Because it mattered

I have many strengths and qualities that I'm proud of and have contributed to my success as a writer, as a parent, as an educator. However, getting over difficulty and strong emotions is not one of them. I regularly mourn lost relationships - romantic as well as fizzled friendships. I miss my freedom in college. I miss school. I miss being a kid and being with my family. I even miss struggling when money was tight.

My experiences practicing Zen Buddhism inform my awareness that this is due to attachment - the source of all suffering. I attach easily to feelings of love and being valued with an intense desire for feelings and people to stay exactly as they are. Despite that desire, the reality is everything and everyone is changing all the time.

Part of my Zen Buddhist practice, is regularly reading, reciting, and embracing the Five Remembrances (Thich Naht Hanh):

"I am of the nature to grow old; there is no way to escape growing old.
I am of the nature to have ill health; there is no way to escape ill health.
I am of the nature to die; there is no way to escape death.
All that is dear to me and everyone I love are of the nature to change; there is no way to escape being separated from them.
My actions are my only true belongings; I cannot escape the consequence of my actions; my actions are the ground on which I stand."

Sometimes this helps and sometimes it doesn't but I've come to accept that my longing for previous relationships and experiences is indicative of the influence they've had on my life. The moments that linger in my mind were powerful, emotional, and impacted the trajectory of my life.
And sometimes when those really special, powerful moments of my life are over, it hurts a little. Sometimes it hurts a lot. The magnitude of loss is comparable to the depth of the value of that moment. It hurts because it mattered.

Outlet or Outlet Cover?

Eight months ago, my partner and I were enthusiastic to learn that we were expecting a second child! After losing a child through miscarriage the previous year, we were overjoyed. And anxious. We wanted this baby so much but it was hard to let ourselves feel excited. And for me personally, I was ill-equipped to handle the complicated emotions that come with early pregnancy that following a loss. Anxiety and depression are regular players in this act of my life and they took front and center roles over the last year; specifically anxiety, stole the spotlight as we awaited the passing of the “danger zone” first trimester. And while I wanted this baby more than anything I’ve ever wanted, I entered a place of  necessary abandon of my usual coping strategies – specifically drinking alcohol and running – leaving me alone with my thoughts, feelings, insecurities, and anxieties.

In addition to dealing with worry over the health and well-being of our unborn child, I also had to come face-to-face with the everyday stress of life - paying bills, dealing with challenges at work, driving in bad weather and so on. The kinds of things that would usually accumulate and I would turn to running or drinking to relax and regain control of my emotions. Prior to this pregnancy, I accepted those as outlets for processing stress and difficult emotions. But now without either of my two go-to strategies, it became quite clear that I didn't actually know how to deal with discomfort and overwhelming feelings. These go-to's weren't outlets, they were outlet covers. The merely allowed me to avoid dealing with what needed to be dealt with. This initially resulted in being short-fused, losing sleep, and a general impatience for typical inconveniences. And I felt disappointed in my lack of ability to handle these things without a crutch. I didn't have a plan for working through this but I talked to people I trusted, I named my emotions, I focused on what I could control, and I wrote about my feelings. This didn't ease my desire to go for a run or to have a drink but it did help to process the uncomfortable feelings and reduce their impact until they subsided. 

But I know this time without running or drinking is temporary. We have four weeks until we meet our new little one and assuming goes well for me and the baby, questions remain: after the baby is born, where does that leave me with my cast of difficult emotions? How quickly will I retreat into the compulsion to chase away difficulty? Have I learned to separate outlets from outlet covers?

I Believe Her Too - Part 2

January 8^th, 2019

I wrote the first part of this post in October 2018 when Christine Ford testified against a man running for one of the highest positions in our political system. I didn’t initially publish this post for a variety of reasons: fear, vulnerability, and guilt. I understood that I was reliving previous experiences that filled me with fear. I understood that by posting this I was admitting things about my past that are hard to talk about and hard to remember and by publishing, I was inviting people to know those things about me and that made me feel vulnerable. It was the guilt that surfaced that surprised me. And at first I wasn’t sure what that was about. At times, I recognized the role I played in some of the situations I was in – but that’s not guilt, that’s self-blame. I can recall too many times that I didn’t believe what a friend told me about how they were treated or I mentally downplayed their emotional reaction to what they experienced. And I felt guilty. As I should. I haven’t always advocated for women and their safety and I felt guilty about that. As I should. I haven’t shown up where I needed to, when I needed to.

