"Pot luck talk is like a witty conference call where all is welcome to vent. Or is it all are? I think it's like bunch is, but bunches are. Was anyone awake during Grammer class diagrams of 8 parts of speech? I just remember dangling participles and try not to dangle mine." -- Mom Wins the Internet, on why it's fun to converse on Facebook feeds
When I was eighth grade I had a plan. I'd bleach my bangs blonde, slap on some black eyeliner, and run away to England where I would meet the members of Duran Duran, stun them with my charm and wit, and accept their offer to be the new backup singer for the band. No problem that I had no talent for singing. I had really good hair.
By ninth grade I was more into The Smiths, The Cure, and Siouxsie and the Banshees. I was beginning to feel a little embarrassed by my love of Duran Duran. Morrissey, Robert Smith, and Siouxsie Sioux had higher standards than The Fab Five, so I couldn't see them allowing me to join their bands. Instead, I'd win them over with my writing. I'd write poetry and prose that would knock them off their toes, and they'd embrace me with open arms.
Unfortunately, when I was in ninth grade, I wrote a lot a sentences like that last one, so I was never able to lure my musical heroes with my literary ways.
By tenth grade I signed up for a year-long drama class. I was certain I wouldn't make it through the year. I'd try out for the first play, snag the lead role, wow the audience on opening night, and graciously accept an offer from the talent scout in the crowd. "Sure, you can be my agent. Do you want me to sign the contract with my real name, Rebecca Sue Burton, or my stage name, Rebekah Sioux?"
Unfortunately I practiced my Academy Award acceptance speech in the bathroom mirror at home more than I practiced my lines. My name was not on the list of call backs after tryouts. Not my real name. Not Rebekah Sioux.
My drama teacher suggested I work behind the scenes, helping to build the set, work the lights, or run the sound system. I was appalled. Who did she think I am? Behind the scenes? Whatever. If she couldn't see my star qualities, I wanted to be no part of her drama crew.
I gave up my dream of becoming a great actor, four years after I'd contracted the drama bug from my sixth grade teacher who told me my performance as The Nurse in our school production of "Romeo and Juliet" bordered on genius and wrote "to my thespian" on my report card. I still remember the terror I felt when I first read her comment. "Her thespian?" I thought. "How does she know about my secret attraction to girls?! What am I going to tell my mom?" I was so relieved when Mom looked at my report card and laughed. "Becky, 'thespian' means actor, not gay."
My tenth grade drama teacher was much less enthusiastic about my talents. Dude, who am I kidding? I wasn't acting for the pure joy of it. I was acting for the attention, the recognition, the praise it got me. Once nobody saw the sun shining out of my behind, I gave up and turned to writing.
My husband Will sang in a musical at his high school. He was one of the few guys with the guts to sing and dance. He did it for the chicks. Same reason he took up guitar playing and song writing. For the chicks.
Once Will and I got married, we tucked away our peacocky feathers, saving them for each other. While we're over our drama bug, our eight-year-old daughter, Kate, is starting to catch it. She joined the choir at church last year. This year, in third grade, she tried out for the musical and got a role as a chorister. She loves going to practice and regularly bursts into song and dance in the middle of our living room floor. She signs songs from the musical at stop lights in the back seat of the car. She sings so much, I join in, having never attended a practice but learning the songs just from hearing Kate sing them all the time.
"You know what I love about singing on stage?" Kate told me the other day.
"What?"
"I love when the lights come on and they're shining so bright in my face. I can't see the audience, so I can just stand there and pretend to be someone else," Kate said.
I'm glad she's having fun and that she's finding her voice. I hope her confidence doesn't begin to wane during her teen years as I've seen happen in too many girls. Myself included. I hope she retains her love of performing even if she doesn't always make call backs. I hope she doesn't give up because she doesn't always get the starring role.
All the parents of kids in the musical have been asked to help in some way with the set design and stage production. I am helpless in both areas. Back when I didn't make call backs, I booked it. I got out of that drama hall and turned to the library, where I made myself a career. I've worked at the library for twenty-two years. I love it, not just because I'm good at it. I love it because I know it's important. And even if I'm not the one in the spotlight, I might help someone else shine their brightest. I get to help kids work on reports for school. I get to encourage teens to read poetry from the greatest, most gifted outcasts the world's ever known. I get to recommend a nice, relaxing story for new parents with caretaker burnout to enjoy after they tuck their kids in at night after a long day. I don't stand on a stage and tell people stories. I stand on the floor and point them in the direction of a good story. That's my role.
So I'm a librarian, not a stage hand. However, as Kate's parent, I didn't feel right just shrugging it off and saying, "I don't know how to build a stage set for a musical." That's the thing about kids. We think we'll be our children's best teachers, and in many ways we are, but they end up teaching us so much more than we ever thought possible. I've learned how to sing goofy songs and read ridiculous stories out loud. I've learned how to teach Sunday school. I've learned how to make crafts using safety scissors and glue sticks. I've learned how to coach girls' basketball. All because of my daughter. All because I want to give my daughter as many enriching life experiences as I can.
And, because it's my job to show her that it's OK to try things even if you're not very good at them.
So I showed up at church in the multi-purpose room, ready to build some rocks. Actually, just by looking at me you never would have guessed that's what I was there to do. I'd just stepped out of the shower and into my car. My hair was still wet and hanging down all around me. I'd forgotten my hair tie at home. I was wearing a dress and sandals, my basic uniform whether I'm at work or at church or at the grocery store. I'm not really a jeans person. I like dresses for the same reason I like robes. Nothing to bunch up at the waist when you move about your day. I would totally wear a mumu if they were more socially acceptable. Instead, I settle for nice, comfy Lands' End dresses.
But I wasn't thinking when I threw on one of my Lands' End dresses and headed to church to help build part of the set. When I saw the woman I was supposed to help work on this project--building a Yahweh altar, whatever that is--and I saw that she very smartly wore a sweatshirt, jeans, and tennis shoes, all worn and splattered with previous project's paint, I realized how unprepared I really was for my job.
It never stopped me before. I am the queen of unpreparedness. Dead Boy Scouts are more prepared for life than I am, but at least I show up.
And you know what? I built some freakin' rocks, like a rock star. If, by rock star you mean a middle-aged mom using a Dollar Store serrated knife to saw through some blocks of donated Styrofoam. It was awkward and I made a mess, and most of the time it felt like I had no clue what I was doing, but after an hour and a half, I had successfully turned blocks of Styrofoam into rock-like objects that could pass for a Yahweh altar, whatever that is.
"Wow, Mom, those rocks look great!" Kate said in the same voice she uses when she compliments the coloring skills of the four-year-olds in my Sunday School class.
"Thanks, Punk. Be sure to tell Grandma Bev what you saw me do today. She'd be proud of me," I said, of course. Always looking for validation.
My mom is an artist who only feels comfortable with a paintbrush or a scroll saw in her hand. My whole life I've never seen her go a day with making something. My father, on the other hand, cannot hammer a nail into a wall without destroying something, usually his pride. He was not the builder, the artist, the fix-it handyman of the family. He went to work at the office every day. He paid the bills. He paid for the paintbrushes and scroll saws and never minded the messy house that comes with living with an artist. That's how he supported the arts. But he never offered his hand at building anything.
Mom tried to get me to follow in her artistic footsteps, but I never had the patience. I loved to draw when I was a kid, but once I discovered that I could tell stories with words instead of pictures, that became my thing. Well, after a couple of years of deluding myself into thinking I could act and sing.
"Yes, those look great," the other woman working on the Yahweh altar project said.
"Aww, shucks," I said, feigning modesty, when in fact I wanted to say, "Yes, yes! Keep the praise coming!" I couldn't say that though. No matter how much of a show-off I am. I knew that this project wasn't about me. It wasn't about showing off my talents. It wasn't about proving I could do something I'm not very good at.
I knew this because of the other woman working on the Yahweh altar project. When we first began sawing through the blocks of Styrofoam, I asked her if this was the first year she had worked on the stage production for the youth musical at church.
"No. I've been doing this for a few years now," she said.
I asked about her background, how she got roped into being in charge of building sets and running lights and sound and doing all the "behind the scenes" work. She explained that she volunteers each year to do this work because she loves it.
"I have a theater background," she began to explain.
"Oh, did you act in high school, or college or something?" I asked.
