tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-52749351098102989972024-03-05T00:55:20.599-06:00I am InspiredThe day to day adventures of a girl who refused to give up her dream!Inspired Vanessahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11267599824573875688noreply@blogger.comBlogger156125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5274935109810298997.post-82592149839678364752023-05-07T20:50:00.002-05:002023-05-07T20:50:58.001-05:00Gaslight Theater in Letter formLast night I found an old letter from a former friend. We had a huge argument six years into our friendship and I had written her a letter after, outlining my pain and grievances towards her. The letter from her was a response.
I don't remember all the details of the incident but I will reconstruct. I'll call her "Mala"<br><
What happened the best I can piece together:<br>
Mala showed up unannounced at my house after leaving me a message on my answering machine (a message I didn't get because I was out all day). I had other plans and told her so. She then proceeded to get really angry with me and tell me it was my fault for not calling her back and telling her not to come. She berated me for "doing this to her". Even though she did it to herself. She made plans with my answering machine. Not with me. This escalated into an argument that I was so upset about that I wrote her a long letter telling her how I felt.
It wasn't the first time she had done this, but it wasn't frequent behavior. Usually I tolerated it, though it was bad form. I let her do it because she was pushy, bossy and presumptive and I allowed her to treat me like this to avoid fighting. I did like her company most times but from the get go, she was a difficult relationship to maintain.<br>A little history: she and I became friends at a difficult and transitional time in our lives and she love bombed me with presents and grand gestures, kindnesses and because of this and my history of growing up in an abused home (something we had in common) I was grateful she cared about me. It is a pattern in my life I have struggled to overcome, allowing abusive people in and my learned survival skill was to tolerate their cruelty.<br>
Abused kids often become either the repeated target or the bully, though that is just a rudimentary model, life is more complex than that. Mala became the bully in our relationship. She emulated her abuser and I reacted the same way I did when I was abused growing up. <br>
I recognized it but also I didn't. I had a blind spot when it came to my friendships with women. As crazy as it sounds, I didn't think of it as abusive because she wasn't hitting me. I brushed off the verbal and emotional abuse and told myself we were just as close as family and fights were normal. To be clear, the way she treated me was not normal or acceptable. She would push and verbally abuse and cut me down and I would take it and be silently upset. But then I would reach my limit with her and tell her off. And be honest about how her cruelty made me feel. And I would pour out my feelings in an angry but truthful letter.<br>
Then, she would gaslight me.<br><br
Years later, I see the gaslighting. I tell her I am tired of her criticism and she tells me I'm too sensitive. She doesn't take responsibility for anything she did and she fake apologizes, then tries to make it my fault.
"If you had called me back" Mala says<br>
"You probably got the message but didn't want to say you had other plans so pretended you didn't get the message." Makes you wonder what reality she lived in that she thinks I would set her up, but why would she proceed, knowing I haven't said "Sure, come over."<br>
Instead, she manufactures that I won't mind because she's done it before. Then becomes furious with me because I'm not amenable to her presumptions. <br>
It took a long time for me to end the friendship and this letter, this gaslighting piece of nasty abuse makes me wish I had kicked her to the curb years before I did.<br><br>As I recall, I stopped speaking to her for about six months after this bullshit, but then she would call me and cry and tell me how much she loved me and promise to try to change, which she never did.<br>
She even told me in the letter that she wasn't going to change. I tell her I am tired of her belittling me and she tells me this is my perception of myself. Ugh.
What stuck out to me is her utter denial of responsibility, her refusal to recognize my hurt and pain, and the way she turned it all around to make it my fault. Classic gaslighting. I see it all so clearly now. I hate that I wasted years allowing her to hurt me. But I rejoice for all the years without her.<br>
Recently I saw her at a reunion of sorts, a mutual friend had returned to town. I didn't know she'd be there, but it was fine that she was. I decided to speak to her, you know, we're grown ups. And we had a nice talk. I told her I was sorry to hear she lost a beloved parent and she said the same to me. I don't feel a heap of bitterness towards her but the letter brought up a lot of feelings.<br>
Truth is, we ended our friendship as maturely as we could. We ended it mutually. I told her I thought it was best we not speak any more and she agreed. We had wrung one another out and it was over.<br>In the end, I wished her well and she said the same.<br>
The last time I spoke to Mala, her narcissism was on full display.<br>
She said "We just grew apart" and I left that statement alone.<br>
It wasn't true. I left an abusive relationship and part of me wanted to remind her of that. But I let it go. I kept the peace. I didn't hug her when she walked away, which is what we always used to do. It felt weird but right. This was not me taking her back. This was another piece of closure. And that was great, til I found the letter. She's not even in my life and can piss me off from the past. But you know, that just means I cared, and it's okay to have loved a friend deeply. It's also more than okay that she is gone from my life.<br>
I lament that I didn't have the knowlege, therapy and vocabulary to tell her what I should have much sooner and I struggle to make peace with that.<br>I realized recently that I tolerated her bullshit because that is how I had learned how to survive abuse.<br><br>
So, I'm going to try and take a deep breath and let it go. I know who she is, she showed me. I'm not sure why I'm still so mad. Sometimes there is no peace in knowing I was right when I ended the frienship, it's just another sad place in my heart.Inspired Vanessahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11267599824573875688noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5274935109810298997.post-38353758503998363432018-08-03T15:36:00.000-05:002018-08-03T15:36:00.835-05:00The day I was a bully<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br />
</div>By the time I was eight, I had lived in about five different places and changed schools three times. Being the new kid was not easy and I had coped by just staying in my corner of the playground and trying not to bother anyone. I'd been jeered at and made fun of and generally bullied and pushed. My response had pretty much been to run and hide. I had no real voice. And I didn't really have any friends, I had sort of tried to make friends but it hadn't worked out. I was too scared, too shy, too weird.<br />
My younger brother and I were spending the summer at yet another new place in England, this time kind of out in the country in a little town called Sunningwell. It was a beautiful summer for once and I was walking around with my younger brother, just checking out everything.<br />
He and I spotted a neighborhood girl, the first kid I had seen at all and I can't say what got into me, but it wasn't like I hadn't had the worst examples to follow. My family was a family of people who teased and it wasn't in a nice way. My uncle on my mom's side was merciless, he loved to make me cry. I don't know what it was, that day just walking with my brother, I said "Let's be mean to her."<br />
And we began to yell "Stupid fat pig" at this innocent girl walking her dog. We chased her and taunted her and I could see in her face that she was terrified. She ran like I did every time I had been bullied and terrified. We never caught up with her or did her any physical harm, but we certainly inflicted damage. And I had gotten my little brother to go along with me because two against one is worse.<br />
Then, we went home and had dinner.<br />
And I was sick all night.<br />
I couldn't believe I had done that. Me. Was this who I was?<br />
I tossed and turned about it all night. I didn't tell my mother what happened.<br />
And the shame began to creep in and it sat with me.<br />
I was this little girl, she was me, how could I be so cruel on a whim? I hated myself in that moment and I knew I deserved to hate myself.<br />
The next day, I saw this girl at the top of the hill. I was by myself, my little brother had gone to do other things. She locked eyes with me and I could see she was afraid. She started running.<br />
I started chasing her. "Wait! Please! I'm sorry!"<br />
And miraculously, she stopped. And let me apologize to her.<br />
I told her everything. How I had never been that mean to anyone before and I didn't even know why- was I trying it on? Did I just want to see what it would be like? I don't know. But I knew from that moment that I didn't want to be that girl who hurt other people. <br />
So, I told her I was sorry and I meant it and I promised her I would never bother her again and I asked her to forgive me.<br />
And, somehow, this little girl smiled the biggest smile and just forgave me. Just like that. And then she did something even more astonishing, she invited me to her house to play.<br />
And I went and we had the best time. She was my first real friend and we spent every day of that glorious summer exploring and playing with dolls and walking her little Yorkshire terrier and being shooed outside by the adults when we got too loud. And reading and sharing comic books.<br />
I spent two summers being best friends with her. Her name was Sarah and I have no idea where she is now, but I'm grateful she forgave me and taught me how to be a friend. <br />
Inspired Vanessahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11267599824573875688noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5274935109810298997.post-77909126526365194932018-06-19T19:00:00.003-05:002018-06-19T19:18:08.762-05:00Adventures in Travel: Things don't go as planned<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br />
</div>Two days ago, we dropped off our daughter for two weeks at Girl Scout camp and got on a bus to Chicago. At which point in the bus station, I have a pretty significant marital spat with my husband which almost involves me telling him to stay behind in St. Louis because I'm pretty mad.<br />
But after the first three hours of the journey and not talking, we manage to make up enough to decide to try to have a good time. We check into our pretty cool hotel downtown and have dinner and a swim. We had all day the next day to spend in downtown Chicago. After breakfast, we head for Navy Pier and almost make it to the walkway when I wipe out on the sidewalk, turning and dislocating my ankle.<br />
I didn't notice for about ten minutes that my phone had flown out of my pocket. I crawled out of the hot sun around the corner to the shady area where I felt so sick, I lay on the sidewalk and just cried. When I noticed my phone was missing, John went around the corner to look for it and it was gone.<br />
I immediately started cussing out the imaginary "piece of shit" who stole my phone. Now I had to go to Urgent care and the phone store! I managed to limp back to the hotel lobby and put my foot up on the couch. John got me some ice and brought me my iPad so I could activate "find my iPhone"<br />
We noticed it had been carried across the street to the Ohio St beach area and there it was. I cussed out the thief some more. Then I said, hey, John, send a text that says "Return this phone to W hotel for a reward" and see if they bring it back. <br />
I then shut down the phone and put it in Lost Mode with John's number on it. John went to Walgreens to get me some ankle wrap and I sat on the couch icing my ankle. He returned with my phone. Apparently a nice family had found it and intended to turn it into the phone store but went to the beach first. As soon as they saw the Lost Phone message, they called John and he met them at the entrance to the tunnel. He offered them a reward but they refused to take it.<br />
First lesson of the day: jumping to the worst conclusions about who had my phone. I wonder why we always go to the worst scenario. I was pretty grateful for the return of the phone. I thought about the phones I return to my Uber passengers and am grateful that I seemed to have gotten some good phone karma. But it bothered me that instead of being hopeful about who had the phone, I had been hateful and angry. I had been all "what a piece of shit" to steal my phone"<br />
My next stop was getting an uber to Urgent Care. Fortunately, my ankle is not broken but I did do significant soft tissue damage given the dislocation. They gave me a gel cast and crutches.<br />
The doctor told me to stay off it and rest it up.<br />
Me: does not tell her I am going to London.<br />
I thought of my mom going to London with a broken arm about eight years ago. I had gone to New York with her for four days to help her get through the first part of her trip and then put her on a plane to London. She never once thought about canceling her trip. Neither did I, frankly.<br />
We took an Uber to the Blue Line and John helped me down the stairs with my luggage and said goodbye. I sent the crutches back to St. Louis with him - I simply couldn't manage them and my bags. He said "Can't I just donate them?" I said "No way, we already bought them, and besides, I'm sure I will need them as a theater prop." Yeah, it's an illness. So he took them back to St. Louis with him.<br />
When I arrived at the airport, I immediately asked for assistance and they brought me a wheelchair. Part of me was thinking- but I can limp... but the other part of me was like- don't act like that, you aren't taking a wheelchair away from anyone, there is enough for everyone, you are legitimately in need of assistance. It's hard because I want to be the one helping someone else but sometimes I need help, too.<br />
And my second lesson in humility was having mobility issues and realizing what goes with it. You have to have a lot of patience because you're relying on other people to do things for you.<br />
So, yes, you do get to board the plane first, but that evens out because you are pretty much the last one to get off, and after that, you have to wait for a chair. There were 33 wheelchairs on that plane. So, pretty much no one was letting mobility issues stop them from going to London.<br />
I can still walk, albeit very slowly. I managed to get on the underground and get to my flat okay. Fortunately the Underground station is very close to my flat and I didn't have to change stations. I hope that my ankle gets to feeling better, I am going to try not to do to much. I was mourning not getting my 20.000 steps of exercise in from walking through the airport but I am grateful to all the staff who helped me. <br />
And I suppose I am also grateful to be overcoming obstacles. Things don't go as planned. You have to overcome things, or get through them. I try to be positive about it. I did have a wash of depression as I had to manage the fact that we had a lousy day because I fell and I never made it to the beach and we didn't walk around Chicago at all. And we wasted time fighting.<br />
I have a lot to be grateful for. The plane landed and it was an absolutely gorgeous warm, sunny beautiful day in London. Seventy three degrees. A rarity in the land of rain. A family that cared enough to return a lost phone. A husband who went out of his way to take care of me when I was injured. A flat in London to rest my bones in. So, I'm sore, but I'm here and I am making the best of it when things don't go as planned.<br />
Inspired Vanessahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11267599824573875688noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5274935109810298997.post-49680621077222914622018-05-06T15:21:00.003-05:002018-05-06T15:21:41.672-05:00Best Gay friend<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br />
</div>Lots of us hetero girls start out with crushes on our best gay friend. I was no exception. I had a massive crush on my friend Jon but it didn't outlast the friendship. In fact I knew it was silly and ill advised and it was just a phase I got over. I was never upset he put me in the friend zone- it was as it should be. Jon also had a crush on my boyfriend at the time which made things interesting, it was also something I was not overly worried about. We all just knew where things were because we were painfully honest about all of it.<br />
In spite and maybe because of our crushes, we managed to form a tight friendship that stood the test of all the ugly things we were going through as teenagers.<br />
I met Jon at Rocky Horror, he played Frank though he was about as wrong physically for the role as he could be. It didn't matter. We loved him so. And he was the most fun. One whole summer, we spent every day together, going to the drive in, hanging out at the airport, walking the mall. And in the winter, his parents threw him out of the house he lived in. His dad never accepted that his son was gay.<br />
Jon got a car with no plates on it and lived in it that winter, along with my boyfriend. He would drive to pick me up every day and we would just spend the day together just doing whatever teenagers do. Hanging out in the central west end, ordering coffee and soda and taking up a booth all day long. At night, they would take me home late and I would sleep in my bed while they would find a place to park where they wouldn't be bothered.<br />
We spent the days in deep conversation about all the things we cared about and wanted to be. We talked about stupid things, about important things. About growing up with abusive fathers.<br />
For a while, Jon shared an apartment with a girl down on the south side and we all ended up crashing there. I ran away for a few months and we all lived there til we got kicked out. <br />
My best memory was planning our birthdays together. Jon's birthday was May 6 and mine is May 12. I was turning 16 and he was turning 17 so we planned a party at my house. I took the bus to Clayton one day and bought this elaborate cake at Lake Forest Bakery.<br />
Half of it said "Happy birthday Vanessa - sweet sixteen "<br />
His half said "Happy birthday Jon-- 17 BS 4711"<br />
which was a kind of a sideways reference to the tattoo Tim Curry had when he played Frank.<br />
My mom was not happy about the rowdy party that followed with spiked punch and loud friends. But we had fun and it was over before midnight because we all went to Rocky.<br />
When I was 17, I moved in with my boyfriend (it didn't end well but that is another story) and somehow, we lost touch with Jon. I got pregnant before the end of the year and once I had the baby, I pretty much was abandoned by most of my friends. With Jon, I just don't know what happened. Sometimes we are close for a long time and then things change.<br />
He was going through his own struggle. I spent two years of my life with him as one of my best friends. And at some point I found out he had AIDS and that he had died. This was long after I had gone looking for him and had failed to find him. This was one of those rumors, but it is probably true.<br />
During the times that Jon got repeatedly kicked out of his house, he had been making money by being a male prostitute. There was always some gross guy to be serviced in the park back then, and it was pretty much the only way as no one wanted to hire him. Jon was a good kid. I wonder who he would have grown up to be and who he would have been today. <br />
I still miss him in that wistful way and I never forget his birthday, which is today. Happy birthday, Jon. I still love you.<br />
Inspired Vanessahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11267599824573875688noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5274935109810298997.post-8600470441942293712018-03-01T11:48:00.001-06:002018-05-06T15:21:52.060-05:00The Price of Gold<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br />
</div>When I saw Ben across the room of a crowded bar, my heart jumped a little bit. He was more than just a little good looking and he was looking at me, too. I know people say if you don't want to date an alcoholic, don't pick up guys at bars but it didn't seem to matter where I met guys, they usually had a love affair with alcohol. But he had those dark brown eyes and a beautiful shock of black hair and I couldn't look away from him. <br />
I don't know what it was about them, these guys with their deep, dark tortured souls, but it was one of those patterns in my life I would seek therapy a few years later to figure out. But at that moment, he could have been anyone. He could have been that guy who went out once a week and just had a few beers. The night was full of possibility.<br />
After successfully looking at him across the room enough times, he came over to talk to me. And we had this really nice talk that ended up outside in the warm September night. He told me what he did for a living and showed me his pretty car and then asked if I wanted to go out with him some time. He told me repeatedly that I seemed like a nice girl and what was I doing at a bar.<br />
That's the kind of thing I would learn later, after countless hours of therapy, was a red flag. There were lots of little red flags, I would both pay attention to and ignore because he was so good looking and so charming and I just wanted to kiss him.<br />
He asked me for my phone number and I gave it to him, then surprisingly, he confessed "I have a girlfriend, though. Is that a problem?"<br />
My head whipped around quickly. "Of course it's a problem."<br />
"What do you mean?" He asked with lazy confidence.<br />
"It means I don't date guys with girlfriends. I'm not some chick you can have on the side. If you break up with her, call me, otherwise, lose my phone number, I don't want to hear from you."<br />
And I walked away. Frankly, I was super pissed off. Ben had led me on, basically lied to me. I was furious and disappointed. I hadn't liked a guy in a long time and it made me sad and angry. Still, I hadn't even kissed him. I had walked away with my dignity and my pride and kept my standards.<br />
Two weeks later, he called me. I had put him out of my mind so much that I barely remembered who he was but he told me that he hadn't been able to stop thinking about me. He said "I broke up with her, I finally did it. Will you please go out with me now?"<br />
I remember blushing on the phone and being pleased and flattered. He broke up with her for me? Wow. I could barely even process it, and I said yes faster than I should have. I didn't even think about it. Part of me was terrified to get involved with him and part of me exhilarated. It's one of those things that I jumped into. We got intensely involved very fast.<br />
On our first date, I met him downtown, he had rented a fancy hotel room and was throwing money around. At the hotel, I said "So, here's the thing. I just don't sleep with guys on the first date, so if you're expecting that because you have a hotel room, I can just go home now and save you the trouble."<br />
