The Purchase – Brian O’Sullivan

An079 self-confidencether brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS writer.

Christmas 1980.  End of the school year.  Pocket money was tight. While there was a huge need to focus on what others wanted for Christmas, Ben really needed to get some things for himself.

Rexona deodorant and Libra pads.  All a 10 year old boy could possibly need.  Desperately.

Ben was a great student.  Ok, he was the smartest in the class.  Well, almost the smartest, but he was up there and he knew it.  At that age, you judge yourself by comparison and perhaps by what people say about you – your mum and dad, brothers and sisters, school mates and teachers. He knew he got stuff.  Maths, English, Social Studies, Geography.  He just GOT IT.  He was a genius.

One thing he didn’t get was sport. He didn’t get it in such a way that he could not throw or catch a tennis ball.  Picture this – tall for his age, scrawny, bowl-cut, home-cut hair – and the piece de resistance – glasses.  Yep, a classic nerd.  Smart and clumsy, tall and nerdy.  Aching to fit in.  Desperately lonely and unhappy.

He ached so much not to be the class goody goody.  He tried so hard at the stuff he was good at.  He focused on what he did well and he tried hard to have people and teachers like him.  Ben hung out with the other “nerds”, not that he was that friendly towards them and his belief that he was almost inevitably smarter than them, in his own mind at least.  Competition by comparison.  Like a fat person hanging out with fatter people to feel better about themselves.

His sense of balance in both the broader world and his sporting prowess was pretty warped.  They matched each other, in that they were as bad as each other.  Evidence of this was his kicking a goal for the other soccer team when he was six.  No-one told Ben that you changed ends at half time.  His opponents were not even competing for the ball – of course they weren’t – they were getting a free goal!  His teammates were calling his name to stop, but he was being selfish kicking his very first – and dare he think it, his last – soccer goal.  His teammates were not friends and any he did have prior to that goal were now gone.

Fastforward back to Christmas 1980. Somehow and strangely, this unhappiness was reflected in his end of year school report, which was not brilliant.  Ben could not believe it.  He was perfect – apart from his sporting prowess, of course – but in his teacher’s eyes, he was not.  He had done everything right – how could this have happened?

His teacher said that while Ben was very competent in a whole range of subjects and that he tried at sports, he lacked confidence in almost everything he did.  Ben didn’t even know what the word meant, his mum and dad trying to explain it in a convoluted way he just didn’t understand at the time.  He was in shock and withdrew within myself.  He was self-conscious that all his family were watching him and embarrassed by his lack of confidence.

Ben would watch television and become embarrassed when words like confidence were used on advertisements.  As always, he tried to think of ways to change this perception, to make himself more perfect. Which is exactly why he bought those Libra pads and Rexona deodorant for about $7.32 – to give himself some confidence.

God knows if his mum or dad ever found those things he’d bought that Christmas, but it was not a happy Christmas for his family when Ben announced he was not getting anything for the rest of the family.  He said he’d spent all his pocket money throughout the year and he was sorry.

But the Rexona smelt in a girly way and he just didn’t know where those pads were supposed to fit.  And he reinvented himself.  He tried to be less perfect, to give himself a break, to not achieve at the same level, to muck around in class a bit, to be friendly, to try to keep up with the latest episodes of The Young Doctors, understand the coolness of Countdown and its bands, to take up a sport that he might just be good at.  And just be himself without worrying about what others thought of him.  Even if he did wear ladies’ deodorant.

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