***Trigger warning: poetry***
The thing about healing is the ing
Healing is a to-be-continued kinda thing
A cliff hanger
Not healed. Not health.
Not a lotta hells yeah we done
More like put a pin in it, be prepared
Cause the it from which
You think you've healed
Can pop back up
When you least expect it--shit!
Dropping you face down on the ground
Flailing, failing
Again and again and again
Shit!
Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit. Shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit!
I'm a tough bitch
A built up bigger, better bitch
A Nietzschean, that which didn't kill me makes me stronger big bitch
I am a GODDAMN heavyweight champion
Of this ambiguous life
I've got decades of defenses
Brain trained
Skills to kill dementors trying
To torment me into oblivion
But, I know no champion
That has ever learned how
To block a sucker punch
***Trigger warning: sexual abuse. Early childhood, young adult, and, evidently, even middle-age-bordering-on-old-lady sexual abuse.***
It was getting close to closing time. Please do not cue that 90s era rock song. We weren't at a bar. The lights were about to go from bright to dim, not the other way around. Just a regular Saturday late-afternoon at the public library, ushering families out the door, stickers in the hands of the littlest kids, stacks of books in the arms of older siblings. Parents jingling car keys, trying their best at this parenting thing--moms and dads and grandmas and grandpas and nannies and neighbors and foster care guardians collecting their kids, heading to the parking lot, and on to dinner at home or to their next errand.
I paint an idyllic image of my neighborhood public library. Some of you more cynical folks might say it's fake. Art and memories are often subjective, but that doesn't make them untrue. Sure, it's not all happy families spending time together on a Saturday at the public library. We have many adults and teens I suspect are struggling. Sitting alone on the public PCs all day, searching for jobs, friends, and even dates on a box with a screen and a connection to the world wide web. Not the real world, but that doesn't make it untrue.
I begrudge solo surfers nothing. If I hadn't somehow stumbled into this self-assured version of myself, I am certain I'd still be searching for a found family of my own. I spent the first three decades of my life mostly miserable, searching for connections lost before my memories were fully formed.
You know the story. I'm the youngest of six, the baby of the family. My birth order connotes a child with doting parents, rigid rocky rules smoothed to skipping stones over the years by the forces of my older siblings' acts of defiance and compliance. By rights I should have been a completely spoiled child, and in some ways I was, but not completely. My parents had both been married to other people before they each divorced and married each other and then had me. My oldest sister, Glenda, is my dad's child from his first marriage to Shirley. Glenda was 15 when I was born, and I never lived with her, since her mom got custody after our dad left their family. My mom had custody of her kids when she married my dad, two years after she had divorced her first husband, Jim, the father of her other four children--Jay, Kit, Pat, and Jenny, who were 12, 10, 9, and 7 when I was born in late November 1970, just a few weeks before Christmas, a live baby doll gift from Santa to my sisters Kit and Jenny if you believe the tales they tell me. I do.
Kit says she couldn't sleep the night before I was born, so she got up and went to the dining room to practice walking back and forth, positioning her hands so she could hold a pretend new baby's head upon her shoulder. Trying to get it just right. As Kit practiced her steps, Mom was in the hospital, scheduled to have her labor induced the next morning, since I was overdue. Instead, after fifteen minutes of painless labor if you believe my mom (I do and I don't,) at 4:45am, I came into this word naturally, caught by two nurses before Mom's doctor had a chance to get there. Female nurses. If it were still 1970, that would be implied. But it's 2021, and now male nurses are not an unusual thing. Gender lines are blurry now. Gender discrimination is still real, but with these blurring lines, like the best Impressionist paintings hanging at the Nelson Atkins Museum, the views lead to profound beauty and deeper understanding.
Here's a sad story with a happy ending:
Mom said she only saw my Dad cry twice. Once when his mother died, and once when I was born. I could stop there and let you assume what you will. Tears of grief for the death of his mother. Tears of joy for the birth of his baby. But no, both times the tears fell from grief. I was not the son Dad had been hoping for. Patriarchal bullshit like this used to hurt my feelings. But, now, time has passed, and so has my dad. When he died in my living room at the age of 90, his last words were, "I love you all."
I am extremely difficult not to love, despite my missing penis.
Actually, isn't it the other way around? I'm not missing anything. A girl is not simply a cockless boy. Am I misremembering Biology 101? Isn't it true that we all begin as fetuses with tiny little clits, and only if our mothers release androgenic hormones do our sex glands grow into penises? Or do our X and Y chromosomes figure out all that bullshit beforehand? Honestly, I don't care. Whether born with a cock or not, we should all be so lucky as to have our last words be, "I love you all."
