Newfoundland & Labrador

Newfoundland and Labrador Opinion

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PAM FRAMPTON: When it comes to my health, I'm glad I'm unremarkable

Health scare leads to new perspective on identity and desire to be unique

When I was a little girl, I hoped I would be remarkable.

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I wasn’t sure in what respect, but I fervently wished that some innate talent would reveal itself and distinguish me from everyone else in my small town.

Would it be drawing, singing, playing the piano? Math skills? Athletics?

I chafed at having to pick out clothes from the Sears catalogue, knowing that every other girl my age was doing the same. I remember the year — 1976, horror of horrors — when a girl in my class showed up for school photo day wearing the same shirt as me, a polyester one-piece masquerading as a two-piece in a vibrant pattern, like a landscape by Gauguin. We each posed in our matching outfits, clutching a fake fence post against a lushly forested backdrop dominated by a palm tree — a palm tree, in outport Newfoundland. The improbability didn’t escape me.

It made me feel like it was impossible to have an original thought; an identity of........

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