The Hero Syndrome

No.

It's just two letters.

One syllable.

Two sounds.

Nnnnnnn-ooooooo

 

Can you tell I work in Kindergarten?

 

It's the most common word out of the mouth of babes.

As in infants, not hot girls.

So why do I find it so darn difficult to say?

No. No. No.

I can type it. I can say it repeatedly when I'm alone. I even have it in a rubber stamp...

but when someone from the world says "Hey, Christa, can you do this for me?"

Suddenly my tongue won't touch my teeth!

My lips won't make a circle, and those two sounds, nnnn-oooo are impossible to make.

Impossible.

I might think I'm saying no.

Inside I am screaming no.

But no matter how I fight the impulse, I compulsively say yes.

Why do we do that?

Is it guilt? My Catholic upbringing? Too many nitrates in processed food?

Or are some of us just bred to be heroes...

You need someone to bake four hundred cookies? Sure.

A chairman for the least desirable committee on the PTA? I'm your girl.

An essay written in six different languages and signed by the president of France?

No problem.

Now, that one is close. If you could just clap your hand over your mouth before the word problem comes out you'd have it. But I never think of it in time.

 

And so I spend all the weeks leading up to Halloween preparing for Fall Festival at my son's school, while planning my daughter's costume party birthday bash, shopping for home coming, creating three very specific and detailed costumes, decorating the house, making ten pounds of applesauce, three school conferences, four dentist appointments, and a partridge in a pear tree...  

There's more, but I won't go on.

You're welcome.

The problem is, this happens every year.

I know it's coming. I plan to say no. I practice my nnnnnn's and ooooooo's. I even put on chapstick.

It seems like that would help.

 

Then it happens. People in the world come to me and make their requests, and whap, there's a damn cape fluttering in the breeze behind my shoulders.

The cape is choking me a little, making me think I might never see the pale, grayish light of November. It's keeping me up at night and getting in the way of things like eating meals. But no matter how I tug and pull and plan and chapstick, it won't go away.

If anyone out there knows the secret to ditching the cape, let me know, because I sure would like to be one of those women I see on the sideline. You know, the ones watching the leaves change color and eating ten pounds of applesauce that someone else made.  

Sigh.

I bet that applesauce has cinnamon.