When Creepers Come Calling

If I ever write a horror novel, I think I'll call it "When Creepers Come Calling."  Unfortunately, I can't even read the jacket of horror novels without losing sleep for a week, so there's no chance of me ever writing such a thing.  However, that does free up the title such that I can use it for this blog post without risking plagiarizing myself later, so that's a definite plus.

This title in this context is partly because of my nerdy enjoyment of alliteration, and also, unfortunately, true.  Last Sunday, I found myself at home, writing some notes for work and watching a movie when, around 7PM, the dog started barking.  I looked out the window and saw two men walking up to my door.  My blinds were open because the sun was still shining, and they waved as they saw me on the couch and continued to the door.  They knocked, and I answered, opening only my door, and leaving the storm door closed.  These two men looked about my age, maybe a little younger.  One was tall and a larger guy, the
other short and thin.  The dog continued barking, they started talking, and I couldn't hear a word they were saying.  I opened the storm door and the dog tried to get out, so I pushed him in and closed the door behind me. 

"This one's mine," said Short Guy.  "She's short like me, and her hair's super sexy."  He then introduced himself, speaking very rapidly in a very heavy Southern accent that I struggled to understand, explaining that he and his buddy were selling magazines to pay off their student loans.  He asked to come inside, and I told them no.  When I told him I was not interested in ordering any magazines, he said, "well in that case, can we just come in?  I think we got off on the wrong foot here...let's start again.  My name's Short Guy, I'm a Taurus and I like long walks on the beach and even shorter walks to the bedroom."  He continued a song and dance routine between him and Tall Guy that made it hard to get a word in.  While Short Guy fiddled with his magazine list for 0.2 seconds, Tall Guy jumped in: "How about we just forget him and you and I get together for some heavy breathing later?"  I ignored him, told them again that I was not interested in magazines and moved to go inside.  Short Guy again asked to come inside -- they were cold, he said, from doing this all afternoon, and he could just use my kitchen table to write down my order while they got warm.  I said no.  "Well in that case, let me just take you out to Red Lobster and kiss you, because you're super sexy and I love your hair."  I moved again to go inside, he kept talking about his magazines and how I should want to help him, and couldn't I just order a magazine for my husband?  Boyfriend?  "Don't you have a boyfriend?!" he asked.  I deflected the comment, said thanks, and moved to go inside, "but Doll, don't go...I love your hair and I'm super cute and good in bed...and you KNOW that's better than you got right now," he drawled.  I told him no and opened the door.  They asked me the direction of Second Ave.  I pointed and closed the door, and they walked away.

It took me exactly 0.7 seconds to start telling myself that I should have handled that differently.  That, in spite

of the fact that I could feel my anxiety starting to rise, that it was Nothing.  No Big Deal.  That I should just sit back down, finish my movie and note-writing, and move on. 

I tried that -- but it didn't work.  I couldn't focus.  My chest felt tight and my body was all twitchy and uncomfortable, and I kept thinking about those things they said.  What right did they have to come to my house and say those things to me?  Did they realize it was threatening?  Did they realize it made me uncomfortable?  Did they REALIZE the impact they just had on me?  Did they realize I live by myself?  I live at the end of the street and my neighbors are Deaf.  Did they realize this?  Why did they come all the way down this little street, right to the very end, to come to my house?  What if they come back?  Were they really selling those magazines?  Was it all a front for some awful assault scheme I just narrowly avoided? 

Ultimately, I decided to downplay it and post about it on Facebook, because...ya know...what else are you going to do with this thing-that-happened that feels like a big deal but shouldn't be?  I posted it, and then stared at the notes I was trying to write thinking, "you're so stupid.  Nothing happened.  It's no big deal.  People say things like that.  Guys say things like that.  It's just a guy thing.  Why are you so stupid?  You're just reacting to things that happened in the past.  That isn't now.  Nothing is happening now."

But -- I have awesome friends.  Although personal history told me folks might say, "huh, that's weird," or

"were they cute!?" or "sounds like a missed opportunity to me..." or "nothing bad happened," or "did you get his number?" my friends did none of that.  Instead, they indicated that what had transpired was decidedly Not Okay.  They encouraged me to call the police.  There was no joking.  It wasn't funny.  It was decidedly wrong.

Oh. 

After much thought and deliberation, I did call the police (in spite of my fears that he/she would not believe me, would think I was overreacting, would be upset that I called about something so small and wasted their time).  They sent an officer out quickly -- and he was nice.  He listened, took a description of them, said he would like to "run them out of town," and offered to continue to patrol the area until he went off duty at 4AM, if I would like.  I felt silly, but I said I would like that.  And I did.  I did like that.  Feeling supported and protected was a novel experience that was uncomfortable, purely because it was not what I expected. 

And really, that's it.  That's the whole story.  That's all that happened.  Weird guys showed up at my doorstep and said weird things, and I felt uncomfortable and called the police, who did what they were supposed to do.  It's a simple story, on its face.  But in reality?  It's so, so complicated.

So here's a little unpacking I've done of this complicated issue.  It's not new news.  It's not new ideas.  It's not going to shatter any thinking you've done about this issue before.  BUT -- I think it's important, because so often we (and by we, I mean me) understand issues when they are presented to us abstractly.  When we see the issue in a book, or an essay, or a blog, we can say, "oh yeah.  I get that.  Rape culture is definitely a thing.  Violence against women is totally normalized, I see that.  And yeah, patriarchy and oppression of women is totally an issue!  Rock on, book!" we think.  Then when issues come up in our conversations with others, we can say, "I read this article on rape culture the other day..." and we feel like we've done something good.  We feel like we have been educated, like we've shared that knowledge, like we know what we're doing and we're well-versed in being a good person, or standing up for ourselves and others. 

