CHILDHOOD
If Disney Channel taught me anything growing up, it’s that I knew to anticipate my parent’s conflation of their previously failed and now second chance at a career or dream manifesting its way into my own life and I would certainly have to dramatically break free. All of those “it’s not my dream, dad, it’s yours” Zac Efron bullshit? Ya.
So if anyone wants to give me shit for enjoying the art of “performance”, please direct your attention to the talent show at Mary H. Matula Elementary school when I was in third grade where I sang “The Star Spangled Banner” in a fuzzy blue sweater and red velvet skirt, both from Limited Too. Beginning the performance in dedication to my grandfather, a 3 time war veteran whose career for the U.S. Army involves testifying to congress and intelligence briefings in the Pentagon. Accompanied by my grandmother, whose pianist and organ skills were utilized at virtually every religious congregation in the area as well as providing the orchestral production to the local theatre during musicals. Obviously, I fucking won. I’ve known how to emotionally manipulate a crowd my entire life. I think we can all agree that wasn’t MY idea, either. I had wanted to learn the dance from the end of The Lizzie McGuire movie that Hilary and Haylie Duff performed with my best friend Shelby but nooooooo, that wasn’t “talent show material”.
So sit back, keep your arms and legs inside the ride at all times, strap in, and enjoy the ride of this shit show.
Back to parents using their children to live vicariously through–Let’s consider “sports” as a whole. How many parents, my own included, view sports as an “investment” instead of a healthy outlet for the natural human behavior of “competition”. Fuck “functional fitness” as a concept in childhood.
Instead, we convince ourselves that children are just naturally predisposed to need so much fucking outlets for their aggression, focus, and drive that they WANT to be screamed at for 3 hours a day, 6 days a week in the pseudo-military, physique development training that is competitive gymnastics. I grew up in the fucking 90’s, too. My parents were riding HARD on that Olympics Team USA dream. Simone Biles was asked why she didn’t smile and she said “smiling doesn’t win gold medals” and people were like “oh that’s adorable, how cute” then a few months later we found out she’d been sexually molested by her trainer, along with hundreds of other athletes, for YEARS.
Gymnastics literally operates as a way to funnel children, but especially young women, out of the “general populace” and into excessive athletic competitions that essentially require you to use performance to justify abuse. We’re not like “oh shit, maybe this is a new method of child labor. There’s no way this is healthy.” Instead, we just sit there and go “Yuuuuuppp. Abuse and performing for love is the norm. It’ll be worth it. Gotta sacrifice everything if you actually want it”–without asking why the fuck we’re requiring children (and their parents) to realize you’re only THAT driven if you don’t have other outlets for creative and artistic expression as well as emotional catharcism.
Now, I bring this up because as I approach my 30’s, and the unsolicited advice from older men on Seeking Arrangements remind me that “my looks won’t last forever” (no shit, dude… that’s when I’ll rely more heavily on my MULTIPLE STEM DEGREES), I have hit a rather unfortunate realization that having once run 85 miles a week, and playing multiple sports a season for YEARS, and the sheer amount and brutality of CONTACT sports, including gymnastics and football, does not bode well for my long-term physical health in a for-profit healthcare system. I have put my body through HELL. I will likely need a double hip replacement before I’m even 40. Can’t wait.
Before quarantine, I was under the impression that I had a great body because of all the workouts. Now, after ~a year of limited physical activity (save yoga), I’ve realized it’s the cPTSD that keeps me in a state of hypervigilance and in constant fight or flight mode 24/7. Yippee!
… Ya’ll can laugh but I’d prefer to be transparent simply because of the unrealistic standards for women’s bodies in the media, the exploitation of the beauty (and plastic surgery) industries capitalizing off women’s insecurities without requiring anything even remotely resembling mental health care and utterly lacking consumer protections, and the desire for people in the USA to get a “quick fix” for everything, thinking “treatment” of various forms will be a “solution” (particularly for such insecurities).
Back to my childhood—
Let’s look at a few key moments in sporting, performance, and healthcare history that *likely* impacted the way I view the world:
When I was in kindergarten, I broke my foot for the first time by being pushed out into the fireman’s pole area on the playground, falling straight down (without holding onto the pole), and landing “Indian-style” (a VERY outdated term. Criss cross applesauce, crosslegged, etc) on the ground. I cried, and despite only being in kindergarten, learned a difficult life lesson which is that women’s pain will constantly be undermined and overlooked under the assumption they are being “dramatic” (a common trope in medicine, even). My teacher would not even let me call my mom. I had broken 3 bones and had to wait for the end of the school day.