But he assured me that was not it. At that point he confessed, he had just moved back in with his parents and just wanted a night out. I'm sure he wouldn't have turned down sex on the first date but he never even was overly bothered by my refusal. To be honest, he behaved really honorably. He never pressured me for sex or made me feel uncomfortable or unsafe. He was pretty awesome. But over the course of the evening, he did get pretty drunk. <br />
He told me to park in the hotel garage and he would pay for my parking at the end of the night. After a whole night of bar hopping, we ended up back at his room and there was some pretty intense making out but no pressure to go any further. He took his gold necklace off and put it around my neck. <br />
"I like you so much, I just want you to have it." He said.<br />
It was sweet and touching.<br />
The night got very late and he passed out. I looked at my watch and knew I had to get home. It was almost five in the morning. I tried to wake him to tell him I was leaving and get the money for the parking garage but he wouldn't wake up. <br />
There was cash all over the room, cash that had fallen out of his pocket, his wallet was bulging. Part of me thought I should just take it, he had promised me the cash for the parking. He probably had no idea how much money he had spent that evening and wouldn't miss a twenty. But I found I couldn't do it. I just couldn't take that money without him handing it to me, it felt wrong. I had about three dollars on me. That was it. I felt pretty stupid, but I had to get home. So, I left. I did the walk of shame out of that hotel in my pretty black dress and sexy boots and went down to the parking garage to get my car.<br />
When I approached the gate, I felt the guy looking at me like I was a prostitute.<br />
I explained to him that I only had $3 and could he please take that and let me out. I told him the guy had said he would pay for parking but passed out. The parking attendant looked me up and down. I felt truly pathetic. He took pity on me and lifted the gate. He must have thought I was the worst prostitute ever, couldn't even get paid.<br />
The next afternoon, Ben called me to tell me he had just gotten home. He was soft spoken and romantic and asked when he could see me again. I was excited about seeing him again.<br />
Then, he asked me "So, this is kind of embarrassing but I have to ask..."<br />
"What is it?" I said "You can ask me anything!"<br />
"Did you... I woke up this morning and my necklace was missing. Did you take it?"<br />
I sat there for a moment, just stunned.<br />
"Did I take your necklace?"<br />
"Yeah...I'm not mad or anything, I just kind of need it back."<br />
I said "So, when you woke up, did you see all that cash lying around your room?"<br />
He said "Yeah, I guess it was pretty messy."<br />
"Yep," I said. "Looked like your whole paycheck was just lying around. Must have been a few hundred dollars, I don't know, I didn't count it. I just left it there. I mean, I could have robbed you blind and you never would have known it, you were passed out cold."<br />
I could not repeat to him the humiliation of the parking garage incident. Could not. It was still burning in my cheeks every time I thought of it.<br />
"You took that necklace off and put it on me and told me I could have it. But you can have it back if you want it."<br />
He hesitated. "I don't remember giving it to you."<br />
I assured him it was fine if he wanted it back. I didn't even like the stupid thing, in fact I really had no desire for it now.<br />
"I would be fine giving it back to you."<br />
"No, it's okay. I'm just glad you didn't steal from me. I guess if I gave it to you, and you want to keep it..."<br />
"I don't."<br />
"Why? It's real gold."<br />
I had no idea how to explain to him that the worth of the necklace had been destroyed by his accusation. That the worth of the necklace had never been about the price he had paid but the way he had felt about us that night. <br />
In the end, I gave it back so that it wouldn't sit between us like a seed of doubt. But I kinda wish I had kept it, just on principle.<br />
Inspired Vanessahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11267599824573875688noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5274935109810298997.post-24622180421891515332018-01-16T15:06:00.001-06:002018-01-16T15:06:55.030-06:00Funeral for a Friend<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br />
</div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br />
</div>When I was thirteen years old, I met this guy I couldn't put in a nice category. His first name was David but we called him by his last name, which I won't use here. At thirteen, I was fully hitting puberty, my level of deep thoughts was way beyond that of any peers my age and I was just beginning to fully rebel.<br />
I had decided that my body was my own. I was feeling the full autonomy of myself. I was in full on hatred of my controlling paternal figure and much to my delight and chagrin, I was becoming attractive to males ready to exploit me.<br />
David fit neatly into none of these categories. He was about five years older than me, at that age, kind of a big deal. And I didn't like him very much. He was always sarcastic and mean to pretty much everyone.<br />
David held the spotlight at the Varsity during the Rocky Horror Picture Show.. He stood up on the armrests of the seats and held the spotlight on all of the performers so the audience could see us. I have no idea why he did this. It's a totally thankless thing to do. There's no glory in it, but he did it every single weekend pretty much without fail.<br />
I was a pretty shy kid, so I did more listening than talking but hanging out with this crowd was making me more talkative and bringing me out of my shell. I can remember pretty clearly the distrust I had for David. I was wary of him and stayed out of his way and just regularly assumed he didn't like me.<br />
At some point, I started getting to go to Denny's with the rest of the group if I could get a ride there and back home again. I was often pretty reckless and impulsive about getting a ride. I would pretty much take a ride from almost anyone. This caused trouble for me more than once. It was the reason why I accepted a ride from David the first time. I didn't necessarily trust him but I knew him. And he gave rides to lots of the young ones who went to Rocky.<br />
I remember thinking, damn, that's nice of him, but also out of character for who I thought he was. He said such mean, sarcastic things. He made fun of me all the time. After a pretty awful experience one night when a guy who drove me home pretty much demanded sex from me, I started accepting rides from David most of the time.<br />
He was not the least bit interested in me sexually and I wasn't in him either. Most of the boys I knew back then who weren't gay either wanted to control me or fuck me and David wanted neither one of these things. I was never sure if we were friends because he kept me at arms length, but as I look back on it now, he was very careful who he became close to. And he was fully capable of not keeping your secrets and stabbing you in the back at will. I didn't trust him. I watched him take information given to him in confidence and spread it around in the most unkind way.<br />
So- what was it about him? I wish I knew. Somewhere along the way with all those rides home, often I was the last person dropped off and I did talk to him about my life. Granted, I told him those confidences that I did not care if they made the rounds of our tight knit little crowd of misfits. Sometimes, he would just ask me a lot of questions and I would candidly answer. I did not think he cared very much about me, it never seemed like it.<br />
But he was always keeping me safe, even when I didn't know it.<br />
As friendships do, ours grew. It was an odd, misfit sort of relationship but we were from an odd, misfit sort of community. I remember putting together odd clues that he did, in fact, like me as a person. I remember thinking it odd that he would give us kids a ride home when he practiced such disdain for humanity in general. David just seemed to hate everyone. I watched him closely because he was not an easy person to figure out and I loved a challenge. It's the writer in me, I guess, I know too well that what we are putting out there is not necessarily who we are. And duality was not some thing we made up.<br />
I could feel myself as a different person when I was around my friends at Rocky-- different than who I was when I was at school and different than I was when I was at home with my family. In a way, I felt my most authentic self at Rocky but this was not true of everyone there.<br />
It had not escaped my notice that lots of people were putting on a show while crying for acceptance.<br />
David was definitely putting on a show and I am quite sure now, from this distance, that he was trying to figure out who he was but back then, he had me convinced he knew who he was and that he could see everyone else and you know, for the most part, I believe that was genuine. I know this guy, he was an old soul in many ways and he was carrying a wisdom lots of people his age had no idea about.<br />
But back then, I remember getting a phone call from him one day.<br />
"Did anyone invite you to see the Exorcist with us?" he said<br />
"No."<br />
"They must have forgot. I guess you'll need a ride, though."<br />
"Yeah... I..."<br />
"I'll pick you up at 7, be ready."<br />
And that was how it went. He picked up four of us. <br />
It has not escaped my attention that he was the unofficial leader of our little group, and you were in or out sometimes on his whim. Though no one was ever asked to leave Rocky, David could make your life miserable. David did not ask to lead us, but he commanded so much anyway. <br />
I think he tried to discourage me from being there many times, but I was persistent enough to stick it out and I feel like it was this day when he made me part of things. It was after this day when I was invited to everything where before I was not always part of it. I think he admired that I didn't wait for permission. In a way, we appreciated each other's rebellions. He recognized a stubbornness in me and my ability to both avoid him and look him in the eye. In some way, the whole group was vying for his acceptance and I have no idea when he figured out I didn't care if I was accepted or not. I was asserting my right to be there and acceptance was merely secondary.<br />
But it was this time that I began to notice David watching out for me. Quietly, behind the scenes, he was revealing he gave a damn. And when he realized I was about to start actually dating, it became the topic of our rides home. He wanted to know who I was interested in and why.<br />
He would poke at me with intrusive questions making me look deeper into everyone I might like.<br />
"Yeah, but do you really think that guy deserves your time? Isn't he just treating you like shit?"<br />
And I would protest quietly about what I could put up with and he would say "That guy is a piece of shit."<br />
And I would say "Isn't he your friend?"<br />
And he would respond "Yeah, but he's a piece of shit, I hope you seriously don't date him."<br />
David was not ever in love with me and had no attraction for me. He neither wanted to fuck me or control me. He wasn't gay. He was one of those rare males who was interested in who I was. For reasons that confused me. He didn't want to be some authoritarian person in my life. He didn't want to date me. I wondered what box to put him in. I couldn't wholly figure him out because he was determined I not know him, but what he didn't realize is his effort to know me was revealing it itself to me.<br />
I'm finding it impossible to give a complete sense of him here, but I want to write down my best memories of him.<br />
David was the worst person at crossing the street. In front of the Varsity, he would walk out in front of an oncoming car and hold up his hand for the car to stop. Inevitably, it would stop, but I used to caution him that he was going to get hit by a car someday and he laughed at me. "They'll stop." he said. "They always stop." He said this with a casual authority and an arrogance that always worried me. He was unconcerned with his mortality and that bothered me. Though as a side note, he was not a reckless or careless driver himself, I always felt safe with him. And I never felt he put anyone at risk but himself.<br />
When I was sixteen, I ran away from home several times. My father was quite abusive and I wanted out. I didn't tell David about this but he found out one night when my mother came looking for me at the Varsity. My friends rallied and managed to sneak me out the back door and escape once again. This whole evening was regarded as a major crisis and a bunch of us ended up at David's house in Clayton, I don't even remember how. We had never been there before and this was not something we had done on any regular basis. His parents were not reported to be that supportive of what he was doing. There were rumors around him constantly. That he was some rich kid, that he was unhappy. I wish I had known more of him but he kept his life cloaked in secrecy and you were as likely to get the truth as you were to get a complete fabrication from him. It amused him to lie about stuff and see how far he could take it. It also amused him to toy with people like me.<br />
I remember him recording private phone conversations and then playing them for the whole group as part of some elaborate joke. I hated that part. He could be such an asshole.<br />
This particular night, he called me into a side room by myself and started lecturing me about how I was screwing up my future. He pressed me to open up to him and I wouldn't. I was scared and I didn't trust him. The whole time he kept telling me how much promise I had and how smart I was and how I could bear it for a couple more years. That I would be able to get out after that but if I screwed this up, it was going to mess up the rest of my life. I broke down a little and talked to him a little. He was so intense that night. I had never seen him like that. I had never seen him take care of anyone like that. Yet of course he did, I just didn't know about it. Underneath that sarcastic asshole was a real person who showed he cared. But in the back of my head, I was wondering if I was being tape recorded for my humiliation later. I wasn't, though.<br />
Probably the most real he ever was with me was on that night. What was going on was genuine.<br />
Sadly, I did not listen to him. His effort to save me from myself and my own worst impulses did not work. I wish I had listened to him, he was more right than I let him believe. It was the last time he intervened.<br />
David hated my boyfriend at the time. For every good reason there was. Shortly after this, David had a private New Years eve party at the bar of the Quality Inn. Everyone was invited and everyone went, this was the night I discovered amaretto sours. I wasn't really drunk but I was kissing everyone at midnight and having a great time until suddenly and epically, everything went wrong. The owner of the venue noticed underage drinking, the cops were called, a girl bit another girl's hand in a ridiculous fight and every punk rock boy that had been slam dancing moments before put their fold up hunting knives in the ceiling and fled.<br />
I stood in the lobby after my boyfriend had abandoned me and watched David having a stand off with the male manager and the female owner of the club he rented for his party. He stood there stubbornly listening to these two yell at him about the giant clusterfuck the party had become and then the yelling became personally abusive. He squared off and very calmly looked at the guy and said "I only have one thing to say to you..." I held my breath, I knew what was coming. David was famous for this phrase, his timing was always impeccable, he played the pause for maximum effect as he went for the kill.<br />
"Suck...my...dick."<br />
The man was infuriated beyond reason and he balled up his fist and laid David out on the floor in one punch.<br />
David was knocked unconscious and his girlfriend immediately rushed to his side along with the rest of us. There was so much yelling and confusion, it was hard to tell what was going on but we knew the cops were arriving in just a minute.<br />
David came to pretty quickly, looked around him from the floor and locked eyes with me. Quickly, he looked from me to his girlfriend and says to her words I will never forget. "The cops are coming- we have to get Vanessa out of here, she'll get arrested for curfew. Hurry, get her to the hotel room and keep her there till all this is over."<br />
Suddenly and quickly I was whisked away to their hotel room (in the same building) and kept there until things died down.<br />
I cannot imagine what was through his mind to have focused on my safety after he had just been assaulted but there it was. A kind of measurable proof that he cared about other people.<br />
It was that night my then boyfriend had purchased a beer from David with a silver dollar that he stole from my house. A week later, David returned that silver dollar to me when I presented the case that had been pried open with a hunting knife now residing in the ceiling at the Quality Inn. It was one of the many things that had been stolen from my house over Christmas. David looked at me with pity and asked me one more time if I was sure that I wanted to date someone who stole from me. I remember shrugging helplessly and blaming love and loyalty for my foolishness.<br />
"Your life." he said. That was all. He seemed done trying to fix me. That was all he had to say. It's clear that what he said stuck with me.<br />
A few months later, David was struck by a car crossing the street next to Dennys. I cannot describe what it is to lose a friend in this way when you are sixteen years old. Someone that you had just begun to figure out. Someone who could be such a sarcastic asshole and the most loyal friend at the same time. Someone who inexplicably gave a damn about me but didn't really want to advertise it. Lots of people said they were glad he was dead. I wasn't. He was twenty one years old, though he felt so much older to me. <br />
He was so much more than anyone realized. He was so much more than he realized. I often wonder who he would be now, so many years later. Would he have fulfilled his own potential? What would he think of me? Would I finally have lived up to his ideal of me? He saw something in me at a time when I was throwing away whatever there was of me. It's what you do when you're sixteen.<br />
I still think of you, David. I still think of the impact you had on my life. I still think of what happened after you left us, how we had to confess to one another that we were indeed just mortal after all. But most of all, I wish I could talk to you now to figure out what you meant or what was in your head. You have remained one of the most fascinating figures in my life and I think you always will be.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Inspired Vanessahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11267599824573875688noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5274935109810298997.post-11781991731200091842018-01-12T01:02:00.002-06:002018-01-12T19:51:59.111-06:00Grave to Cradle<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br />
</div><br />
In 1993, I had my first story published in a magazine called "Gotta Write Network Litmag". Shortly after that, several other magazines picked it up and re-printed it. It was the first time I was ever paid to write. It's not a true story. But it was inspired by true events that happened. When I was sixteen years old, a dear friend of mine was struck by a car crossing the street and the story grew in my head because of this devastating loss.<br />
Here it is, in its entirety.<br />
<br />
GRAVE TO CRADLE<br />
<br />
Now, he could remember everything. Even his own birth. There was a time when pictures came and went like a disjointed painting. Then, it all came rushing to him like a tidal wave and he simply knew every detail of his life. It overwhelmed him at first but soon after, acceptance came.<br />
It was strange, things were so clear to him now. He was confused the first time he came to a conscious state in the ambulance and the darkness had enveloped him like a silent, stifling coffin. The van was shut off and there was no one around. His throat began to ache with thirst for a coke he had never been able to drink, and the accident came back to him.<br />
The memory flashed through his mind like an ancient silent film. The pain had been violent, intense, covering his whole body. The drunken man staggered out of a blue Volkswagen with a freshly opened beer in his hand.<br />
"Heyyy, this Bud's for you, man, looks like you could use it," he laughed, sat down next to the man he hit and began to cry, heaving, his shoulders heavy with the weight of what could not be undone.<br />
He chilled every time the ambulance drove by there. He had died a little more than seven months ago on that street and felt compelled to press against the window of the van and breathe the scent of his own death. The memory senses there were incredible. The paramedics had revived him the first time right there on the street. The sounds and colors were vivid, crimson blood, red and blue flashing lights, the neon sign of the gas station across the street, a woman's scream among the sirens in his ear, the chill of the March air reaching down into his soul.<br />
He died three times on the way to the hospital, each time he felt himself being pulled back from oblivion into pain. The pulls were hard, knocking the breath out of him. The last time was weak and he fought it. He turned around and severed the rope between life and death, hoping he could go to a place where he couldn't feel that terrible pain and the blood would be merely an illusion. Yet, he found himself stuck where he had ended, in the ambulance. He was sure he was being punished for not wanting to live.<br />
The paramedics hovered over him after his death.<br />
"Has he got a wallet?"<br />
"Yeah. His name is David Somers... birthdate... God, he's only twenty one..."<br />
Dave turned his face from that memory. He didn't seem to be able to leave the ambulance, but when he focused his energy, he could visit that street in front of Denny's restaurant. Sometimes, he wished he could get close to the window and gaze at his friends, laughing and complaining about the food, staring into the night as their thoughts turned to him. It seemed as if he was confined to these boundaries, but why? He wanted to sit amongst them wearing the cloak of his sarcasm, inserting the appropriate remarks as their laughter echoed around him. He wondered if they knew he missed them. If he could have followed his body, he might have sat on top of his coffin, cracking deadpan jokes at the irony of his funeral service. And perhaps they would have heard him. But he watched the days go by from the ambulance.<br />
Death had changed him. He smiled at the ridiculous nature of his thoughts. Of course he had changed, he had no body to feel with and no one listened to his bitter humor. He thought he would see other dead people, maybe his brother who had committed suicide years before, but there was no one. Was he condemned to live in his own world where no one could see him or hear him. He wondered about Heaven and Hell and the same questions that had consumed him when he was alive tortured him in death. Where was the fire and where were the angels?<br />