But too often, when it comes down to the real life application of these principles/ideas/issues, we don't see it.  We can't see it.  When it comes down to the fact of the matter, as it applies to us as we live our daily lives, we don't see it.  There was an article I read in a social psychology class that asked the question: "does the fish see the water in which it swims?"  The answer?  No.  And what are we, really, but fish in a big sociocultural pond?  The important thing here, too, is that this is true regardless of which fish we are -- if we're the big fish that eats the little fish, we don't see the water.  If we're the little fish that's being eaten, we

don't see the water.  Whether we represent majority or minority status on any particular issue, we need to work to see the water.  And, regardless, we will sometimes be unable to see it.  It's just how the water is.

And that is exactly what happened here.  I have been raised in this water.  I catch glimpses of it from time to time, but when it is a real life experience that is playing out for me?  I am just as ignorant of the water as if I had never seen it.  So creepy guys came to my door, and I, not seeing the water, thought that I shouldn't talk about it.  I thought it was not a big deal.  I thought that I was making a big deal out of nothing, because those lies are in the water.  Those lies are the water.  Those lies are part of what many women are raised to believe, and in the moment?  I fell for them.

I thought, "why do things like this always happen to me?"  Because that is also a function of the water -- making us feel as though we are alone.  Things like this happen all the time, to horrifying numbers of women.  This story is the story of street harassment.  It is the story of bosses that make sexist comments to women.  It is the story of assault, it is the story of rape, it is the many, many, many stories that we don't tell, because we've been told not to.  Because we've been trained not to.  Because we've been taught not to.  Because we've never been shown anything different.  So many of us have never been taught to tell these stories, because the mechanisms that make up the water are the mechanisms that keep these stories in place.  To expose them would be to expose the water, but some of us?  Some of us don't even have the language to begin the conversations.

In talking to a good friend of mine, who has an uncanny ability to not only see the water, but also to name it, I confided, "I feel like I'm making it all up.  I feel like I was just responding to things that happened in the past, and that I just made this whole thing up." 

"I think you may have been reacting to this AND to previous events," she said.  "Think about someone who has been mugged.  If a person starts acting like they are going to mug them, they might be more unsettled than someone who hasn't been mugged before...but they likely aren't 'making it up' or 'overreacting.'  They are respond adaptively to a dangerous situation they have been in before."

Right.  Yes.  There is a message that we're supposed to ignore/suppress/inhibit that adaptation and response.  We don't talk about it, and we're supposed to think (or come to believe) that it is wrong.  Imagine how things would be different if we were all taught to honor that response?  If I had been taught from a young age that you don't have to always be nice and polite to people, would I have been more comfortable with closing the door on them earlier in the conversation?  Would I have been able to tell them they were out of line?  Would I have hesitated in calling the police?  Would I have looked as intensely for all the ways I mishandled the situation?

About a year ago, I had a similar type of situation occur that I posted about here.  While walking to my car in the grocery store parking lot, I felt two guys following me.  I walked quickly to my car and locked the doors just in time -- they came up to my car and tried to open the doors a second after I locked them.  My first thought?  "WHY did I go to the grocery store at 8:30 at night!?"

That's fucked up.  But -- it's not me.  It's the water.  I was taught these things before I knew what I was being taught, by people who were taught those lessons before THEY knew what they were being taught, and so on, and so forth, for eternity.

I also want to recognize that men are being raised in this same water.  They are given lessons on how to treat women before they are old enough to question it.  They are being taught how to be a man before they can walk.  It is not their fault. 

I don't know what the intentions of those men were.  They may have thought that making comments like that would be the best way to get me to buy a magazine.  Sex sells, right?  They may have been trying to get magazine sales + benefits.  Or, they may not have given a damn about the magazines at all, and they just wanted that short walk to the bedroom. 

However, if the water were not made up with the stuff that constitutes our metaphorical water, they may never have dreamed of walking up to a house, seeing a woman by herself, and making those comments.  If they were not socialized to believe that they could do this without repercussions, to believe that this is just "what guys do," to believe that they hold this power that renders them able to engage in these behaviors, then it likely would not have happened.  There are always deviants, of course, but if this was not socially acceptable on some level, it wouldn't have happened.

Which means, of course, that -- to some degree -- we condone this.  The burden of that responsibility is too much to hang on any one man, or group of men, or even men as a whole.  The burden of that responsibility lies in part in our history, in part with our legislators and persons in positions of power, and in part with all of us.  There are things that women need to see and change.*  There are things men need to see and change.  And it takes us telling the stories and unpacking their ugly truths for any of us to see what constitutes those needed changes. 

*I am struggling to find another way of wording this that reeks less of a "blame the victim" mentality, and I am coming up empty.  What I mean is this: women need to do what I've done here and unpack the stories.  We need to honor our instincts.  We need to stand with one another.  We need to tell our stories and dissect them and reject the pieces that no longer fit for us, and we need to name the infuriating parts where we see them.  We need to find the places where we "get it" and the places where we don't, and we need to try and see the water we swim in.  Otherwise, it passes for status quo, where status quo is, clearly, unacceptable.