Once in gymnastics, before I quit because I would literally come home crying, hated my coaches, and begged my mom to let me stop (I loved the workouts, just not the “ALL COMPETITION MODE ALL THE TIME”), I ran full speed at a vault, just failed to jump on the springboard, and completely annihilated myself at full speed. Could’ve easily broken a rib, had the wind knocked out of me, tried to go hug my mom who was seated with the other parents next to the runway, and instead got pushed back onto it, BY MY OWN MOTHER WHOSE COMFORT I WAS SEEKING, because “you’re gonna get DQ’ed”.
A few years later, on the first day of a 4 day horse competition at a location called “Fair Hill”–which hosts huge overnight eventing shows–one of the horses I was walking STOMPED on my foot. I believe (if I remember correctly) that this was not the same foot I had already broken. Nope! The opposite one. Luckily, I broke a few bones on this side too–even things out a little neurologically, ya know. Did my mom believe me? Nope. Not at all. I was told to “suck it up” because people were depending on me.
The conflation of sports with financial success, the ability to skirt capitalism and corporate working environments, and utilizing sports as a way of paying for what would otherwise be an unaffordable and inaccessible college is a dangerous game for children. Children are not seen as a decision brought into this world by two (sometimes more) loving parents who just want to provide a human with love and care.
Children themselves become investments. Property.
By the time middle school even came around, my parents were fucked. To nobody’s fault but their own. They had raised me to be a soldier. I performed for love and the necessity to compete ALL THE TIME and to be the best, or at least your best, ALL THE TIME was solidified. Who could blame them, though? I was good at everything. They were just funneling outlets for it to me left and right. It probably had something to do with my own creative-as-fuck mom stayed at home, raised me on a farm, and then I had the musculoskeletal development through gymnastics.
So what is the point that I’m getting at? I’m not “mad” at my parents. My sharing these stories is never with the intention of punishing them (at least not for my mom. Truthfully… I do not give a flying fuck about my biological father’s feelings.) It is, however, to reflect on the reality of the societal conditions I was raised in. Conditions that were and remain actively encouraged within the capitalist framework of our society with little to no well organized and developed social support programs.
I have to actively AVOID competition now. I had to LEARN how to empathize.
And when you’re raised by parents and BOTH of them were raised by family serving in World War II, one having a U.S. Army career and the other being NYPD law enforcement, you don’t really get a “soft” childhood. You get taught to be tough. Arguably, you’re doing the bare minimum of teaching–helping your children survive.
You teach them to excel. To win. As is the only acceptable outcome in the USA–particularly backed by generations of teachings regarding dominance in all forms–land, sea, space, olympic.
And I undeniably rose to the challenge.
But at what cost?
For years my competitive drive was flaunted. It was rewarded, positive reinforcement’s finest. I kept winning, at everything. I’d switch into and pick up a new sport as I got bored, or competition was limited in the other outlets. In truth, I was probably a bit of a terror. I KNOW I wasn’t always the nicest teammate. Granted, I was there to work. To be respectful. To commit. To honour that commitment. To prove my worth with every practice, game, match, competition, whatever.
And as long as I kept winning, my parents were doing something right. Their community success, their own value, resided in the way I “turned out”. Because fuck the concept of loving your children for whoever they actually are. For providing them enough emotional support, love, and quality time to actually be mentally balanced. They had to win, to earn, respect, love, and admiration at every step. They had to harness that drive, that conflict, that inner turmoil and channel it into competitive outlets because they had no control or ability to hold power within their home.
Side note–My own biological father is so fucking delusional over who I am that he actually believes I didn’t want him to get married. I honestly could not give two shits if he is married or not. I simply did not care to invest in a relationship with a stepmom or step siblings when I had and wanted ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with him. I also just couldn’t afford to fly out to his wedding, when he chose “Hawaii” for “the convenience of HER children”, when I was in grad school and had a combined total of $2,000 to support myself for rent and food after my tuition was paid. I worked for my apartment complex, had an etsy, and STILL struggled but sure let’s make it clear you didn’t think about and don’t care if your own daughter attends your wedding then call her “unreasonable” and a “brat”. I have worked during every vacation I’ve been on, had free lodging, couch surfed, etc. so I could still travel, but how unaware of the reality do you have to be to label your daughter as “emotionally manipulative”, beginning in middle school, just because she doesn’t like or respect the person you are and makes that clear.