So, he existed in his memories, laughed and cried as the memories flew across his mind like a colorized version of an old movie. His mother's face came most clearly then. He loved to watch her face as the doctor handed him to her. He had fallen asleep in her arms only minutes old, his mother used to say he could sleep through anything. And now he didn't sleep at all.<br />
Dave felt the bouncing of the ambulance as Greg and Tom climbed in. He had come to know them well. He could feel their thoughts and emotions. Sometimes, he even tried to enter their bodies but they seemed completely unaware of him except for their unexplained chills.<br />
"Where are we going?" Tom looked tired as he asked the question.<br />
"Corner of Hampton and Manchester." Greg replied. <br />
"Accident?"<br />
"Not exactly. Some guy beat her up and raped her. Female, 27, third trimester of pregnancy."<br />
"Raped a pregnant lady? Sick bastards in this world." Tom said.<br />
"Shut up and drive. Let's get this over with so I can go home." Greg muttered.<br />
Dave picked up Greg's thoughts clearly as the paramedic flashed through the memory his daughter coming home after being raped. He watched as Greg tried to hold it together while his emotions cascaded between anger and helplessness and fought for control. Greg took in a ragged breath as he focused on the task at hand.<br />
The police were already on the scene when the ambulance arrived. The doors of the ambulance burst open and the light poured in. Dave stared out the open doors as the living world breathed deeply in the twilight hour. The trees swayed in the soft breeze, wearing their colorful fall coats. He could almost feel the briskness of the October air as the wind rushed in, circling his soul with life's breath.<br />
Greg gently escorted the woman inside the van and began checking her vital signs.<br />
"I'm in labor..." she sobbed. Her face was covered with purple welts and her breath was hitching. Her eyes darted around, large, brown and soft. <br />
"Can you tell us your name?" Tom asked quietly, seeking to calm her.<br />
"Holly."<br />
"How far along are you, Holly?" Greg wiped her face with a cool cloth.<br />
"About thirty weeks...oh God..." Her face wrinkled in pain as the contraction peaked. She grunted in agony and then got control of her breathing.<br />
"Holly, we're going to have to examine you to see how dilated your cervix is. It's probably going to hurt given your recent trauma but I need you to try to hold still, okay? Can you do that for me?"<br />
"I'll try." She stared up at him with wide eyes. Sweat had caused her red hair to hang limply, clinging to her face. She was flushed and her face was drawn. As Tom pulled up her skirt, he could see blood and dirt caked to her thighs.<br />
Tom washed her legs as Greg put on the surgical glove and began to examine her.<br />
"She's between eight and nine centimeters. We may not have that long, this baby's coming..." Greg said to Tom.<br />
Holly's face tightened up and she twisted into a ball.<br />
"No, no, you have to lie flat," Tom said.<br />
Dave sat next to her and touched her hand. He felt connected to her somehow but he was sure he didn't know her. Yet, there was something familiar about her. He wanted to reach into her sadness and pull her out. He wasn't sure why but she reminded him of someone he had known. However, the memory was elusive and he couldn't quite reach it. Her body relaxed as the contraction ended.<br />
"Listen to me," Dave said, gently, wanting her to hear him. "Remember the movie?"<br />
"What movie?" She said.<br />
Dave was startled. He hadn't been sure she would hear him. Greg and Tom had never heard him when he spoke. Still, he was not surprised as the connection between them was vibrantly alive in the air around them.<br />
"What'd she say?" Greg asked, standing at the foot of the van. Tom turned and shrugged, preparing the IV fluid bag. "You can squeeze my hand if you want to."<br />
"My baby... is it going to be..." the pain cut off her words.<br />
"Breathe, Holly," Dave said. "Your baby is fine. It's a boy, a healthy boy, just like you wanted."<br />
"It's not born yet, how do you know?" Holly gasped.<br />
"Holly, you're going to be fine, okay?" Greg said "I'm going to take another look now."<br />
"Okay." Holly rode through another contraction.<br />
Greg smiled. "Ten centimeters, Holly, are you ready to push?"<br />
Holly nodded and looked up. Dave put his hand in hers and she squeezed. He could almost feel it as he closed death's eyes and suddenly felt alive again as the baby took his first breath.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
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<br />
Inspired Vanessahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11267599824573875688noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5274935109810298997.post-83889653642874060722017-12-06T03:58:00.003-06:002018-01-13T10:49:27.939-06:00Taking Inventory<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br />
</div>Over the years, I have been a loyal person. When I decided someone was my friend, I basically stood by that person no matter what. When I was in my late teens and twenties, a lot of people abandoned me when I had kids. They moved on with their lives and stopped inviting me to do things. I was very grateful for the few who remained. Probably too grateful. There were two women in particular who remained that became increasingly toxic presences in my life.<br />
As I look back, I can see the ways they damaged me. I remember asking my therapist again and again what to do about this or that that these two had done to me. And I contributed to the cycle by complaining about each of them to the other.<br />
After many years, I figured out I was in abusive relationships.<br />
I'm not going to say all of it was bad or all of it was their fault. It wasn't.<br />
I had to figure out my own shit and learn what was good.<br />
In a way, rebelling against their definition of who I was helped me become a better person.<br />
In their own way, they were both very good and very toxic people. And they had their own demons.<br />
I do wish I had cut off the friendships much earlier in my life.<br />
But I suppose I still had things to learn.<br />
And that is the lesson here that I take inventory.<br />
What did these lousy experiences teach me? A lot. So much.<br />
<br />
One of the women, I'll call her Maria, she used to support my dreams by "understanding" that I had them while shooting them down and telling me if I was a good mom, I would stop pursuing them. And she would pretend to support me but at the same time regularly sabotage me.<br />
The other woman, I'll call her Katie, she said something not long ago that was instrumental in making sure we weren't friends any more. <br />
I was discussing my plans for my next big project. And she said "I believe that you'll do it. You'll accomplish it. Looking back on us when we were fifteen, I never would have believed that girl would accomplish anything like this. But I can see you doing things now."<br />
And I am sure she meant that as a compliment. But it wasn't. It was a clear message that she never saw my potential, though it should have been obvious to anyone who was paying attention. She was supposed to know me so well, but I now realize, she only saw in me what she decided to see-- and I think she never really saw me. <br />
<br />
Many years ago, a girl I worked with at Cicero's was hanging out with me. We got into a deep conversation about hopes and dreams. I told her I wanted to make movies and write and direct. I can't remember her saying much about that. It was what I was dreaming about and also what I was pursuing in school.<br />
<br />
Many years later I saw her again, out with friends. By this time I had made a couple of movies. She said these words to me. "I remember when you used to talk about what you wanted to do when we were working at Cicero's"<br />
I said "oh yeah, I was pretty angsty back then."<br />
She said "I confess - when you said all that, I thought to myself, she's never going to do any of that. And then you did. I was surprised."<br />
I smiled a little. But it kinda made me mad at the same time. Why would you tell me that? What is the purpose of that confession? Is it to make me feel bad? <br />
So, I went back and asked my best friend, the woman who has known me the longest- if she had seen potential in me.<br />
She couldn't believe I was asking her that because she said it was obvious I was going to do things.<br />
And I thought about the people I knew that I saw accomplishing great things.<br />
<br />
I'm so blessed with so many good friends now at this point in my life. And it is because of these missteps that I am able to appreciate this all the more.<br />
I've been able to learn from all this pain.<br />
I've been blessed to have recognized and overcome all these abusive and toxic friendships.<br />
Yes, I hung on to them too long. I tried too hard, I forgave too much.<br />
But what did I learn? What did I take forward?<br />
I learned to write well about complex relationships. I learned to appreciate really good friends. I learned that it isn't the end of the world if you end a friendship.<br />
I learned that sometimes you still get to walk away and hurt for years, but it was the right thing to do.<br />
A couple of months before I made the decision to walk away from Katie once and for all, she said to me "I'm afraid I'm going to lose all my friends, I have almost none left because I drive people away."<br />
And as usual, I assured her that I was loyal and would stand by her.<br />
And then I woke up when she was abusively texting me a few weeks later, accusing me of imagined wrongs. A symptom of her mental illness and extreme anxiety.<br />
And I realized I had a choice. I could just walk away from her and not go back.<br />
That I probably should have done it years ago.<br />
That I shouldn't need to go to therapy because my friends were being toxic to me.<br />
That the relationship was abusive and needed to end.<br />
That it is possible to be in an emotionally abusive relationship with a female friend.<br />
That it had been many years since I had any fun with her because every interaction was stressful and involved me walking on eggshells to try not to set her off. Though I should have known that I can't control her mental illness symptoms, but I can control my involvement with her.<br />
That her refusal to get the mental health therapy she desperately needed was pretty much my final clue that things weren't going to get better.<br />
<br />
I realized that my damage was where I was operating from when we began that friendship and that I have worked hard to repair my damage. That not all my friends were reflections of my damage but I had trouble recognizing when I needed to end it.<br />
That my loyalty has hurt me- a lot, but I am not sorry that I try to work things out.<br />
I don't give up easily, which is why I have had some minor success in accomplishing things.<br />
But I am now learning when to walk away and that it is okay to walk away. That not all things need to be forgiven, that sometimes we can just move on.<br />
I'm always going to have feelings about all of it, I'm just grateful now for the lessons.<br />
Inspired Vanessahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11267599824573875688noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5274935109810298997.post-1347722821669557942017-06-09T15:55:00.002-05:002017-06-09T16:00:25.311-05:00Uber Stories: On Women and sex<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br />
</div>Lots of people ask me when they get in my car and notice my gender. Aren't you scared to drive at night? Not really. Most people are pretty cool and I don't mind so much. The rewards have been pretty significant. I'm interested in humans and when people get in my car, I get a piece of their story, little by little.<br />
Here is a snapshot of several stories of women I have driven.<br />
They often open up and they open up in so many interesting ways. Sometimes we tell deep truths, sometimes the deep truths are beneath the surface and we never speak of them.<br />
I picked up two women around 11 pm. They were sharing the ride and going to work in different places. One was going downtown to waitress at a Hookah Bar and the other was going to the Hustler Club to strip. I spent many years as a waitress, so we had a long drive and a nice discussion about the benefits and perils of waitressing. I was not really clear on the relationship between the women but I noticed there was complete acceptance for one another's work situations.<br />
It was very much "gotta make a living" going on.<br />
The fact that the stripper was so open about where she worked with no measure of shame was interesting to me. I have never felt the extreme need to hide my profession but I have often felt a little bothered by working in places I considered beneath my overall skills.<br />
One time a girl I went to high school walked into the restaurant I worked in and happened to see me behind the bar dropping off cash for the bartender that night. She looked pityingly at me when she said "oh, you work here?" and I said "Yeah, I'm the manager."<br />
At those words, her face physically brightened. This was a more acceptable job for my exclusive private school education, I guess? I was upset and humiliated. She has no idea that bartenders more often make more money and work fewer hours than restaurant managers. Sigh. And she had no idea I bartended twice a week to bump up my earnings.<br />
But somehow, the title made HER feel better. Which bothered me. And I guess it still does. But mostly, I'm beyond caring about someone else's definition of me. Those jobs, they humanized me in a way that make my writing better, richer and give me more empathy to people than working higher up ever will be. So, while I will get where I want to go career wise, this was never a waste of time.<br />
So, I try not to judge people by their professions so much. I know I am going to find people working at McDonalds that have genius level IQ's and probably can't get a job elsewhere. And I know that there are just a whole lot of regular people out there making a living and we are more than the definition the job gives us. We are humans.<br />
We all have to make a living somehow.<br />
After I dropped the waitress off, I had another twenty minute drive with the woman who worked at the strip club. I asked her how she was treated. She had a few stories. "I wish guys wouldn't be so gross with me all the time. I don't want to hear how they want to lick my asshole."<br />
And I was thinking-- damn, that's not so far off from my waitress days, where I heard statements like that every day from some drunk fool.<br />
Except I'm not naked while they're saying it to me. I try to imagine how vulnerable and tough she has to be to stand up to that, and to deal with being kind to people that don't deserve her kindness.<br />
Still, she said she didn't mind it most of the time, that she was able to find gratitude in the many good people that worked there and all those who stuck up for her and held together to protect one another. That she always felt safe and protected by so many people.<br />
I find I want to poke through her statements with my own pre-conceived notions about stripping. But I fall silent. I don't know enough about this world and I realize what I need to do is just listen to her and accept her and even support her decision to work there. Though I want to smash the patriarchy that allows this to continue to exploit women while old white men make money off their naked and vulnerable bodies, still I support the choice a woman makes to go into sex work. Though honestly, I wish it could be something different. When I think of the damage it does...but I let that go in that moment, and decided to just be there with her.<br />
I told her this as I dropped her off. <br />
"I want you to know that every man or group of people that I drop off at any strip club, I say these words 'I want you to remember to tip well. Tip your bartenders, your servers and your strippers well. And I want you to remember that every single one of these people who wait on you and strip for you, they are human. And you should treat them respectfully and decently. Don't be a dick.'" She laughed at that, and thanked me for the ride.<br />
It really was the only way I could sit right with myself for driving people to the strip club to participate in something that I don't sit right with was to remind them of our shared humanity.<br />
The second story I want to share with you is a woman I picked up from a dive motel at around 11 at night. She was nervous to get in my car, it was her first Uber ride.<br />
I smiled big at her and said "Aren't you glad you got a girl to drive you for your first time?" <br />
She said yes and smiled a little more easily.<br />
I assured her I was going to treat her really well and get her to where she was going and make her first uber ride really great. I had wondered briefly at the location I was picking her up. It was a no tell motel, the kind you know you can rent by the hour.<br />
This in itself was only one piece of evidence, so I tucked it back in my mind as I spoke to her and asked her about herself. We landed on the topic of her son, as so often happens with women, we discuss our children. In there are our hopes and dreams and how we define ourselves because our children change and shape who we become. They alter us in little ways. This woman found so much joy in her child and it made my heart happy. She talked about her divorce and the shared custody and when her boy got really good at video games. She spoke of how he excelled in school and was put in the gifted child class. She glowed when she talked about his future, the one she knew he would have.<br />
And in that, I could see she was burying herself, but I loved her joy and her pride and the smile in her voice.<br />
She began to prepare me for the journey we were taking. It was a long drive, forty five minutes out to a little town in Missouri I had never been before. <br />
The ride was not on her credit card, but on a mystery man paying for her journey. He had texted me instructions and a cell number to let her know when I had arrived to pick her up. This was not unusual in itself either. I often gave rides others would pay for. But there was something about the two pieces of evidence that clinked together. She began to speak of the mystery man and his wealth and affluence.<br />
She described how many cars he had and how fast he drove in them and her first trip out to his house.<br />
"What does he do for a living?" I asked.<br />
She was not really sure or she had asked and it wasn't really clear, but he was super loaded-- that was what she knew. She also mentioned he was nice to her, that he treated her well and was a pretty good guy. <br />
She talked to me about the first time she went to his house.<br />
"I was terrified." She said.<br />
Huh, terrified? That seems an odd reaction to going to someone's house.<br />
"We kept getting further and further away from everything and we started going deep into the country. Finally we get to this really thick woods and we keep going further and further into the woods and the further we went, the more scared I was that I wasn't going to make it out. He was driving really fast and whipping around every corner."<br />
And I wanted to ask why. Why did you keep going?<br />
But I didn't because after all, I knew the answer. You do the things that scare you when you talk yourself around the fear. When you try to convince yourself you're being crazy, that there's no reason to be afraid and your instincts are wrong. And when your instincts are dead on, you berate yourself and when your instincts are hyped up and it turns out okay, you tell yourself you were just crazy all along. Even if you aren't. You convince yourself. It's pure survival. Sometimes our fight or flight is out of proportion to the situation and other times it is not.<br />
And as I drove through the night and we started to get further and further away from civilization and the lights of the city and the perceived safety...I began to feel the little fingers of fear creep into my stomach and crawl around and begin to wrap around my heart and squeeze.<br />
But this third and fourth clue in the little mystery was starting to cement my theory. And I knew at this point that I didn't have to ask this woman what she did for a living because there was no doubt I had picked up a prostitute on her way to servicing her client.<br />
I briefly considered asking her. I thought about it, hard because I wanted to know, and I had a thousand questions to ask her about what she did and what led her to this point in her life and the curiosity distracted me from asking myself too strongly-- what are you driving into? <br />
I decided to refuse the curiosity and deny it satisfaction. I wanted this woman to keep her dignity and let the stories of her brilliant boy and her pride in him and keep her warm with safe and good conversation. I liked her and I didn't want to shatter this moment and make her wonder if I was judging her.<br />
As we drove through the last leg of the journey, through those thick and dark woods, I turned on my brights and kept the conversation witty and light to take the edge off the fear. She said "He wants you to go down the driveway and wait for a minute so he can bring you a tip."<br />
"Oh, how nice." I say out loud but those fear fingers are working overtime squishing my heart.<br />
My heart beats strong, throwing off the fear. Got your stun gun on the ready? yeah you do, Vanessa. This guy won't know what hit him...<br />
We arrive.<br />
I see him open the door and the anticipation is a tangible crack of light streaming from the door. <br />
She gets a text.<br />
"oh, he's not coming out. He wants me to come get it. He's such a dork."<br />
I breathe relief. He's afraid of ME seeing HIM.<br />
Good. I feel safe. She comes out with a ten dollar bill and thanks me for the ride, the company, the conversation and for making her first uber ride a good experience.<br />
I want to hug her, but I don't. Instead, I smile brightly at her and wish her well. She's going to be one I remember.<br />
<br />
These conversations, these connections-- they mean something to me to have this human experience in that short time I get with people. Every ride is its own story.<br />
<br />
Inspired Vanessahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11267599824573875688noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5274935109810298997.post-67347419759178084372017-02-23T19:03:00.001-06:002017-06-09T14:17:42.988-05:00Reflections on Eleven<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br />
</div>When I was eleven years old, my mother had a discussion with our next door neighbor about me, in front of me that I remember pretty well. The neighbor was asking how old I was and they both agreed that eleven was just about the perfect age. My mother revealed that I still played with barbie dolls (I was mortified and considered myself too old for dolls even though my bff and I had so much fun with them, it was our little secret we never told) and both women went on to wax poetic about the age of eleven, how much they had enjoyed it, how sweet they had been, how much they loved spending time with their mothers and how simple things were before the complications of teenage angst came along.<br />