What do we owe our bullies?

For a wide variety of reasons, I've been thinking a good deal this week about bullies.  It's been a roller coaster of a week with good, bad, and everything else in-between popping up at various intervals, and everything -- the good, the bad, and many of the "everything elses" has me thinking about bullies. 

I strongly dislike bullies.  And really -- who doesn't?  Who among us thinks, "man, I really like bullies.  I think they're great."  Nobody.  So, I guess that's really an unnecessary statement; however, I really dislike bullies.  I am over bullies, and over bullying, and I'm tired of being angry about bullies and their bully ways.  Over the past few years, I think I've met more than my fair share of bullies.  It happens.  It's not fun, but it happens.  (I am defining bully here as: someone who uses their power, strength, or influence to intimidate, belittle, or harm others).

My question today comes from this: I was offered a really wonderful, amazing job (and I said yes).  This job is at the organization I have worked at now for 2.5 years, in which I have moved up the training ranks, until now, when I will no longer be in training.  When I applied for this organization 2.5 years ago, there was a bully standing in my way.

"We've never gotten anyone in there," Dr. X told me.  "You're wasting your application."

"It's out of your league," she said.  "There's no way you're getting in.  You're wasting your time and money."

"You need to change your list.  I can't approve this.  Put (these sites you don't want to go to) on your list instead."

I continued moving forward, telling her that I understood her point.  I changed my list a bagillion ways, trying to reach a compromise, but I left that one site on there.  It was my number 1 choice.  This was the place I wanted to be.  This was what I had been working towards.  This was my chance to do exactly what it was I wanted to do.  And there she stood, intimidating and condescending, right in my way.  In all honesty, it came down to two things: (1) she wanted to wield her power in such a way that those around her would tremble in fear; (2) she had issues with me, personally (for reasons, but not reasons that were my fault, and not reasons that I will explain here.  These conversations took place in a much larger context that was awful, and painful and oppressive and not my fault).

Eventually, I submitted the list (without Dr. X's total permission).  A few weeks later, I got an interview.  A few weeks later, I was accepted as an intern.  A year after that, they accepted me as a post-doc.  A year later as a second year post-doc.  And now, they've offered me a job.  Thank goodness I didn't listen to "out of my league," right?

When I told some people close to me about the job, I said, "it kind of makes me want to send an email to Dr. X."

"Why?" they asked.  "What would you say?"

"How about 'Dear Dr. X, Fuck you.'"

"You don't really want to say that," they said.

"Oh, but I do," I said, nodding vehemently.

"No you don't.  She helped you.  You should write her a thank you note.  You should tell her that you appreciate that she helped you grow in the face of adversity.  I'm sure she would love to hear from you."

And I wish they hadn't said that.  I know it was well-intentioned.  I know it was because they don't want to think that somebody made something hard for me.  I know it was because these particular people have swept that whole era of my life under the rug such that we pretend that it doesn't exist.  But I am so tired of that message, and all of the other messages that go along with it.  I am tired of hearing that I can't feel/shouldn't feel/am not really angry/sad/pissed off.  I am tired of feeling like I have to make sense of things that make no sense, and like I need to be grateful for things towards which I feel no gratitude.

Don't get me wrong -- I have a very active, passionate, meaningful, and important gratitude practice that has brought me intense meaning and joy.  This practice, however, developed in opposition to people telling me to be grateful, or appreciative, or happy about things from which I derived no happiness or gratitude or appreciation.  "Just be grateful it wasn't worse," I was told.  "You can feel glad that all this is happening to make you a better person," someone said.  "Look on the bright side.  Be happy that you'll come out of this a better psychologist," many people told me. 

But I wasn't grateful about those things.  I wasn't glad.  I wasn't happy.  I'm all about making the most of what life gives you, but some lemons just don't make good lemonade.  Sometimes, there's power in just letting those lemons be lemons.  Sometimes, the strength does not come from making something sweet and tasty out of something sour and bitter, but from saying, "that right there?  That's a fucking lemon, y'all, and it's bitter, and it's sour, and it sucks.  It's a  lemon, and it sucks."  Some lemons deserve to just be labeled as lemons, because there's nothing good that can come from them.

However, if the lemons are bad, maybe you pick up a lime next to it.  Or maybe you ditch the lemonade idea and decide you want orange juice, or iced tea, or a margarita.  And then?  When you stand up and say, "THAT is a lemon," and you walk away, and you drink that delicious margarita instead...THEN you can be grateful.  THEN you can practice gratitude because you can say, "life just kept giving me all these fucking lemons, and they sucked...so I tried the margaritas, which are pretty damn delicious, so I am GRATEFUL for margaritas!"  And isn't that what gratitude's about, really?  It's not about making the awful into something good.  It's about finding the thing that is delicious, in spite of all the suck.

You start to feel, though, when you keep getting these messages, that somehow, you owe something to the bullies.  Somehow, we owe them a word of thanks.  We owe them some recognition in our own mind or in our meaning-making or in our conversations with others.  When we tell these stories of triumph and overcoming, it's like we owe the bullies some sort of gratitude for being a catalyst in making our kick-assness happen.  Like somehow, we would have been a little less kick-ass if people weren't tearing us down.  Like somehow, they helped us to prove that we're awesomesauce, and that without them breaking our spirits, we would have been a smidge less awesome.

And that's a bunch of bullshit. 