For years I walked right past him, sitting glued to his computer screen or watching the same reruns of “A League of Our Own”, “Revenge of the Nerds” (which literally includes a rape scene he’d laugh at), and “The Sandlot” for hours when he came home from work, just to ran away ALL THE TIME. He literally never once realized I didn’t come back inside, or upstairs. He was nonexistent as a father for at least a decade of my life when I lived with him. He DID, however, show up to my sporting events. Ready to cheer me on and take all the credit for MY successes publicly. At my graduations, my friends have told me how he turned the conversation to himself, and to the many “sacrifices” he made for me over the years and how “proud” he was–while doing absolutely nothing to actually assist me in those achievements. Not even very basic or regular communication. It’s easy to sit there, cheering for and by someone when they’re winning. That isn’t what makes you a good parent. I do not need your applause.
For years, I was the recipient of public endorsement after public endorsement, only to be criticized, to analyze and review my mistakes, to be punished behind the scenes. My perfectionism is the product of the environment I was raised in. An environment that was undeniably unhealthy, but even though I am now tasked with a life journey of remembering those moments, of relearning a way to be “healthy”, of figuring out how to finally be comfortable accepting help (and even being able to ask for it). Of not even having biological familial support for that because my parents had children to fill a gap in their lives and marriage and relationship without understanding or comprehending the world they were raising those children in. Without trying to understand them, or their world, because it contradicts their own.
Since excellence was expected, it quickly lost its glamour. Trophies don’t mean shit when you win one every weekend. National merit awards are weightless. Academic scholarships and college offers piled up. I was rewarded by society for pretending like my inner turmoil and unhappiness didn’t exist. For escaping and finding mental peace for everything that could keep me away from home. Competition gave me that. But why did I need it?
I loved competing so much that I hated NOT competing my freshman year of college and set out determined to “actually” try (in track) so I could walk on to my collegiate team. I realized I had no interest in gymnastics again–my shoulder surgeries offered limited trust in the likelihood that I wouldn’t tear or break something again, but running was a feasible goal. After all, with enough time, anyone can systematically get better at it. It’s basic physiology, biomechanics. It’s cheap, free–you just lace up your shoes and go. It allowed me to reintegrate myself within the woods, exist in my natural state–free, moving, earthly.
I went from partying 6 nights a week and drinking alcohol for the first time one year to working my way up to an easy 85 miles a week of SOLO distance training around Chapel Hill completely self-motivated.
The endorphins kept me happy. My body was used to needing them in such high quantities after years of sports. Elle Woods was right–happy people don’t kill their husbands, or the other men who wrong them. They channel their frustration into physical performance and everything else just kind of melts away.
So what do we do in the USA, when levels of anxiety and depression surpass The Great Depression? When long working hours and the necessity to be productive 24/7 are driving hard working individuals to their deaths and they’re convinced it makes them more valuable than others they look down on (so it feels “worth it”) because they perceive one’s circumstances and opportunities to be the same without awareness. When 25-35% of Americans are inactive, yet many more lack the space, resources, money, and safety to feel secure in exercise? Did you know that for women (and any other sexual assault survivors), it often feels safer to be heavier in weight. You may be catcalled less. You might command less attention if you float subtly as a wallflower. You feel safer, harder to kidnap.
Why have we created an environment, a society, a country where people have to have marathon endurance of energy, of mental strength, just to feel valued, seen, and heard within society?
Why do we embrace an environment that makes you beg for worth, for love, for acceptance, and then wonder why it isn’t fulfilling?
Why do we then ridicule, ostracize, and beat down those with moments of clarity–those who look around and question “why”.
To what avail?
Why do we exhaust their fuel tanks and then berate them for being empty?
COLLEGIATE CAREER (15:25)
Part of the draw of sports was it offered my parents the opportunity to not have to pay for college. College got exorbitantly expensive. Both of my parents had scholarships, so they just anticipated that we would also and then they’d “figure out the rest”. They’d go on to take out loans (in our names), with money that never went to our own personal bank accounts, then set certain expectations for where and when our money would be given to us.
I had to run track, because otherwise I was required to get a job. My parents never let me work in high school, outside of the summers, and I’ve discussed how the financial coercion allowed me to remain in more than one unhealthy relationship–the allure of presents I could never afford on my own was too appealing to pass up or break up with.