"Not too much. I'm an artist, so what I really love is building the sets. In college, I majored in graphic design and minored in theater. I love the theater, but acting wasn't really my thing. I love working behind the scenes." She smiled so sweetly, so shyly. I was awestruck.
"Wow, that's great," I said. "Now I feel like a jerk."
"Why?"
"Because I was never that person. In high school I tried out once and when I didn't get on the list of call backs, I dropped out. I should have tried to work behind the scenes. Support the team, you know. But I was too self-centered and arrogant. I wanted to be the star. Instead, I slunk away, feeling rejected."
Kate put her hand on my back and said, "That's OK, Mom. Not everyone is good at the same things."
The other woman and I looked at each other like, "Who is this kid?" and smiled.
Later, in the car on the ride home, I said to Kate, "Well, that was surprisingly fun."
"Yeah, Mom. When you told me you were going to help build rocks for the Yahweh altar, I had no idea how you were going to do that!"
"Thanks a lot."
"No, what I mean is, you know, you don't really like to build stuff. You don't even play 'Minecraft'! I never really thought of you as a builder. You're a writer and a storyteller. That's what you're good at. But you know what else you're good at, Mom?"
"What?" I asked. My heart was pounding in anticipation of what this eight-year-old child was going to say about me much more than I care to admit.
"You're good at trying things you're not good at," Kate said.
"Thanks, Punk. I haven't always been good at that, but I'm trying."
"Well, that's all you have to do, Mom, is try."
"And not be afraid of looking like a dork," I added.
"Yeah, well, you should be used to that by now!"
At least I know if Kate loses interest in singing and acting, she can always get a job as a comedian.
I don't believe in angels, really. I believe in people. Living and dead. Religious and irreligious. Spiritual and skeptical. People who say things that make me shake my head and say, "Yes, that is exactly what I think, only I wasn't aware of it until this very moment." People whose insight and tenacity and courage allow them to look deeply within themselves and around the universe and share with us what they see. Those are the people who make me gasp in wonderment.
How can she know exactly how I feel? It's as if she's inside my head, jotting down notes from the crooks of my mind.
I believe in people who are charged up, their life energy powered up and ready to go. They can afford to be brave because they possess the valuable knowledge that they are not alone. They understand that life is just encapsulated energy and that our purpose on this earth is to love one another.
I believe in people like Emily Saliers, author and lead singer of the amazing Indigo Girls' song "Virginia Woolf" that celebrates our interconnectedness:
Some will strut and some will fret See this an hour on the stage Others will not but they'll sweat In their hopelessness in their rage We're all the same men of anger And the women of the page They published your diary And that's how I got to know you The key to the room of your own And a mind without end And here's a young girl On a kind of a telephone line through time And the voice at the other end Comes like a long lost friend So I know I'm alright Life will come and life will go Still I feel it's alright 'Cause I just got a letter to my soul And when my whole life is on the tip of my tongue Empty pages for the no longer young The apathy of time laughs in my face You say "Each life has it's place" The hatches were battened The thunder clouds rolled and the critics stormed The battle surrounded the white flag of your youth If you need to know that you weathered the storm Of cruel mortality A hundred years later I'm sittin' here living proof So you know you're alright (Life will come and go) Life will come and life will go Still you'll feel it's alright (Someone gets your soul) Someone'll get a letter to your soul When your whole life is on the tip of your tongue Empty pages for the no longer young The apathy of time laughed in your face Did you hear me say "Each life has its place"? The place where you hold me Is dark in a pocket of truth The moon had swallowed the sun And the light of the earth And so it was for you When the river eclipsed your life And sent your soul like a message In a bottle to me And it was my rebirth So we know we're alright Though life will come, life will go Still you'll feel it's alright (Someone gets your soul) Someone'll will get a letter to your soul An' when you know you're alright And you feel you're alright (Empty pages for the no longer young) You'll say dry our eyes (You said) And you feelin' dry your eyes (Each life has it's place) You know it's all right (It'll be alright) And it's all right
I believe in people like Anne Lamott. She sent a letter to my soul when I read what she wrote today. I have a feeling your soul's got a letter from her, too.
All truth is a paradox. Life is a precious unfathomably beautiful gift; and it is impossible here, on the incarnational side of things. It has been a very bad match for those of us who were born extremely sensitive. It is so hard and weird that we wonder if we are being punked. And it filled with heartbreaking sweetness and beauty, floods and babies and acne and Mozart, all swirled together.
Writing: shitty first drafts. Butt in chair. Just do it. You own everything that happened to you. You are going to feel like hell if you never write the stuff that is tugging on the sleeves in your heart--your stories, visions, memories, songs: your truth, your version of things, in your voice. That is really all you have to offer us, and it's why you were born.
Publication and temporary creative successes are something you have to recover from. They kill as many people as not. They will hurt, damage and change you in ways you cannot imagine. The most degraded and sometimes nearly-evil men I have known were all writers who'd had bestsellers. Yet, it is also a miracle to get your work published (see #1.). Just try to bust yourself gently of the fantasy that publication will heal you, will fill the Swiss cheesey holes. It won't, it can't. But writing can. So can singing.
Kate, first thing this morning: Mom, did you know that you're not supposed to eat meat today because it's Good Friday?
Me: Oh yeah? Who told you that?
Kate: Ariana (a girl in Kate's class at a secular school).
Me: Huh. Did she say why you're not supposed to eat meat?
Kate: Because it's Good Friday.
Me: Yeah, but I mean, why "no meat". Why not "no candy" or something else?
Kate: I don't know. She just said you're not supposed to eat meat on Good Friday.
Me: Maybe Ariana's Catholic? Grandma Bev is Catholic, and she told me that many Catholics don't eat meat on holy days like Good Friday. Some Catholics don't eat meat on any Friday. Lots of Hindus and Buddhists don't eat meat at all. And then some Jewish people and Muslim people don't eat things like shellfish. There's lot of rules for what you can and can't eat in different religions.
Kate: Well, you're not supposed to eat meat on Good Friday.
Me: Eh, yes and no. It's really your choice, Hon. We're Presbyterians, and Presbyterians don't have as many rules. So I wouldn't worry about it.
Later, after school:
Me: So, did you eat meat at lunch?
Kate: No, I had macaroni and cheese.
Me: Oh yeah? How come? Just 'cause it looked good?
Kate: No, because it's Good Friday.
Me: Ah, I see. But I thought because we're Presbyterians we don't have to follow that rule?
Kate: Yeah, well. I decided to not eat meat today. Just in case.
Me: Just in case what? Do you think God would be mad if you ate meat today?
Kate: No.
Me: So what would happen if you ate meat on Good Friday?
Kate: I might have a bad day.
Me: So not eating meat on Good Friday's kinda like having a good luck charm? Maybe a lucky rabbit's foot? I hope it's not the Easter Bunny!
Kate, shaking her head: Mom, I'm gonna go watch "Uncle Grandpa" now.
I wonder if Kate would have decided to not eat meat today "just in case" if the vegetarian option at school was just vegetables and not one of her favorite dishes, macaroni and cheese?
"If you were a best-selling author, what would you do with all your income?" Kate asked.
Income?
What, has she been hanging out with my accountant father? Where'd she learn that word?
Our eight-year-old is studying financial planning in third grade. They're working on a unit in social studies. They list out examples of the differences between "needs" and "wants".
Food is a need. Minecraft is a want. Shelter is a need. A toy is a want.
"A toy is a want?" I argued. "I don't think a toy is a want. A toy is a need. Toys help children's brains develop and teach creativity and life skills."
"Mom. A toy is a want. You won't die if you don't have a toy." My eight-year-old said this. What is wrong with kids today?
"Well, your soul dies," I said.
I don't know whose idea it was to teach budgeting to children, but I see the point. My credit-card statements prove I paid no attention to my parents, who BOTH have accounting certificates and spent decades working in offices, keeping track of companies' financials. If kids don't learn how to spend their money wisely at home, it makes sense to round them all up and give them tips that could prevent future bankruptcies and spousal arguments. It might be nice to live in a community where everyone isn't constantly stressed out and grumpy, wondering how they're gonna pay their bills.
