I have been thinking a lot - nonstop, actually, always in the back of my head - about the truth I told in my post Telling this January. Putting my story out here in the world for anyone to see what a powerful thing to do: it changed me, somehow, and only made me more determined to live my truth, to tell the truth. What we do is telling; what we do tells the story of who we really are at our core.
I deeply want to be the girl who promised herself at nine that, if she'd been a German in the Holocaust, she would have done the right thing. As a nine year old I was just so incredibly sure of that difference between right (helping) and wrong (looking the other way); I was untested, and with that innocence, I as absolutely certain that I would have been different than my own family members, who blithely wore the Hitler Youth uniform, who lied about what they did in WWII while they wore swastikas. Plus, I had promised myself, and Anne Frank, that I wasn't like that. I promised to keep my promise that if the time came, I'd stand up and do what was right, even if it was hard.
However, I grew up, and I learned - as all grownups do - that life is complicated. I learned that life is dangerous. I grew to realize that self preservation is a worthy goal, because life has value, and when you're dead it's hard to help anyone. I grew to value comfort and safety. I spent about eight years of my life in cancer treatment - 16 surgeries, chemo, radiation, and so many awful pills that were designed to save my life but in the short term tried to ruin my life with side effects. In those eight years, I learned one thing that I know for sure: I value my life, and I will fight for it. I am desperate to remain on this planet to raise my daughter, and to accomplish some of my dreams, and to feel joy. I do not take one breath for granted, and I value my safety. I don't drive in the Seattle snow (hills and ice and bad drivers), I take the ten essentials (and more) while hiking... I obsessively take steps to make sure that my daughter and I are safe.
It is nearly impossible to stand up to fight injustice and adhere to maximum safety. The two things are in conflict: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. spent time in jail for his beliefs before he was taken down by a bullet; Dr. Christine Blasey Ford told her truth and then her entire family had to move and get a security detail because of the threats she received. This troubles me. How could I fight to protect my life, while still holding my ideals?
Life is messy. I try to live my life in a way that would make my nine year old self proud; I try to live my life in a way that honors my promise not only to myself but to Anne Frank. However, I wasn't absolutely sure what the truth of myself was, if I would actually keep that promise or if it was just a lofty thing to say (from the comfort of my home, in a country with free speech, in my middle class life, in my white body). Who could know what I would really do?
Now I know.
On Saturday, I was standing in front of my house when I heard some of the most terrifying screams I've ever imagined, and I realized that a neighbor and her children were in the middle of a domestic violence situation. I will spare the details because they are a very real family and they deserve their privacy, and so I tell this not from their perspective, but my own. I stood in front of my house - having been out walking my big dog - and heard those screams.
I did not hesitate. With what I hoped was a little big of security from my large, rambunctious dog, I walked right into the middle of the situation. There were little kids in there, and nothing mattered to me but making sure they got out. I tried to de-escalate the situation, I talked softly, and I got the kids and mom out, and we went to my house for safety while we waited for the police to arrive.
It was only after we were standing in the safety of my kitchen that I learned that there was a gun involved, and realized that I had walked into an incredibly dangerous situation - much more so than I had imagined. It happened a few days ago, and I'm still shaking.
***
Last night I talked to a domestic violence expert about my experience, and told her about my realization that I had not thought it through at all, that I'd only acted on instinct, and that I was concerned I had done absolutely everything wrong, despite the good outcome. I told her that I felt like an idiot - what if I had made things worse? What if I'd risked myself unnecessarily? If I'd done the right thing, how come I felt anxious and frightened and I can't sleep at night?
I keep reliving details. The police came, and after a couple hours of standoff that involved shutting down the neighborhood, police with guns that looked like assault rifles - giant scary guns, not "just" handguns" - out in my yard and on my porch and and all over my street and alley, the man with the gun was taken away for evaluation. The wife and kids were safe. I was safe. But I don't feel safe.