Even the jobs I did get, my dad essentially forced me to take. I umpired beginning in middle school–his personal favorite, despite hating having to make the power calls, throwing adults out of 10U REC LEAGUE SOFTBALL GAMES WHEN I WAS 13 YEARS OLD. I hated bending over behind home plate as a crowd of boys from the ballpark watched behind me–clearly, awkwardly, and albeit somewhat innocently, fantasizing about me without connecting how physically uncomfortable I was inside. I didn’t really have a choice to care, though. I was expected to take the games (it was good money, there weren’t enough female umpires), I was going to be at the ballpark anyways (my dad was umping on other fields, we needed the money for all of our activities), and these were innocent boys who had childhood crushes on me–they weren’t expected to treat me with respect or fully abide by MY boundaries (a sentiment an unfortunate amount of men still embrace).
In college, he genuinely thought I’d enjoy working at the local baseball stadium, dancing on the dugouts in between innings. I never enjoyed being forced to be an entertainer. Even if I was naturally good at it. I didn’t and shouldn’t have needed a second job for $7.25 minimum wage, when in reality he just wanted an excuse to be at that fucking ball field. I was standing on dugouts in short little khaki shorts, dancing to “Sweet Caroline” and “Cotton Eyed Joe”, plastering a glowing smile across my face, laughing on cue, and ignoring the sexually suggestive commentary of the washed up 40 year olds clinging to their love of baseball who would stand in the dugout so they could get the best view of my ass–all things women are trained to do our whole lives. My father universally thinks everyone seeks out the same power and limelight that he craves would come easy to him, and in doing so, he created a Frankenstein’s monster a la me, the eldest daughter.
He no longer gets a choice in how or why or when I “perform” any longer.
So fuck ‘im.
Looking back, I find it hard, if not downright IMPOSSIBLE, to believe my biological father, a man who flaunts his intelligence, his financial prowess and awareness, and his ego, wouldn’t have been able to understand that, had he just divorced my mother when they stopped loving each other, we would’ve all gotten almost 100% of financial aid, because of her teacher salary, and I don’t really sympathize with anyone who uses the “but he paid for your college” trope because college was an expectation in my family and they specifically raised us knowing they would pay for it. I’m not going to apologize for being a national freak in high school and having the opportunity to literally go anywhere I wanted.
In reality, my father prevented the divorce until he was ready to leave the community (and had a reason to physically move away) so he could control his public image to the best of his ability. He tells anybody that will listen these days how my mom cheated on him. Mind you, that very boss at that baseball stadium once asked me if he and my friend’s mom with giant fake boobs, perfect hair, and a Marilyn Monroe style body ever had an affair. My boss was the older sister of one of my brother’s baseball teammates almost his ENTIRE life. The woman she referenced had overlapped on almost every team with my brother. My dad can go fuck himself about my mom being the reason the marriage didn’t work.
He also tells people I “faked my PTSD and car accident for attention”, which is conveniently his way of discrediting the validity of my claims lest they ever negatively impact him.
Women who are “hysterical” have historically been quite easy to keep submissive, subservient, quiet.
I have no interest in ever being one of them.
My parents never visited my siblings or I at school, outside of SAVE the rare holiday, or a sporting event. There were no “surprise” visits, or even care packages.
My brother, the eldest, went to the University of South Carolina and walked onto their baseball program, the same program that went back-to-back-to-back College World Series finals. They won back-to-back national championship titles. Half of his teammates were drafted into the MLB. He took batting practice with Bryce Harper when he visited his brother. He found money–he was technically a “student manager”, as even with 91 games a season, the majority of D1 NCAA baseball only uses one catcher and the bullpen catcher position worked out well for skirting NCAA rules about paying students and not “technically” expanding your roster. He found fame–athletes, especially National Championship baseball athletes, were celebrities on college campuses. He found support–my dad would visit him just to be able to go to the games, talk to him in the bullpen, share “the love of the game”. (My dad went to Embry Riddle, so even though he played AAA ball for the Yankees feeder team over the summer, he never had the opportunity to play in college.)
I never was able to earn that “official” roster spot, either, during my time at UNC, but the only time my dad DID visit my school was when I was running at track meets. Or for graduations. Otherwise, there was no reason to be there. To be supportive. It was an unnecessary hassle to see me.
Yet, I’m to blame for “the joy of achievement” being a fundamental pillar of my ENTJ mentality? You know children are shaped by their genetics and environment, right? Both of which have everything to do with my parents and nothing capable of being controlled by me?