Also, I love who I am. It's taken a long time to do so, but I do. And I don't just love myself. I like me, too. I'm kinda ecstatic sitting here thinking about how much I've overcome to be the badass that I am today. Everybody loves an underdog. As I've said a time or two, high self-esteem has not always resided inside me. Those first three decades of my life were rough. I was a cockless child living in a patriarchal society. I was a fat kid living in a fat phobic world. I was neurodivergent before such jargon was in the common lexicon. I was repeatedly sexually abused from the ages of three to five. I began developing breasts in third grade and soon thereafter began catching cocky people staring at my chest as we conversed, as if my eyes had migrated to where my nipples are. I was sent to Weight Watchers in third grade. I was diagnosed with anorexia in fifth grade. I lost my breasts! Hallelujah! But then they grew back when I began eating again.
You have to eat to live, my friends.
I'm currently at the beginning of my sixth decade here on earth, and my breasts are still growing. My bra size is brought to you today by the number 48 and the letter H. Evidently, breast development--at least mine--is not something you outgrow in adulthood.
Fortunately, most days, I feel confidently that my body is nobody's business but my own. I hear my peers complaining that, as the decades pass, they feel like they're losing their looks. My fellow women in their fifties feel overlooked by a culture that deifies youthful beauty. Honestly? I welcome it. Look elsewhere. This show is closed. I am so ready to settle into my happy role as a big fat babushka.
But that's the trouble. No matter how hard I fight it, I am a product of my culture. The fact that I relish my fat rolls, my heavy breasts, my cankles--my role as a fabled babushka--shows that I believe that getting older and fatter means I'm automatically disqualifying myself from the dating game. Because certainly no one's looking to tap this grey-haired saggy ass.
Wrong.
I found out yesterday that even if I don't want it, I still got it.
It was closing time. Idyllic public library. I'm too busy helping patrons check out to notice I'm being checked out. But there he was, standing in front of me, holding out a piece of paper. I had been helping him off an on all afternoon, thinking nothing of it. I took the note from him. I looked at it. It took a minute for me to find that sweet spot on my progressive lenses where I can read small print up close. The note was hand written. OK handwriting, legible enough. Is that a call number? What section of the library's Dewey Decimal System begins with 913? Isn't that the travel section--wait--the ancient world? Or, wait, is that the African origin of civilization section? Mitochondrial Eve? Venus of Willendorf?
My ADHD brain--with the emphasis on the H as in hyperactive--easily bounces all over the place, making connections more typical brains often miss. It can be a blessing or a curse. It's a blessing when I beat your ass at a rousing game of Scattergories, or when I'm trying to interpret a patron question asked with a lack of clarity. But it can also be a curse, as in when my brain is heading to ancient Africa instead of paying attention to the African-American man standing right in front of me, smiling in a way that looks like the only thing he's interested in studying is my body.
Oh. That's not a call number. That's a phone number.
Oh. That's his phone number.
I continued reading below the number, holding the slip of paper out far enough that my progressive lenses could focus on the words.
If you would like to experience waves of pleasure throughout your beautiful body by my big black cock, give me a call.
I looked him right in the eye--or rather, I tried to make eye contact, which is difficult when the other person is looking at your nipple-eyes--and shrieked, in my best Alexis Rose voice, "Ewwwwwww! No!" And then I turned to walk away, saying, "I'm married." As if I had to give him an excuse for why I was reacting to his suggestion with revulsion.
Let me stop here a minute. Here's a lesson for those of you who somehow missed the day when it became obvious to the rest of us:
It is not OK to hit on someone at work. Whether you are also at work or not. I suspect this situation happens to other cockless people a lot, too, if they work with the general public, and the cocky people in particular. Restaurant servers, nurses, librarians. There we are, just trying to do our jobs. Feeding you, healing you, body, mind, and soul. We're not here for your sexual advances. That's what bars are for. That's what Tinder is for. You hit on me a my job at the public library? Nope. That's a big swipe left. I don't care how big your cock is.
I wish I'd had the gumption to say all this to my nonconsensual, not-so-secret admirer. But he caught me off guard with his cocky sucker punch.
I began proceeding through the Kubler-Ross Grief Cycle, which I've noticed also applies to sexual abuse survivors who are suddenly confronted by newly unwanted sexual aggression. At least that's how it is for me.
Denial. Anger. Bargaining. Depression. Acceptance.