I have never forgotten this conversation and it had a profound effect of me as a young girl. I haughtily did not consider eleven to be a perfect age. I was frustrated and wanted to do things and be more grown and felt as if my brain was always more adult and mature than my body and no one took me seriously because I was only eleven.<br />
I had listened intently to every word those women had said, though I don't think it was anywhere near a very important conversation or that it had reached the level of something significant but nevertheless had revealed something very important about my mother and though I chastised her soundly when we got inside for embarrassing me by telling the neighbor I played with dolls, for some reason it always stayed with me.<br />
When each of my daughters reached the age of eleven, I have recalled this conversation and replayed it in my head. I can remember tossing around the seedballs in my back yard while pretending not to be paying attention so that I could listen longer. Time has convinced me that my mother was right in ways I could not understand that day. The age of eleven might be perfect for mothers and daughters for their relationship is more pure than it will be ever again. It is the last time we will look at our mothers before the cloud of hormones overtake us and rush us into a resistance. It is the time before everything changes in that relationship when we both want to be with one another. it is the time before I didn't have to see my mother as a woman, not understanding womanhood and being sure she could still do anything because she was more than human.<br />
Isabella is my last daughter and though that conversation will be with me forever, this is the last time I will look into the familiar eyes of the eleven year old that is a small representation of the me that I used to be, and the girl that my mother was, and the barest glimpse of my grandmother and her mother. In her eyes, I feel that precious purity of what was and hope for what will be.<br />
Inspired Vanessahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11267599824573875688noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5274935109810298997.post-40056504875242128032017-01-27T17:10:00.001-06:002017-01-28T02:17:15.883-06:00The De-Escalation Choice<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br />
</div>Last night I was driving uber at my usual time and hanging out near the bars and college. Around 3 am I picked up a solo passenger. He said "Can you wait one extra minute while I get some water?" I said "Sure"<br />
<br />
I'm going to call him Floyd.<br />
Floyd returns with a cup of water and gets in the front seat. This is pretty common for single riders so I won't say I over worried about it.<br />
He asks me how I am doing, then he offers me some of his water. I thought this was kind of weird but I say no thank you and keep driving. It's kind of a regular, very usual conversation about the work he does and who he is and all that until suddenly, Floyd says.<br />
"Hey, why don't you come over and smoke some pot with me?"<br />
This is not really the first time I have had this offer. It's usually a little more tentative or respectful. And it's pretty easy to turn down. One time a group of bachelorettes wanted me to eat breakfast with them at Eat Rite diner and I truly thought about it because they were a lot of fun. <br />
I figure he's drunk and lonely, so I just say "That's awfully kind of you, but I have to drive the rest of the night and I can't do that high."<br />
Floyd then starts attempting to convince me.<br />
I say "Thanks, that's really nice of you, but I'm going to say no." But honestly, I am out and out lying at this point because his offer isn't nice or kind. It's rude and threatening.<br />
And Floyd isn't having that "no" word. <br />
He takes out some money (a ten or a twenty, I think, I didn't look) and places it on my dashboard.<br />
"There, I've paid for your next ride, you can come in, just take one hit and leave. I just want to smoke with you."<br />
And now I am realizing he thinks he can buy me.<br />
Like a hooker? I'm truly annoyed now. But I bring out Bartender Vanessa who knows how to make a cranky customer calm down. I start the de-escalation process by just letting him talk and allowing him to think for the rest of the ride that he is getting his way.<br />
I start wondering what this scenario looks like as he tries to shame me into going inside with him. I just stop saying no for the rest of the ride because I have already said it at least three times.<br />
I think about all the times this has happened to me before. I start going back in my head to the incidents of times I said no when a man has not respected me.<br />
I've come a long way with the word no.<br />
When I was a teenager, this kind of pressure was extremely difficult for me and I ended up in some situations that were extremely uncomfortable. When I was fourteen, I was nearly date raped by another fourteen year old. He escalated quickly. That is another story but I feel as if it might have been my first experience with not just lack of consent but repeatedly saying the word no and some asshole just not hearing a word you say.<br />
I realize I have two choices on how to deal with this.<br />
The teenage Vanessa was meek and quiet and tried to "nice" her way out of things. It always ended up making me feel weak. The Vanessa in her twenties started to feel her feminist power. She learned to say to the gropey guy in the bar "Get your hands off me." and walk away. She has real chutzpah! She gets it. She can say no to any inappropriate stranger. But she is terrible saying it to her friends. She lets them walk all over her sometimes. Even worse, this Vanessa ends up in some brutally abusive relationships with very pushy men. I think about all the ways I have had to say no in my life and every time I say it, it comes with guilt.<br />
Why is that? Why do I feel shitty for saying no to a clearly inconsiderate person who has no respect for me or my feelings? I have no idea.<br />
Is it the empath in me that knows I am wounding his ego and can just feel all the insecurity oozing out of him. He had struck out at the bar, was feeling all those feelings that were coming at me and now this uber driver was telling him no. How dare she. <br />
I don't want to feel all that. He is now saying to me "When is the last time you did something like this? You need to do this."<br />
And I am quietly super annoyed now, but I keep that smile on my face and even throw a laugh in there. Does he really think I live some dowdy, boring life and I need HIM to provide me with some pot smoking couch sex? Yes, he does. He doesn't know me at all. He hasn't bothered to ask one thing about me. I am the four am chick he thinks he knows is as desperate as him. Except I am not. And in the light of the car, I can feel his loud, sweaty, needy feelings. <br />
But I am better at no, now. I can do this. But most of all, I have to do this. I have to get him to get out of my car and get myself out of this potentially dangerous situation. I start to review my self defense techniques. I take a deep breath as I pull up in front of his place. The money is still sitting on the dashboard. I'm not taking it. I realize I have two choices about how to say no to him. There is the firm, aggressive "Get the fuck out of my car." that I really, with every fiber of my being want to say. I want to do that. I am a strong woman and I have been so disrespected in the last five minutes that I want to make a super strong statement about "No means no." But I am not at the bar and this is not a public place. And I am more vulnerable in this place.<br />
I might need my anger next. I may need to get scary and crazy in a minute.<br />
He starts off with "Okay, let's go."<br />
I decide to go with firm, business like Vanessa. She de-escalates without judgment. She thanks people kindly for the interest. She says "fuck you" inside her head while telling him to "have a nice day." and smiling.<br />
I said "Look, Floyd, like I said, I appreciate the offer, But no."<br />
I think about pulling the husband card but I hate that. It takes away so much of my power as a female to say something like "my husband/boyfriend is waiting for me/ he'll be here any minute" but don't think I won't use it or have any less respect for women who do use it. It's sitting in my back pocket.<br />
My arsenal of how to say no is swimming in my head. I am ready.<br />
At this point, I have chosen to use deescalation and it is making me feel like a shitty, weak, bad feminist. Just tell him NO MEANS NO. Show him your power! Using the words "I appreciate the offer" is just the worst. I want to choke on those words. Fuck those words. Get out of my car, you inconsiderate piece of shit, trying to shame me, trying to coerce me, refusing to hear any of the words I say. But I fight the shame down. Try this first, I tell myself.<br />
And ladies, I say this to you--- if he won't hear the word NO from you in this polite circumstance, he isn't going to respect you later at any point.<br />
So Floyd says "I guess you think that something is going to happen and I can see the reasons that you might not want to do this."<br />
Code, I think he might be setting me up for an assault of some kind.<br />
Yes, Floyd, I do think this. And you know I think this. And I think this because this is exactly the scenario in which it often takes place. And your platitudes of trust me mean nothing to me. Because I have been in this situation a thousand times before. And I'm not flattered and I don't think you find me attractive and I don't give a shit about your feelings right now because you haven't given mine a single thought.<br />
Yes, Floyd, I think about the other girl who might have gone into your apartment and you served her some drugged drink and she woke up hours later, sore on the floor with her pants around her knees. I think this. It may not be true or accurate, Floyd. You might believe you are charming enough on your own but I know one thing about you at this point. No means nothing to you, so I expect more of that. I expect if I go into your place and smoke one hit of a joint with you, and I say "I have to leave" because this is what we agreed to. One hit. I expect that you will not honor that by saying "see you later" Instead, I expect that this one interaction leads to more of "no thank you" and you not hearing that little word a hundred more times. Because I know this one thing about you. Floyd, you haven't been nice about me saying no. In fact you have been coercive and brutish. Every tactic in your arsenal is to shame.<br />
So I don't respond to him trying to reassure me that I'm not going to get assaulted because - whatever dude, it's not like you're going to be honest with planning a sexual assault!<br />
And maybe you are just a harmless dickhead but guess what-- I'm not willing to take that chance.<br />
So- I'm sitting in the car trying the de-escalation tactic first.<br />
Floyd takes the money slowly off the dashboard. "Really?" he says, dripping sarcasm.<br />
As if I give a shit about that money.<br />
"Yes, Really." I respond.<br />
He holds the money above his wallet and repeats "REALLY?"<br />
And I say "have a nice night" <br />
And you all know what I meant by that.<br />
He puts the money away.<br />
Then, I breathe a little sigh of relief as he gets out of the car without any more fight. He thinks he has humiliated me by taking away the money. I laugh a little on the inside as I drive away.<br />
Now, I realize that there are some of you that are going to tell me "you need to stop doing what you're doing, you are going to end up in a worse situation next time, it's dangerous."<br />
And I am going to tell you something-- just by living your life, anything could happen to you. Being out at night does not mean you will get raped or that you are at a higher risk for rape. I realize that some of you will never be convinced by this but shit can happen to you anywhere. I could just as easily have been able to de-escalate that situation as it could have spun out of control. I think about this all the time because I have to. And in spite of all the preparation and thought, this may not save me.<br />
I made a choice to go with de-escalation. I often make this choice. I'm trying to feel good about it but it still makes me feel sometimes as if it's the weak thing to do. I want to say to men, stop asking me to make that choice, to have to decide between my dignity and my safety and just respect the word no. Because it all comes down to that and if that would happen. If every single person would just do that, I wouldn't ever have to be in that position because my consent, whether it is consent to come inside your house or consent to kiss you or consent for anything. I should not have to fight for the right to be treated with common respect. This was not a date. It was a ride. Fortunately 99% of uber riders understand that. In more than 100 rides, this has not happened. It is not common. It's literally more common that this happens to me when I am out in socializing that some guy just randomly disrespects me.<br />
I'm not going to lie about it scaring me. It scares me. But I refuse to let fear of something that might happen stop me from living my life. But it gave me plenty to think about.<br />
And the best part of what happened was that I had a plan. I had an arsenal of self defense. I had an idea of what I was going to do and how I was going to handle that situation and there is no part of knowing this kind of thing that makes that not helpful.<br />
So, I would encourage everyone to play out that scenario, I want guys to play out that scenario, to understand what that feels like for us, too.<br />
I encounter more levels of having my consent disrespected in a thousand small aggressions a day. And my most ugly fear in that if I don't attempt to de-escalate, I will somehow inadvertently incite your anger and this anger will kill me. Though there is not one thing I can do to make sure you don't become angry. Floyd's anger was always out of my control.<br />
I feel soon I have to take this to the next level and look at how education is dealing with this and think about my role in it. And to those that will say to me, "how can you put yourself in that situation?" I say this to you- I did NOT put myself in that situation. Floyd put me in that situation. Let us be clear in that now and forever.Inspired Vanessahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11267599824573875688noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5274935109810298997.post-25417774102850777252016-10-26T17:01:00.002-05:002016-10-27T00:48:16.570-05:00You always remember the first time you vote<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br />
</div>Voting. When I was growing up, it was something I was going to do when I was eighteen. That was a given. My parents always let me know how important it was to cast a vote. Society told me how special it was that we got to vote. My school taught me that it was a privilege to vote and other countries didn't have the right to vote. I grew up somewhere between cynicism and optimism about our future and our government. My father was very pessimistic and angry and always spoke very negatively about government. I often heard the sentence "Guess I'll have to hold my nose and vote for this guy." What was the point in that? Why would you vote for someone you had to hold your nose around.<br />
I maintained my optimism in spite of this.<br />
Growing up, I did not see a lot of women in politics right away. When I was born, it was full of white men in office and I just kind of thought-- women must not want those jobs. Not that we couldn't have those jobs but that we didn't want them. Because I was optimistic and I had a working mother who, frankly was kind of badass and I was sure that if not me, women could do whatever they wanted once they broke out of their shell.<br />
I watched my mother push back against the patriarchy every single day. I watched it wear her down and then she would gather strength and go after it again.<br />
Frankly, it didn't seem like politics was a job any woman would want. Talk about thankless with no reward. That was what I saw as a little girl. I wanted to do something artistic though. I did not yet understand how those women in politics were going to change what my world looked like.<br />
As English Professors, the Liberal arts seemed about as far away from politics as it could get. And I had no concept that my mother did not have maternity leave. I had no concept that in fact, our political system was going to change every life in our country. Some for the better. Some for the worse. <br />
No one in my house ever discussed with me WHY it was important to vote.<br />
I wasn't interested in any of it because no one really explained to me why I should be interested in it, why it was going to make a difference in my future.<br />
As I approached my first presidential election, I was twenty one. And suddenly when I had a voice I knew it was important. I had not wanted to vote in the smaller elections when I first turned eighteen. (I realize now I probably should have but I wanted my first ever vote to be for president) I had not even registered until the summer before the presidential election. But coming up on my first election, I did not ask the advice of either one of my parents. My mother would always say that her vote was private and she did not have to tell anyone who she was voting for. In fact, as outspoken and opinionated as both my parents were, they taught me very little about what government was. And frankly, except for some high minded and bloated ideals, school had taught me very little. I was never told- examine the issues, look for things that you care about. I was taught in a dry and boring way what government was. Look, it has three branches. The President is commander in chief. This is the song where a bill becomes a law. I was not even sure why I should care about any of that.<br />
BUT IT IS IMPORTANT TO VOTE. (Okay, but why?) It just is!!!<br />
Cause that is your constitutional right.<br />
Cause...cause... no wonder people don't vote. <br />
In history class, women getting the vote in 1920 was kind of a footnote (at an all girl school, that seems disgusting and disgraceful in retrospect, they should be ashamed of this, the section on this barely covered it)<br />
So, who did I turn to? My friends.<br />
I had some smart friends, some friends who did a lot of self educating and lots of reading.<br />
I had one friend who loved to read biographies.<br />
I was not interested in biographies. She wanted to give me the highlights of women getting the vote and I tuned her out. Because that history was dry and who cared and whatever, it didn't matter. She was going to tell me some boring shit, I thought. So, I did not learn that totally fascinating and engrossing, interesting history for several years.<br />
In fact, I think I was frustrated that I was turned off from history by some dry ass terrible teachers. It makes a difference.<br />
There was one friend who I was talking with a great deal during the election year. She was about five years older than me and we discussed a lot about who was running and what they stood for and it kind of opened up things for me. I listened to her, I was influenced by her, I asked her questions. <br />
There were not a lot of people I could ask in my life.<br />
There was no way I was talking to my dad. Politics made him angry. He was going to end up screaming about the goddamn government. Or he was going to talk until I fell asleep from boredom. The conversation would only go one way, the way he explained everything with his narcissistic one sided point of view. He was very knowledgeable but he was not going to share this wisdom in any kind of accessible way. If I asked questions I would be ridiculed or screamed at or he wouldn't be able to hear me. <br />
Once in sixth grade, I was doing a report on the Nixon administration and he just hollered names and facts at me and I wrote things down. He ended up ripping the paper away from me and writing things down for me. God forbid I be involved in the process. Or learn anything.<br />
I know for sure he did not treat his students like this. But he treated me like this. I never went to him for help on anything. That was the last time. But this for me was government.<br />
I felt the pull to KNOW something, to figure it out, to understand it in some real way. I didn't want to get into the voting booth and just hit choice A or B without knowing anything about either person. I had heard some speeches, but I didn't trust that rhetoric. I was at least smart enough to know that these two candidates were presenting their best sides. I needed to know facts. I wanted to cast the most intelligent vote.<br />
<br />
That year, I was pregnant. I was due November 2 and the following Tuesday was election day. I was late, I was overdue. I was up all night in labor. I knew I was in labor. Early labor. The kind that takes a really long time to get going. I knew I had hours to go but it was real.<br />
So, there I was at seven am, miserable, in pain. Feeding my son breakfast and weathering through small but steady contractions.<br />
I didn't say anything to my dad. He tends to panic and it was nowhere near time to go to the hospital. So, I kept my mouth shut. Pretty soon, my dad started pestering me, though.<br />
"Are you going to vote?" he asked<br />
"Yes." I responded.<br />
"When are you going?"<br />
"I don't know. Today." I responded, dripping with sarcasm.<br />
"When, today? Because I would like to vote and if you're going now, I could go later. But if you're going later..."<br />
I couldn't take it. He was going to keep talking. Meanwhile, there was another nasty contraction.<br />
"Can I have breakfast?"<br />
"Are you going after breakfast?"<br />
I resisted the urge to murder him on the day I was voting for the first time. That was not the type of irony I needed in my life. I wondered briefly if I could be acquitted because I was in labor. Temporary insanity. Extreme duress. Nope. Not worth it.<br />
"I'm going now." I announced.<br />
I put on my comfy sweatpants and a clean sweater and maybe even some makeup. I can't remember if I put on makeup. I think I did, it seems likely. If I wasn't nine months pregnant, I might have walked up there. It was only three blocks away. But I drove. The line was not that bad. I remember expecting much worse but there were probably only about fifteen people in front of me and the whole process went pretty quickly. The entire thing took all of about twenty minutes. I punched a bunch of holes through a card and presto, I was done. I handed my card in and it was all over. Huh. That seemed like no big deal. I had hesitated over my choice in the last moment. It was so final. Was I sure I wanted to vote for this guy? Was I positive? It seemed like I didn't know enough, that I was still rather woefully ignorant of everything I needed to know. And I was right about that. <br />
That process spurred me to know more. To understand more. To take my vote as seriously as I should.<br />
These days I actively discuss politics and policies with my children. I don't expect my kids to vote for the same person I vote for, but I feel like they have a pretty good grasp on what is going on. They have much more information but the downside to that is that they also have much more misinformation. Satire websites that they are taken in by, opinion pieces that are slanted. Whole tv channels that only present one side of the story. And lies and more lies. It's hard to figure things out.<br />