If I hadn't gone through what I did in grad school, I'd still be plenty kick-ass.  If Dr. X had been supportive and wonderful and given me gifts of rainbows and sunshine from day one...I STILL would have been kick-ass.  Anything and everything that I have done has come from me, and from me alone.  I do not owe her or the other bullies anything.  I do not owe them my gratitude.  I do not owe them my survival.  I do not credit them with my survival.  They do not get to own my awesome.

So may it be. 

Woman: Writing

Lately, I have been talking to people a lot about poetry.  I recently shared some of my poetry -- out loud -- with others, and was overwhelmed at the response.  I recently submitted some poems for publication (and am pretty sure at least one of them will actually be published for real).  I notice, though, that when I talk about poetry, I apologize.  I assume people aren't interested.  I assume talking about poetry is a nerdy thing to do, and that gushing over it reveals my nerdiness, and...well...nobody wants to hear that.  I'm nerdy enough without all that, right?

Poetry has, again and again, saved me.  Reading poetry, listening to poetry, writing poetry...when the Tough Times start, I can remember or find or write a poem that speaks to the heart of it in ways that prose and conversation just can't.  In this too big, too sensitive, too much heart body that I live in, poetry is the only way that I know how to understand and communicate and uncover the depths of what I live and feel and know.  Prose waxes melodramatic and wordy.  Poems?  The more emotional they are, the more powerful they turn.  (The good ones anyway).  Poetry is the way I have learned to find my voice, over and over again.  When I lose it, when the Tough Times start, it's the way I find it.  It's the way I center and ground myself.  Even as a very young child, I would recite poems in my head.  I remember reciting "The Puffin" in my head to go to sleep when I was as young as 6 years old.  ("Oh there once was a puffin in the shape of a muffin, and he lived on an island in the deep blue sea.  He ate little fishes that were most delicious and he had them for supper and he had them for tea...").

So why the apologizing?  Why the embarrassment?  Why the hesitation?

Because poetry has been the way I find my voice.  It is the way I tell my stories.  It is one way that I show that which is my true self to the world.  And -- that is both an explanation, and also really fucking frustrating.  In a world where we all fight to tell our stories and hear the sounds of our own voices -- why should I silence the way in which I can best and most easily communicate that which is me?  It's been taught, in part.  And it's also just been shaped over time

Right now?  Those Tough Time monsters have struck, and I am angry about many things.  Today, I'm angry about the way we silence our voices and our stories.  I'm so done with that silence.  Because I think in poems, I remember the lines from Eve Ensler's "Manifesta to young women and girls" in I Am An Emotional Creature: 

" Ask yourself these questions:

Why am I whispering when I have something to say?

Why am I adding a question mark at the end

of all my sentences?

Why am I apologizing every time I express my needs?

Why am I hunching over?

Starving myself when I love food?

Pretending it doesn't mean that much to me?

Hurting myself when I mean to scream?

Why am I waiting

whining

pining

fitting in?"

I am done, done, done with question marks and silence and apologies and whispers.  I'm angry at question marks.  I'm pissed off at silence.  I'm finished with apologies and whispers and parenthetical statements I make to undermine what I say.  

This poem is one I wrote a while ago and never liked.  While I was driving today, it finally found its final form.  It's an angry poem.  Rawr.

Woman: Writing

Even as I walk with the unlaced perfection that comes with

unchecked self-doubt, 

and talk with the air that says: "if you believe me, 

I might believe me too,"

I write with utter abandon, because words

are the narcotics I use

to dull the pain of living.

Call me a silent revolutionary.

A fighter.  I use words as bullets

thoughts as bombs

incite political movements through my fingertips

as my pencil scratches the turf of the notebook.

Call me a silent revolutionary.

Silence me and feed my addiction -- you

with your Disney Princess dreams and silencing schemes,

you run tracks up my arms

pumping my bloodstream with pure bliss.  

Delude me into thinking I can start

poetic revolutions,

these words are my illness

my fever

the pill

for everything that ails me:

Give me one more reason to write.

Incite more words--

I dare you to light the fire of this pipe dream and watch

while I burn your world

to pieces.

On Anger and Legos

I have a confession. 

Sometimes at work when I am playing with small children, I have to be a bully.  I have snatched toys, called names, said mean things, and once even took a lollipop out of a child's mouth and threw it in the trashcan.

This is, of course, all in the context of role-plays in which I try to simulate real-life experiences the child encounters such that they are better able to handle them in the moment.  Depending on the child, they may or may not understand the concept of "role-play," in which case I become this nice doctor lady who periodically grabs a toy, or  gives them chips and then takes them away, or says "NO" in the most loud, obnoxious voice ever. 

I had to play the bully the other day.  "Amelia," age 4, has autism and limited language.  If someone takes her toy -- or takes a toy she assumes is hers (which tends to be all of them), she will fly into a rage that includes falling to the floor screaming, banging her knees to her head or her head to the floor, and throwing the toys across the room.  Truth be told, this isn't working too well for her in preschool, so I was forced to play Amelia's bully.  We were playing Legos and I, in my all powerful bully-state, grabbed the beloved pink Lego (of which there is only one) from in front of her.  Before she could tantrum, I prompted her, "Amelia, say 'that's mine!'"

"That's mine!" she parroted, sniffling.

"Say, 'Don't take my toy!'" I said in my best 4 year old intonation.

"Don't take my toy!" she repeated between wails.

