*For as long as I’ve known Tina, she has been smart, conscientious, enterprising, resourceful, and funny.
However, her real superpower is not giving a f@#!k.
Tina doesn’t care what anyone thinks or says about who she is, what she does, where she goes, or how long she stays. She didn’t care that I told you she’s 45. She even said I could use her real name, though I chose a pseudonym.
You know how people say, “I couldn’t care less about what people think?” Tina doesn’t merely say those words; she lives them.
For instance, she isn’t concerned with what people think about how she lives. Her career in finance pays her a handsome salary, plus perks, raises, and bonuses. Yet while Tina lives well, it’s nowhere near as extravagant as her professional peers’ lifestyles.
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The people she works with compete to see who has the biggest house and drives the fanciest cars. Tina, on the other hand, still lives in the same two-bedroom home in a humble, middle-class, suburban Southern California neighborhood she bought years ago, as soon as she could afford it. Her ten-year-old midsize American car sits in the driveway.
When, over drinks, a fellow executive shared with her the notion that some co-workers believe she is a lesbian (“I mean, they never see you with a man and you don’t have kids”), Tina, whose gregarious nature doesn’t reveal that she is a very private person, told me she simply offered a mischievous chuckle—mainly directed at the uncouth executive, who expected an answer but didn’t get one.
The woman just doesn’t care.
Tina has been this person for all the years I’ve known her. I once asked how she became so seemingly unaffected by others’ opinions of her. Obviously, I reasoned, it was a strength instilled in her during childhood.
“Nope, just the opposite,” she responded solemnly. “I am the youngest in a family of five, and my siblings judged and teased me constantly. I love to read, am into science, and keep to myself. That made me the weird one. My father was supportive, but we lived with my mother, who, in her eyes, thought I couldn’t do anything right.”
Once, for her mother’s birthday, a teenage Tina prepared her mom’s favorite meal. “I know she loved it; she cleaned her plate—but she still complained that the steak wasn’t rare enough.”
“The thing is,” Tina continued, “I never understood how my mother could be so demanding of me for excellence, since she was anything but. Her life was always in some kind of upheaval; she married twice, to men she didn’t love. Our aunt used to say Mom had it in for me because I looked so much like my father—Mom’s second husband. She despised him.”
Tina developed a sense of being less-than, which she carried into school. “I was invisible. But I liked it that way because I didn’t have to fear saying or doing something that would make someone not want to be my friend. My ‘friend’ in school became good grades. I always got mostly A’s. If I got a B, my mother would ignore the A’s and harp on the B.”
Tina changed for the better after she left her hometown to attend college in Los Angeles. In L.A., she made real friends and, for the first time, dated. However, returning home for a high school reunion truly marked the start of her emotional metamorphosis.
“I literally shook with nerves. All those high school memories of feeling like I wasn’t enough came rushing back. Then I walked into the hotel banquet hall, and I couldn’t believe it. The clique I thought was so cool and special, the ones who ignored me in school… they all came up to me! I had no idea they even knew I existed. At the reunion, they looked so run-down and plain.”
Tina was particularly taken by one alum. “This woman was homecoming queen one year. She used to be so beautiful and popular in school. To come to the reunion, she had to get permission from her rehab counselor. It was sad. Very few of the “hip” people had anything going on as adults. It was we high school ‘nobodies,’ so well-preserved and accomplished, who had the most interesting conversations.”
When the reunion ended, Tina said, “I left there with my chest out so far that I think it might have grown a couple of bra sizes.”
She flew back to L.A., realizing that the unique person she saw herself as was more than enough. She’s lived that way ever since.
“I don’t want to give you the wrong idea,” Tina said. “I DO care what people say about me. But those are people I trust, love, and care about, and who have my best interests at heart. People who judge, gossip, and say things to hurt me—things I used to internalize for weeks and months, which left me depressed—I no longer hold on to them because I know who I am and that I deserve better than to care what negative people think about me.”
I last saw Tina a year ago for lunch. She strode into the restaurant, looking like a million bucks in a powder-blue Chanel suit and wearing stud earrings that, if they weren’t diamonds, shimmered like them.
I couldn’t help but notice the earrings because Tina had no hair to get in the way. She was as bald as I am, clean as a whistle. I was shocked. Giggling at my stunned expression, she sat down at the table, told the waiter she’d have her martini dry, and explained.
Over the years, fashion-forward Tina had done all sorts of things to her hair, taking on looks and styles that required dyes and chemicals that, in her opinion, ultimately left it looking damaged and lifeless.
“I wanted to start over. So, this morning, I started cutting, then shaving. I’m just glad my head has a good shape.”
The result was a bold, exotic look that I liked. I asked her what she thought her office colleagues would say, but Tina’s deadpan glare and smirk at me said it all. Why did I even bother asking?
Steven Ivory, a veteran journalist, essayist, and author, writes and discusses popular culture across platforms, including the Internet, TV, radio, documentaries, magazines, and newspapers. The Last Man on AOL is at [email protected].
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