Fast forward to January, 2019 and the airing of “Surviving R. Kelly”, a documentary on Lifetime. The most blatant difference here from other cases of women and children being coerced, abused, and exploited points directly to the endemic treatment of girls and women of color. The collective “we” has not supported them, protected them, and defended them. In fact, the #metoo movement was started by a black woman in 2006 and was later hijacked by a white actress in 2017 demonstrating the systemic hoarding of power. The message for decades has been that black women and black girls are disposable.

Enough. Black women and girls are important.

This isn’t about our stories or our guilt but about doing the work. We showed up for the white women. This is a moment when black women and children victims of years of abuse have a chance to be heard, defended, and believed. As we watch this horrifying documentary unfold, we have an opportunity and a responsibility to show up and believe them too.

I Believe Her - Part 1

 October 1^st, 2018

13 years ago, I met a guy online and we picked a restaurant to meet at for the first time face-to-face. After we ordered, I politely stepped away and called my best friend to tell her this guy was who he said he was and seemed safe. 

3 years later I married him. Let me make this clearer: My FIRST interaction with my husband was an assessment to determine if he was likely to physically or sexually assault me or not. Not because he gave me any reason to think he would but because I experienced what happened when I assessed wrong. 

This past year, as Christine Ford testified against a man who violated her in the worst way and got away with it for decades, two big things happened: women everywhere had to relive the moments a man stole something from them, and many men started paying attention. I’ve lost count of the number of times in that week following her testimony when I couldn’t breathe, my throat closed, all of the muscles in my back tense, or my eyes filled with tears. Because I don’t want to remember, but I do. Because I’m angry. Because I don’t want to look at nearly every single woman and know this has happened to them too, but it has.

Watching the men in my life reeling from the events of this week, gradually but finally seeing the magnitude of objectification of and assault against women has been equally overwhelming. The moment other people recognize your reality doesn’t always bring a feeling of relief. For me, it was exhaustion from having to relive it in order for their recognition to come. It was anger that it’s taking so long for people to understand and pay attention. It was defeat in knowing that this recognition does not come with an end to the harassment and sexual assaults of women. 

My husband would describe our first interaction differently than I do - he was deciding if he wanted to date me. I was deciding if he was going to violate me. Two very different ways we encounter the world. 

Christine Ford did not win her case but she was heard. She did not overcome her attacker in a legal context but she took back her power and empowered many women to do the same. Like countless other women, despite what the headlines say, because we’ve been there, I believe her.

Apples

I have committed my life to helping others, as an educator and as a volunteer. In my volunteer work, I have spent several years working with the homeless population to provide educational services for children, safety for women and children victims of abuse, temporary housing while people look for work, and serving food in community kitchens for people living on the street or in shelters. This is not my occupation for compensation but it’s a key piece of my commitment and life’s work.

I share with you this extensive background to provide context for this story: 

Recently I was attending a professional conference in a large city on the west coast of the US. Our lunches were generously provided as part of the conference in the form of boxed meals. They were quite large and most people were not able to eat all of it. Many people left uneaten portions on the tables for someone else to help themselves - whole apples, unopened bags of chips, wrapped cookies - you get the idea.

Several hours later, much of the leftover food was still there. It’s hard for me to see perfectly good food go to waste when there are so many people in need. I was headed out to dinner so I decided I could gather up this food in my purse and give it to people that needed it as we walked along. I gathered about 6 apples, 4 granola bars, 2 suckers, and a bag of chips. It was heavy but I knew the load would lighten gradually but also quickly. 

No amount of good intention could have changed how this went. First, unless someone is holding a sign, it’s actually pretty tricky to pick out someone who is homeless and hungry. Attire is a terrible indicator of someone’s housing and hunger status. Most of my prior experience with homeless people who are hungry occurred in situations in which they were coming to me to provide a service. In this instance, I was attempting to seek them out. No biggie, I just narrowed my plan to people holding signs stating that they were hungry. 

The first man I saw with a sign asking for food, I walked over to him, smiled, and handed him an apple. He didn’t take the apple. Instead he laughed at me. For a moment, I was dumbfounded. He’s hungry. I’m offering food. What’s the problem? He made eye contact with me, offered a closed-lip smile, then gradually let his lips part to reveal that he had no teeth. Then he said with a laugh, “that’s not gonna work lady, I ain’t got no teeth. What’choo got in that bag I can suck on?” I was mortified but quickly offered him choices from the rest of what I had and he took a sucker and the chips. He smiled and said thanks and walked off. 

