Rudolph Has Low Self-Esteem.

So I turned that magical age of thirty two months ago and felt nothing. I don't know what I was expecting. Something magical apparently. But that is a post for another day. I am now thirty, and like most North- American children of the eighties, I grew up watching a somewhat disturbing stop-motion-animation Christmas movie called Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. And while I cannot place total blame for my elementary-school anxiety on the sloping shoulders of that red nosed freak and his effeminate elf-friend, they played a festive part in my neurosis.

Imagine misfit me, staring wide-eyed through my crooked bangs, as Rudolph grovels for the acceptance of his reindeer peers in that embarrassingly nasal voice. "Why am I such a misfit?" He sings pathetically to himself after publicly humiliating his dad by losing control of his red and ominously humming nose. I don't know, Rudolph. Maybe you should stop hanging around with that cougar-doe who claims to be your age, but is clearly played by a fully-mature woman. Because you know, that isn't doing anything for your emotional health. Nor is the elf with the coiffe. The dude is performing dental work on dolls. That isn't misfit. That's messed up. As the kid who never fit in, I did not like the way I was being represented. Not by that whiny Rudolph. Not by that outrageously annoying elf. Not by the Island of Handicapped Toys. Rather than feeling the intended theme of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer: Its OK to be you! I recoiled in self-realization: It is definitely NOT OK to be me. Better to conform than be abominable snow man fodder. I was certain of one thing- I didn't want to end up like Rudolph, exploited by the very people who initially rejected me. Indebted to a dentist. A shell of a reindeer. No.

It was years before I could enjoy stop-motion animation again. And though in many ways I remain the misfit I always was, I am happy to report that my childhood fear of being in poor company was as ridiculous as Aaron Neville singing O Holy Night. Take my word for it. Excepting whiny red-nosed types, misfits are fabulous company.