It's not all rainbows and unicorns, though. The teacher also incorporates fractions into their financial planning assignments, so it's a win-win in efficiency. Kate brings home worksheets that have columns and pie charts and diagrams explaining how a student could choose to spend their money. Kate wrote:
I'd use 1/4 of my income to pay for food. I'd use 1/4 of my income to pay for my house. I'd use 1/4 of my income to pay for my games and toys and fun stuff. I'd give 1/4 of my income to charity.
"Wow, 1/4 of your income to charity? You're super charitable," I said, poking Kate on the shoulder.
"Yeah. I don't need that much money, so I want to share it with people who need more money," Kate said.
My heart melts when she says things like that. Thank God she's not greedy! It helps me feel better about the rather desperate financial situation I've put our family into for nearly four years now, when I quit my full-time job and took a part-time position so I could spend more time at home writing and spending time with my family. Unpaid time, but priceless.
I was going through a bad time in my life. My brother had died a few months before. The grief over his loss, the grief over not being able to convince him there was a good reason to live, to stop drinking and get a liver transplant, that everyone deserves second chances and social support, it was too much, on top of my already fragile mental health state. I have post-traumatic stress disorder. One of the many things that my doctor says led to my PTSD is the sexual abuse I suffered at the hands of the very brother who had just died. He and his neighbor friend sexually abused me. I developed PTSD, anorexia, chronic anxiety, fibromyalgia, and all sorts of mental health problems. My brother became an alcoholic. The neighbor friend moved away. I don't know what became of him. My best guess is it's not a happy story.
My doctor suggested that in addition to my prescription for psychotropic drugs that I try taking time off work to help combat my panic attacks that increase in frequency when I start to feel overwhelmed with responsibilities and other stressors that exacerbate my PTSD. And, she wanted me to get back into cognitive therapy.
I wanted to try something different. What about writing therapy?
I've had numerous therapists over the years. A few of them have offered good book recommendations to me, for example, the life-changing book The Dance of Anger by Harriet Lerner. But I didn't feel like most of my therapists offered any additional insight into my condition than I could gain from reading a good book. I got more help from the public library than I did from talk therapy.
Not to bash talk therapy. It's life-saving and incredibly helpful to many people. Just not me at this point in my life. I'm too good at faking it. Putting up the mentally-healthy, charming, self-actualized facade and getting the therapist to say ridiculous things to me like, "Becky, I don't think you actually need therapy. You seem to have a pretty good grasp of how to live a healthy life." I've had three therapists over the years "break up" with me, cancelling my future sessions, telling me not to come back, that they had nothing else to offer me. How upsetting is that to a mental case like me? You tell me I'm fine? I'm healthy? I'm on the right track? Fuck you! Then why do I have trouble getting out of bed each day? Why do I chronically worry about everything? Why do I feel so shitty? You're just kicking me out of your office because I've used up my measly six-week allotment of mental health visits this year, and you're afraid I'll be unable to pay out of pocket.
Which is a perfectly reasonable assumption. I can't afford to pay someone hundreds of dollars a month to listen to me tell them I feel shitty. I've got a husband for that. He'll listen to me whine for free as long as I listen to him bitch about his own problems. That's love, baby.
I can't blame therapists for wanting to earn an income. It's nearly impossible to do work that you love with no expectation of gaining an income from it until you're retired and drawing social security. Not in this society. I once had a therapist tell me flat out, "I don't do this because it's my hobby. I'm not a volunteer. I do this because it's my profession, and I need to get paid."
Fair enough. I totally understand that. I just wish we lived in a society that allows mental health practitioners and their patients more time to get to know each other and work through everything the patient wants to work through. None of this time's up, now run along and take your meds and don't come back til the next calendar year.
Thank God for the book recommendations. Reading good books has helped me maintain a healthy psychiatric balance and follow recommended schedules like a good insurance policy holder.
My latest doctor recommended I cut back my work hours outside the home to give myself time to grieve both my brother's death and my abuser's death, which would take a long time, especially since they were one and the same person. I took it as a prescription to start writing.
Writing frees me. My brother and the neighbor friend told me not to tell anyone what we were doing. "Don't tell, Becky. You don't want Mom to go back to the hospital, do you?"
Mom had been involuntarily hospitalized by her husband and her mother on two different occasions a couple of years before Mom divorced Jim, met my dad, got married, and had me. "Nervous breakdowns." Every time my brothers and sisters would tell me the stories of what it was like when Mom had to stay in the hospital, they said she had a "nervous breakdown". When I got Mom to open up about it, to talk about what she remembers during her time in the hospital, she says the same thing. "I had a nervous breakdown." I used to think that term is a cop out. That's not a real medical diagnosis. When I grew up, when I became a woman in our society, I understood what Mom went through. Her husband was cheating on her. Her mother was abusive. Sometimes the crazy people aren't the ones with the diagnoses. Sometimes the crazy people are the ones telling you you're crazy without acknowledging all the crazy social constructs we live with daily.
I believe many people are misdiagnosed with a mental illness. Or, even if they do genuinely have an altered brain chemistry like me from early childhood trauma, it's not always the illness that's to blame for the shitty situation. If more people felt empowered to speak up, to let their voice be heard, if we give people opportunities to express their grief and grievances, to bitch and moan and say FUCK THIS SHIT even though it's not a very nice thing to say. If more people told their stories and ignored their abusers and bullies and friends and loved ones and said, no, I'm not going to keep quiet any longer, if more people could find the courage to open up about the crap we all slog through we could learn how to help each other better. Tell us why you hurt so we can help you heal.
So I decided I'd write a tell-all. The Great American Novel. An autobiographical fiction book about a woman whose brother has just died of alcoholic induced liver failure and how difficult it is to grieve his loss, especially since he sexually abused her when she was a young girl and he was a young teen.
For some reason no literary agents wanted anything to do with it.
So I tossed that manuscript to the back of my desk drawer and started over.
I'd write a tell-all. A memoir about how my brother has just died of alcoholic induced liver failure and how difficult it is to grieve his loss, especially since he sexually abused me when I was a young girl and he was a young teen.
I basically just went through the first manuscript and changed the names and pronouns and I was done. Unfortunately this also was not good enough for the literary agents.
I got discouraged. After all, I'd had my mother telling me since I was twelve and wrote my first story (about a girl with anorexia...they say write what you know) that I was a gifted writer who was bound to become a best-selling author some day.
I thought about self-publishing for a minute or two before I googled some instructions and got a headache just looking at all the intricate details. I'm a writer. Not a literary agent. Not a marketing expert. Not an editor. Not a wealthy business person who has money to blow on a depressing confessional story. I simply don't have the kind of brain that works that way. I like to write my stories, share them, and move on. I don't have the patience or discipline to work on revision after revision after revision. I don't have the motivation to write a proper query letter or book proposal. I just want to write and then push the "publish" button.
I didn't let my slackerly writer ways get me down completely. Just because I can't seem to follow the rules of being a successful published author doesn't mean I can't write and share my stories with an audience.
I started this blog. It makes sense. I'm a navel-gazing narcissist, so it's a good fit for me. I've kept diaries off and an throughout the years. But I wanted something different than a personal diary. I wanted a way to share my stories with others. I've found that the more I open up about my abuse, the more other people open up to me about their abuse, and the less we all feel like freaks who must keep our dirty secrets to ourselves. Blogging is like group therapy only everyone's at home sipping wine on the couch wearing yoga pants. I mean seriously, how do people with agoraphobia meet for group therapy? It's called social networking.
Blogging is an excellent way to share my stories with the public without having to get approval from any kind of authority. I'm the author. I'm my own authority. Blogging frees me to write about anything. I've opened up and let out forty years of mental anguish, bizarre situations, and even a few jokes. It's wonderful.
As great as blogging is, though, after failing for three years to find someone who wants to pay me to write a book, I decided to go back to work at the library full time. I could still blog. But we could also afford to go on family vacations and buy our daughter a new pair of shoes that form to her own feet instead of giving her hand-me-downs from Will's cousins and people in the community who donate shoes to the thrift store. We could pay off our credit cards and start saving for college.
But getting a full-time job is tough. It's been eight months of applying and I've only gotten an invitation to three interviews, none of which landed me the job, despite my twenty-two years of library experience.
The problem is, during my part-time library sabbatical, I rediscovered my love of working with kids. I began teaching Sunday School last year at our progressive Presbyterian church. Three to six year olds. We read stories and sing songs and make crafts. This volunteer gig is some of the most rewarding work I've done, paid or unpaid.
