The perfectionist

To remember, is fascinating.
You can remember events, thoughts, feelings, looks, smells..so many things.
Sometimes, I remember something and am able to relive it. Relive the feelings I mean. Other times, I get so anxious to do just that, and so worried I may not be able to, that I loose the entire memory all together.
Today, on Caltrain I remembered something. It doesn't belong to any one category (smell, feeling, event)..but it includes them all. Imagine:
In their navy "Mantou" and white "Maghna'e", girls play in their school yard. It's time to start a game. Two people start forming two different teams, and then they pick their teammates.
The feeling I'm talking about is that of knowing, so certainly, that EVERYONE wants you on their team. You haven't worked for it, it just IS that way. Undeserved, maybe, but very enjoyable nevertheless. You are always the "Captain" of your team without anyone really knowing what being a captain entails. It's just good.
That, we all knew.
I had never thought about how it felt to be the "other".To not be wanted on any team, or even to not be the person EVERYONE wanted on their team.
The unfair thing was that we were all aware of this , often unspoken, ranking, and it somehow applied to so many other aspects of our student lives. I sometimes thought some of those people, hopefully, were not aware of all this, or even better, couldn't care less..but is that true? If not, how did they submit to a life of "less than ideal" ranking? Had they believed it to be an " unchangable reality"? or was it really that they didn't care?
This concept of unspoken, yet universally known, ranking is everywhere. It was in the International House with which country you were from. (Pakistan, not so cool, Spain oh very cool, we all agreed)
And this repeats itself in so many forms and situations throughout our lives.

When I am forced to accept "defeat" of this sort, and I have been forced quite a number of times after leaving Iran, I only begin to realize how those girls in Navy outfits must have felt when they were chosen the last or when they caused their team to loose yet another time. It's tough. It's painful.
But I, then, close my eyes and remember that I have a little girl with a Navy "mantou" in my heart that KNOWS she's the captain...