What means something to me now is that I finally found the story of how women got the vote. I finally became interested enough to let go of the boring history teachers and the past prejudices I had and I saw a movie called "Iron Jawed Angels". (A small reason why I know that movies are not just entertainment but they change the world) and it changed me and the way I looked at my vote. <br />
In 1776, we declared independence and waged a war which (eventually) gave all male white citizens the right to vote. Somewhere around a hundred years later, black men got freedom and a right to vote (which people spent a lot of time surpassing and shutting down and all the rest that went with that but that is another story). And women, all women, white women and women of color had to fight and demand and be jailed, beaten, force fed, etc. Suffrage sounds like suffering to me. But if not for these women, I would have no right to vote on November 8th. And this woman running, just four years shy of one hundred years of having the right to even vote would not have the right to seek political office.<br />
<br />
And representation in government is crucial. No matter how you feel about this election, having people from different backgrounds, people of color, different genders, different sexual orientation, these things matter. Because of the people, by the people, for the people means all of us. So the representation of all of us is important. <br />
The hardest thing is finding people who actually care and are not just self serving fame and power whores. Because to be in government is to serve a community. To do your best for the people you represent. High minded ideals. And politics is made of lies and back room deals and unsavory things. Sometimes they mean well and the law of unintended consequences steps in and bites you hard.<br />
But every now and then something wonderful happens. Slavery is abolished. Women get the right to vote. The Civil Rights Act. Gay people get the right to marry. Pre-existing conditions no longer matter when seeking health insurance. Every now and then some amazing piece of change happens and I marvel that it happened.<br />
And these things happen because we voted for people who were integral to making this happen. So, yes, your vote does matter. It's a small piece of a larger world and it belongs to you and only you. Try to use it wisely with your best conscience and your highest ideal. When I walk into the voting booth, I stand on the shoulders of those women who suffered before me, who believed it would matter to me that I was represented and knew that I could change the world with one vote. I know that their battle was worthwhile, that their sacrifice for me humbles me and I honor it.<br />
For all of you, this should be meaningful. To make your vote a part of history.<br />
Inspired Vanessahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11267599824573875688noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5274935109810298997.post-43474675361394049572016-09-19T14:08:00.001-05:002016-09-19T14:08:22.667-05:00How we connect when we serve<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br />
</div>Last night, my daughter asked me a question, kind of a simple question. She said, "Did you like being a hotel manager?" Immediately, I said "No."<br />
Then, I gave it a little more thought.<br />
The real answer is sometimes I liked it. Most of the time I was bored out of my skull and there were times, I outright hated it but I got to thinking about the parts I liked and the parts that made a difference and spilled over into other parts of my life.<br />
The parts I liked were these. I like learning new things, I like feeling competent at my job. I take pride in doing things really well and the thing about being a hotel manager or a restaurant manager, a server, a bartender, all the things in the hospitality business was that I did those things really well. I excelled at those jobs and I liked doing things that I do very well. People didn't want me to quit. I was almost always offered obscene raises (relatively speaking) to stay in those jobs and keep doing them. But I couldn't stay happy. It got old, it got stale, it became the same. The challenge was mostly gone and once it wasn't a new thing I was learning, I realized I was just miserable again because I had only been distracted from the thing I was supposed to do.<br />
But back to the parts I liked. I loved working with people. I loved meeting new people. One of my favorite things to do was to do something that made someone really, really happy. So, whether it was getting them to a hotel bed in a beautiful room where they were comfortable or serving them a warm and delicious meal or giving them a perfectly created drink that that person had been craving all day. I loved that. If someone was unhappy, I would work extra hard to find that magical thing that would create satisfaction somehow. I would move them to another room that was awesome. I would bring them a luscious piece of dessert. Sometimes, all I would do was just care enough to listen to the problem and make a safe space to communicate it.<br />
In my job, I would create a connection and create a happiness that had not existed before. I would be a conduit to serve something greater in this world. Sure, a lot of times our interactions were brief and seemed meaningless but I knew that a smile to a weary traveler, it meant something, if even just for a moment and understanding the value of that was one of the reasons I was good at my job.<br />
It would wear me down, though. It's really hard being that empathetic in a job like that. People will just take and take all I gave and I would be left swimming in pain sometimes.<br />
I got the residue of their anger, their frustration, their snappish rude behavior. And often I took it home with me.<br />
And when I would reach the point where I was numb or desensitized to everything at the job, I would often leave, both as an act of self protection or because I was no good to the public doing a half ass job.<br />
So, why couldn't I keep it up? Well, it's exhausting and it isn't my true calling after all. I have always known this, but when my daughter asked me that question the other day, I thought about it in a way I had never really realized before.<br />
When I make movies, direct or act in plays, write a story...I'm doing the same thing. I'm connecting to the world in a way that makes people happy. I'm using all of me and what I am good at to create good feelings in others. I am directly connecting with people in a way that makes them smile or cry or think or feel. <br />
We used to have regulars in the restaurant and business regulars at the hotel. In the hotel, they were away from home and I was often fascinated with the way people would behave when they were far from their home life. Sometimes, the railroad guys would come and sit in the lobby and tell me their stories. I loved that.<br />
When certain businessmen would checkout, they would ask me to take off the $50 in dirty movie charges off their bill so they could pay cash. No one needs their boss to see that on the bill, and I would do so with a poker face, all the while thinking, he didn't look the type or he looks exactly like he would be totally into that. And I would scroll past the titles, "Barely Legal" or "Hot Nurses" because you never know what someone is hiding anonymously far away from home. <br />
And I would think to myself about how many stories there were to tell that lived inside these people, how many people were just lonely or meeting up or finally coming together after a long separation. Valentine's Day was an adventure, so many high hopes of a perfect night and there I was the quiet witness to what goes wrong and what goes right. <br />
I realized that in many ways hospitality is another art that connects us. I still love to cook for people, to create food that makes them warm and satisfied, to serve a cold drink or a warm hot chocolate. I want to create something superior that will connect me to the world in more ways. This is how I serve humanity. I have been called to a higher calling, but in the simple ways I was taught to do this. This is why serving is worthwhile. It has taught me tolerance, patience and to manage lots of personalities. I have been taught to quietly listen to the troubles of others and try to find a way to fix a problem, and if that cannot be done, just to listen and comfort. There are times when all you have to do is just understand.<br />
It also has shown me that people who are operating from the ego and not from the place of connection, these people are missing out on that real joy. If you're in it for the applause, the attention, the superficial- that won't last. To create and share, that is when I realized I was on track. Even the solitary writer puts pen to paper to push her thoughts out into the world. I do this to serve and to connect.<br />
In a way, every thing I have ever done has been to serve and connect to the world, to share in a higher consciousness, to understand humanity better and when I make people happy in some way, I find extra joy. There are lots of stories out there waiting to be told, I may not have time for all of them but I am grateful to have witnessed them all.<br />
Inspired Vanessahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11267599824573875688noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5274935109810298997.post-66874898368290714532016-09-06T17:40:00.001-05:002016-09-06T17:52:01.867-05:00How the Silence changed Everything<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br />
</div>In 2002, I finally got to do my study abroad trip that I had wanted to do for a long time. I was so excited, three whole months in London, all the theater I could handle in a big city. No car. No phone. No kids. No television. I was beyond thrilled to be doing this. My mom had just the month before purchased a flat in Central London since she worked over there so much and she was letting me stay there for the duration of my time in London. This was great. I didn't have to stay in the dorms and I didn't have to have a roommate. Part of the reason I was doing this was to experience what I had missed out on.<br />
When you get pregnant at 17, there isn't any time to transition into adulthood. You just do it fast and you get it while crying in a corner and feeling overwhelmed in between taking care of a newborn and dealing with your parents and the rest of the world telling you that you better grow up now. Which I did. Without really even thinking about it. And I started college before my son was even a year old because I knew I had to get my shit together or just be one of those single mom statistics. One day I looked up and noticed everyone else was having a very different college experience than I was. Parties. Late night conversations of the soulful figuring things out variety. Self discovery. Epic mistakes that didn't involve you messing up your kid's life while trying to figure out your own.<br />
I had gone from a turbulent and traumatic household with my parents to a turbulent and traumatic year of living with my drug addicted, verbally and physically abusive boyfriend and several certifiably insane roommates to getting pregnant and moving back in with my parents when I was about six months along. I brought two cats and a bunch more emotional trauma than I had left with. From one loud household to another and then back again, this was my life.<br />
I had dropped out of college twice and after a long break, a terrible job, and many painful changes, I was back. My life now included four children of my own and a loving and stable relationship. I no longer lived with my parents and suddenly I was desperate to finish my degree. This was my third and final attempt to finish college. I would successfully end up with a degree, graduating on the Dean's List with a solid GPA to be proud of. But it was a rocky road to there.<br />
My college experience was not like the others. I could never start my homework before ten pm, after the last child had given up the last gasp of "One more drink of water." and me yelling "Get back in that bed right now!" Luckily, I was a night owl naturally and I loved being in college. I loved my teachers, I loved my classes, I loved learning and reading and writing everything. And I was old enough to appreciate my teachers as peers and not some mature people who intimidated me.<br />
When I got on the plane to London, right after we hit cruising altitude, I started to cry. Part joy. Part terror. Part guilt. I would miss my kids, though I knew they were in very good hands. Between my long time babysitter, my parents and my boyfriend, and the rest of the village, those kids were going to be more than fine. <br />
This is one of those things men do all the time. They go out of town for business or school or any number of reasons and no one blinks. It's different for moms. Probably always will be. I hope not but the fact is people just look down on you. It happens. I don't care. I've never been a PTA mom or a traditional mom and I wasn't about to start caring what anyone thought of me. It's too exhausting. I had already been a teen mom, a statistic, a person to be judged one way or another. I was beyond giving a damn. My life was what it was. I could only live it the way I thought was best. Trying to please anyone is beside the point.<br />
I waited a long time to do this study abroad. Until I thought things were reasonably stable. I chose the summer program because it was the shortest and would require the least time away from the kids. But, I knew I wasn't going to get points for that! I was still leaving.<br />
Part of the reason I did this was to do this cool theater program in London but I admit, the large part of this was to go back and find that transition path to adulthood that I had missed out on. I was going to be a grown up, with a small apartment, in college, taking care of just me. I was going to live by myself for the very first time in my entire adult life. It was always something that I had felt was missing in my life. And I had given up getting it back. I thought, maybe this is something I will experience when all my kids have moved out and I am on my own. Maybe then it will happen. But more and more desperately I wanted to stop resenting everyone and everything that interfered with my solitude. I wanted some quiet to finish a thought, to write a play, to just leave the house without a multitude of planning babysitters and feeling as if I was stealing time to myself that was limited. I wanted to be able to sleep in the next day or say I feel like going to see a movie without second guessing my ability to for sure get a babysitter or feeling closed in and frustrated because there was never enough time.<br />
I'm sure to some of you, that sounds incredibly selfish. I chose to have kids. I chose to be a single mom. (Let us not even deal with the fact that there was no single father sharing that burden) I didn't opt out of it, I wasn't as careful as I should have been. YES, I get it. I have been suitably punished for having underage, unprotected sex. I do not need anyone to remind me of the consequences of my actions because I lived with those beautiful children every single day. I was responsible and diligent and I made the sacrifices. So- please, spare me the lecture some of you are forming in your brain.<br />
But I am very self aware of needing what I needed no matter what anyone else thought I deserved or should have in my life. And what I needed was a stretched out length of time that was not a vacation. I needed to take care of just myself. I needed to find myself without the noise. I needed to figure out me inside of just me, with no one tugging at me or needing me or...you get the picture.<br />
So, I arrived in London on a Sunday. It was my birthday and for the first time in my life, I spent my birthday alone. I followed the directions my mother gave me about getting from the airport to the flat and dragged all my luggage up the the fifth floor. I put the key in the lock and opened the door to my life for the next three months. I think I did a joyful lap when I first got in the flat. Gone were the tears-- but what was there instead was silence.<br />
The first thing I wanted to do was turn on the television. But there was no television. I was sure there must be a radio but I couldn't find it. Eventually, I did but the batteries were dead. Now I was surrounded by this eerie quiet and I had no idea what to do. London is a huge city. Busy. Populated. But the flat was silent as could be. I could hear no traffic. No chatter. No noisy neighbor. No friendly meow. No ear piercing, crawl up your spine, escalating, vibrating, pound into your brain stem screaming child. Just this dead quiet. You would think I would welcome this. Instead it was causing me stress and anxiety. I needed noise. Where were batteries? What did I have to do to make this radio work? What the hell was this??<br />
I ran around the flat in my exhaustion for twenty minutes thinking there must be batteries. There were not. I finally fell into a fitful nap of frustration with no television to lull me to sleep. I was too exhausted to search the streets for some place that sold batteries. England is not like here. You can't just go to Target for your every need. There is no Target. It took me two solid weeks to find a can opener. I finally discovered one at a hardware store around the corner... but I digress. <br />
This silence, this thing I hated, this thing I was afraid of, this thing I did not understand, it grew on me. Yes, I did find music and noise and a way to live. I learned to cook for one person. I took much pleasure in being able to do my homework any time I wanted but the biggest and most unexpected thing that happened was that I learned to embrace the silence. And in the silence, I found my own thoughts, my own voice, my own needs and desires and quiet yearnings of my soul. I found the answers to the interrupted questions I had been asking myself. I found twenty seven books to read. Sometimes, I just turned off the radio so I could hear the thinking going on in my busy brain. It turns out that silence does not really drown out the world as I feared, but opens your senses wide.<br />
When I returned from London, I was a different woman. I was more confident, more physically strong from all the walking, more thoughtful and more sure. The resentments I had were gone because I had been granted enough time. I'm so glad I had no television to distract me. I'm so glad I didn't really make any friends. I went out to eat by myself. I read the Evening Standard. I went to the theater and movies by myself. Sure, I did a few things with people but mostly I just reveled in how cool it was to just be with me. I felt as if I had finally grown up. Crossed that invisible passage to adulthood. I wasn't hanging on to anything any more. I wasn't just thinking, how long will it be until I can get out by myself again (this is part of what postpartum depression does to you, something I would discover much later), I was spending time enjoying my kids in a way that was a revelation.<br />
Sometimes, when I am on road trips, I deliberately turn off the radio to feel the silence around me. I think through plot points and engage my imagination. I plan out the next day. I access the thing that has me stuck and work it out while I chew it over. The silence changed me. The alone stitched me together. The silence seeped into the cracks in my soul and filled me up. Maybe I would have found another way without that, but I feel strongly that I knew what I was yearning for and what I needed in many ways. But I never suspected my greatest need would be silence.<br />
<br />
Inspired Vanessahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11267599824573875688noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5274935109810298997.post-42768185944687482252016-09-02T23:13:00.000-05:002016-09-02T23:13:07.464-05:00The Range of Normal<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br />
</div>This morning I got on the scale and smiled. The number on the scale, determined by the powers that be, was a number telling me that I am no longer considered overweight. I am now a normal weight for my height. After struggling with my weight for the last ten years when I developed a thyroid problem, this is fantastic. Finally, real progress. From my highest weight, I have lost 41 pounds. This was not easy. It came with ups and downs, some plateaus and a bit of bouncing around but this time, all the way, it has been steady progress. No backsliding. No quitting. <br />
As a person who has spent the majority of her life underweight, having a weight problem is weird for me.<br />
In grade school, I was mocked and teased all the time for being too skinny. I was constantly told to eat (believe me, I ate, I was neither anorexic nor bulimic) Turn sideways and you'll be invisible. A strong wind will blow you away. Have a sandwich. You're a stick. Are you anorexic or what? <br />
I guess I was OR WHAT.<br />
But that was who I was. I was comfortable with her. In spite of was people said about me or how rude they were. I was totally fine with people making fun of me. I understood they were rude and stupid. And it was nothing my real friends would do, so I didn't care. I liked me and I liked who I was. Occasionally, I would kind of wish I was more of a normal weight but for the most part, it was cool, I was good with who I was and what I looked like. I accepted it.<br />
I was the thin girl, the skinny girl. The girl who could have multiple babies and snap back into shape in no time at all. I had a terrible diet. I ate junk food and sweets and probably had an overactive thyroid. I was tired all the time. No energy. The only time I really took care of myself was when I was pregnant or nursing.<br />
In my early thirties I finally gained some weight. Even though I was still considered a normal weight, I was unhappy to not be in the lower range. I guess years of soda drinking had finally caught up to me. Still, it wasn't that bad, I just wasn't comfortable. So I changed my diet and gave up soda and fast food and without too much difficulty I lost about twenty pounds and felt great. I had lots of energy and was eating healthy and feeling great. It changed everything. I became less depressed and was pretty comfortable with who I was. Then, I got pregnant with number five. It was different from all the rest of the pregnancies and I gained a lot of weight. My starting weight was also higher than it was with the rest. So, it was no surprise that after I had the baby, I was pretty big. I wasn't that worried at first. It's the kind of thing that nursing and time and getting more active usually takes care of. And I had already learned how to eat well and keep my body working for me. But nothing worked. So, I joined a gym. I exercised every day averaging two hours a day. I started waitressing again. I lost some weight, things looked good. But I was anxious, tired, frustrated and I couldn't keep the weight off. It kept creeping back. I had to be excessively vigilant and somehow when I had quit smoking, came a vicious sweet tooth that I couldn't keep off me. I felt out of control. I tried all the regular diets. Dr. Oz. South Beach. 17 day diet. I tried trainer and nutritionist recommended diets. I asked my doctor what to do. He tested my thyroid and put me on medication and I thought-- that will be the answer. It will be the end of it. It wasn't.<br />