What can I say? I dig kids. But I don't have a degree in early childhood education. I have no direct on-the-paid-job experience doing story times. Just my volunteer Sunday school gig. I've been working in the adult services part of the library for the past nine years, but that doesn't mean I never work with kids on the job. It's just not my official position. I answer every library patron's questions, regardless of age. I'd be happy to continue in my current position, helping all ages of people, but what I really want to do is tell stories. I want to be Miss Becky, the story time lady.
Mom took me to three different story times at three separate libraries each week until I started kindergarten. My favorite librarian asked us to call her Auntie B. She was so nice. So sweet. So funny. So caring. I love her. I wanted to be like her when I grew up. A librarian story time lady.
Then life happened. I got too shy, too self-conscious, too emotionally unbalanced. I had a lot of work to do on myself before I felt ready to sing songs about sunshine and shake my sillies out in front of a group of grownups. If it were just the kids, I would have been fine long ago. Kids don't intimidate me. It's the parents who make me worry if I'm doing a good enough job.
I've always loved kids. I had been a nanny on summer break during college, and I'd worked as a child care aid at an in-home daycare during high school. I began babysitting at the age of ten. I used to beg my mom to have another kid after me, the youngest of six. I'd draw pictures of what I imagined my family to look like when I was a grown up. I always had a least ten kids.
Then real life happened. Because of all the hard work I had to do mending my psychological wounds and building confidence and emotional strength, I ended up not settling down with Partner Right until I was one-month shy of thirty-four. It took us nearly a year of fun, yet infertile, romps in the sack before Will and I were able to conceive Kate. By the time she was born, I was thirty-five. My doctor recommended that, even though it took us a long time to conceive our first child, we should use birth control until Kate was at least six months old to give my body enough time to heal. Many women are super-fertile in the month or two after they give birth, even though it's stressful to the human body to give birth in short intervals.
We followed our doctors orders. When Katie was six months old we gave the leftovers in our Costco-sized box of condoms (evidently we overestimated the amount of fooling around time we'd have as parents of a newborn) to our single friend, and, voila! I got pregnant. All on my own! Well, Will helped. But you know, no doctors' prescriptions for Clomid and Estrace. No taking my temperature and charting my cycle. Just by expressing love with my husband. We were thrilled.
Then, on Will's birthday to make matters worse, I had a miscarriage. I was barely pregnant. I'd just peed on the stick a couple of days before. But still. We were disappointed, to say the least.
We were disappointed, but hopeful. Will had knocked me up unaided, after all. We were convinced he could do it again. But my aging, subfertile body refused to cooperate and we never conceived again.
For the first few years, I was too busy working a full time job outside the home and taking care of Katie when Will was at work to notice my need for more babies. Then, when Katie turned four, she suddenly became obsessed with wanting another sibling.
"Pleeeeeeeease, Mama. Have another baby! I wanna baby brutha or sista!"
It broke my heart that my ovaries were being so stubborn. "Ovulate, Goddamnit!" I'd say when I was feeling resentful, staring at my lower abdomen. "Dear God, please help us conceive another child," I'd pray softly and meekly whenever cursing at my womb didn't seem to do the trick.
Turns out my ovaries and God had another plan for me. I hate that. I'm a feminist, for God's sake! I like to feel in control of my own body. I get to decide when I will or will not procreate! I'm the boss of my own body!
Nope. Sorry, Ms. Missy. Not gonna happen. Your ovaries and God have other plans. The Universe gets to decide when you will procreate, not you. No matter how much you want it, you don't get to decide the moment you become pregnant. It can take months, years, and sometimes never. You can take pharmaceutical drugs or over-the-counter guaifenesin. You can practice mindfulness. You can pray. You can take up yoga and eat tons of bok choy. You can measure your body temperature and track your hormones and estimate when you're at your fertile peak. You can go to the goddamn doctor's office and have a technician shove an ultrasound probe up your vagina so you can see the contents of your uterus on a freaking screen the whole room can see. You can see globs of darkness the doctor says indicates your ovary has released an ovum and you can call your husband and make arrangements to meet you for a nooner, and still, you have no guarantee that your lovemaking will produce a baby.
I don't know about you, but it's scary to think that I lack agency in my own life. I should learn to accept it. I mean, the Universe won't let me live forever, after all. The Universe gets to decide when I die. Why wouldn't It get to decide when I bring new life into the universe?
Politically, I'm pro-choice because I don't believe the government should control our bodies, but personally I laugh at the term. Pro-choice? Ha! It's not my choice. My choice would be to just snap my fingers and I'm magically pregnant. Like Jesus' mother, Mary, only with a warm hospital bed and an epidural.
Because my own child is now eight and I only get to work with my kiddos in Sunday School for an hour, once a week, I decided to feed my jones for kids by trying to find a job in our youth services department. It made sense to me. I need a full time job, but I need one that doesn't stress me out, so what better job to have than one in which I feel gratified working with kids? Reading stories to kids and teaching parents how to help their children learn early literacy skills, recommending books to awkward tweens and telling teenagers, "It's good to see you today" is important work. Instead of feeling overwhelmed when I work with kids, I feel overjoyed.
But like I said, so far, no luck. I can't just snap my fingers and I've magically got a full time youth services job. I've decided to take on another volunteer gig working with kiddos. I'm applying to work with a Head Start facility in our community. They need classroom helpers to come in once a week or so and read stories, sing songs, and make crafts with preschoolers. I can do that! It's unpaid, but so what? It will be good experience. I figure the more opportunities I get to hone my skills at being Miss Becky the story time lady, the better. And, what volunteers lack in income they more than make up for in rich, interpersonal connections.
So here are my unpaid labors of love: caring for our daughter, blogging, Sunday school teaching, and next, story telling in preschool. I feel proud of myself. Usually.
It's sometimes difficult to feel good about unpaid labor. Our capitalistic society reveres the highest earners--doctors, lawyers, business people. Our youth librarians and preschool teachers are on the lower end of the income spectrum. Stay-at-home parents and volunteer child educators are at the very end. Jack squat. People who want to spend their days reading stories and singing songs and making crafts with four year olds are not paid in material wealth. We must, as a society, begin to see the value of unpaid workers. Whether it's unpaid artists, unpaid caretakers, or unpaid community volunteers. We must learn to respect people for reasons beyond their net income.
As far as I can tell, Jesus didn't have a steady income. He lived off the kindness of strangers, slept on Good Samaritan's beds, broke bread and drank wine with his followers, but I don't recall any stories of him ever picking up the tab. Does that make me love Jesus less? Hell no. Look at all the influence he's had these past two-thousand years? He's spreading the love! His lack of material wealth didn't hold him back. It set him free.
So, I'll continue to write for free. I'll continue to take care of my child for free. I'll teach Sunday school and help out in preschool classrooms for free. And it will set me free.
"If you were a best-selling author, what would you do with all your income?" Kate asked.
This blog is about to hit 100,000 page views, so I've been talking about it a lot lately. Talking about how I might not be a best-selling author, but I feel like what I have to say is reaching people, and that makes me feel proud.
"Oh, I dunno," I said. I thought about it some and couldn't come up with any good ideas. It felt like when either Will or she ask me what I want for Mother's Day or my birthday.
I dunno. Just spending time with you is present enough.
"It can be anything," Kate prompted me. "If you were rich, what would you like to buy?"
"I dunno, Punk. I don't really think about it. I'm not exactly the kind of person who would enjoy being rich. I'd feel guilty and worry all the time about the people on the planet who were starving and homeless and in need. If I were a best-selling author and rich I'd buy our family a nice, comfy house and some good quality clothes, and you know, send you to a really good college and probably travel and see the world. But I think I'd end up giving away most of my riches to charity," I said.
Kate smiled. "Yeah, I knew you'd say that."
Seeing the look of pride on my daughter's face when I finally realized that even if I made tons of money off my writing, I'd probably give most of it away, so why not just give it away for free like I've been doing? Seeing Kate's face at that moment is worth more than all the riches in the world.
"The Best Things In Life are Free" written for the 1927 musical Good News, covered by Lily Bee.
Uploaded to YouTube with this dedication:
"A cover song dedicated [to] open science and all things open source. Because the best things in life are and should stay free."