Again, I don’t necessarily “blame” my family for this.
My parents both grew up under the context of military drafts, constant warfare, tension, and stress. Their fathers arguably could never fully take off their uniforms–how could you? Discipline comes naturally, and both of their own mothers were just as strict. They went to college, hours away from their parents, and travel wasn’t as feasible, affordable, or accessible. People wrote letters, they didn’t text. You sat in silence and learned how to survive on your own. How else were you expected to grow?
Teaching your children to know they can’t depend on you, emotionally, mentally, physically, and then wondering why they’re hyper independent shouldn’t be so confusing.
From a VERY young age, I was taught that my pain, my mind, my soul, would be ignored. In more ways than one.
I was taught to “suck it up”. To “move on”. In part, largely because there was no other option.
When I started therapy my junior year of college, after a horrendous break up that left me unable to cope or function with any resemblance to humanity, it might’ve been the first time in my life that I had support from someone, an adult, who just wanted to learn more about me. Who wanted to learn more about why I do the things I do–not to judge, not for ulterior motives (save maybe some curiosity and also money), but to support and encourage my growth. I had someone who looked at me when I revealed things who would cry and watch me struggle for the words I needed without pressuring me to hurry up and find them. Someone who cared to listen. It only took me 21 years, and I feel like I got there a lot quicker than most Americans (lol, competitive nature, remember). How sad is that.
I was desperate to make track work, even though I was forewarned and had my own nasty experience with the coaching staff. I hoped it would ease the financial burden I was to my parents. I hoped it would provide the structure and guidance I felt lost without. I wanted it to demonstrate my potential, my work ethic, my strength, mentally and physically, without requiring words. I never quite got the answers or validation from others that I sought, but I certainly found and prioritized myself over all of those miles. In truth, it didn’t end up mattering that the politics made me hate the formal premise of something I had learned to seek peace within, because I knew of the patterns of repetition, the mental clarity, the focus, the drive, that it took and that was enough.
SELF LOVE (24:13)
It makes me sad, in a way, how far humanity, particularly the bounds of “professionalism” within academia and the capitalist job industry, have skewed our purpose on this earth. Even the most kind hearted people worry about exposures over their public image. Exposures of seemingly innocuous human behavior well within the frame of “the norm” for our species–even if a particular conservative consensus portrays a fallacy of otherwise.
An old friend, who, if truth be told, was never really a “friend” to me (even if I thought they were my best friend for a few years) tried to blackmail me recently. In hindsight, and thanks to a reminder from my old therapist that “just because someone was a good friend in X context or Y year doesn’t mean they still benefit you”, it’s blatantly clear her own narcissism and “main character” syndrome has created an environment where she desperately grasps for control. I get it, though I don’t think I’ve ever particularly cared what people are saying about me, because I know my own integrity, character, and commitment to honor and honesty speaks far louder.
Naturally, she texted my biological mother a link to this blog, framing her interest as a “concern” for my well being and wanting to know how my mother intended to “handle” me, a 28 year old woman. She threw a few threats in (in the same sentences she’d claim she was trying to handle it “like an adult”) like whether she should make her own blog and tell the world that my boyfriend in undergrad once mistakenly told me he was “clean” even though he had NEVER been tested for STD’s ever (Kansas and North Carolina…get your sex education together fucking now) and I got chlamydia. IDK…call me crazy but it seems a little disingenuous for someone about to start a surgical residency to stalk the private blogs of someone who has blocked them on all forms of social media and then try to socially shame them for sexually transmitted infections. Particularly in this modern age of healthcare. You have failed part of your training if that is the case. (I mean, she did fail part of her training but the current standards for med students are ridiculously paced, though that’s a separate discussion).
…You’ve also failed the social norms of respecting any kind of boundaries. I’m allowed to reference the events in my life and people who shaped it and hold no allegiance to people who have sexually assaulted me when I shared a bed with them. I’m sure you thought I didn’t remember, since I never mentioned it and we remained friends, but you are a predator. And we don’t negotiate with terrorists over here in the U S of A baby. Kindly fuck off and out of my life and live your own without caring more about controlling your public perception than changing your private actions. Good luck.
Maybe that’s the hardest part for people to respect, or acknowledge…That those who you’ve interacted with do have their own stories–which might differ from you, or offer a striking contrast of perspective. But it seems ridiculous to expect them to be under an obligation of misplaced “loyalty” when you had none for them.
