Brandon and I are at the Jersey Shore for the weekend. Let me be clear though, my grandparents own a house in Seaside Park, not Seaside Heights, where the infamous show The Jersey Shore was born. I was raised coming to the Shore in the summers, and my grandparents always made sure that I would make the distinction between the Park and the Heights when talking about the Shore to people, because, even though the two towns are next door neighbors and share the same three-mile long boardwalk, they couldn’t be more different.
After an evening surfing at sunset, we ventured up to the Heights for dinner and to enjoy the carnival festivities and people watching that comes along with any major beach boardwalk. The Heights has always been one of my favorite places to people watch, ever since I was a kid, but now it’s a little bit different. As Brandon pointed out to me, the boardwalk was filled with Jersey Shore Show wannabes. It was overflowing last night with young adults trying to recreate exactly what they saw on MTV, down the the t-shirts, catch phrases, and attitudes. There was a lot of effort being put in by all, and a lot of looking around to see if the effort was paying off. It made me sad to watch, but really, many of us, including myself at times, fall into the same trap. We try to recreate the pathways and successes of others by mimicking them, when really the only thing we need to do is to be ourselves.
All I know is that I don’t wannabe a wannabe, and I doubt that you do either. Stick to being you. Remember, there is no one else who will have a story and a life like yours. Don’t cheapen your story by copying someone else’s.