Here are the lyrics:
The moon belongs to everyone The best things in life are free The stars belong to everyone They gleam there for you and me The flowers in spring The robins that sing The sunbeams that shine They're yours, they're mine And love can come to everyone The best things in life are free
Mom bought a new laptop and gave us her used one. She claims she wanted a new one, but I suspect Mom actually bought it so I'd take her used laptop that's in perfectly good shape, knowing I wouldn't let her buy me a new laptop. She's a sneaky gifter like that. She knows I don't like to buy new electronics. I'm too frugal. I much prefer getting other people's free hand-me-downs. I also can't help but worry about the conflict minerals used to make new electronics equipment. I can't stand to think that someone might have gotten raped so I can have the next new shiny device. Mom's not a worrier like me. She pays no attention to world events beyond her control. Buying new gadgets troubles her not at all. So I have a new (used) laptop.
We are a three-laptop household now, one for each of us--Will, Kate, and me. Guess who uses the crappiest one?
The used laptop Mom gave us is in better shape than the other two laptops we have, one of which is only six months younger than our eight-year-old daughter who kept bugging us to get another computer so she and her dad can play Minecraft together. My computer is too old to handle much more than this blog and Facebook. The audio died on my laptop years ago, so I can watch videos, I just can't hear them.
"Mom! You need a new laptop!" Katie's been nagging me for years.
About a year ago, my brother Jay got us a sweet deal on our second-best laptop. It's used, but it had been refurbished, so it's like new. I used it for about a day before Will and Kate loaded Minecraft on it and designated it as the "gaming computer". I don't understand why they need to hear the villagers mumble, but I don't argue with them. The way I see it, I'm the person who cares the least about fancy electronics, so even though my brother and my mother keep plying my family with good quality laptops, I still use the one on the fritz and let Will and Kate use the good ones when we're all home at the same time.
Kate was so excited when we became a three-laptop family. She's in third grade. She's at that stage in life where she's starting to notice the haves and the have nots, and it upsets her when she thinks we're one of the have nots. Many of her classmates have access to technology that blows my mind. They have their own smartphones. Eight-year-olds. Their families have iPads and computers out the wazoo. When I was growing up, we had a decades-old set of the Encyclopedia Britannica and a library card. If I wanted to know more about Egyptian Hieroglyphics, I pulled out the dusty old encyclopedia set and read the section on Egypt. Then I asked Mom to drive me to the library so I could check out some library books about Egypt and take a look at their big dictionary.
I loved that big dictionary. Standing on a step stool so I could see it on top of the podium, like I was about to give a great speech of tremendous historical and literary importance. I stood there silently reading words, pretending I was saying them to a crowd of fans, screaming and fainting and weeping after every word I utter.
I was a curious kid. Observant. But only about peculiar things. Not things like math facts and homework due dates. But human nature. The way the words that come out of people's mouths make other people's faces change. "You're so insightful." I've been hearing that since before I was old enough to look up the word "insightful" in the big dictionary at the library. All I knew was that people treated me as if I were wise beyond my years. My sister who is eight years older than I am, then a teenager, came to me for dating advice. Mom talked to me about her relationship with my dad as if I were her therapist. Neighborhood kids would fight and then come to me for advice. I enjoyed feeling helpful. I enjoyed feeling knowledgeable.
But still, I think I'd have fewer panic attacks today if I had been less of everyone's therapist and more of a child when I was a child. Sometimes I think my panic attacks are my body's way of saying, "OK, it's your turn to go crazy!" When I was eleven, my therapist told me that often it's not the person who is put in therapy who needs it, but everyone else around them.
I knew a lot about human sexuality for my age, I realize now. It seems as if I always knew about penises and vaginas and what people did with them. I knew that bodies were shared with other people, sometimes because of love, and sometimes because of fear. I was sexually abused by my brother and a neighbor at such a young age I never really got to go through the whole childhood innocence phase of life. When it was time for the talk at school, where the teachers and school nurse separated us by gender into two rooms and we talked about periods and bras and how babies get made, it was such a ridiculous ho-hum moment to me. We were what, eleven? I sat there listening to the nurse answer one of my classmates' questions about erections thinking, I saw my first erection eight years ago, when I was three.
I felt a twang of jealousy over my classmates' naivete. I found a bookmark at the mall that said, "Ignorance is bliss" and I said to myself, yes. I began to resent knowing too much. I developed anorexia a year after I started having my period in fourth grade and two years after I developed breasts in third grade. I hated my body. I hated the attention I got from it. Teenage boys hitting on me the summer after fourth grade at the swimming pool. Grown men staring at my chest. My mom's ex husband meeting me for the first time when I was in seventh grade at my sister's wedding, looking me up and down and saying, "Your mother was an early developer, too."
I read in a book that anorexia often develops in young women who are just beginning puberty. Losing weight means you lose your breasts, you stop having your period. You regress back to childhood. The childhood I sometimes felt I never had.
It wasn't just the sexual abuse and inappropriate attention I experienced as a child that fucked with my ideas about sex and sexuality. I lived in a lenient household when it came to many rules. The rules I had were doosies, though. More like commandments from God.
Thou shalt not sit in Dad's comfy chair.
Thou shalt not talk when Dad gets home from work and just wants to eat his dinner in peace, Goddamnit!
Thou shalt not drink Dad's canned pop in the fridge. Those are for his lunches, and do you know how much more expensive canned pop is than the 2-liters?
Thou shalt not complain when Dad says it's time for you to cook dinner, do the laundry, mow the lawn, or do the dishes.
Thou shalt not switch the channel on the TV when Dad is in the house. Not even for a sec while he gets up to pee.
Thou shalt not make suggestions for where we will eat dinner or what movie we'll go see. Your sister can take you to see that Muppet movie.
It's true. I remember seeing two "kids'" movies when I was an actual kid. Mom took me to see "Bambi" when it was re-released in theaters in 1975. Mom had been four when Bambi was first released in 1942. I was four when she took me to see it. I don't remember much of the movie, except that I liked Thumper. I remember looking over at my mom during the scene when Bambi realizes his mother has been killed by the hunter. Mom was shuffling through her purse, trying to find a tissue to wipe the tears from her face. I laughed. I know, what an asshole thing to do, right?
I don't know why I laughed. I don't remember feeling anything at that moment except how weird it was to see my mom cry. I'd heard stories of her "nervous breakdowns" that had happened before I was born, but the Mommy I knew didn't cry. She didn't yell. If Dad was throwing a fit, Mom would just turn and walk down the hall to her bedroom and shut the door. Sometimes I'd peek in on her. She'd be reading, or napping. Sometimes she'd be up in her chair, in front of the small TV, embroidering a throw pillow or drawing a picture of some flowers we didn't have in our garden.
The other kids' movie I saw as a kid was "The Muppet Movie" with one of my sisters who is fifteen years older than me. It was such a special treat, getting to go see a movie I'd like with my sister. It must have been my birthday or something. I don't remember.
I just remember seeing too many adult movies when I was a kid. Just going off memory, here's a list of movies I saw way-too-young:
What Do You Say to a Naked Lady?, It was the summer of 1971. I was a few months old, asleep in the back seat of my parents car, parked at the drive-in. It was the third movie of a three-movie set. My parents like to joke around that it was my first X rated movie. They took me with them so they wouldn't have to pay for a babysitter.
The Exorcist. 1973. I was three. This movie I remember seeing in the theater with my sisters and my mom. Or maybe my mom just dropped us off, because I can't imagine Mom getting through this horror show herself, let alone letting her three year old watch it. I hated it. And here's a telling part. The scene I remember most was when the girl peed on the floor in front of other people. At three, having an accident in front of a group of grown ups was about the worst thing I could think of. It stuck in my mind. So did the demonic possession, the blood, the vomit, you know, the whole, horrible mess. To this day I still hate horror movies. I can drum up enough anxiety on my own. I don't need to pay someone to fill me with fear.
Annie Hall. 1977. I was seven. I used to say this is my favorite movie of all time. Then I realized what a creep Woody Allen is, personally, having an affair when he was fifty-six with his then-girlfriend's daughter, who was nineteen at the time. Eww. I also realize now that it's weird for a seven-year-old to enjoy an adult sex comedy so much that she claims it's her favorite movie for years. When I was seven, my favorite movie should have been Star Wars, regardless of what the Academy said.
