When I grow up I want to be me

Richard had more Star Wars figures than me. He had the AT-AT Walker, I was never allowed the AT-AT, too big you see. Richard also had a small but much coveted collection of Star Wars dressing up costumes, he was always Luke Skywalker, I had to settle for Darth Vader. I always wanted to be Skywalker. When I was 9 I wanted to be Richard.

Tim was really good at football, much better than me. He would always play in the position of centre forward, I would often play in the position of substitute. Upon being substituted I would assume my usual place of defender, on the right usually. At the time Ian Rush, the Liverpool striker, was me hero, if I could have grown a mustache like his I would have, my pre-pubescent age of 10 precluded that. I did however have the full Crown Paints kit in red, yellow and white. The problem was that when you are 10 years old heros are not made in defense, heros score goals, hat-tricks at that. I didn’t want to be Razor Rudock all big, hairy, scary, bruised and fearless. I wanted to be Ian Rush. I wanted to be Tim.

John was amazing at guitar and he owned a real USA Fender Stratocaster. He could play anything, even the full version of ‘More than words’ by the rock band Extreme. The girls really loved it when he played that. He could even sing, really well, and do all the harmonies with his bandmate Mark. My band ‘The Psychedelic Reverb’  were nowhere near as cool or musically talented. Sure, we could pull off the Indie rock ‘wish we were from Manchester thing’. But when they played ‘Roadhouse Blues’ by The Doors we paled into insignificance. I wanted to play like Nuno Bettencourt and sing like Jim Morrison. I wanted to be John.

When I studied architecture my mate Rob was easily the best in the University. He produced the most amazing, unique and skilled work, even the tutors would be left catching flies. Rob got a first class honours degree and a place on a postgrad course at the best architectural school in the country. He now works for one of the best architects in the world. He was so so good at what he did that however hard we tried we just couldn’t be Rob. I wanted to be the best student, I wanted to produce the best the work. I wanted to be Rob.

Now that I am 33 and a bit I am quite happy being me which is really just being made more like Him. My identity is in Christ. As I am finishing this post off Emma Keenan has just submitted a great post on this, far more eloquent than this one, check it out here.

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