"Oh!" I said, feigning surprise.  "Here you go."  I handed back the pink Lego and resumed playing with the other blocks.

I have another child, "Ben," that we're working on the same routine.  Ben, however, is completely passive.  You can take his toys, wreck his tall tall tower, throw his favorite Superman in the trash, and Ben just watches it happen.  In an effort to decrease Ben's vulnerability, I'm teaching him, too, to tell me, "that's mine.  Don't take my toy!"

With both of these children, we replay this scenario again, and again, and again until "That's mine!  Don't take my toy!" replaces the tantrum.  Until "That's mine!  Don't take my toy!" takes the place of the passivity.  It's long, hard work for them.  (And for me -- being the Lego snatcher is not exactly my favorite role).  The politics of play and childhood are complicated and elusive for many of the children I see. 

*********************

I have another confession (this one slightly more serious than the last).

I am really angry today.  Actually, I've been angry for about a week at this point -- but today in particular, I am filled to overflowing with an anger that is hard to put my finger on.  It's not like anger is new to me -- she and I have certainly met before in different incarnations and iterations.  It's not like we're friends, exactly, but we're acquainted.  Well acquainted.

I tried going for a walk, thinking it might soothe my spirit.  I tried doing some work and reading some articles to take my mind off of it.  I tried thinking about the anger, moving towards it instead of away, in the hopes that then Anger would  loosen the talons she was using to hold me hostage and let me run free.  No dice.  As a last ditch effort, I tried going to yoga, which typically cures just about anything...but no.  In spite of the fact that I absolutely respect and adore my yoga teacher, if she told us to breathe in and release the tension in our bodies one more time, I was going to karate chop her right in the middle of her adho mukha svanasana (which, I'm sure, would be really bad for my karma).  It was certainly not one of my better classes.

This anger today is different from the anger I have known before.  In the past, I've been angry at people and at their actions.  I have been hurt, and angry AT them.  I have beat up mattresses and shredded phone books in this anger.  I have run, and run, and run, until my legs collapsed from exhaustion and I was no longer angry.  I've been angry at me, which is destructive, and certainly not helpful at all.  I have been angry about situations.  I have cursed and sat in anger I could barely contain about situations.  And I've been angry on a more global level.  I have been angry about things that happen in this world, and the ways people don't seem to care, and I have engaged in angry, passionate discourse about these topics. 

But this anger is not any of those.  This anger started when I came home from the Women's Retreat I attended with my church.  It intensified today after I attended the first session of the Adult Our Whole Lives sexuality education course at my church.  The retreat was awesome -- it was 24 hours filled with heart and wholeness and trust and laughter and good conversation among friends I had not previously met.  And you know what?  That's why I'm mad.  That is why I am so freaking angry.  I'm angry because there are so many good and beautiful and amazing and trustworthy people out there.  I'm angry because I have spent so long believing people weren't that way.  I'm angry at what I've missed.  I'm angry that a handful of hateful people were able to take away my ability to access these people and this piece of life.  I'm angry that a handful of hateful people were able to take away my ability to believe I was worthy of good, worthy of beautiful, worthy of amazing, worthy of trustworthy.

Right now, I'm angry for me.

(Woah.  I kind of expected the world to open up and swallow me right then when I typed that). 

Being angry for me has an entirely different connotation in my mind.  Being angry for me means I am finally willing to say, "what happened to me was wrong.  I should not have had to go through it.  The things that happened, and every lasting little piece that lingers out to this day is wrong.  It's wrong, wrong, wrong, and I can be angry  about the fact that it is wrong."  I spend a lot of time being angry AT me, and even more time denying that I'm angry or need to be angry at all.  I spent a lot of time being angry at others -- and that's a piece of it, clearly.  I spend most of my time making it distant and academic and talking about "these issues" in general, as they affect women in the US and around the globe.  That anger is right, and justified, and necessary, because we should all be mad about it and working towards change.  But I'm also just angry for me because, ya know, everybody deserves good, and beautiful, and amazing, and trustworthy.  Everybody.  Even me. 

I'm not angry at myself.  I know that I did what I had to do, and that I did what I could at each opportunity.  I made the best decision I knew how to make at every single crossroads I came upon.  I know this for a fact.  I wish I could have made different choices...but I couldn't.  I can't.  We can only ever move forward.

I am angry because somebody took my Legos -- the pink Lego, too.  I tried throwing tantrums like Amelia.  I tried being quiet like Ben.  And I tried, oh how I tried, to tell everyone that those Legos were mine.  But they're gone.  The politics of adult relationships aren't like the politics of the playground.  Sometimes, somebody takes your Legos, and no matter how many teachers you tell, no matter how many grown-ups you run to, no matter how loudly you scream it, your Legos are gone.  "You shouldn't have been playing Legos in front of him anyway," they say.  "What were you wearing while you were playing with Legos?" they ask.  "Well," they sigh, "I guess you'll be more careful with who you play Legos around in the future."

I'm angry because I am finally allowing myself to be in community, and this means there are walls that are crumbling, and this is painful and hard.  I'm angry because being in community lets me see all that I did not have that I should have been able to access.  When I didn't let myself see the alternative quite so clearly, it just wasn't as painful.  Now that I can (on my good days) live into that new reality or, at least, believe it exists...it's inciting an anger that's hard to know how to process.