10 by Blake Edwards. 1979. I can't imagine Edwards intended his film to be viewed by someone who wasn't yet ten years old. I was nine when my parents took me to see this film at the theater. It was my first introduction to Ravel's "Bolero". I felt classy.
Kids growing up in the Seventies had it different. There was no 24/7 TV channel devoted to children's programming. There was "Sesame Street", "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood", and "Captain Kangaroo", but by the time Dad got home from work, it was switched to the news, "All in the Family", and "Police Woman".
"Angie Dickinson's got a nice rack," Dad would say in between bites of popcorn.
To this day I can't stand the use of the word "rack" to name a woman's breasts. The funny thing is, I've got a nice rack. People have told me I've got a nice rack my whole life and it doesn't make me feel good. I hate that word. I hate having a nice rack. My breasts? They're great! They fed my daughter. They're huge and bouncy and fun in the hands of my husband. But dang, I like to share my breasts with a select few, so when you call out "nice rack" please understand that your words are hurtful, not a compliment.
My parents were pretty awful when it came to protecting me from sexual abuse. They were too wrapped up in their own lives to pay attention to what negative lessons I was learning about life from the movies and TV shows I watched. But I don't really blame them. They didn't know better. It was the Seventies. Have you seen "The Ice Storm?" Life really was like that. Key parties. Affairs. Not my parents--they were movie buffs, but they didn't act out those sexy dramas in real life. They didn't swing. But my friends' parents did. And worse, they didn't talk to their kids about sexuality. They hid it from them like a dirty secret. My parents fucked up a lot, but the one thing they gave me by being so lenient is an open, curious mind.
The thing about having parents like mine--parents who didn't want to pay for a babysitter, so they took me to see adult movies when I was a kid, who told dirty jokes in front of me, who didn't put a lock on the cabinet where Dad kept his stash of "Playboys"--having permissive parents led me to feel comfortable in my curiosity. I didn't feel ashamed of my questions about how the human body works or why we have certain feelings. I felt like sex was a natural part of life. And just like everything in life, it could be both good and bad and you have to sort things out for yourself. With help from people who care about you.
It's no wonder I became a librarian. The number one law of librarianship is that people deserve access to information, good and bad. It's called Intellectual Freedom, and it's something librarians take very seriously. It's the idea that just because someone wants to read The Anarchist's Cookbook doesn't mean they intend to set off any bombs. And when it comes to kids, it's up to their parents and caregivers to help them navigate their research.
My mom helped me navigate the best way she knew how. Through pop culture. Through lots of no-holds-barred conversations. When I was in junior high, Mom and I would watch The Dr. Ruth Show on TV together. Mom got me Dr. Ruth's Game of Good Sex for Christmas when I was fifteen. I memorized the answers on the backs of the cards and quizzed myself often.
I had no interest in having sex during this time in my life when I was the most fascinated by sex. I remember feeling like a late bloomer when it came to my libido. I didn't have my first orgasm until I was twenty-six. I had mad crushes on both boys and girls from the time I was about four, but the tingle I felt around them was in my heart and in my brain, not in my clitoris.
In tenth grade biology, my teacher, a forty-something man with a son just a couple of years older than me, held up my test in front of the entire class and pointed to my score. 100%. My hands covered my face as I sat silently trying to ignore everyone around me. I knew he was trying to embarrass me. He didn't like me because I refused to dissect a frog. I told him it was against my religious beliefs. He rolled his eyes at me and gave me an F for that test. I still got a B in the overall class, thanks to my knowledge of human sexuality.
"Well looky here! Becky got a 100% on her human reproduction test! Good job!" he said to the class.
I don't remember hearing any snickering from my classmates. I just remember silence. And the warmth under my hands from the blood rushing to my face. Maybe I just ignored them. Maybe they were too embarrassed, too.
I told my mom about it. "My biology teacher is such a jerk!"
"He's just jealous because he knows you learned that stuff on your own, not because you were paying attention in class," Mom said.
Mom knows me well.
When we got home from picking up our new (used) laptop from Mom's house, Katie immediate sat down in the comfy chair and pushed the power button.
"Are you going to play Minecraft?" I asked.
"No," she said without looking up from the screen.
"Why not?" I asked.
"Because it's not installed on here. Yet." Kate looked up and smiled a little too confidently for my taste. No doubt this "yet" would cost me money.
"So what are you going to do first on our new computer?" I asked.
"I'm doing research," Kate said and returned her gaze toward the screen. I leaned over to get a better look at the screen. She was on some kind of Wiki for Five Nights at Freddy's. "Oh! Are you going to play 'Five Nights at Freddy's'? I thought you said it was too scary?"
Kate looked up from the screen and stared at me blankly. "Mom. I'm not going to play 'Five Nights at Freddy's'. I told you that. It's too scary for me. I'm just doing research about it. That way when Arianna and Brayden talk about it at lunch I'll know the story."
Kate is eight. She's a sloppy eater. She can't stand to sleep alone. She leaves her toys all over the floor and then yells at the dog when she finds the toys mangled and shredded, chewed to bits on the dog's blanket.
"Wipe your mouth!"
"Go to sleep!"
"Put away your toys!"
We shout these things in our home on a fairly regular rotation. It rarely works. On the occasions when shouting does not help our daughter mature at a rate that pleases us more, we grit our teeth, look to each other and say, "She's only eight."
Eight is still a kid. She has plenty of time to grow up. Til then, I'm doing my best not to stifle her curiosity while protecting her from abuse, from growing up too fast, from innocence lost.
"Do I need to put some kinds of parental locks on this laptop? I'm afraid you're going to stumble upon a site that's too scary or too sexy and it might frighten you," I said.
"No, Mom. Don't worry. I'm just doing research," Kate assured me.
"Well, I want you to come to Dad and me with your questions about sex and, well, anything. You know that, right?"
"Yeah, Mom. You've told me that a thousand times. I'm not researching sex. I'm researching a game my friends like to talk about," she said.
A game I know nothing about.
"Let's look it up on Common Sense Media," I said.
Kate sighed. She knew I'd stand there nagging her until she handed over the laptop and let me do some research of my own.
We looked up Five Nights at Freddy's. "Wow, it suggests the game's for ages fourteen and up," I said.
"Yeah, Mom. I told you it's scary. I don't want to play it. I just want to know what the story is about. I want to understand what my friends are talking about," Kate explained.
"Your friends who are in third grade? Why are their parents letting them play this game?"
"I don't know, Mom. They probably haven't done their research." Kate smiled at me like, it's OK, Mom. I'm going to be fine.
It's hard not to hover when you want to protect your child. Some helicopter parents worry about letting their kids play outside unsupervised. I worry about letting my child google unsupervised. But I trust her. She's smart. She's confident. She knows what she likes and what she doesn't like. She knows she can ask her dad and me anything. She's going to be fine.
Deep breaths, Mom. Deep breaths. It's a scary world. Our kids grow up too fast. But we can't lock them up and take away their internet searches. They need to learn how to be responsible, and they can't learn that if we don't trust them. We can guide them without smothering their fiery curiosity.
If you worry about the games, movies, and books that spark your child's curiosity, do your research! Here, I'll help:
Here's a good site for reviews of video games, movies, books, and all sorts of media: Common Sense Media. It's one of my favorites. It doesn't simply give you a rating, it explains in detail how much sex and violence and profanity there is in a story so that you, the person who knows your child best, can decide what they are capable of handling. Another resource I like that's just for movies is Kids In Mind. The name itself sums it up. Kids in mind. Instead of expecting our kids, with their immature needs and innocent minds, to watch whatever movie we want to see, let's keep their needs in mind until they're old enough to think for themselves.
Evidently many people assume fat people smell worse than thin people. Without even thinking about it. Just blind acceptance of a social norm.
My racist grandmother told me that black people smell bad, because their hair smells like wet sheep. I thought she was an idiot, so I didn't believe her, even though she owned a beauty shop and was a licensed cosmetologist. Later, when I had a girlfriend who is black, my assumption that my grandmother's ideas were not based on factual evidence proved true when I discovered that my girlfriend's hair smelled like shampoo.
