How Much of Me is Me?

-

Recently I've learned that lots of TV's don't go along with this two personality business and think we who do are a bunch of phonies. Specifically, one as- sured me in all sincerity that my brother and I am distinguishable only by our clothes etc. and that "Shel- a is an act. Well, for those who are interested, I shall now attempt to perform the ultimate striptease, start- ing with the skin and ending with the bones.

Of course I'm a phony- in spots because of the way I grew. The lady-like veneer is only a couple of years old, and this in spots, and largely copied from Virginia and my sister-in-law. Under that, a patch- work of real and counterfiet building-blocks. When I failed tohave a trait of character, my brother often thought wouldn't it fit if you were

". So I

plugged it in, and by now neither of us knows which is which. On the inside of that, I am composed most- ly of the rejected talents and traits my brother threw off as "un- manly." I have most of the emotions, all the sentimentality, most of the writing ability, much of the appreciation of the arts, and quite a bit of in- tuition. He kept the technical and mechanical apti- tudes, creative thinking of the engineering type, sol- id logic, and patience, but I am way ahead of him on ambition. And finally, in the center, a core of very primitive, cave-womanly femininity, too tough to be killed but too weak to take him over

So though I speak with his voice and vocabulary and reflect his attitudes in most ways, this is due to the fact that only recently have I been able to touch or be touched, by the world except through him. One does not learn the social graces while locked in a mo- tel room, or by riding as a passenger in someone else's body. Being anxious to please the only person with whom I could communicate, I tried to be all the things he wanted me to be, contradicting though these were; it will be years before I can undo this tangle enough to be myself.

SHEILA 30 B-2FPE

32