I’m Going to Be a Zebra
By Peter Nevland - Oct 21 , 2008
“I’m going to be a zebra when I grow up.”
“You can’t be a zebra,” my brother shot at me.
“Why not?”
“Because zebras are animals. You can’t grow up to be an animal.”
I swallowed the dream into my crushed heart. They looked so cool. Besides, everyone else wanted to be a fireman, or a policeman, or a football player. Why couldn’t I pick something that no one else would choose; not something that was bad or evil or against everyone; just something exciting and unique? If I couldn’t be a zebra, what could I be?
My boundary-stretching brain didn’t form in Grand Prairie, TX. I just grew up there. Legend tells me I was transported from the cold suburbs of Detroit, Michigan, just before my 2nd birthday. My parents’ lack of a Texas accent, our trips to Michigan to visit relatives that seemed to recognize and know things about my family, and the way I learned to say “pé-can” led me to believe the legend. Real Texans put the accent on the second syllable of the word “pe-cán” and almost make the “p” sound like a “b.” I would never be a true Texan, but I eventually learned how to say “pecan” pretty much the way they do.
When I was 3, our dog, Fred, bit me in the face. He didn’t give any warning as I petted his soft fur. He just unleashed some guttural growl and chomped into my freckle-covered skin. My parents rushed me to the hospital, where I got 8 stitches in my cheeks, right under my eyes. They still have the sticker I got for bravery as the doctor sewed up my face with me looking right at him. I didn’t flinch or scream or whine. I just sat really still so he could make me better. No one can ever find the scar, since it healed so well.
That trusting kind of attitude has flowed through my brain my whole life. For someone whose mother didn’t want to have another baby after her 3rd child (my older brother, David) was born, that’s odd. You’d think I’d be skeptical of everyone and everything, but I always trusted my parents and authorities. They never showed me anything but love and acceptance. Maybe it was the prophecy and the crazy doctor that changed their minds.
When my brother thrust his willful head out my mother’s thirty-seven year old body, she wanted to have her tubes tied. She had heard that women can have pregnancy complications when they’re older, and she didn’t want to have something like that happen. What sounds like a routine procedure for a doctor, turned into a religious sermon.
“You call yourself a Christian woman and want to rob yourself of the blessings of God. Well, I won’t do it. You’ll have to find yourself another doctor.”
Weird… …but I’m grateful. The baby factory stayed open.
A few months later my parents showed their first son to this friend of theirs who used to be a Catholic nun. My dad loves telling people how he called her Sam, since she went by Sister Annette Marsnick (crazy funny, Dad!).
“A year from now you’re going to have another one, just like him.”
My mom tells me this made her upset. She didn’t want to have another child.
“Thanks, Mom,” I told her, when I heard the story.
“Well, over that year God changed my heart so that by the time you were conceived I wanted to have another child.”
And there you have it. I was wanted after all. My parents have always been really good parents. Who knows how my mom stayed sane amidst two intense, verbally gifted boys constantly wrestling and competing for dominance, but she was pretty incredible. My brother and I did everything together, leading people to confuse our names even though we’ve never looked alike.
We played sports, made up imaginary football leagues, took piano lessons, raced hot wheels cars, acted in church plays, engaged in heated board game battles, rode our bikes, climbed trees, constructed cities in our mammoth sandbox, imitated cartoon characters and jammed out to music together. Everything I did was usually a result of my brother having done it first and me trying to do it just as well or better. He didn’t want to be shown up. I wanted him to concede that I was his equal, or maybe superior. Neither of us ever backed down.
Combine trusting the authorities with constantly challenging and usually outperforming my peers, and I didn’t have the best relationships with my classmates. I made really good grades all through school, but my quick understanding of new concepts and attempts to explain them to my classmates didn’t make them like me. My teachers loved me as a student. Fellow students would laugh or cheer if I ever messed up. They wouldn’t come sit next to me if I sat down first. My unfailing memory kept every dagger of rejection plunged into a sensitive heart.
Through my growing years I tried to hide the things that made me stand out. I replaced creativity with accomplishment. Everything seemed great and wonderful on the outside. I led worship at my church youth group, got good grades, ran a successful lawn business, volunteered as a teen court attorney, played on my high school soccer team and won piano competitions. But my friends dwindled to my brother, the customers whose lawns we mowed, and 99 year-old Granny Hayes, who used to share a room with my grandmother in her nursing home. I had buried my outside-the-box, intense originality along with my foolish 5 year-old dreams of becoming a zebra. I didn’t know what I wanted to be when I grew up.