Lux soap advertisement from my grandmother's young days
Beauty lies are not reserved for racists. Corporations peddle their wares to anyone they can convince will be better off with their product. The company that sells Lysol used to run ads aimed at housewives suggesting they douche with Lysol to cover up their feminine stench. Lysol. Seriously. Ouch, I can feel the burn vicariously just thinking about it.
Guess what, Ladies? There is nothing wrong with your natural smell. You don't need to buy chemicals to have an inviting vagina.
Companies tell us stories to convince us that we'd be better off with their products. The narrative goes like this: black people smell bad, and women smell bad. And now, fat people smell bad, too.
Blacks, women, and fatties. We must be too wild, too uncivilized to live amongst the well groomed upper echelons of our human pack. The fair skinned. The men. The thin.
When I visited the wolves at the conservation center in Colorado, the tour guide asked if anyone had a question. I raised my hand and asked, "What's the purpose of the omega wolf in the social order?"
"The purpose?" The tour guide asked. I nodded. "The purpose of the omega wolf is to give the other wolves someone to pick on."
I love wolves. I admire their ability to collaborate and work as a pack to hunt, and to care for their young. But I don't understand the idea of the omega dog. Just as I don't understand the idea of the underdog in our human social order. Black, women, fat folks, we are, too often, the omegas of the human pack.
The difference? Humans are not wolves. We are not wild. We are not destined to succumb to our base needs. We can rationally think, what is the purpose of picking on the omega human? To make me feel better? What if I don't feel better? What if we could ask around the others in our pack and see if they feel the same? Does it really make you feel better to pick on someone else? Or do you feel better when you stick up for the omega and let others see that we've evolved past needing an underdog to kick around?
I understand the purpose of an Alpha. Every social group needs someone's decisions to blame bad outcomes on. I understand the Betas. The keepers of social order. The worker bees and hunters in a wolf pack. But the Omegas? Whose purpose is solely to give the others someone to pick on? Eh, let's do away with that role in our human social order. Shall we?
Having to deal with my fat-phobic father lately was getting me down. I needed a little help from an old friend. Whenever the fat haters' voices get too loud, I turn to one of my favorite books, Fat!So? by Marilyn Wann. This amaze-balls book started out in the 90's as a zine, way before Health at Every Size® was a movement and body acceptance became a cause. Wann is a leader in the fat rights community. She's funny as hell. Super smart, vocal, and inspirational. You. You reading this right now. You must read this book. Fat?So! has evolved into a website, which is fun to peruse. I still recommend reading the book, full of "the best of" the zine and website. It's especially fun to read the book in public, since the cover is so in-your-face with fat spunk attitude. It's a great way to show the world you're not going to put up with their anti-fat bullshit.
Fat-haters: Hey, fatty, get back in the closet!
Me: Nope, I'm such a rad fatty I like to show off that I read Fat!So?
Most Americans I know feel shitty about their bodies enough all by themselves. When our loved ones heap on the insults, it's just too much. Please, the next time someone tries to make you feel like less of a person for being a person of substantial size, read this book. I got this copy at my local library. If your library doesn't own it, ask them to purchase it, or to get it for you through Interlibrary Loan. Or, if you can afford it, buy a copy for yourself.
Here's an excerpt from page 62:
Here are some of the ways that a desire for weight loss can destroy the benefits of eating right and exercising:
You only eat right and exercise when you're trying to lose weight.
You eat right and exercise for a while, but when you don't lose any weight, you give it up.
If you do lose some weight, you stop eating right and exercising.
You lose a few pounds by eating right and exercising but not as much as you'd hoped, so you eat less and exercise more. You keep this up until you're in a real pickle.
You think that eating right and exercising is only something that thin people get to do.
You figure it's hopeless, you're always going to be fat, so why bother eating right, etc.
In all of these cases, worrying about weight comes first and healthy habits come last. The real hope lies in breaking the connection between these two powerful forces. Focus instead on the habit that's guaranteed to be good for you, no matter what the number on the scale. Eating your veggies is always going to be good for you. Getting some joyful movement on a regular basis will always be good for you, too, whether you're fat or thin, whether you lose weight or not. Do these things because you love who you are, not because you want to make less of yourself.
When I was a kid, the worst thing my mom could say to me was, "You're just like your father." She didn't say it very often. Just when I was being a total brat. I was rarely a brat. I was a good girl, never wanting to upset my mom. I imagine Fred Rogers' kids felt the same way about their dad. It's hard to act bratty around someone who generally treats you with such loving kindness.
Some of my friends' mothers handled their brattiness by slapping them, or yelling at them, or ignoring them. My mother wasn't like that at all. I have no memories of my mom ever hitting or yelling at anyone, and certainly not her own children. She was an expert at ignoring my dad and any other grown-up who was acting like a jerk, but her baby? No way. One time she grounded me for participating in some group teepeeing shenanigans, but that lasted about half a day. By mid-afternoon the doorbell rang and I asked if I could go outside and run through the sprinkler with the one kid on the block who had been at CCD while the rest of us were busy getting into trouble, and Mom caved.
"Sure, Hon. Have fun," Mom called out from the couch.
"Gah, you have the nicest mom," my friend said as the front door slammed shut behind us.
"Yeah, I know."
Mom was so nice that I wanted to be just like her. No matter how hard I tried, though, I wasn't. I couldn't even copy her handwriting. In sixth grade I heard about graphology and how these people called graphologists could study your handwriting and see what your personality is like without even meeting you. I spent loads of time looking through letters and lists my mom had written, trying to copy her handwriting, thinking that if I could only change my handwriting to match hers it would change my personality, too, so I could be more like Mom.
The experiment failed. If anything it had the opposite effect, forcing me to see how much I had in common with my dad. I remember slamming my pencil down on the table and wadding up my paper and throwing it across the room in a fit of anger when I couldn't form my letters just like Mom. Which is exactly something my dad would do if he got frustrated with his own incompetence.
By my teen years I gave up trying to be nice like Mom and embraced the angry, intense, emotionally unstable personality I had inherited from my dad. Which did wonders for the atmosphere around our house. By then all of my siblings had moved out--or had gotten kicked out by my dad--so it was just me, Mom, and Dad stuck in the house together, Dad and me screaming at each other and Mom calmly walking down the hall to the spare room where she kept her TV, her books, her sewing machine, and her art supplies, what I've grown to think of as her version of art therapy, shutting the door behind her.
I mistakenly thought my dad and I fought so much when I was a teenager because we had so little in common. He's a Conservative. I'm a Liberal. He's a grumpy old man, nostalgic for the good ole days. I'm a young, vibrant woman, hopeful that if we work hard enough the world will be a better place in the future. He loves money and stocks and paying bills on time. I think that the love of money is the root of all evil and that people who care about finances and bills and all that are so incredibly boring. Needless to say, Dad has always had a fat bank account and an excellent credit score. I filed for bankruptcy by the time I was thirty after my ex-girlfriend maxed out my credit cards with promises of a beautiful home, exciting vacations, and a happily-ever-after lifestyle. I love literature and philosophy and art and all the "ologies": anthropology, psychology, sociology, primatology. People and ideas thrill me. It excites me to try to figure out what makes people tick. Dad thinks all those "ologies" and art are a big waste of time and that the people who like that kind of stuff are weird. He doesn't care a lick about what makes people tick. Dad's a numbers man, not a people person. People are useful as dance partners, bridge partners, house cleaners, cooks, but to Dad the rest of that touchy-feely crap is simply beyond his comprehension.
"We're such opposites," I used to think when I was a teenager. But I now know what Mom was getting at whenever she called me out on my brattiness. Dad and I aren't opposites at all. We're just alike. Our interests oppose each other, but our innate temperaments are two peas in a pod. We're both charming on the outside, but get on our bad side and watch out! We're both full of anger and anxiety. We're both critical, of ourselves and others. We're both intense and passionate about our beliefs. It's just that Dad is angry and critical and passionately believes the pinko commie hippies are ruining the world, while I'm angry and critical and passionately believe that the unenlightened mainstream are destroying it. I'm angry at The Man, and dad is the epitome of The Man. White, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant, middle-class, privileged man. I'm I'm a total pinko commie. Dad's nightmare. When we used to watch "All In the Family" on our living room TV, it was like watching home movies. Dad was Archie Bunker. Mom was Edith. And I started out life as a good girl Gloria, but by my teen years I had evolved into a ferocious Meathead. Both Archie and Meathead insisting that THEY are the ones fighting the good fight.
