Goodbye to Chekov

In my youth I spent a lot of time in my parent's shadow. In some ways it wasn't a shadow, it was a spotlight. If I chewed gum I was in trouble twice before the flavor was gone. Being the child of two teachers at the school you attend is tough. The most difficult thing for me was sorting out friendships. Who was my friend because they liked me? Who was my friend because they liked my parents? Who was my friend because they wanted to find out good stuff for the gossip mill? The other thing I disliked was what I privately called "The Chekov Effect."
My grandmother was a spoiler. She knew my cousin loved Star Trek, so she painstakingly collected a set of coffee mugs through a magazine offer. The porcelain company sent her two Sulu's and two Chekov's, but no Captain Kirk. She had to go through all kinds of hassel to get Captain Kirk, but when she asked them what she should do with the extra Sulu and Chekov? "Keep them" they said, "nobody wants them anyway." In my life, I was always Chekov. You Checked Off that you had him, but his only real purpose was completeness.
Being Baptist there wasn't any real escape, shoot, I walked into my writer's group and found someone I could play six degrees of being Baptist with. Within a few minutes we'd uncovered a mutual friendship that was pretty significant. I tend to end those conversations back in Chekov mode.
I'm not a Baptist anymore. I love all my Baptist friends. I love my parents, but for the first time I'm just an ordinary church member. I have no parental burden to bear. I have no fond memories that I am required to recount. I'm just the rather inept Catholic trying to remember to bow, then put your left hand on top of your right, then say "Amen" then eat (praying you don't sneeze or drop it or something else equally awful) then cross your self while trying to return to the proper pew gracefully and on time.
The lack of pressure was very scary at first, but now I'm beginning to enjoy it. Discovering who you are when you can be anyone is fun. The best thing though has been the general clearing of my ideas about who my friends are/were, and the closeness I feel without the nagging worry about why people choose to be my friend. Thanks to everyone who's stuck by me in the bad parts. Hopefully the good parts are ahead of us.