I suppose if you’re obsessed with control this doesn’t strike you as weird.
Personally, I’m not interested in power–I’m interested in the balance of it. I’m interested in the reciprocity of it. The fluidity and exchange of it. Mindful observation, communication, acknowledgment. There is power in knowledge, as Michelle Obama likes to remind us. Which is why the reciprocity of knowledge of my friends, the people in my life, matter most of all to me. I don’t want to be dominated by imbalances.
When you are motivated by serving others, it becomes so commonplace to put aside yourself and put the needs of others first that it takes a lot of time to re-learn this and not feel guilty for needing to express yourself in the way that you do. I’m reading “The Body Keeps the Score” and it’s incredibly validating about how I break down randomly crying in yoga, reminded of specific events with certain muscle activations, or how my own progress and recovery almost necessitates that I “shed” these events in ways that I feel are beneficial to creating conversation for a more important narrative.
It is freeing, to speak on it.
It is freeing, to allow myself to be who I am meant to be.
I think I put up with a lot of unhealthy behavior, both in this “friendship” specifically and my previous relationships of variety (familial, dating, etc.) because I grew up in an environment that taught me to have unconditional love towards those who abused me. Physically, mentally, and emotionally. I tried setting boundaries, asking for space and things I needed, and they were ignored, downplayed, or frankly dismissed without care. I was a CHILD. Why is it that the burden fell and continues to fall on me to “drive it home”.
I don’t want that kind of energy in my life any longer.
It’s cancerous, so to speak.
But to be who I’m meant to be, I also can’t hate myself or the events that got me here. I must speak on them, because they shaped me into who I am and trying to understand people, the community, life was my form of empathy and compassion when my abusers were calling ME the “narcissist” and “self involved”. Even after all of that, I’d forgive them because I loved them regardless. That’s not good, and that’s not healthy.
While on a walk with a good friend, someone I competed with on the Math team, who is a brilliant mind in STEM, I was reminded of the fact that when everything went wrong in my life, I clung to self love above all. Maybe that was my privilege. I was beautiful, skinny, blonde, and smart, but nowhere NEAR the “prettiest” (nor did I have the knack for fashion or the money) to be “popular”. I was athletic and good at any sport I wanted to try and was allowed to do (which I again contribute to hours of abusive coaching through muscular development). I was gifted in music, though I stopped publicly singing pretty early on because my brother would mock me for how much I loved it. I was smart at every subject, and loved to read and learn. I was enough, for myself. So when others mocked me, however true or false the words that they whispered or shared brazenly, I didn’t really care. I wish they wouldn’t. I didn’t enjoy it. But I knew it wasn’t a reflection of me. They had no meaning over who I was to myself, and that above all was the difference.
My family has lost power over me, namely because I no longer respect or require the love of people who were seemingly incapable of loving ME. I find it tragic and pathetic that a child was framed as the “difficult” one for questioning her surroundings and that her parents only stopped their abuse when I got smart enough to threaten to call CPS. And instead of asking yourself why your child thought they needed law enforcement to protect their physical environment, you branded them as “difficult”.
You said “every child runs away that young” when I was ~5 years old. Does every child pack a backpack after a particularly harsh disciplinary measure from their father, hide it in their closet, wait up ALL NIGHT and then sneak out in the early hours of the morning, crossing the dew covered grass barefoot, dragging my cat comforter, backpack slung over my shoulder, and DIABOLICALLY PLOT TO LEAVE WITH A DEFINITIVE PLAN? Then just LITERALLY NOT COME HOME FOR A WEEK until you’re forced to? Does every child not miss their family?
Maybe Disney’s Soul had it right and our personalities are decided for us long before we emerge into the physical realm.
Maybe to some, even my own father, I AM the “manipulative megalomaniac who is intensely opportunistic”… but that’s Earth’s problem.
Or, maybe I’m just honest.
Maybe my “weapons” of communication, my words, my writing are the way that I make sense of my world, because in reality they’ve been dismissed, for far too long.
I know the way I love myself can be matched because of the quality of my actual friendships.
My best friend from undergrad lived with me all four years. We shared a room for 2 of those, practically, and still held sleepovers in the same bed when we needed the companionship. (#SapphoAndHerFriend). When she was depressed, because hormonal irregularities in women fucking suck and it’s our actual biology and can we please teach it and get universal healthcare for christ’s sake, I’d clean her room for her, and she’d let me, knowing it made me happy to be helpful and she didn’t have the energy or time to prioritize it. Her family took me on every family vacation, I’ve gone to every wedding, beach weekend, or just casual hang outs because I just love to be in their presence. And she loves me for who I am. Who I actually am. Not who other people want me to be.
