As a kid, I remember the line, “You’re going to be a GREAT lawyer when you grow up!” This line was never said in hopes that I’d have a six-figure income one day. I was considered a stubborn kid. Hard-headed. Willful. STUBBORN.

One might imagine a very argumentative girl who ran her mouth nonstop to have her way or prove her point. The opposite rings truer; I have always been fairly quiet. Don’t get me wrong, I am a jackass. I love to goof off when I’m relaxed. Stand-up comedy, political satire, and videos with someone getting a slap to the testicles lights me up and causes my melancholy tongue to become hyperverbal. 

As a kid, I’m sure whatever lit me up then also made me talk too much and DEFINITELY too loudly. “Stubborn” had nothing to do with my speaking. Stubborn had everything to do with my heart. Side note, submission from women was how I was raised. “Stubborn” should be removed from a girl so the woman in her will maintain the ongoing submission. Deep thought, so let me tell you this tail of stubborn.

I remember deciding to do very unusual things just to see if I could stick to whatever my decision was. It wasn’t always, “learn to sing,” or “have a staring contest.” It was weird stuff. I must have been a very bored child.

For example, when I was eleven, I decided to stop each meal by ending my chewing on the left side of my mouth. I recall hearing that teeth wear down worse on the dominant side because of overuse and harder teeth brushing. For some reason, that stuck, and to this day; I end everything I can on the left. I remember deciding to have this quirk, though. I’m sure part of it was a control issue, but part of me always challenged myself to odd habits like that. 

I do have classic ADHD and get very invested in new things that pique my interest. To anyone unaware, ADHD causes many to be VERY, very into what we’re into. Like many, I get so invested that I overinvest, lose interest after hitting a wall, and then ditch the thing altogether. I am painfully typical that way. 

What was “stubborn” as a kid was my needing to have things explained in explicit detail so I could bring myself to obey. I had a great deal of difficulty with blind obedience. As a church kid, this difficulty would not benefit me. Submission, back then, felt like blind obedience. A few trust issues, ADHD, and being a hyperrational autistic human made blind ANYthing difficult for me.

“Stubborn” refused to practice car drills where we put a pillow on our heads in case of a collision. Backstory: we had to drive a decent distance in the back of our van in the glorious 1980’s. I remember the driver tapping on the brakes so we would physically roll up into a ball and practice a tumble in case we got hit by another car. (Please do not make me attempt to understand how a pillow was going to save my life from another car while beltless on a van floor. I promise, I couldn’t understand then and made sure the driver knew about it after the fourth break-check.)

Stubborn; what a negative way to say, “determined.”

Determined people are praised; they’re just usually praised after the fact. Determined people are seen as people who must be accomplishing something. Stubborn people are willful, rigid, controlling, and difficult. The difference between stubborn people and determined people is perspective and time.

Today I learned, after 32 years, that my oldest friend considers me to be one of the most determined people she knows. When she said it, I was confused by her statement. Most of the things that I have accomplished that I’m proud of have occurred while I had a very small audience and she wasn’t always there to witness those things. Just the honor of the word, “determined,” felt untrue because determined people aren’t … stubborn like me. 

Wait. Determined people ARE stubborn people. I came to that epiphany after my best friend reminded me of a job we had in 1994. Allow me to tell you a story of a time when gas was around $1/gallon and Cindy Crawford was making a workout tape that would make me a semi-maniacal, ab-rolling fitness junkie. 

Picture it; two teenage girls using baby oil while tanning in the backyard of the apartment she lived in back then. In the distance, somewhere “I Saw the Sign” by Ace of Base is playing on a CD player that cost $99. We decide that we want to start working out, but don’t want to pay for a gym membership. I think the conversation went something like,

Me: “I hear people who work at the YMCA get a free membership. Want to quit your job at Rita’s and I’ll quit my job at Dairy Queen and we can work there?”

Her: “Yes!”

Looking back, I see the similarities between our first jobs in the epic cool-foods industry. We mirrored for a while there, it seems. Back to the conversation I had today where she called me, “one of the most determined people I know.” I like that she said that so I wanted to type the sentence twice.

She said, “You wanted to work out, so you got a job at a gym so we HAD to work out. I was thinking of working out like any other passing thing, but you decided you were completely committed. By doing that, you held me accountable.” 

She said some other nice things I didn’t know and that’s when I realized that I had been given the wrong adjectives for myself. As an adult, I continued to use some variation of the same word, “stubborn” for myself. I did so while still accomplishing and tackling some of the biggest challenges in life. My favorite word is fortitude. Another friend gave me that word.

Simply said; fortitude is the ability to keep trudging through; well, shit.

Not only did I not realize that she saw me as determined; I did not realize the impact that my determination had on her. At 15, I became a Youth Fitness Instructor at the YMCA in Lansdale, Pennsylvania. My best friend and I never worked together. We split the week’s shifts and had the easiest job on the planet until I finished high school.

I eventually became a gym manager and personal trainer when I was 20. I don’t know what the owner was actually thinking because, as I said, I was 20. I was much cuter back then, however, and I happened to know that he wanted to fire the current manager and just needed an excuse. Ask me how I know he wanted to fire his current gym manager?

I was in the car with my parents and saw that they had just built a gym at this massive intersection called, “Five Points Plaza.” Five major roads came together there. As a new driver, one avoided this intersection because it was the devil. I tell my dad to pull into the gym and I went inside.

I didn’t apply for the job. I decided I wanted to operate my massage therapy business out of a room and went in to ask if he had space for a massage therapist’s office. Within the first month of having my business there, I was also the general manager of the gym. He paid for me to get my certification and I worked as a personal trainer, gym manager, and massage therapist until I left to work at a pharmaceutical company for way more money. 

She did not go on to live happily ever after with a dynasty like Cindy Crawford. I’ve gone through some stuff, primarily with fortitude. I’ve had moments of sheer shitting-the-bed-ness, but I can say that when I have messed up; I have desperately tried not to make the same error twice.

I am stubborn. I am determined. I am learning to use better adjectives.