I put the apple back in my bag and walked back to my colleagues with a cloak of shame. I felt so proud to be the type of person who does kind things for other people but I missed the mark. I was approaching generosity through my lens, my idea of what someone needed, not adjusting my focus to pay attention to what the other person actually needed. My colleagues reassured me that anyone could make that mistake and I was simply trying to do something nice. This was especially startling for me given my background working with homeless people and specifically in the community kitchens, I know that people request special meals due to the condition of their teeth. I didn’t apply my experience, I didn’t pay attention to the need. 

I carried the apples around for hours. At one point, my friend suggested that I leave them somewhere clean and someone who wanted them would take them. And I did. Eventually. But first I need to carry them around for a bit. I need to feel the weight of my mistake, just for a few hours to help me reflect on what happened but also where this happens in other parts of my life - in what ways do I try I be helpful but fail to apply my prior knowledge or truly pay attention to what someone’s need is? 

I think about his experience often. It should’ve been obvious. But it wasn’t. I should’ve known better. But I didn’t. It was an excellent opportunity to learn about the way I see the world, the way I engage, and the tremendous room for growth I have. I’m grateful for this man for laughing and helping me understand. I get it; if I truly want to be helpful, I need to see through the lens of others, not my own. This applies to how we love others, how we teach children, how we approach issues of equity. We need to shift our focus and respond accordingly. Their lens. Not ours. 

Right or left?

Yet another school shooting in 2018....

This is not a right or left issue: NO ONE wants their child to go to school and never come home. No one wants to get the call that their child has been shot. No one wants to find out their child spent 4 hours crouched under his desk, afraid for his life.  

No one wants this, it’s not right or left. But your response, your action might fall right or left. How does your political stance contribute to or fight these violent occurrences? What solutions lie within your political views? What vote are you casting to protect your child? 

But there’s more, our political response isn’t enough. We need to closely examine our value systems and how we care for each other as humans. Our interactions with people are our preventative measures. Where can you lend your kindness? How are you taking care of your loved ones so they know how to cope when things get dark? 29 people so far, 45 days into this year, saw no other way out than to shoot innocent people. What are you doing to make sure the people in your life have a way out? It’s not just about preventing future shootings, it’s about love. Today. Because no one should have to go thru this, right or left. 

Honor what you have

“When you honor what you have, you’re honoring what I’ve lost.”

~Brené Brown, Daring Greatly

In the past 16 months I have lost 3 grandparents, my sister-in-law, my dog, and suffered a miscarriage. It would be impossible to experience this and not feel heavy and somber at times. It’s hard not to dwell on the loss and the noticeable voids in my life. And if I’m honest, sometimes it’s even harder not to envy what others have that I don’t. 

I’m endlessly grateful for your kind words, genuine hugs, thoughtful cards, and prayers during this difficult stretch. They have been so comforting and soothing. Some days, I’m nearly dependent on them to keep sight of the good when things seem so dark. 

If you can do all this for me, can you do one more thing? Honor what you have. And in doing so you can honor what I’ve lost. 

In the middle of the night when your baby cries for the 17th time and you just want to sleep, honor the opportunity to hold your baby as I would’ve liked to hold mine. When your dog chews something up or begs to go outside or needs to squeeze into the smallest space on the couch to be with you, honor that companionship and know how much I miss it. When your grandparent tells the same story for the 8th time, honor that history and know that I no longer have that reach into the past through my family tree. When you don’t see eye-to-eye with someone, when you don’t know how to help someone who needs it, when you don’t know how to forgive someone’s mistakes, honor that difficulty and know that in one relationship, I no longer have the chance to try. 

I know as you’re reading this, you’re thinking of your own loss. And I know you’re thinking of how much I still have. Some of which you don’t anymore. I’m right there with you. I know how much you have lost. I know how much your heart has broken in the last year, 2 years, 5 years. 

I see you. 

I promise to honor what I have, and in doing so, I promise to honor what you have lost. 

This week, I’m going to hold my 5yo a little tighter because I know his life is a gift in mine. I vow to call my mom and my dad. I’m going to tell my husband I love him and mean it. I’m going to invite my friends into my home and enjoy the companionship and memories we share. I’m going to snuggle my dog because I value her loyalty and presence in my life. 

I think we can do this for each other. I think that we can ease the ache of loss by really loving and embracing all that we have right now. 

So, here’s what I ask of you: share with me your successes and experiences and relationships. With you, I will celebrate all that you have and gratefully accept the honor you’re paying to what has been lost.