In all this time, I never overate. My portions were reasonable, though I did have a sweet tooth. That usually consisted of one dessert or one small piece of chocolate. I never binged on anything. This was the way I ate for my whole life and it was never a problem. Sometimes I would get sad and eat more. But never a whole pint of ice cream or an entire pizza or anything crazy like that. Just maybe an extra piece of pie or a second dish of ice cream.<br />
I had no idea what happened to me.<br />
In desperation, I gave up all sweets for two months. I had moderate weight loss. Nothing crazy or great. When my mom got sick, I just gave up trying everything. She needed me and I couldn't focus on myself and I was too sad to even deal with it. But I covered most of this in a different blog.<br />
That is how I got to the place I was.<br />
Here is the thing about this diet. I'm so happy with the lifestyle change that came with it. I just don't much care about being sugar free. It's actually really fine.<br />
I'm happy for having the fat back in my diet and feeling like I am eating really great food.<br />
The thing is, I almost gave up this diet after three weeks. I decided not to weigh myself for five days. I could feel the progress, knew my pants were looser and right out of the gate had lost weight. But after five days I had gained back two pounds. I was really upset. I hadn't done a single thing wrong. No cheating. No varying. I had done all the right things and I had gained weight, anyway. I was ready to just quit. I had been through so many disappointments that I just decided the diet wasn't working and I was failing at it. This was going to be just like all the rest of the diets. Terrible. I started to get depressed. I called my best friend who had been doing this diet for longer and was really getting thin.<br />
She said the best thing. "Push through. It's working. You need to start drinking more water and you'll get rid of that weight. Sometimes your body just takes a minute to reorganize, then you'll start to drop again."<br />
I added about four more glasses of water a day and she was right.<br />
To think I almost gave up. 41 pounds lighter and I almost gave up because of a small setback.<br />
In the last month, I plateaued a little bit. Bounced back and gained some back. I added more activity and drank more water. I pushed through. The scale isn't everything. My clothes continue to get looser. When I exercise, the day after I might weigh a bit more because of inflammation. My body reorganizes and then I have a drop. So, sometimes I go up a little. I push through. I stay the course. I stick to the plan.<br />
I do this because this diet makes me happy and this lifestyle makes me happy. After ten years, I feel that I have a way to finally get rid of the weight that doesn't make me miserable. And I am starting to like the way I look in the mirror. I started this diet nine months ago. It was my new years resolution. The first year I have been able to really keep it when it came to weight loss.<br />
PUSH THROUGH. Don't lose hope. Keep trying. Find your solution. I just don't know if this is right for everyone but it sure is right for me. I'm still quite a few pounds from my ultimate goal but this is my first goal today. To find normal. To know that TODAY I am a normal weight. I am no longer overweight. I am not there any more. That is behind me. Finally. And hopefully, because you never know what the future holds. I learned a lot by going through this. It is humbling. I never made assumptions about people I knew that were overweight but now I really feel that I understand in a whole different light.<br />
I don't know that I am grateful for this experience yet. Perhaps someday I will be. Perhaps not. Life gives you experience whether you want them or not. I just push through.<br />
<br />
Inspired Vanessahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11267599824573875688noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5274935109810298997.post-70015645103097879502016-08-14T14:16:00.000-05:002016-08-15T01:46:31.212-05:00Why Depression isn't really a battle<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br />
</div>At this point in my life, I am not currently and have not been depressed for a long time. I spent a significant and lengthy time in my twenties falling into it again and again. Much of it was undiagnosed postpartum depression that lingered far longer than it should have. Especially when I had multiple babies one after another. Depression convinced and re-confirmed for me over and over that I was a terrible and worthless mother. The cycle was evil. Unfortunately, I had friends and former boyfriends who were so abusive that they more or less confirmed these fears for me. I don't hate them. They had their own demons to deal with. It just did not help.<br />
Eventually when I was not depressed, I found ways to be the mother I was supposed to be, that shockingly, I found that I could be, that finally I had the energy to be.<br />
Depression was always cyclical for me. I could feel it coming on, I could feel it chasing me, I would always try to fight it off but like the coming storm, it usually came anyway.<br />
Recently a friend posted a status that said, he never felt he had battled depression but yelled at its back after it stole his emotional lunch money. This was painfully accurate.<br />
I live in quiet, silent terror of depression coming back all the time. I have not been functionally depressed in over ten years. But I have always felt I have no control over it. It could just ride in at any time and completely trainwreck my life. This knowledge, this fear-- It's not going to stop me from living my life. I'm just aware that demon is hanging around and to feel safe from it is crazy. She can just show up whenever she feels like it and kick my chair out from under me and sit down right in the middle of my chest.<br />
It's kind of like how I am going to walk at night, even though sometimes it scares me. I refuse to live my life afraid of what might happen. Especially when I recognize it is irrational. Sure, I could get mugged. But is that a reason not to go somewhere? I could get mugged right at home. Nope, I'm going out.<br />
So, yes, depression could come after me but my life is too important to me to be held hostage by that.<br />
Oddly, one thing that worked for me was permanently changing my diet and getting rid of all fast food. Quitting smoking. Quitting soda. Adding in healthy veggies and exercise. Is this why? I don't know. Maybe it just went away. But that is when it went away and has not come back significantly since that time.<br />
I don't think in any way this is the answer. Depression is a chemical imbalance in the brain. But food and exercise have an effect on the chemistry in your brain. Maybe it balanced mine. Maybe something else did. I'm never going to know. Perhaps there was something in what I was eating or what I was doing that was poisoning me. No idea. I mean, depression runs in my family, so there is that. And there is not one person I'm closely related to that doesn't deal with it, some worse than others, some are more functional than others.<br />
The other thing that helped me was following my life path and pushing everything else out of the way to pursue the creative work that feeds my soul. It keeps my healthy, happy endorphins flowing. But I don't even begin to have the answers.<br />
Therapy also helped a lot. I had some really good cognitive therapy with a really great therapist (and I went through a few to find the right match) Do two things. Try to do the things that your therapist asks, even if it is hard and get rid of the ones that make you feel bad about yourself. Find a good match.<br />
Honestly, I just wanted to be happy. I know that most of us just want to be happy and no one should expect to be happy all the time, but being happy is worth fighting for. And try to get out of your own way to be happy. Sabotage is a killer.<br />
Here is the deal, though-- this is what depression was like for me.<br />
For all the battles in my life, and there have been many, I have stored up my energy and gone in sword and shield in hand. I have stood my ground and struck blow after blow until I emerged, bloody sword in hand, standing on the dragon.<br />
Depression isn't like that. The first thing it steals is your energy, so you try to pick up the shield and you lack the strength to hold it. The first wave of attack comes after you and you hold up your arms feebly as it pelts you, and the raindrops fall all over you. Now, you are soaking wet and vulnerable. You start to shiver. The next thing it steals is your confidence. You're never going to be dry again, you can't find the sun behind the clouds. What if it isn't there? All you can do is run around and try to find shelter but your strength is gone, and your fears are raw and in between the waves of fresh assaults, all you can do is duck and cover and beg for a break in the weather. Finally, things calm down and it's just kind of gray all around. So, you try to get up, but it has stolen your strength, your confidence and now it attacks your hope. It's pointless to get up when all you are going to find is more of the same malaise. You start to believe that it is always going to be gray. It's best to just stay still, if you try to get out, you will just end up in a storm again. Just stay here and do nothing. It's the safest thing to do and you have to survive. Just keep breathing, that is the best you can do. Yep. And sometimes it steals the will to do that. <br />
So, for me, I always kept this tiny box of hope stored somewhere in my rational mind. Because while the assaults came for my rational mind, I was at least able to save a tiny corner. Not everyone has this luxury. But I always told myself-- this is the sickness talking, this is the disease lying to me-- and I was somehow able to just get through the physical malaise and steal tiny bits of energy enough to keep going.<br />
I always believed the sun was behind those clouds even though I would often not see it for months and months and I always felt damp and weighed down. I had a strong box in my head that refused to give up and give in. Somehow, I was lucky enough to have built something sturdy enough to withstand the attacks. You build it when you're strong, when you feel good about the world. You build it when you don't think you'll need it. And I always needed it.<br />
So, for those people that think depression is just being sad. It's really and truly not. The truth is, my brain has just been through a storm or the stomach flu and my reserves are depleted and it is everything my body can do to just get up and take a shower. The lie is that I had no energy. I have no reserves. I have no fight. It is just a lie that depression tells me. My hope is hiding behind that cloud, I just couldn't feel it or see it right then. <br />
This is just what I went through. I cannot and will not speak for anyone else. If you want to argue with me about depression, I literally do not want to talk to you about it. Your struggle is your own. I'm not going to pretend to know. I know that mine is similar to some and completely different from others. I have never been medicated for depression and hopefully will not need to be. I think some people really benefit from medication. Everyone has to do what personally is needed to try to get better.<br />
This is only my story. And it is only a little piece. I hope it helps in some way.<br />
Inspired Vanessahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11267599824573875688noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5274935109810298997.post-43813417850730360142016-08-12T11:07:00.000-05:002016-08-14T14:23:02.007-05:00Poor<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br />
</div>Being poor. I can tell when people don't get it. I didn't get it when I was a kid. I grew up with a pretty decent life. My parents both worked professionally and once we moved to U City, things were pretty good. I went from a public school to a private school and we lived in a nice house. My mom was always talking about not having money for this and that and she was frugal about everything but there was always milk in the fridge and always food on the table.<br />
So, I guess I just took it for granted that it wasn't that hard.<br />
I was smart and I knew how to work hard so I wouldn't be poor.<br />
I think a lot of people think that.<br />
My boyfriend convinced me to drop out of high school and move in with him the day I turned seventeen. Neither one of us had jobs and we moved in with another couple in this tiny three room apartment in South St. Louis. There wasn't a door to separate the rooms and we hung a curtain for privacy. We slept on half a mattress on the floor and dragged a couch out of the alley. Our dresser was made of milk crates turned sideways that we stole from the local grocery store. That was where we put our clothes. In the beginning, I loved the freedom from parents all the time. Even though we had no air conditioning in the height of summer, we turned on a box fan and sweated it out.<br />
I did not understand what I was in for.<br />
When we moved in, each couple had about $165 dollars of starter money that came to us unethically but not illegally and we were just going to find jobs. I remember the first day we went grocery shopping and we spent about $20. That was when I figured out milk was kind of expensive, so I got some kool aid and I thought it was no big deal. it was one of the first things I missed on a regular basis.<br />
The thing is, when you have no skills and no value, no one really wants to hire you. Especially when you're seventeen. So, you think you will get a job and it will be no big deal until no one will hire you. I went to place after place after place and could not find anything. Finally I got an interview at Jack in the Box. This was the place I thought I would work. It was close by. They hired teenagers. It looked like something I could do. They did not hire me. After that happened I was kind of devastated and desperate.<br />
We were out of money, we were out of cigarettes. My idiot boyfriend insisted we buy pot with some of that money. It did not make sense but he didn't care.<br />
When we ran out of money, I stood outside the grocery store with a charity can and asked people for donations and we lived on that. Eventually, I was able to get a job working at a little diner cooking and waiting on customers at the counter. The tips were nothing. I made about five dollars a day if I was lucky and the Korean man who owned the place gave me $2.75 an hour. He was really nice but he only wanted me three days a week for about nine hours total. My boyfriend got a job running a hot dog stand downtown. At heart, my boyfriend was just a lazy, unpleasant person. He found the job hot and difficult and he just quit. Or he got fired, I was never clear on what happened.<br />
My guess is that he had a shitty attitude and he probably stole some hot dogs, left the stand unattended and showed up baked. He told me he quit because "Fuck that job" but it is more likely he got fired.<br />
At the end of the first month, we didn't have the $75 we needed for rent because we barely had enough for groceries.<br />
Meanwhile I was working pretty hard at the diner. And I liked my boss and he seemed to like me pretty well. At the end of the shift, he always let me sit down and have a hamburger and fries and he used to give me a pack of cigarettes. One day his wife showed up instead of him and I could tell by the way she was eyeing me up suspiciously that she didn't like me very much. In my imagination, he had hired me without consulting her.<br />
The way I got hired was this. I walked in to this diner and asked if they were hiring and he said to me "Come back at 6 tomorrow and I will talk to you."<br />
So, I left and went home, figuring I had an interview. But when I got home, I thought to myself, did he mean six am or six pm? Because the diner opened at 6 am! I fretted about this for an hour and finally decided this was not something I wanted to be wrong about. So, I got up at five am and made sure I was there at six on the dot. I wanted that damn job. I needed that damn job. You don't know humiliation until you have stood outside the grocery store and begged for money.<br />
No one was there at six am. The place was empty. Even though the sign on the diner said they opened at six, apparently those hours were just a suggestion. He finally showed up about 7:30 am. I sprang up and told him "I got here at six like you asked!" He shook his head at me and spoke gently to me in broken English. <br />
"You come back at six tonight."<br />
I hung my head. Sorry, I said and walked away. He smiled at me, though and when I showed up at six that evening he negotiated my hours and salary with me. He might have pity hired me. he might have hired me because I showed up at six am and he felt bad but I didn't care.<br />
I knew his wife had just had a baby when I started working there, and I knew the way she was looking at me I had to be extra respectful and extra diligent. So, I was. There was no extra pack of cigarettes that day and she grudgingly made me lunch at the end of my shift. There are lots of things you can tell without words and I could tell she didn't want me around. Too nice was not good. Too stand offish was not good. I had no idea what would make her like me, so I just behaved as normally as possible while being respectful and working hard.<br />
The next day it was back to normal and he came in again. I was relieved. Everything went back to normal for about a week or so. Then, one day I showed up for work and they were both there. I was confused. He took me aside and explained to me that his wife was back and he didn't need me any more. He gave me a pack of Marlboro 100s and said he was going to open up another diner next year and that I should come and work for him there but he didn't need me right now. He tried to tell me that I was a good worker and he was sorry to let me go. I didn't drag it out. I let him let me go so I could get around the corner and burst into tears.<br />
The business of living is expensive. The business of keeping your head above water is serious. I had no car, no job, no bus pass and my parents had explained to me in no uncertain terms that if I left that house and dropped out of school, there would be no money. So, I didn't even bother asking or telling them what happened. In many ways, my parents standing their ground on that line was the biggest favor they ever did me.<br />
I got it. I understood poverty in a way I never understood it before. In that moment, the pure and utter desperation I felt was beyond description here. I left that place and went home to gather my wits and figure out how I was going to live. I cried for about twenty seconds, wiped off those tears and stopped feeling sorry for myself. I was going to think a way out of this. I was going to survive. I was going to make things better.<br />
I think this was largely because I knew things could be better and that I could get there. My parents had both grown up in poverty, in very austere conditions. They had tried to explain it to me, tried to explain what it means to drag yourself up and work hard and get your education, do your homework when you're hungry, but though I had lots of sensitive feeling, I didn't really get it until right there. Getting fired for no particular reason from a crappy job that meant the difference between eating and not eating. I didn't even have money to do laundry. I was washing my clothes in the bathtub with shampoo and hanging them up to try. The week before we had shoplifted tampons.<br />
The grind of this every day is something that wears on you. And yet it pulls from you the most creative ways to get by. Because you have to. And when it does, it changes your priorities about everything in your life.<br />
This was more than just a social experiment. You can't just hear about this and understand it, you have to allow yourself to feel it. This was an important part of my development as a human being. Whatever dreams I had went on hold because- survival. I had put myself in this situation with my arrogance and my blind faith in my own ability to work hard and get by. And I realized I couldn't count on my roommates, my boyfriend or my parents to get me out of this mess. It was going to be me. At that point in my life, I was not struggling with depression and hopelessness because I think on top of the harsh realities of what I was facing, that would have been too much. That might have dragged me down to a place I would not have been able to come back from.<br />
There are many ways in which I literally figured it out, but those stories are for another day. For now it is enough to say that I did. I'm writing this down because it's important to put stories in writing.<br />
When I was eleven, there is no way I could understand what it was like to be a black boy growing up during Jim Crow until I read Black Boy by Richard Wright and came out of my little white world for a minute and felt things through those aching words, that every piece of what he was going through and I never looked at the face of things the same again. No, it will never be my experience but the first time I saw Roots, my eyes were opened to slavery in a way my textbooks were never going to get. The human experience is important to share. This is why I want to write books and movies and real stories and yes, comedies. <br />
And we need to understand one another ever if we never mirror the experience. Because I want to be inspired and touched and grateful. History is not a series of dates. It should be alive in us through story. This is a piece of my past. It is a piece of my story. It is why I understand poverty in a way that is very intimate and painful. Because I really wanted a gallon of milk but when you have to walk three blocks home from the grocery store, you make choices. When you have three dollars and you have to choose what you are going to eat for the next couple of days, those choices are going to look different.<br />
Once I was sitting outside Cicero's, back when I was the manager there and a homeless guy came around asking for money. After he left, one of the guys I was talking to said "How does someone get like that? I mean, it's just so pathetic to let yourself get that low."<br />
I remember looking at him and saying "you are about three steps from where that guy is." <br />
He argued with me for a good long time about it. But I know that we are all teetering there on the edge of where things can happen. Maybe not the one percent. Maybe those guys are safer. But those who knew poverty were not the ones jumping out of windows during the stock market crash of 1929. Those who knew poverty, they didn't give up so easy. They already knew how to survive. This is why I am grateful for that time in my life and grateful that it was just a time and not my every day any more. It's beyond fucking hard to live like that. And it could happen to me in a heartbeat of bad luck.Inspired Vanessahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11267599824573875688noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5274935109810298997.post-77318454681855681272016-07-31T00:48:00.001-05:002016-09-02T23:13:55.542-05:00When fat stopped being my enemy <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br />
</div>It's no secret I have been struggling with my weight ever since my youngest daughter was born ten years ago. I just couldn't seem to get back to normal and people were like "oh, you're getting older." and I was like- how come so and so is the same age as me and looks amazing? So, I started the diet and exercise game.<br />