I mean, I have a feeling it does not involve karate chopping my yoga teacher.  On that, at least, I'm relatively clear. Other than that, though, I end this without answers.  I end this with intense gratitude for good, and beautiful, and amazing, and trustworthy people.  I end this still intensely angry in a way that cannot be put into words.  And I end this committed to letting more of that which is good, and beautiful, and amazing, and trustworthy into my life. 

On Bravery; Or, a post on that which is ninja heart

The biggest compliment I have ever received was given by an 11 year old girl who has absolutely no idea of the extent to which she touched me.  This young lady was a client I worked with for quite some time.  At the time of the compliment, we were addressing some bullying that was happening at school.  The bullying was terrible, and she had every right to be intimidated and worried, so she, understandably, did NOT like working on being assertive.  However, she begrudgingly agreed to work with me to make a video of role-plays.  She played the role of herself and I, the bully.  In the first video, we filmed how she was currently responding.  In the second video, we filmed an assertive response I had coached her through that we had practiced. 

When we watched our video at the end of the session and she saw the transformation and assertiveness in herself, she threw her arms around my waist and exclaimed, "You  have the biggest, best ninja heart."

It has been over 6 months since this happened, and I STILL get tears in my eyes writing this.  

*****

I started this year with an intention.  Not a resolution -- an intention -- to be brave.  I didn't take much time to think about it, or operationally define it, or set bravery goals or anything of the sort.  Rather, I was listening to my music, flipping through the songs in my iTunes, and was struck by a theme running through the songs I chose.  First there was "Brave" by Jamie O'Neal.  And then there was "Brave" by Sara Bareilles.  And then there was "Walk You Home" by Karmina with the chorus "Even the brave they depend on someone/the moon only shines with the help of the sun..."  Next was "I Choose" by India Arie, which doesn't have the word "brave" in it necessarily, but it relates...and this went on, and on, and on.  I only need the universe to hit me over the head a few times before I say "oh yeah!  I get it!" and take the hint. 

As the year progresses, I am starting to think more about what this actually means, and how I can live that into reality.  I seldom feel brave.  I am frequently more anxious than I care to admit -- fearful, even, on occasion.  There were days this week -- days which are now blessedly few and far between -- when I just wanted to stay in bed with the covers over my head.  I didn't, but I wanted to, and the concept of being brave in the face of multiple decisions I had to make this week seemed far, far out of my reach.

Bravery is different than strong.  I have a bad history with the word strong, and I hate it.  I spent too much time being strong and being taught that "strong" meant not having/showing feelings.  I was taught that, if you're strong, nothing bothers you -- which was never something I was able to achieve.  I was led to believe, before I was old enough to question it or make opinions of my own, that "strong" was this elusive state I could never quite reach, and I was ashamed that I could not be "strong."  Strong meant the absence of fear.  It meant being able to hold it together when the world is crumbling.  Rocks are strong, and I was supposed to be a rock, strongly holding myself and others together.  (Conversely, I have a client who believes that strength is equivalent to weight - and the more the better.  She routinely tells me proudly, "guess how strong I am now?   96.  I keep getting stronger and stronger.  Last time I was only 94.  Look," she says, showing me her muscles.  "Can you see that I'm 96 now?"). 

I don't really care at this point about being strong.  Bravery, however, is different.  Bravery is not about the absence of fear, or the absence of emotions.  Bravery is about feeling the fear, or the sorrow, or the heartache or loss, and making the choice to do the thing that is right.  It is the choice to do the thing that needs to be done.

Notice my wording here (because I just worked really hard on it, dammit).  Bravery is feeling it all and making the choice to do what is right.  To do the thing that needs to be done.  Not the strong thing.  Not the knight in shining armor "brave" thing as we typically think about "bravery."  Not the courageous thing, or the hard thing, or the difficult thing, or even the thing that requires taking the road less traveled by.  It's not the choice to do what should be done.  Being brave is the choice to do what needs to be done.

In other words, being brave is living life showing your ninja heart. 

It is brave to make the choice to do what it is you are scared to do, AND it is brave to make the choice to respect yourself and your limits enough to make the other choice. 

It is brave to push yourself to do the things that are hard, AND it is brave to love yourself enough to take the easier road without shame or regret. 

It is brave to fight your internal demons, AND it is brave to choose to take a break from that battle to gather the strength you need. 

It is brave to talk when you need to, and it is also brave to be silent. 

There is bravery in standing up and fighting/advocating/marching, and there is so much bravery in putting one foot in front of the other and simply continuing to walk. 

Bravery is the ability to make the choice that is right without shame or guilt.  By making a conscious choice, you are living bravery into action.  By doing that which is right, you are brave.  You are showing the world your biggest, best ninja heart.

Bravery is not the act of doing something in spite of fear, but perhaps it is the act of doing something alongside the fear.  Most ideas of bravery will tell you to just to "do it anyway."  Don't let the fear get you down, they say.  Show it who's boss!

I say: don't try to outrun your fear.  Don't do something with the intention of ridding yourself of the fear.  Instead, acknowledge the fear, the pain, the indecision, the loss, the heartache, and weigh the choices.  Once you have decided on what is right, wrap your arm around Fear's shoulders and take her with you.  If you are truly doing what is right, she will come along regardless.  Might as well invite her along for the ride.

The opposite of bravery is not fear.  It is not cowardice or timidity.  I'm not sure what it is.  Maybe it doesn't have an opposite.  But bravery and fear are not mutually exclusive.  In fact, my ninja heart tells me that they often go hand-in-hand. 