My sister told me she never doubted whether she wanted to go to college because she saw what my best friend and I had and “just wanted that”.
Of my two best gal friends from graduate school–one lives in Florida and I literally could just exist happily as her roommate for decades if she wasn’t destined to be a mom sooner rather than later. We didn’t LIKE to go entire days without talking to each other. The other one lives in Boston and has dated one of my best male friends and visiting them is like visiting home. She is the most incredible chef and it makes me hate the “chore” of cooking less and perceive it as an act of love and nutrition rather than just a way of integrating chemistry into health. They make me a better person, because they love me without expectation. They nurture my growth.
One of the people whose minds I value so much, but whose privacy I’ve also wanted to protect, goes out of his way to remind me that I have already accomplished so much. Even with the “failed” collegiate sports track (to my mother, whose legacy of a full ride D1 scholarship and 9th at Penn Relays was NOT going to be in my future), he would dismiss me undermining my accomplishments and say things like “psshhhh. Please. You’re basically an Olympian.” I thanked him the other day, after my biological mom passively mentioned to me “you haven’t even accomplished anything yet”, for reminding me that success is arbitrary and very subjective.
To me, “success” now means happiness.
And happiness means mental peace.
That aforementioned “joy in achievement” that ENTJs crave so desperately now means a wider range of things to me. Maybe it’s the romantic in me, for I am an artist at the root of it. Though I tend to also downplay THAT, because I’ve never taken formal art classes and don’t know proper technique or how to reference (but Van Gogh was also self taught so as long as I don’t take up the drink or cut my own ear off, I think I’m on the right path). Plus, writing is even more self deprecating and emotive than painting and since writing is in everything we do, and most people are capable of doing it, those who don’t publish their work in the same avenue, or get the insight of others prior to publishing, might downplay their significance. The old “if a tree falls in a forest and nobody is around, will it make a sound?” phrase? “If nobody is reading their scribbles, can they call themselves a “writer”?”
I am done performing.
My friends have shown me that I don’t need to.
I have shown them the same.
I do everything now for self love.
I have faith in myself, above all, and know I don’t need to tread along these roads alone, but I do need to make myself accessible to those who want to walk with me, for however long.
I want to allow myself to love–who I am with the understanding that I’m certainly not that “difficult”, I’m just “honest”. And it’s perfectly clear the USA struggles with accountability regarding the “truth.”
I want to allow myself to learn–in both the traditional academia sense and in unconventional routes, such as just seeing what my favorite humans can teach me just by learning about them. Mindful observation. Who they are, holistically.
I want to allow myself to grow–to plant myself where I know I’m happy, where I want to create and cultivate a life.
Maybe I’ve been watching a little bit too much “Game of Thrones”. Maybe Spring bringing warm currents of air, the flowers blossoming, and the leaves returning has happily coincided with my diabolical nature feeling extra refreshed. Maybe the culmination of my fully vaccinated status, embarking on air travel again, and moving plans are the momentous change signifying clarity, peace, and a new day. Signifying hope.
Or, maybe it’s just love.
My friend from the math team, let’s call him “Wade”, because I told him his hacker cybersecurity status gives me major “Wade” from Kim Possible vibes, asked how my car accident changed who I am. He’s known me pretty well since middle school, though as an introvert and nerd he fulfilled the “wallflower” role of the public school experience. I told him it changed nothing about “who” I am, PTSD and all, but it changed the way I prioritize life.
In a way, I feel like I died that night. I watched myself fly into the treeline, out of control, and fully accepted my death. I was content, in that moment. Ready for it.
All of this just seems like extra time.
It seems like the time I get to enjoy my life.
It’s the time I get to prioritize the people I love, and those I want to create a life with. Not the things that I want to do. Not the goals I want to achieve.
It’s time I get to create a life for me.
It might seem “illogical”, maybe it’ll derail my career, however temporarily, but I won’t regret it.
You don’t regret the things you do in love.
Because at the end of the day, there isn’t enough love in the world.
How can there ever be?
And living a life built on love, for yourself, for others, for your community, means acknowledging the things that come easy–the highs, the achievements, the stepping stones–but even more so the ladders that built you into who you are. The foundational concrete. The support beams. Reconstruction and remodeling. The carfax.