So much fun. I think I started out with South Beach. I did that for a while, lost some weight, got to feeling better, gained it all back. I was really tired and it was clear to me that something was wrong with my body that was not normal to me. My doctor kind of made fun of me a little and also told me I was getting older but tested my thyroid at my request anyway. Guess what? I was right.<br />
My thyroid was not functioning well. So, I went on medication and this was supposed to take care of the problem. It did not. I tried more diets. I got help from a personal trainer. I joined the gym, I worked out every single day for three months. I would work out two to three hours a day.<br />
I lost some weight. I toned up. I looked better. But I couldn't maintain that level of anything. It was just a constant uphill battle for very little overall change. Even the trainers were pessimistic about what I could do. They kind of scoffed at the amount of weight I wanted to lose and behaved as if that was unrealistic. But I wanted my body back. I wanted to be where I was before. Is that so wrong?<br />
So, I tried more diets. I tried the seventeen day diet and talked about it on my blog. I lost about 17 pounds with the 17 day diet and that was awesome but I just could not keep it up. Because I'm weak? Because I don't have the stamina? Not really. Because it made me miserable. And there is only so much low fat, high protein one person can eat before you just want pie. A whole pie.<br />
I would despair because I felt like such a failure. All my grit and stubbornness and determination just did not translate into anything lasting or anything I could keep doing. A person can only eat so much boneless, plain chicken breast before you lose your mind.<br />
Every diet I went on was low fat, low carb. And I would go back to it every time. I would cheat on my cheat day and try to go back to normal. Inevitably I would end up binging a little out of sheer hormonal frustration. I've never been an overeater but this kind of dieting was making me crazy.<br />
When I gave up smoking, one of the ways I coped was to eat a tiny piece of chocolate every time I had a nicotine craving. This was not so bad when I was pregnant but now it morphed into a wicked sugar habit and when I went low fat, I became desperate for sugar. You have not lived until you have tasted and been thoroughly offended by reduced fat sour cream. There is no reason why that abomination should exist.<br />
I tried the smoothie diet. Just lots of fruits and veggies- properly pulverized in kefir yogurt. And more low fat stuff that tastes like crap.<br />
For a while I just wallowed in depression and tried mindful eating and home made pie. I just stopped and tried to just eat like a normal human. If I stopped dieting for one second, I packed on the pounds. I gave up on myself after I tried this horrific fitness class where I was humiliated and mocked on a daily basis. I left crying every day. I would sit in my car after class and weep and feel shitty. Every single day the trainers were mean to me and made fun of me if I couldn't keep up with the rest of the class, if I wasn't fast enough or if my knee pain was preventing me from doing what they wanted me to do. They told me it was normal to puke after class. Newsflash. Working out should not make you throw up.<br />
After three months of humiliation and torture, I quit that class. I couldn't do it. Or more to the point, I just didn't want to. I didn't believe in them and they didn't give a shit about me. I had lost six pounds in three months.<br />
I gained it back in a couple weeks.<br />
I went to a good friend who gave me a diet and exercise routine to follow and working with him was great, and he was really kind and the routine was totally reasonable and the diet was totally reasonable and I did well with it for a couple months before I started to slip, but it boils down to this. I was unhappy. And after I fell off that diet, I never really recovered. I gained more weight than I had ever gained before. The weight that I had been the most afraid of happened. I had to buy the largest clothes I had ever bought and I hated the mirror. I hated looking at myself. I hated shopping. I hated every single thing I put in my mouth and I felt the worst I have ever felt. Much of my ugly weight gain was happening while my mother was gravely ill and I was just not coping. After she died, I thought without the stress of taking care of everything that everything would lessen but you still have to grieve.<br />
I hate to say it but for the most part, I just gave up. I didn't want to give up. But I was sick and tired of failing all the time. That wears on you.<br />
Last October, my best friend started talking about this awesome new diet she was on and I was just like- yay for you. But I was completely pessimistic about anything working for me. I was mildly intrigued but not even interested. But she kept after me. I said "Okay, after I get back from Germany, I will call you and you can tell me what to do."<br />
At that point, she had lost like thirty pounds and I was like- wait a minute- maybe this is something I should pay attention to. I figured the best way to do this was to start in the new year fresh after the holidays.<br />
So, I did.<br />
I read up on this totally weird diet. Keto. High fat, low carb. The science goes like this. Your body can either burn fat or carbohydrates. If you starve it of carbs, it becomes highly efficient and burns fat. Hmmm. That sounded logical. First she told me what I would have to give up. No bread, no pasta, no sugar. Pretty standard for every single diet I have ever been on. Yeah, okay, I wanted to lose weight, I will give all those things up. And check this. No cheat days. No cheating at all. You have to put your body in ketosis to burn the fat and cheating is counteractive. Absolutely no cheating.<br />
OKAY! FINE!<br />
My first thought is- I'm going to fail at this because I love sugar and I need it. I mean, why can't I eat just a tiny, tiny piece of chocolate? Just one little mouthful...?<br />
Cause NO CHEATING.<br />
Ok fine.<br />
But guess what? There is an up side to this diet.<br />
There is? <br />
Yes. There is fat.<br />
Okay... what does that mean?<br />
It means bacon. It means cream. It means butter. It means fried stuff. It means cheese. It means full fat sour cream.<br />
Wait-- hold on-- explain that.<br />
I like milk in my morning tea.<br />
I used to put skim milk in there. But I would rather put two percent. My best friend says "Don't put milk in it. Put in heavy whipping cream."<br />
WHAT??? But...are you serious? I thought you said this was a diet... She says to me, you need to consume 70% fat, 25% protein and 5% carbohydrates per day to start out.<br />
So the first day I have bacon and eggs for breakfast. I have a salad with ranch dressing and cheese for lunch and for dinner I have chicken sautéed in olive oil with homemade alfredo sauce and spinach and green beans with real butter on it. I think- no way am I going to lose weight eating like this. And after the first week I lost two pounds.<br />
That was eight months ago. That was 40 pounds ago.<br />
This is literally the only diet I have ever been able to stick to.<br />
I admit that I have cheated, very moderately about four times. And the next day I went right back to the diet and after about a week, I began to function at full capacity again.<br />
Also after the first week-- all my sugar cravings completely disappeared.<br />
After the second week I had more energy than I had in a long time.<br />
After the third week, my skin started to glow.<br />
After the fourth week, my pants started to get loose.<br />
After that I could walk four to five miles at a time without breaking a sweat.<br />
I have gone down four sizes and I'm not even sure how many inches I have lost but all my clothes are looser and everything I wore last summer is something I am swimming in.<br />
All that is great. But the best part is how happy this diet makes me. For the first time, I don't feel deprived or ripped off or like I am suffering. I embraced everything and began to learn to cook gluten free, sugar free yummy treats like chocolate chip cake and lemon tart. I found a good sugar free ice cream and I can always have whipped cream. Butter is my friend again. I have a choice of all kinds of yummy treats that I can eat guilt free and dinners I can completely enjoy.<br />
What's my secret? Slather it in grease and put some butter on it.<br />
I'm not saying this is going to work for everyone. Not at all. But I am relieved to finally have something that works for me. And I am glad that I didn't have to give up. I hit my first goal and my second one is right around the corner. Yes, I had to give some stuff up. But the best part is, I don't mind that at all. The benefits are great and the inconvenience is small. So if you are struggling, hang in there. And I hope very much you find your answers.<br />
Inspired Vanessahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11267599824573875688noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5274935109810298997.post-62791973580653949752016-07-25T16:31:00.000-05:002016-07-25T16:31:19.713-05:00The High Jump<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"
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When I was thirteen years old, my best friend and I loved to go to this public swimming pool in Clayton called Shaw Park. She lived nearby and we would walk over and spend the day there. There was a kiddie pool and the main swimming pool, which was huge and finally there was a separate pool, not as big but very deep and was just for diving off the platforms-- there were three platforms.<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsfdwknWsb4E9fmiI5h-ouFNBKer7ILSu5b6Pa5j-Zcf1Ft-E8y7bg5hCow4qGwv_twGn7lSyOQfDgaT8Fwpr0KduCl23zrV8b9qtdYgcaBQiSwyUsOnR2nhvAxXtNuo7s_4IlJio4Nrs/s1600/shaw+park+clayton.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsfdwknWsb4E9fmiI5h-ouFNBKer7ILSu5b6Pa5j-Zcf1Ft-E8y7bg5hCow4qGwv_twGn7lSyOQfDgaT8Fwpr0KduCl23zrV8b9qtdYgcaBQiSwyUsOnR2nhvAxXtNuo7s_4IlJio4Nrs/s320/shaw+park+clayton.jpg" width="320" height="231" /></a><br />
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The picture pretty much gives you an idea of the setup. You can see the deep pool and the platforms.<br />
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So, I wanted to jump off the platform and I thought rationally I would start with the lowest platform. I climbed the ladder and walked up to edge and peeked over. Now, I had been jumping and diving off diving boards for years and I was not really afraid to do that, but as I stood looking over the edge of this platform, I realized it was higher than anything I had ever jumped off before. I looked over at the two lifeguards on the side of the pool.<br />
One of them was a cute guy wearing a maroon bathing suit. My best friend and I had been googly eyed over this guy for weeks, part of why we wanted to go to the "big deep pool".<br />
I stood there for a while. There were people behind me waiting. I walked back over and saw the people waiting.<br />
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"Are you going to go or not?" Someone yelled at me. I tried again, walking to the edge and looking down. At that point, the panic kicked in and my heart started really pounding.<br />
No, no, no. This was too high.<br />
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I went back to the ladder and went back down, feeling the flush of humiliation in every step towards the ground. People were probably laughing at me. Look at the skinny, terrified girl. I ran to the safety of the large, crowded pool where I could go back to the anonymity of becoming part of the crowd. My best friend was amused but patient. I don't remember her making fun of me or making me feel bad about it. She was often there to coax me or comfort me. At that time, she was the person who would order from the waitress when we went out to eat on the days when I was too afraid to talk to people I didn't know. She quietly understood my shyness and my fears and never pushed me to do things that I didn't feel I could, but she always encouraged me to try. Sometimes, just standing by me was the most helpful thing.<br />
That summer we climbed up that platform many more times with the same result. She used to go first and confidently jump off and then stand below waiting for me to figure out if I could go.<br />
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I chickened out an embarrassing amount of times. I don't even rightly remember how many times I went up, walked slowly to the edge, stood there for what felt like an eternity of seconds and returned to the ladder to go back down. <br />
One day, I stood there and told myself I was going to do it. I told myself I was not allowed to fail. I steeled up, gathered my courage and put on my determined face. I was not going to run away this time. I mean, I think I told myself every time I got up there I was going to do it this time. This time I was going to succeed, this time I was going to be brave, this time was going to be different and every time it wasn't. Every time I couldn't find the courage to overcome that gripping terror that hit me when I looked down. I stood there and stood there and then, magically, I let go. I jumped. My body hung in the air for a brief moment and plunged deep in to the pool. I opened my eyes and looked at the surface far above me and swam hard to reach it. Vividly, I remember breaking through and taking a moment to look around me. The lifeguard telling me to swim to the edge so the next person could jump and me looking over. <br />
There was no applause when I finally jumped.<br />
There was no moment where anyone noticed except my best friend who was there, smiling.<br />
She was the only who noticed that I had climbed Mount Everest and jumped into the pool below.<br />
I think that is how it is for a lot of things. These personal moments that come with conquering something huge while everyone is standing around waiting in line to do something that is not that big a deal to them.<br />
But for me, it means that I was able to fail a bunch of times and not give up on the goal. That diving platform gave me a lot of grit and courage. Sometimes, you have to fail and move on to other things. Sometimes you don't get the chance to climb up the platform again. But that platform always gave me hope that I could try again. That being afraid was not the end of the world, that time would give me courage, that determination would get me through it and that jumping into the air was magical. In life, sometime you have to jump off the mountain and turn that fear into exhilaration. Do the thing that scares you the most. Do the thing that makes your palms sweat and your heart race.<br />
I always come back to the platform when the thing in front of me terrifies me. I will say to myself, you jumped off that platform, this is not a big deal. I will take a deep breath and dig in.<br />
Inspired Vanessahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11267599824573875688noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5274935109810298997.post-22309248248174043482016-04-07T01:48:00.000-05:002016-04-07T01:48:03.932-05:00The Importance of Being Tom<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Today I started a fake blog for my movie, "The Importance of Doubting Tom". We need to do a screen shot of the blog that is mentioned in the movie and so I went ahead and wrote some stuff up for it. The blog is called "The Importance of Being Tom" and I think I will be adding content to it more and more as we go along. It's going to be fun. So much fun. We are getting closer to a final cut of the movie. No, it's not there yet. Please don't ask me when it will be done. It will be done when it gets done. I have no idea when that will be. Just know it's going well and I am very pleased with the progress overall. And thank you for your interest and for everyone who has supported me in all of this. It's exciting.Inspired Vanessahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11267599824573875688noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5274935109810298997.post-60353474189730060632016-04-07T00:50:00.001-05:002016-04-07T01:48:41.236-05:00The dark we know well<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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I was just reading an article about a female's ability to de-escalate a situation. I've been doing this my whole life. Most of us females have. We were sexualized before we had the ability to fully understand sexuality. I watched my mother try to de-escalate my father's anger. My brother's anger. Cope with everyday sexism. She taught me to de-escalate. Not consciously. I learned by watching her.
When I was thirteen years old, just beginning to develop breasts and having not even had my first sexual experience, a male cousin copped a feel while pretending to pet the kitten I was holding close to my chest. I knew what he was doing. Make no mistake, perverts, we are fully aware of your inappropriate contact. And I had no idea what to do about his uninvited molestation, but sit there and wait until he stopped. I remember thinking this cousin was handsome when I was five, he was a full seven years older than me, and at first I was thrilled he was actually talking to me, having a full conversation with me, interested in me. Until I realized why he was even talking to me. So, he could pretend to touch me innocently while touching me inappropriately. And then I was ashamed, embarrassed and confused.
When I was fourteen, I went for an eye exam and the eye doctor started taking my pulse during the exam. He lifted my wrist and pushed it right up next to my breast so the outside of his hand was touching it and he just left it there for what seemed like forever.
When I was fifteen, I walked ten blocks in New York to the theater. My first Broadway show on my own. I was all dressed up, wearing a lovely dress and heels. I was catcalled and whistled at for the entire ten blocks. Grown men said the most disgusting things to me.
When I was seventeen, I was walking to the bus stop in my Steak n Shake uniform. A man screamed across the street at me, wanting to know how much I would charge for a blow job. I was mortified. When I didn't answer him, he became extremely hostile and abusive. I was terrified he would cross the street. I kept my head down until the bus got there.
It took until I was about twenty four for me to tell a strange man to take his hand off me. Before that time, bosses had touched me, strangers had grabbed my ass on public transportation, drunk men in public had threatened me and boyfriends had beaten me up. Violence and sexual situations was such a regular and frequent part of my life that I had grown to accept its existence. I was only beginning to find a voice in it.
Once I was waiting for a drink at a crowded bar and a man squeezed in next to me.
"Give me your phone number!" he demanded.
"I don't even know you. Why would I do that?" I said.
"Just give it to me."
"No," I said, deciding to just be direct. In the past I would have said I had a boyfriend or I was waiting for someone or whatever socially correct excuses I had cultivated to de-escalate.
"Fucking stuck up bitch." I was greeted with.
Because I said no. Men like this prefer the dance. They keep you talking, keep you engaged. But basically they push in on you, they touch you, they invade your space. I was trying to shut it down sooner. Engaging in this brutal honestly got me called a lesbian, a stuck up bitch, a whore, a fucking slut. It got my life threatened. A man can go from "hey baby" to "I will fucking kill you" in the time it takes for a woman to say "no, thank you."
Please don't bother to tell me all men are not like this. We are aware. Very much aware that all men are not like this. I am married to a man who is not like this. Men who are not like this are not the problem.
Once, a man I was dating was very, very drunk in a bar with me and I watched him looking at a girl standing next to him, the spaghetti strap of her dress had fallen down off her shoulder and was hanging mid arm. For some inexplicable reason, he took hold of the strap and raised it up on her shoulder and patted her shoulder. He kept walking. He didn't even realize what he had done and assuredly, he meant no harm by his action. But he did not see the look of pure terror in the girl's eyes when he touched her. He didn't even register this action as something that would cause terror. But it does. Because we can't tell what kind of man you are and we have learned that men can be dangerous.
We have often had to try to calm someone down and make them feel better so he will not get more angry, more violent.
One of my boyfriends co workers used to sexually harass me every time I walked into the restaurant where he worked. He would make lewd and disgusting comments to me every single time. Telling him to shut up did no good. Standing up to him, ignoring him, avoiding him. None of it worked. And everyone around me tolerated or laughed off his behavior. Get a thicker skin, I was told. He's harmless. I wasn't exactly afraid of this guy but it still bothers me that everyone in that situation decided that his behavior wasn't a problem.
Worse even was that he was hired on later at a restaurant where I was the manager and he proceeded to attempt to sexually harass me there as well. Even though I was the boss, several male employees made sexual comments and propositioned me. Instead of feeling that I had the power to fire them, which I did, I feared they would use their sexual harassment against me to find a loophole. I enlisted my co-manager, who was male to discipline and fire them when the time was right. All I could do at the time was de-escalate the situation to protect myself. But they were fired for other reasons. What they did to me went unpunished.
The worst part of all of this is that I am so desensitized to it half the time, I don't even register it happening. It takes someone else to be appalled by it a good deal of the time. It's so regular and normal to have to put up with it. To walk around it, to try to deal with it. It makes me sad. It mades me angry. It makes me wish it would change.Inspired Vanessahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11267599824573875688noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5274935109810298997.post-66451759327061549312016-02-09T11:40:00.001-06:002016-04-07T00:50:52.543-05:00On her shouldersI think my biggest problem in the primaries is people who are on the same side turning against one another. I am saddened and disappointed by the shaming comments from Madeline Albright and Gloria Steinem, two women that I have immense respect for and have made tremendous change in this world that all of us women have benefited from. Many have attempted to pit us against one another. Or to shame anyone voting for our fellow democrat. It's working. Personally I love both Hillary and Bernie and we have an embarrassment of riches in terms of intelligent and caring candidates from the left. Compared to the ridiculous candidates from the right who can't fact check to save their hides. I don't understand why people are so willing to jump into camps one against the other when we are all basically fighting for the same things.
We don't vote for someone just because she is a woman-- did we not make that point when Sarah Palin was running?
