation he created made some pretty awesome experiences that I still think of as being a part of my identity (except for when I was an MC for broadcast, because we were just not that funny. everything else though: learning to improv, going through youth theater, doing school plays. all that was good.). 

The second, real reason I wanted to do Thomas first was because he's the one that taught me to demand respect for myself, as a woman. Everyone knows I adore my cousin Barbara and have been following her around since I was able to keep up-- but my being a feminist has a lot less to do with what I learned from her, and a lot more to do with Thomas teaching me an important lesson.

Barbara is the one that taught me "when a girl says no, she means no" probably before I even made it to middle school, but it didn't sound real to me. It's like in health class, when they give you a script for saying no to drugs that would never actually pan out in a real scenario. But one day, Thomas was tickling me and I told him to stop. Barbara reminded him that when a girl said no, she meant no, and that was that. It actually worked. I wasn't being mean. He wasn't mad. All I had to do was say no, and I was allowed to expect a boy to listen to me. Thomas respected the magic word. I wasn't a bitch for asking him to stop, and he set the example for every other boy in my life. If they got mad I said no, then there was something wrong with them, not me.

It seems like a really basic lesson to learn, but it made an impression on 10-year-old Paige. So thanks, Thomas. For all the boys you scared away, and for teaching me how to do it myself. You rock, cousin.