It's easy being Crady, but hard being Jeff...a weaving of lyrics and reflection.

I love "Coming Home" by Shawn P.Diddy Combs. I must admit it. I am not a big P.Diddy fan. Whenever I watched his Making the Band show, or watched that other show where people competed to be his secretary, he did not impress me. However, I love "Coming Home". I love the lyric "It's easy being Diddy, but it's hard being Shawn," because I think we can all identify with that on some level.

When you first start teaching (even more so in a small community like E'town) it is almost as if you become a minor celebrity. Not in that you really do anything worthy of fame, or that you reach millions of people with your acting skills, but people do pay attention to you. You go to the supermarket and kids say things like, "what are you doing here?" I guess they assume that we don't eat, that we somehow sustain ourselves on testing materials and white board markers. The kids, even their parents, pay attention to you. They notice when you get your hair cut, when you wear new shirts and shoes. They want to know strange details of your personal lives, and if they find one out they want to share it with everyone, and get the credit for knowing first. Granted, I have a mohawk, wear bowling shoes to school occasionally, and have a tattoo of my wife's name on my wrist, so I know I give them lots of things to pay attention to, but still it is strange to me, that they would care about any of those things, or that they would be weirded out to see me at the Mexican restaurant with other teachers, my wife, or friends. That aspect reminds me more so of Miranda Lambert's Famous in a Smalltown.

Over the course of seven years of teaching, I have sort of developed this persona accidentally. Kids, fellow teachers, parents, almost always call me "Crady." It is not unusual to walk down the hall and hear "Crady" boomed from some random direction, sometimes even from kids I don't know, and I think, why would that kid want me to acknowledge him? It is as if this "Crady" persona is a separate and distinct entity from me (Jeff). I don't really know what kids think of "Crady" or what their parents must think of "Crady." I have a feeling that it is generally good things. I think kids expect "Crady" to laugh loudly, say sometimes inappropriate things, to sing in class, maybe yell some. I don't know for sure, but I think that even though I don't know exactly who "Crady" is that I still definitely play into the role of it or him. One probably because it helps me in the classroom to get them to cooperate and learn, another because honestly I probably like the attention it brings.

However, I am probably more "Jeff" than "Crady'. My wife (who lives with Jeff) could tell a lot about how uncool "Jeff" really is. My close friends could share a lot on how hateful and uninteresting I can be as well. That aspect of the "Crady" vs "Jeff" debate reminds me of some lyrics from a couple of other songs. I sang a song Sunday at church whose first line is "No one would love me if they knew, all the things I hide." That is sort of true for life isn't it. We (as a species) have a tendency to put people on pedestals, to revere them, and then as we get to know them better, or see more of them revealed on tv, to sort of become disheartened by their real selves, which really isn't fair. And we don't just do that with celebrities, we do it with our friends and spouses and family too. We have a hard time accepting the things we hate about ourselves in others.

That aspect too, reminds me of another song that I like a lot called "Crooked Deep Down". In that song there is a lyric that says, “just don't ask my real good friends, cause they might tell the truth, but it's nothing they could prove”. I would probably be embarrassed by the things my friends think of me at times. Maybe ashamed is a better word. I am sure I can come across needy and petty at times, among other negative things.

So that is why it is sometimes so easy to be “Crady”. Because that is a persona. I won't say it is an act, because I am being myself when I am being goofy, loud, and brash, but it is not a complete picture. It is harder to be “Jeff” because he can be insecure, selfish, awkward with people and emotions. Jeff worries about what people think of him, he worries about if people would still like him when he is “Jeff” as Crady doesn't really worry about any of those things. They both have their good points and both are necessary for my survival in my life. One helps me to find the joy and excitement and confidence to get things done; the other reminds me to not be an arse , to think about Christ, to put other's wants in front of my own.