Nature Vs Nurture

I had that dream again last night. Being chased, desperately trying to lose my pursuer, my legs painfully slow and heavy. I never manage to escape. I dare not look back, but I hear their footsteps, rapidly gaining on me, their hot breath drawing closer and closer, making my hairs stand to attention. I stumble in the darkness as the overwhelming fear floods every muscle, every tendon, crushing my burning chest. Then I wake. My body stiff and twisted, palms hot and wet, teeth clenched like a vice. My husband thought I was having a seizure the first time he bore witness to one of my episodes. Although his intentions were kind, waking to him looming over me in the dark, shaking my shoulders, didn’t really help matters. After he received a weighty elbow strike to the face as a thanks for his concern, he now knows better, and simply rolls over and leaves me to it.

I know what the aspiring psychiatrists and Google therapists out there will be thinking; these dreams signify running away from something painful, escaping my anxieties, blah, blah, blah. My very ‘out there’ friend came over the other day, armed with her black velvet bag of healing crystals, wearing her ever optimistic smile. She was determined to ‘balance my chakras’ or something along those lines. She meant well, and I’m game to try anything if there is a chance it would help me. However, after an hour or so of chanting and stone shaking my kind hearted; but I fear, slightly misguided friend, proudly announced, “Jayne my darling, you have a ‘leaky aura”. The only thing that leaked that evening was me, as, to my friends dismay, I snorted as I tried to suppress my amusement at her diagnosis. Anyhow, I already know what it is. I know who my pursuer is. I don’t need a professional or otherwise to diagnose me. You see, I’ve been running away from myself my whole life.

I used to hate algebra at school. Not many people love it I suppose, but my deep rooted aversion to this black and white subject ran deeper than most. In my mind, if X plus Y equals Z, presumably, I’m doomed to a life of violence and unhappiness? I remember my young self, staring, wide eyed, at the chalked equations on the board. Watching the letters slowly morph into caricatures of the rough face of my criminal dad + the gaunt face of my addict mum = my young but pitiful face staring back at me. Needless to say that my maths teacher thought I was a very anxious girl, severely lacking in confidence, as a consequence of my frequent outburst of tears during his algebra lessons. What can I say, I really don’t like algebra.

Science lessons at school compensated for my innate lack of enthusiasm for maths. Adversely, science was my addiction. Hungry for a sign of hope, I devoured every fact, fixating on the colourful corkscrew shaped ladders and a world of skin tingling possibilities. When I had squeezed all I could from my exasperated science teacher, I feasted on a buffet of books and articles in the local library. My infatuation was a win-win for me back then. I remember the warm silence of the old library, complemented by the musty smell of books prickling my nose. This safe place allowed me to satisfy my growing hunger for everything genetics and offered priceless delay from re-entering the darkness of home.

The ‘Nature versus Nurture’ debate has played out for centuries, and still doesn’t have a definitive conclusion. My certainty was that I would never allow myself to fall into the shadows of my parents world. Every waking moment, every spark of my energy fixated on playing my own role, ruling my own life, rather than stumbling down a predetermined and tumultuous genetic path laid out from birth. My obsession of playing this character I had created, was to escape, not where but who I came from. Like a poker player hiding a bad hand, I go through life plagued by my heritage and absorbed in a personal war with myself. It’s fair to say that my genetic pool was far from ideal. Mix a dash of the iconic film ‘Trainspotting’ with a splash of prison visits to Dad, and voila, bon-appetit, away you go to bring yourself up and clean the house while you are at it.

So you see, on the nature and nurture front, I felt pretty screwed. In nature, evolutionary pressure requires birds to either fly or arm themselves - but not usually both. You could argue that the environment I faced as a child made me stronger, it lit a fire in my belly, one that gave me the strength to be everything my parents were not. I was armed from an early age, talons drawn, fighting for survival. Knowledge was my way out, and when the cage door finally opened, I flew, I flew far away, without a backwards glance.

It’s bonfire night. I stood, leaning against my dear husband, my rock, watching the warming flames of the fire dance in the cold November air. My attention turned to the happy faces of nearby children, framed in a white circle of sparks as their fiery wands drew images in the night sky. I began to feel the ever familiar maternal urge rising from my belly. I turned away from the children and resumed my hypnotic stare into the flames. I have no desire to carry my gene pool forwards. I just can’t risk the stinky goo of my bloodline seeping out into the future. I have it contained. Like a lifelong parasite, I carry the genes of my parents; addictive sociopath and a ticking time-bomb of rage really aren’t something I wish to inflict on an innocent child.

It’s Christmas and festive cheer lifted the spirits at work today, I too, found myself humming along to the familiar Christmas tunes as I approached my lab. I turned my head towards the stacked cages revealing the frantic flash of eyes and whiskers as I said my usual hellos. I know I shouldn’t get attached to my lab rats, but I’m only human. I was ‘this close’ to smuggling Wilmer out in my handbag last week. Arriving at my desk, I perched on the stool, scanning the framed accolades decorating the wall, I wondered who I would have become If I hadn’t had that drive, that fixation on self betterment, where would I be? Surely, this wouldn’t be me, it would be someone else sitting here… my philosophical rambling was rudely interrupted by a sudden wave of nausea rising from my belly, racing for daylight at a frightening speed. It is utterly regrettable having glass walls when one needs to discreetly hurl into a metal bin.

Three weeks later, I began to realise my lack of precision when it comes to peeing on a stick. I might be an award winning geneticist but when it comes to hitting a target, my aim sucks. The countdown on my mobile announced completion, I grabbed the stick and stared at it in disbelief. Another test. Just to make sure. It’s safe to say, my aim didn’t improve and safe to say, the same result stared back at me as I slumped in a heap on the bathroom floor. This wasn’t the plan. This was never the plan.

* * *

As Bianca absorbed the last entry in the journal of her infamous great, great, great grandmother, she wished she could go back to the forlorn figure hunched on the bathroom floor and tell her it will all be OK. She would tell Jayne that the child she would adore and nurture would then grow into one of the most significant figures in modern science. Her daughter, my great, great grandmother, ‘the mother of AGM - Advanced Genetic Modification’ developed the cure for the pandemic of 2119, saving countless lives.