I am so immensely thankful for the older feminists. We have the luxury of maternity leave and the right to vote in this election and actual women in office and we stand on the shoulders of these women who fought like tigers for us.
This stuff from them is coming from fear. We got so close with Geraldine Ferraro only to have the rug pulled from under us in horrific style to lose that election. Gloria and Madeline were around to see that happen-- the Republicans played so dirty in that election and Hillary got so close in 2008. We want to finally see a woman sitting up there. It is our turn.
I really like Bernie Sanders. If he is our next nominee, I will happily vote for him. I believe in Hillary, too. It is my great joy as a woman to vote for a woman I believe in-- and I hope all of you do that as well, whether it be a woman running for mayor or a woman running for senator, but a woman you believe in. I'm not here to change your mind -- I think if you vote of either of these candidates, we win. And I don't think you are anti feminist if you vote for Bernie. I can forgive Madeline and Gloria, they are impatient and enthusiastic and young feminists are not as educated as they should be SOMETIMES. It's the wrong tactic to try to fear or shame them. We get enough of that shit from men. But I forgive them because I feel they are afraid and that is where the stupid comes from. They should be afraid. But not of Bernie. Of division like this.
I say this to young feminists. Please check out some older documentaries, some narrative movies. I recommend a couple of pieces. Look at the documentary on Geraldine Ferraro. An extraordinary woman who was responsible for Special Victims Unit in New York. Remember when marital rape wasn't a crime? You don't? Thank a feminist. Please take the time to watch Iron Jawed Angels, and the next time you vote, ladies, remember that less than one hundred years ago, we were not allowed to do so. On your way to the polls.... Thank a feminist.
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Inspired Vanessahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11267599824573875688noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5274935109810298997.post-19759540654241659902016-02-01T02:43:00.000-06:002016-02-01T02:43:15.142-06:00The Thing you are meant for<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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I guess it is a lucky thing that I have always known what I wanted to do. Some people really struggle and falter and search, but for me it was always crystal clear that acting, writing and directing were what I wanted to do. What I needed to do.
When you choose a thing like that, for me, it came with some huge insecurity. I didn't want to do any of it unless I was good enough. Not just good enough. Great enough. Because there was no point unless I could be great. And unfortunately, sometimes that means you wait until someone tells you that you are great. And people can be petty.
My seventh grade teacher was the first person to tell me I was great. That my passion and obsession with writing was not ill thought out. I blushed radiantly with tremendous pleasure. She was not my friend or my mother and under no obligation to compliment me. She just did it anyway.
I kept that for a long time. Held on to it. I still do. When just one person believes in you, that is magic.
But mostly, I felt that I was a good writer. I felt amazing when I wrote. I felt amazing when I read a good book. And to understand the depth of what an author is saying. That is like something divine flowing through your very soul. A really fine piece of literature touches you everywhere and resonates through your being. I was never sure I could be that good. But I wanted to be. I wanted to tell a story in a way that people would pay attention and not be bored.
An impossible task. You cannot please everyone. You never will. There are lots of people that will tell you that you are shit.
This business loves rejection.
I tell you what though, when you are doing what you're supposed to be doing, it will feel just right. And for me, it just fits so comfortably when I can take an actor to a deeper performance. When we can find a moment together. When I can pull out a beautiful talent and recognize it and nurture it. That's when I know that this business was meant for me.
The other day I was rehearsing with the cast and I sat down with them and unpacked a scene. We talked it through and it went from kind of okay to next level amazing.
There are those that say this business is frivolous and unimportant but plays and movies change the world. Our stories are important. What we do touches people and changes minds and hearts.
And I fit there. When I am directing, I am home. I feel it in my bones that this is what I am on this earth for. To create this art and to connect with people and to bring out next level amazing.
And when you find the thing you are meant to do, there is no other feeling in the world that's better.Inspired Vanessahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11267599824573875688noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5274935109810298997.post-20921074468123300082016-02-01T02:38:00.001-06:002016-02-01T15:23:39.513-06:00Time spent in the Single Mom world<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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In some ways, being a single mother was a badge of honor, in other ways, it was the deepest shame I had to overcome in my life. But I made the choice to identify with it as an honorable trial that I went through. Not everyone respects me for it. Frankly, I don't give a damn. I've been through too much and come too far to allow that to hold me back.
But it began with shame.
The shame of getting caught having sex before marriage. Not getting caught by your parents but getting caught by the world. Like your virginity or lack of virginity is no longer private. Now everyone knows. And in some ways it's not like I cared that much but it was just one more thing I wasn't ever going to be able to lie about conveniently if I needed to, because it's nice to have the option of being innocent even if you're not.
Oddly, I remember thinking, well, that's it. I will never be Miss America.
The secondary shame of "getting myself pregnant" (how did I manage it?) Isn't it interesting how it always lands in the lap of the woman. She let herself get pregnant.
Let's see. For the record, I begged my mother to let me stay on birth control and she told me to stop having sex. I didn't. My boyfriend refused to use any birth control and when I tried to go to planned parenthood, he told me he was most certainly sterile and made sure I didn't go. Not that I am blaming anyone but the two of us, but these are just facts.
Then there is a the general naivete of being 17 when you think nothing bad can happen to you. You know, women try to get pregnant for years... it just wasn't happening and if it does, you know, I think I can handle it cause I want to be a mom anyway and he loves me and is going to stay with me. I was way too smart to be that stupid. And my boyfriend was pretty controlling. I was not who I am today and I am afraid I was raised to accept and accommodate a man controlling me.
Then came the catch 22. Do I stay with the asshole who is abusing me and marry him "for the sake of the child" or do I leave him and face the shame of being a single mother?
It is a relationship born in shame.
I ran away from him when I was five months pregnant because I could no longer defend myself from the beatings and I feared he would kill the baby or me. I remember ridiculing myself for fearing him. I was tougher than that. But my baby wasn't, and it was time to go.
I wish I had made that decision when I just had myself to save but it wasn't until I had a child to save that I felt the imperative.
So, no. I did not do what my mother did. I did not marry my abuser.
Aren't moms always saying don't make the same mistakes I did?
No, I made different same mistakes.
Being a single mother or giving my child up for adoption were my only viable options. I didn't have the emotional strength to give my baby away.
I had to choose between living with my boyfriend the abuser or my father the abuser.
I had run away from my father the abuser the year before and now I was running away from my boyfriend who had within months become the abuser. In spite of all the things he promised me. In spite of the way I believed he never would. He became all those things that I now see the signs that he would become. For two years, he never hit me. I was emotionally abused in many ways but he never hit me. So, I really thought I was safer with him.
Until he hit me again, and again and again. And promised me he wouldn't and then did.
I was recently told how I shamed and hurt my mother. It's not like I don't realize that she was ashamed but I am pretty sure that was her problem and not mine. Your kids are going to embarrass you. You get to stand up and claim them anyway. It's called being a parent.
I have several friends that are adopted. I cannot imagine the shame their biological mothers went through. The religious shame. The general shame. All the shame I chose to live with that was made impossible for them.
Seriously, the Catholic church needs to take down that statue of Mary if they want to shame single mothers...it's ridiculous.
But that was not the worst part of all that shame. The worst part was admitting that I did indeed need help. That I am not an island and that I need a support system. There was a whole lot of "you got yourself into this mess."
I hated that part the most. You got yourself into this mess with your promiscuous behavior. In some ways I will always be "the single mother". It was my first experience of parenthood. My parents paid those bills for me but there was no physical help for a long time. I had to learn my lesson first. If I wanted to keep that baby, I had to do this one hundred percent by myself.
No one got up all hours but me. No one changed those diapers. No one else fed him and took him to the doctor and walked him until he gently fell asleep.
Because I was learning my lesson. It hurt that it was more important to teach me a lesson than to lend a hand to an exhausted eighteen year old girl who was doing her damndest to grow up as fast as she could. But I was too stubborn to beg and too proud to admit I was drowning a little. Sometimes a lot.
In a funny way, I was proud to be a single mother. I was modern. It was harder than anything else I had to do at that point in my life, but I was not going to allow the judgmental assholes of the world to defeat me and I handled that shit. I was not always good at it. In fact, I was not nearly the parent that I dreamed of being and that hurt most of all. Because I felt like a failure much of the time. But I didn't walk away from my responsibilities. I found a way to handle it. I found a way to survive depression. I found a way to survive shame. I found a way to leave people I loved that hurt me. I found a way to survive abandonment. I found a way to survive self loathing and anxiety. People would say "I don't know how you do it." Like it was something you have a choice in. You just get up every day and you do it. You don't know what it is like to have someone else carry the car seat, go to the grocery store for you. Get up in the night. It gets done because it must get done. Because you have to.
In the end, I found joy but it took a long time. And I even found a way to a healthy relationship and co-parenting. And when it happened, I knew how to appreciate it. And some people have it way worse, yes, of course they do. But I cannot write about their experiences, only my own. And please do not presume that I am not infinitely grateful to my mother for taking me back, taking me in and supporting me when I might well have starved. She saved my ass more than I ever deserved and she helped me more than I can ever re-pay and there is no end to my gratitude for what she did for me.
I always knew I was tough but no one else did for a long time.
I wish many things were different but we cannot change our past. In the end, I am grateful, even for the abuse. It made me the strong survivor I am and it gave me the depth of my stories.
I am somehow uncomfortable with the identifier "Mrs." even after ten years, I still want to correct people. I still feel like a woman in a partnership I chose without the ownership. Deep in there my strongest identifier is the single woman, the single mother, the independent girl. Deep in my past is the determination to not be owned by any man.
I like that every generation lifts the shame a little more. But I wish for those single girls the partnership that is supposed to come with parenting. I wish them love and help and strength. It is the hardest thing to go through by yourself. But I wear my survival with honor. And without the shame they want to heap on me. Screw your shame, you can have it back. I have no use for it.
Inspired Vanessahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11267599824573875688noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5274935109810298997.post-10236228448693675462016-01-28T00:01:00.003-06:002016-01-28T00:01:51.532-06:00Significant and Milestone Birthdays<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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I remember turning six years old and inviting the entire kindergarten class to my birthday party and almost everyone showed up. I was completely shocked that any of them came to my party. I thought only your friends who cared about you would come to your party. And I didn't have any actual friends. When my mother arranged this party, I had some major anxiety. Not realizing at the tender age of five that the parents would happily drop off their kids for an afternoon without regard to the status of actual friendship. We played pin the tale on the donkey and everyone laughed and participated and it was joyful. For the first time around my classmates, I was not afraid to speak out loud. I felt like a princess for a day. And they actually seemed to like me that afternoon. At least there was a sense of genuine kindness from all the kids there, happy to be playing games and eating cake and doing something different from their normal routine.
There is a picture somewhere of me at that party with a paper hat on my head. We made those hats at the party and mine had a little construction paper red Indian feather in it. I had been in the same class with these kids for the better part of a year and could barely speak a sentence to any of them as the shyness was too deep, too terrifying, too crippling.
But on that day, I discovered I could be on the stage as the birthday girl and I could act like the star I wished I was. I had just discovered my secret desire was to be an actress. I could play the part of the birthday girl. The following Monday, I went back to being the girl no one spoke to who was too afraid to speak. I felt a small pinch of sadness as things went back to as they had been before. Nothing had changed and I was just another year older.
When I was eleven, I was allowed to have my first birthday slumber party. I had just discovered Billy Joel and was given the album Glass Houses as a present. At that point in my life, I had a best friend and she made everything possible. Deep dark secrets flowed out. The friendship was strong and steady and I could rely on it being there even after a silly argument about something stupid.
She had her birthday slumber party two months before mine and it was pretty cool. So, naturally, I wanted to have one as well! It was a small, intimate party. Five girls. Lots of giggling, pizza and cake. We stayed up really late. Someone's bra got dunked in water and frozen, and we tried to levitate one another. We talked about ghosts and a little about boys- but mostly we were fascinated with movies, music and the supernatural. And of course, we played truth or dare!
We went back to school on Monday and giggled in the hallways about the private stuff we had shared. We now had inside jokes and knowing glances. There were secrets in the air. Mostly, with a few notable exceptions, but mostly, I have chosen my friends well. These were loyal and kind girls. They are all outsiders of some sort or another so no one blabbed all the incredibly private stuff we confided with one another all over the school. Even if we were not all terribly close all the time, these girls had honor.
I had waited impatiently to turn sixteen. That for me was a magical and mystical age in my imagination and all things wonderful would happen. Right? John Cougar Mellencamp said so. "Hold on to 16 as long as you can, changes come around real soon, make us women and men." Truer words were never spoken. You can only hold on to it for a year, though. That's all you get.
I wanted to drive. I wanted independence. I wanted to eat the world. I was brave and bold and daring and I was going to do great things! But what I really wanted was an epic party. I had a really awesome gay bestie Jon, and his birthday was six days before my birthday, which fell on a Thursday that year. So we decided to have a double party. He was turning seventeen.
I lived in two worlds back then. My friends from school and my Rocky Horror friends. Crossing the two was not really that great. The girls I went to school with did not understand my fascination with Rocky Horror. Why would I want to dress up in weird costumes and hang out with gay people? Lord were they missing out. I loved my weird life with them. I was out of my shell and I could talk to anyone while wearing my underwear. I could put on white face makeup with dark eyeliner and slap on a maid costume and be that character. Three years I spent memorizing every line in that movie and matching every action on screen for every character. It was my first "acting" experience and I was killing it. Plus no one ever recognized me outside of the theater.
I handed out a few invitations at school and they were all enthusiastically accepted. I was nervous. "When worlds collide (said George Pal to his bride) I'm gonna give you some terrible thrills.." like a sixteenth birthday party!
At school, I confided in one friend that my Rocky Horror friends would be attending. Slowly all those school friends that had said they would come dropped out one by one. Their lies were transparent and obvious. "I forgot my parents had something planned I can't get out of..." I was kind of relieved. I shouldn't have tried to bring those worlds together. They didn't belong together. Those conservative girls at school would never be able to deal with my gay friends, my weird friends, my older friends, my rowdy friends, the people who spoke their minds and were unafraid. No. They didn't really understand me or them. They did not and would not fit in at this place. I was always chameleon enough like to change myself to fit wherever I was. Growing up in different countries, different schools, I knew how to alter myself to slide into whatever role I was supposed to be playing to make everyone else comfortable. The good girl. The punk rock girl. The rebel. The excellent student. The whore. The virgin. The wallflower. They were all familiar roles for me to play. But Rocky Horror people were my people. They were my authentic group of authentically different people. And the girls I was friendly with at school shrank away from what they did not understand.
My mother was horrified but mostly because I was more grown at sixteen than she was at twenty. There was little sweetness about my sweet sixteen because I didn't want to be that girl and when all my Rocky friends showed up, it was too much for her. In a completely tacky move someone yelled out "Blow out those candles, girl, we know you've had lots of practice blowing things."
We all laughed.
Because that was how we joked. It didn't mean anything in reality.
But for my mother, it was the thing to send her to her room crying. It's horrible to be a mother of a sixteen year old girl that someone sexualizes. I didn't know how devastating that was until she mentioned it many years later. And I felt pretty sad she had been through that.
But at the time, I just wanted the boy I was in love with to show up and kiss me. And eventually he did- with his girlfriend. Then, he asked me to have a three way with them. Ew. No thanks.
My eighteenth birthday. A milestone. For years I had planned to run away from St. Louis on that very day. Here was the thing I had dreamed of to get me through the angst.
I was going to pack up all my things, get in my car and move to Los Angeles, California. It was where I belonged. I was going to be a very famous writer and actress and I was going to eat the world. And the day my life was going to really begin was the day I turned 18.
I sat on the porch of my apartment that day, wistfully sighing.
It was a beautiful day. My birthday is in mid May. I had a lot of beautiful days but that day was particularly pretty and I remember sitting outside. Warm breeze. The smell of spring flowers in the air. I had lived with my boyfriend for exactly one year. And I already knew I was moving out. Moving away from him. He did not really know it yet but I knew we were over. Moving back in with my parents. Because I had to. Because I was five months pregnant. I was not going to California that day.
I thought to myself "Well, you can vote."
It was one of the most bittersweet birthdays I ever had. My life could not have been more up in the air.
Twenty-one. The legal drinking birthday. My mother was very excited to take me out to lunch at the Danielle in Clayton and I ordered a mimosa. She insisted on buying me my first legal drink. She knew I was hiding a pregnancy. I was about four months pregnant and not showing at all. But I didn't really know she knew. I took about three tiny sips out of the drink and told her I didn't really like it. This was not a lie. I did not really like it. She smiled and let me order a soda. Later that night, she babysat my three year old son while I went out bar hopping. Everyone offered me free drinks. I said no, of course. I just wanted to go in to the bars. I was never much of a drinker any way! No one could understand why I did it. I just wanted to go in where I was now allowed inside. I went in to Blueberry Hill. It was stupidly exciting.
I went over to Illinois to this bar where I met my ex boyfriend and hoped I would run into him. He was the guy I loved who dumped me the day I told him I was pregnant. He wasn't there, he didn't show up. I was wistful and sad but I had not lost hope for my life. It was going to be okay. Things change. You roll with it.
My 22nd birthday. I had a friend who wanted me to help her drive out to Los Angeles to move there. We planned a road trip and I was going to fly back. We were out in LA (where I was born) for my 22nd birthday. They asked me where I wanted to go. Disneyland! So we went. It was pretty damn awesome. I was very sad I wasn't moving there myself but so happy I got to go. It touched off a whole new chapter in my life.
My 30th birthday. I was pretty miserable. It was a Monday night and nobody wanted to do anything. My mom made me roast beef for dinner and a chocolate cake with the frosting I liked. How I miss my mother making me a cake. It was the care and love that went into it. I waited around until very late because my boyfriend was closing at Blueberry Hill. Honestly, you would think he would have taken my birthday off but no, he did not. I lumbered up to Blueberry Hill with my huge pregnant belly. I was three days away from giving birth to my daughter. I remember that it was graduation weekend for Washington University and all the students were up there partying. On a Monday night. Seriously! It was very crowded with all the most annoying students ever. And the vomit was everywhere. Drunk graduate vomit. Yay.
It was so anti climactic. Turning 30. I thought it was going to be this big event. It was not.
But these are all the birthdays I remember the most.
Inspired Vanessahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11267599824573875688noreply@blogger.com3