I know what “love” is because I know how to show it to the people in my life. Because it is what I show to everything in my life–my art, my animals, my friendships, my travel, my relationships, the sky and leaves and trees around me. Other people’s love might look different–communication is about learning how to speak each other’s language, and not everyone will try to learn yours, however badly you may wish it.
The great wrestling love of my life and I never worked out because, ultimately, it was me who couldn’t communicate. Which may seem crazy, given that I have essentially a personal diary on the internet freely available for anyone and everyone to read. (Arguably because I opened up to one guy and had to rush to make it seem like that wasn’t MONUMENTAL for me…) Yet, now I think even that was for a reason, even if I don’t understand it quite yet. Even if I never find out why. He was a communications major, too (typical of D1 athletes), but it’s why he knew my sleeping soundly with him was so huge, or why he knew I enjoyed watching him play video games and openly talking to his friends about me, or why he knew I loved him even though I couldn’t speak to him.
I couldn’t tell him that I called him after my car accident because no, I didn’t have anybody else to call. My mom yelled at me. My sister asked me if she could get back to her birthday dinner while I called her from the side of the road, trying to distract myself from reliving the crash over and over and over again in a seemingly parallel universe to my retinas intaking the actual scene unfolding before me in current time, while I sat there, dissociated, and realized I had moments before decided I was okay with being dead. That I didn’t think I’d be making that phone call…but she didn’t care. I was a distraction. An annoyance. A burden.
I couldn’t tell him that I loved being in his presence because, for seemingly one of the few people’s presences, ever, I felt mental peace. That him trusting his intuition and chasing me down in the dining hall my freshman year, jumping over tables to get to me, was the start of an invisible string weaving our tales and lives together harmoniously for years to come. I didn’t know how to voice to someone that I knew I loved them because I recognized what I felt I’d been denied my whole life. Someone chose me.
And when his dog, the love of his life, who ADORED me, and to this day, who I think he will always, always, ALWAYS wonder if he misses me (even if he’s plenty happy now), had tumors and surgery and needed to consider termination of treatment, I didn’t know how to explain that I knew how scared he was because I’d gone through it with several horses, now, including one that followed me around the pasture like a puppy.
And I don’t think I could be that person for him, even if I felt it, because I didn’t know how to communicate it. And I was scared to learn. Scared he’d judge me and leave me. I couldn’t tell him, someone who was just as worthy of undeniable love and support as I was, that I cared or why.
In truth, I don’t think I knew how to frame it, because the sad reality is that recognizing that was your experience sucks, for everyone involved.
How do you explain that to people?
I went on a date recently, which was nice enough, but I knew it wasn’t “it” because he kept APOLOGIZING to me when I explained who I was.
I’m not “sorry” for the things that happened to me. Do I wish that I had some different contexts? Sure. Do I make decisions now to prevent myself from being stuck in the same cycles of negativity? Sure. But being “sorry” for the things that made me who I am–someone I LOVE–is never going to be the answer.
To this day, I’ve only told one man a particular layer of depth regarding my familial life directly. Some of the ones I’ve formally dated have experienced it first hand, for sure. But only one has asked me to tell them. And when I asked him not to pity me, he told me that my telling him had the opposite effect. He said he thought higher of me, like I was stronger. It’s scary to believe him. To think that might actually be the case…especially from someone I love, someone I think already does (and arguably who I just want to) love me.
…He’s a dumb ass Virgo, though, so try as he might to “not let me in that easy” (his words, not mine), I’m like “bro, you associate me with everything you love. Figure it out. I will not beg for it. I deserve someone who can communicate their love for me without stipulation. Who chooses me every single time, whether it is convenient or not.” My friend from UF was once at a tailgate, about 2 years ago now, and told me this guy was there, sitting off to the side, by himself, looking down at his phone and smiling. He was texting me. It’s little moments like these, times I know he thinks of me, the depth in the moments in which he needs me, that I know he loves me. Even if he struggles with his own words.
I don’t know why, call it a premonition, but I just think everything is going to fall into place. I think I am exactly who I’m meant to be, for whatever I’m meant to do in this lifetime, because I’m committed to learning and growing along the way.
There is power in intelligence.
And there is confidence in the intellect of oneself.
How better, than to cultivate a life, devoted to loving oneself, one’s friends, one’s chosen family, so fiercely, passionately, and purposefully, that your love becomes that powerful? What else is there?