This is a definition I can live with.  This definition lets me know that I don't need to showcase superhuman feats of strength to be brave.  I don't need to choose to do the thing that will hurt the worst, just to prove I can do it.  That is the definition I lived with for a long time, and if I did anything less than that, I was disappointed in myself and I was ashamed.  Bravery is not always the loudest thing you can do...it is only that which is right, which is good, which is ninja heart. 

So may it be.

Storying the Silence

I'm thinking tonight about the ways we tell our stories. 

I pay a lot of attention to body language.  It's always been part of who I am, but that skill has been honed over time and through hundreds of sessions.  I see the trembling hands.  The too-short nails, the sores on the arms, the slump of the shoulders, the twisting of the hair, the folded arms, the slight turn of the body when I start speaking.  These movements tell stories.  Not the whole story, of course, but a story.  One of our stories.  The story of that moment, perhaps.

I think I became a psychologist in part because I am fascinated by people's stories.  This stuff is what makes up our lives.  We live our lives in the meanings we make -- in the ways we story ourselves and our relationships and what happens to us.  There is power in stories.  There is power in telling stories and writing stories.  There is power in creating other stories, or imagining other endings, and there is power in telling the same story over, and over, and over again.   We tell the same stories in different ways: sometimes they are funny and true, and we tell them again and they are also sad and true, or broken and true, or angry and true...there are so many ways to tell a story, and all of them can be true.  We humans can be complicated like that. 

So we tell complicated stories.  Or we tell simple stories, or we let complication masquerade as simplicity, and let simplicity try on complication for size.  We tell fantastical pretend stories that could be true.  And stories that are not quite true that stick like truth in your bloodstream.  Stories that almost false, but taste like freedom.  Stories that you pass off as lies that reek of truth, and stories that you pass as truth that reek of lies with a truth-nugget center.  We tell our stories from one lens, and then we back up and tell it again when the light is different, and again when we change our clothes, and again from the other side of the room.  These stories are truth.

I realized last night, too, the ways that silence also tells the story.  There are times when the story is stuck firmly in your throat, in your heart, in your stomach, and try as you might to tell something -- someone else's story, or a pretend story, or just any words in any sentence you can form -- you can't.  The story's stuck.  And this, perhaps, is the loudest story of all.  That silent story -- the one you can't move around -- it speaks louder than the stories we tell.  It speaks louder, even, than the trembling hands and the twisting hair.  We have to try to story the not-telling, and story the silence to make it real and truthful.  We have to story the stuck, and the block, and the unmoving, unflinching silence that comes from us, and this is hard.  It is, perhaps, one of the hardest stories we create: the story of the time we had no story.  That time we had no words.  That time, when our story was told only by the things we didn't say, and the way it screamed itself over, and over, and over again in the silence.  The way it bled into relationship silently while you tried to hide it, and the way you live with that betrayal.

And this is where I find myself: trying to find the story behind the silence in the wake the silence created.  I am trying to unpack the meaning of the silence, and feel its heaviness and its lightness.  I'm trying to learn if silence was an answer I can live with.  Trying to learn if the silence was truth or lie, or slightly true, or if it was just...empty.  I'm trying to find that nugget of truth in the center.  My body was still in that silence - she didn't twitch, or wiggle, or twirl her hair -- she sat, quietly, waiting for words, or story, or something to move us forward -- and it didn't come.  There was silence.  Only silence, holding all that was and was not told in the absence of words.

On talking to young people at church (and elsewhere)

I am now 28 years old, and I have been "so young" my entire life. 

Given, this happens when you start college at age 14, graduate college before you're 21, and have your doctorate by the time you're 26.  I get it.  I really do.  When you don't follow the typical social timeline, you're something of an anomaly.

However, when I was in my college English class at 14 and realized I couldn't earn the extra credit for the class because the extra credit was to go out and vote (and bring in your voting sticker), I told myself this couldn't possibly last forever.  In my creative writing class at 15, ignored by the 18-21 year olds and patronized by the non-traditional students, I told myself, "this?  This is only temporary.  I can't be 'so young' for much longer."

And yet here I am, 14 years later.  Lately, I have been told more times that I can count that I am "so young" or "too young to remember" or "too young to get it" or just, simply, "oh my goodness, so young."

Being a somewhat savvy young person, I get it.  I really do.  There are, in fact, things that happened that I was not alive to witness that a large part of the population lived through.  There are, in fact, things that I do not understand because I just have not yet lived enough years to have had that life experience.  Relatively speaking, I am young.  I don't necessarily feel like it (in fact, I've lived most of my life feeling like I've done this life on Earth thing before), but I guess age is relative and, compared to people who are older than myself, I am young(er).

 

Members of churches are particularly bad about this young thing.  Not just my church, for sure -- all churches struggle with it.  It has the opportunity to be one of the few places where intergenerational interactions and friendships can take place; however, in reality, it seems that many people are just out of practice in how to talk to one another if the "other" is a person from a different age cohort.  That's the only thing I can figure.

And so, I present to you (with my young "thinks she knows it all" wisdom) an explanatory list, from my perspective.  Here is a list of "what not to say to a person you perceive to be young:"

(1).  "You're so young!"  When you hear this more than once, what is perhaps intended as a compliment (or merely a statement of fact) takes on another meaning.  Young does not just mean "not having as many years."  Young takes on the meaning of "inexperienced" or "not as knowledgeable" or "not as informed."  When the fact that I am "young" is the only thing you can comment on, our conversation stops.  What is there to say?  How do I move forward into connection with you, now that you have pointed out one of the differences between us?