Denial: Certainly this 30-something guy can't possibly be making sexual advances toward me, a 50-something, fat, grey-haired babushka. I must be misunderstanding this situation. That's a call number. Not his phone number. He's looking for a book about Ancient African fertility goddesses. He's not looking at this modern American library goddess. Right?
Anger: Who the FUCK does this cocky bastard think he is? I'm a GODDAMN children's librarian. I'm wearing sensible shoes. My cardigan is hanging right over THERE.
Bargaining: Oh, I see. Maybe if I hadn't taken my cardigan off none of this would have happened.
Anger again: I mean, I was running around trying to help everyone get out of there. I'm fat, perimenopausal, and the Sertraline I take for PTSD has a side effect of excessive sweating. I'm not out here flaunting my body. I'm just a sweaty old lady here trying to do her job.
Depression: Ugh. I mean. Jeez. Here we go again. I've been objectified by cocky bastards since I was three years old. When is it all going to end? I'm so tired. So, so tired. Of it all.
Acceptance:
Nah. Nope. Never.
I will never ever ever accept unsolicited sexual advances from anyone. My body belongs to me.
My fat, old body is not for society to shame.
My big boobs and booty are not for cocky bastards to ogle.
I will never, ever accept it.
When I was young, I was told not to talk about it.
Now that I am older and wiser I write about things you're not supposed to talk about.
I had to get home. To clock off and get to my blog. If I can get home and start to write about how I feel, I will feel better.
But I have another job. On the drive home, I began to cry. I'm a mother. That's my real job. I make a living by working at the library, but my number one job is being Kat's mom. I'm crying. I'm upset. What am I going to tell her when I get home? She's so empathetic. It pains her to see me in pain. I have never told her about my history of sexual abuse because I know it will hurt her, and this pain is not hers to feel for me. She is not my therapist. She is not my spouse. She is not my friend. She is my 15-year-old daughter, and one of these days she's going to find out that her mother is the victim of early, ongoing childhood sexual abuse and it's going to make her crumble. She knows I have PTSD, but she thinks it's from other trauma I experienced as a kid--verbal and emotional abuse from my angry father, my parents sending me to Weight Watchers in 3rd grade, growing up with a mom who herself had been involuntarily committed to the mental ward at the hospital on two separate occasions where she received electroshock therapy, before I was even born. Told by my grandmother and siblings to be careful not to hurt mom or she'll have to go back to the hospital. Smile. Don't cry. Don't get upset. Everything is fine. Protect Mom from your hurt.
And now I'm trying to protect my child from my hurt.
I pulled into our driveway. I went inside and told my husband what happened. Kat was in her bedroom, so we were able to talk quietly in the kitchen. There was no time to blog, yet. But I had to talk to someone. A professional. Someone who would understand. I took my phone out to my car and called the employee assistance program mental health line.
The phone rang, and a robot answered.
A guidance consultant will be with you shortly. We have been the premier employee behavior health management system for more than thirty years. Please hold for the next available guidance consultant...It's the holidays, which means it's harder to stay on top of our diet and fitness goals, which is leading to a healthcare crisis. Did you know that the CDC estimates that over 40 percent of Americans are obese?
You don't say? Wow. I had no idea. Thanks, Robot, for reminding me, once again that I'm a fat fuck who is going to die early and be a drain on society's health insurance industry.
We can schedule an appointment with a guidance consultant to discuss healthy weight management...
Nah. Nope. Never. Please just connect me with a guidance consultant so I can discuss how I FUCKING HATE LIVING IN A SOCIETY THAT SEXUALLY OBJECTIFIES LITTLE GIRLS AND OLD WOMEN AND EVERYONE IN BETWEEN AND THAT ALSO CONSTANTLY BOMBARDS US WITH INFORMATION THAT OUR BODIES ARE UNHEALTHY AND A BURDEN AND JUST WRONG.
After waiting on hold for ten minutes, and hearing the message about scheduling an appointment to discuss healthy weight management five times, I hung up the phone.
I cried a little. I took deep breaths. I tried to push aside six decades worth of flashbacks of unsolicited cocks in my face. I wanted to go into my bedroom closet and cry myself to sleep like I did when I was a little girl.
Instead, I called the MOCSA crisis hotline: 913-642-0233. Someone picked up the phone right away. We talked. She listened. I cried. We laughed. She reminded me what a GODDAMN HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPION of my own life I am.
She's connecting me with a therapist who specializes in helping survivors of sexual abuse so I can talk some more and continue healing.