These last few years Dad and I hardly fight at all, mostly due to both of us following doctor's orders by taking our anti-anxiety medication. But also, I've matured and he's gotten soft in his old age. And, it's easy to get along with someone you're hardly ever around. We spend far less time together now that we no longer live under the same roof, his roof. I no longer owe him money. The only time I need him now is when I want to pat myself on the back for being a good daughter and putting up with him for an hour here and there during birthdays and major holidays.
But things are getting weird. Dad's starting to need me. And I don't know how I feel about that. I mean, I get it. I understand that it's natural for aging parents to depend on their children. It makes sense to me, rationally. It's the cycle of life. Your parents care for you when you are too young to care for yourself, and then it's payback time when they grow old and need your care. Only horrible people put their parents in an old folk's home, right? Paying strangers to clean up after them and make sure they're fed, taking their meds, and looked after following surgery.
Dad's been getting sick more and more lately. Duh. He'll be 88 at the beginning of next month. He was 56 when he had his first triple-bypass heart surgery. The doctor at that time told my mom to not expect him to live much longer than five years, tops. We spent the next five years tip-toeing around him, tolerating his explosive temper, his selfishness, his verbal abuse because, although we'd never say it aloud, we were waiting for him to die so we could move on with our lives, free from his control.
Nine years after Dad's surgery, Mom finally divorced him. She'd given him nearly double-the-time the doctor said he could expect Dad to live. She didn't want to have to do it. Her first marriage had ended in divorce and left her feeling like a failure, even though it was due to her first husband's adultery. My mom has a strong faith and believes that when people get married they should take their vows seriously and stay together "through sickness and in health as long as they both shall live". But damn. There's only so much abuse one person can take, even if the abuser is sick.
I remember one of the last fights they had. They rarely fought during their twenty-two years of marriage. Usually Mom walked away before things escalated too quickly. But this last fight they had, wow. Somehow Dad had trapped Mom in her chair and he was leaning over her, wagging his finger in her face, screaming at her, calling her "stupid". It was awful. I wanted to step in and defend her, but I was afraid. So I stood there feeling helpless despite the fact that I was an adult. I was twenty-one when my parents finally divorced and it was one of the happiest days of my life.
That was a long time ago. 1992. Mom remarried a wonderful man. She moved on with her life, free from Dad's control. Time's healed her wounds and she no longer cares one way or the other about my dad. She doesn't need him, and he doesn't need her. "Que Será, Será."
My relationship with Dad is not that untethered. See, when two people decide they don't want to be married anymore, they can divorce and they never have to see each other again. But offspring can't divorce their parents. We can move far way and never call and focus on our own needs, but most people, no matter how awful their parents are, never fully sever ties with them. Most of us at least adhere to that one ancient tablet rule to honor our mother and our father, at least when we get that call that Dad's being taken by ambulance to North Kansas City Hospital because he's having trouble breathing. Most people, no matter how much they dislike their parents, if they live in the same city at least, they love them enough to stop by the hospital to remind them that despite everything they still love them.
Liking them? That's an entirely different thing.
And so you sit there in the hospital room with him all day and you become this strange combination of helpless child and responsible caretaker. When your dad can't pull up his own pajama pants, you rush over and help him, even if most everything about him brings out your lifetime of simmering anger.
You bite your tongue and ignore him and try not to take it too personally or conjure horrible childhood memories of Dad calling you fat and sending you to Weight Watchers when you're in third grade when he himself has always been fat. You respectfully disengage from the potential shit-storm, because what kind of asshole argues with a dying old man? Even if he makes hateful comments about how he doesn't trust his cardiologist because he's fat.
"I mean, the guy can get around and all, but he's HUGE. I mean, have you ever seen a fat cardiologist? I mean a big ole fatso? I just don't trust him. I just can't trust a fat cardiologist," Dad said way-too-loud from his hospital bed. I stood there trying to decide if I wanted to strangle him right then and there to get it over with, or if I wanted to rush out into the hall and call out, "I disagree with everything this bigot says - I'm a Health at Every Size advocate, People!" so none of the staff or patients would think my decision not to speak up had anything to do with my not having anything to say. It's just that, I don't know. I'm certainly my dad's daughter, and my dad can be an insensitive jerk, but I can't imagine even he'd get into a fight with someone in a hospital bed.
I can't help but love the old son-of-a-bitch because somehow, right or wrong, dysfunctional or self-affirming, I just can't help it. It's like loving myself. Without him, there'd be no me. I have to love him on some irrational, primal level. For survival.
Dad's back home after having heart surgery again. I disagree with his decision to go back home because he didn't trust his fat cardiologist to run any more tests after they went through with the surgery and found no evidence of blockage. I myself would stay in the hospital and allow the fat cardiologist to run more tests to see why my lungs keep filling up with fluid. But as much as our personalities are alike, we are separate people. I am not my dad. His medical care is his decision.
Now my sister Glenda's playing nursemaid to dear ole dad. Glenda is Dad's daughter from his first marriage, before he married my mom and had me. She's fifteen years older than me, and Dad's always relied on her to be the responsible one, the caretaker, the chauffeur. Thank God Glenda takes after her mother. She's nice and caring and selfless. Nothing like our dad. Nothing like me.
I want to help my sister take care of our dad, and I also want to suggest that maybe it's time that we put dear ole dad in an old folk's home. But so far I'm only fantasizing of being THAT daughter. The horrible kind who puts her dad in a home. Right?
I don't want to be a horrible person. I want to be nice and caring and selfless. But it's incredibly hard to be nice and caring and selfless to someone who is mean and uncaring and selfish.
Someone at church said something that made me feel like my tether had loosed a bit from my dad. She's this beautiful soul who was telling the congregation about this organization she volunteers for where they go into hospitals and sit in the rooms with patients who are dying. Kinda like how in old movies they'd call a priest to come perform the last rites, only these volunteers bring along no dogma. They're not trying to save the person's soul. They're not trying to change them. They're not trying to save them. They're not asking them to confess their sins or ask for forgiveness for any wrong-doing. They don't ask why they are lying there in a hospital bed, terminally ill with no friends or family beside them. They believe that each and every human being deserves not to die alone. So they sit with them, without judgment, and let them die in peace.
Oh, I want to do that! I thought as I sat there in the pew, listening to this beautiful soul speak of how grateful these lonely dying people are for their unconditional love. I should volunteer to sit with lonely dying people! I thought. Then I caught myself.
Wait a minute. I don't even want to be around my own father when he's lying in a hospital bed. Why would I want to be around some stranger?
You know why? It's easier to love someone you don't know. They haven't hurt you. They haven't disappointed you or made you feel like you're crazy, worthless, or stupid. It's so much easier to love people when there's no tether between you.
I started to feel like a total asshole. What kind of horrible person wants to put her dying dad in an old folk's home so she can go spend time with dying strangers? Me, that's who.
I wish I could pretend that my dad is a stranger. Wipe the slate clean with him. Untie the tether between us. It would be so much easier to sit with my dad and let him die in peace if we had no history between us. If I could somehow forgive him. If I could somehow forgive myself for being like him.
That's when it takes radical forgiveness. We're talking forgiveness on the level of Jesus and the Dalai Lama and dogs. Love that will never cease, no matter how awful you are.
Jesus didn't command us to love just people who are nice to us. Thanks a lot, Jesus! It's easy for you to forgive everyone. You're perfect. Way to set us mere mortals up for failure, asking us to follow your path!
But maybe Jesus wasn't punishing us by commanding us to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us. Maybe when Jesus told us to love our neighbors as ourselves, he wanted us to think harder. To think of ourselves.
I've mistreated people in my life. Don't I still want them to love me, to forgive me? If all people deserve to be loved, then that includes me. And if horrible me deserves to be loved, that means all unlovable people deserve to be loved. Because maybe, when we love the unlovable, we become more lovable ourselves. Is that selfish? To love people because we want to be more lovable?
Yes. No. The important thing is to love.
I'm Dad's radical daughter. I'm the feisty one. The intense one. The one who gets upset about things I can't control, just like he does. It's time I try radical forgiveness. When his time comes, and I sense it's coming soon, I want to sit with him and let him die in peace. Maybe see that the two of us are not so bad after all.
.jpg)