Can you imagine if I did the opposite?  What if I started talking about something I was not sure you would understand, and I prefaced it with, "you're so old!" or "you're older, but..." or "you're old, so you probably won't get this..."  This wouldn't happen and, if it did, you probably wouldn't want to talk to me again, right?  It would be incredibly rude of me to make such a statement.  So why is it okay to include a statement about my age in our conversation?  (I understand, of course, that this is different, because there is deep-seated ageism in our society against people who are older and against elders.  I also understand that being young is [supposedly] valued, and that being young/looking young is good.  I challenge you to see how this is not always the case, and the ways that it can impact young people [or those who look young] negatively).

There is an implied condescension, that is likely entirely unintentional, but is there nonetheless.  "You're so young" comes with a look that's hard to explain.  It usually comes with a head tilt and a slight raising of the eyebrows, such as what one might do when looking at a particularly cute puppy, and really?  I've seen myself.  I'm not that cute.  For real.

(2) "We should talk.  I like to hear what young people are thinking."  Why yes!  I would love to talk to you.  I would love to tell you what I am thinking -- but I speak only for me.  If you want to know what I think about immigration reform or gun control, let's talk.  If you're expecting me to speak for all young people, or you want to hear my opinion only because I'm young, I'm not quite as interested.  Again, let's flip it: I'm not going to say "I would love to get coffee sometime and hear what old people are thinking about human trafficking" or "Let's be sure and talk sometime.  I find it so interesting to talk to middle-aged people about climate change."  Of course I wouldn't do that.  That would be weird.  So why do I feel the need to feel honored when you indicate you would like to know what people my age are thinking, rather than just being able to hear my personal thoughts?

(3) "Where are you in school?"  I generally try to speak only for myself and from my own experience, but I'm going to stray from that a little here.  This question just isn't good for anybody.  I understand that you're taking a leap and guessing, but you could be very, very wrong.  In my case, I just finished 150000 years of school, so I'm no longer in school -- which then shatters your image of who I am, and leads us in a very circular conversation.  It tends to go like this:

Older person: "Where are you in school?"

Me: "Actually, I'm not in school.  I graduated about 2 years ago and I'm working at XXX Organization."

Older person: "Oh, you graduated already?  Any thoughts about going back for a Masters?"

Me: "I actually graduated with my doctorate 2 years ago."

Older person: "No!  Oh my.  I had no idea.  You're so young!"

Me: "..." [See number 1 above]

Older person: "So you're really a doctor?"

Me: "Yep."

Older person: "I just can't believe that.  You're just so young."

My options here are limited.  I typically say something along the lines of, "I hear that a lot" and try to change the topic.  The rest of the conversation is typically riddled with more "you're so youngs" in conjunction with doctor jokes and Doogie Howser references. 

Alternatively, the younger person may not be in school -- for any number of reasons.  Financial difficulties.  Academic challenges.  Maybe they straight up aren't interested in going to college.  Maybe they aren't able to go.  Regardless, why bring it up?  Why make that assumption when you could be so very wrong and risk making someone feel shame, or embarrassment, or any number of emotions that could be so easily avoided by asking pretty much any other question?

Let's flip it here -- should I ask someone who I estimate to look around the age of retirement, "how is retirement going?" or "how long have you been retired?"  No.  They may not be retired.  They may want to be, but can't.  They may not want to retire.  Just because we look to be in a certain age cohort doesn't mean we are necessarily IN that age cohort, and doesn't necessarily mean we are following the socially sanctioned steps deemed to be appropriate within that cohort.  It's placing an additional strain and burden on the other that just doesn't need to be there.  Society does enough of the pushing on a daily basis.  Must we choose to reinforce it in our conversations?

(4) "If you don't mind me asking, how young ARE you?"  I do mind, actually.  And the reason I mind is this: people's reactions don't change.  When I was "so young" when I was 15, and I told people I was 15, the reaction was, "OH!  15.  *funny tongue sucking noise*  You're so young.  Enjoy it!  Enjoy it while you can."  The reaction now that I'm 28?  "28?  OH!  *funny tongue sucking noise*  I remember 28.  You're so young.  Enjoy it.  Enjoy it while you can." 

In actuality, what does the number give you?  It doesn't tell you my life experience.  It doesn't tell you what I know or what I've seen or what I believe.  It doesn't tell you about my maturity or lack thereof.  It tells you when I was born.  Ask me instead to tell you about myself.  I promise you, that story is much more interesting.

(5) "Where do your parents live" or "Do your parents go to this church?" or "How did you get here today?"  I have, honest to god, been asked all three of these questions (some of them more than once).  If there is a young person there by herself, just assume she's a responsible adult who can live on her own, form independent ideas about religion, and drive.  Let's start there.

(6) This last one isn't necessarily a specific phrase, but more of just a reminder: remember that young people have life experience and opinions and ideas that are valid.  Remember that we have wisdom and thoughts, too.  Remember that life as a young adult (whatever age that is) can be ROUGH.  I understand sharing wisdom and looking back on personal experience and encouraging us young'uns to enjoy our youth, but remember that this time can also be hard.  There are blessings, and there are difficult transitions.  There are life circumstances, and there are hard times...just as there are at every other stage of life.

Now let's go out and learn from one another, shall we?  I have much to offer -- and so very much to learn.