We talked through my feelings of fear and concern that I'd possibly risked my life in a foolish way, and how I'd acted on instinct and not thought about the consequences of doing so, and how shaken I was, and she said words that I can't get out of my head:
"You did not act impulsively. You've been thinking about this for more than 40 years. You made a promise to your 9 year old self, and you kept that promise. You trusted your instincts - which are good! - and you did the thing that your values demanded. Nothing about that was impulsive; it was a decision that you spent over 40 years thinking about."
***
I will never know, probably, if what I did was the bravest thing ever - hand me my superhero cape, please! - or the dumbest (no domestic violence expert, ever, suggests intervening: domestic violence is incredibly dangerous, and people get years of training of how to deescalate situations, and this is not a situation advised for amateurs).
But I know this: two children were cowering. Their terror, and danger, was real. They will never forget this day for the rest of their lives; they will spend their lives either unpacking it and managing it, or suffering from it. And in this day, I hope that they remember that their middle aged neighbor, the one with the big dog, walked right in and said, "It's okay. It looks like this is a really bad day, and it sounds really scary. How about everybody takes a time out? Come with me, kids. I've got you. You can come with me, and I'll make cocoa. Your mom should come too. Come to my house. It's okay, I've got you..." and then I wrapped them in soft blankets and made them cocoa and grilled cheese sandwiches. I hope that they remember that, when they were screaming, somebody heard, and that somebody didn't look the other way, didn't hesitate to stand up for them. I hope that helps a little bit.
And me?
I'm still shaking. I can't sleep. I hate guns and all that they stand for. I hate violence. I hate shouting. This weekend was filled with that, and I know I risked my life - I risked leaving my daughter motherless! - through blind instinct to help.
I'm glad I'm okay, though shaken. (So shaken. No words to describe these feelings.)
But most of all, though I'm having trouble sleeping this week because I keep reliving it and because the adrenaline or cortisol or whatever it is clearly hasn't left my body, all these days later, I know that for the rest of my life I will be able to sleep, because I passed the test. I am paying the price: the price of doing the hard thing is that - wait for it - it's HARD. There are good reasons people don't stand up.
But I did. I pay the price now, but I did it.
My nine year old self would be proud of me.
And now I know, and I can look my vision of Anne Frank in the eye, and tell not just my dream but my truth:
I would have helped you. I am brave. I am not my grandparents, and I would have helped.
This one was for you, Anne.
Wednesday, February 12, 2020
Wednesday, February 5, 2020
Dear Ms. Swift
Dear Ms. Swift,
Today I stayed home from work with a bug (why is it that I fear coronavirus when my symptoms aren't the same and I haven't been to China?!) and decided to watch your documentary Miss Americana.
Thank you.
You and I go way back, though of course we've never met. I have a seventeen year old daughter, and when she entered her Taylor Swift phase I didn't mind. Driving my daughter to play dates and rock climbing, she sat in the back seat cheerfully singing "why you gotta be so mean?" and I didn't mind singing along. It wasn't long before I knew all of your songs as well as she did, and we had some wonderful, enthusiastic kitchen dance parties as we made dinner.
When you came to Seattle for the 1989 tour, I scraped together the cash for the cheap seats, and gave my daughter tickets for Christmas - the "big" gift, the one I hid behind the tree, and wrapped in a big box to trick her so she wouldn't know what it was. She screamed in glee, and I got a huge hug. A few months later, my daughter, myself, and a handful of our mother and daughter friends went to the concert. My daughter wore cat eye makeup (painstakingly applied with the help of friends) for the first time. I sat near her, watching her dance and laugh with her friends, delighted that I could participate in her happiness, but I have to confess, the moms had a really great time, too. *I* had a great time. Your lyrics resonated, and I felt a little silly because I know that I'm not your target audience, but I related to every word.
I love your music, and I'm grateful for the role you've played in my life with my daughter.
Ms. Swift, you're not alone. I too grew up in a world where I was told to be good, to be nice, to smile and look pretty. I too have had uncomfortable conversations with my father about politics and my need to speak my truth. (I count you lucky that your father hugged you afterwards. That's progress, in my mind.)
When I watched you become political and find your voice, I felt maternal love for you. (By the way, your mom seems like an amazing person. Like her, I'm a breast cancer survivor; like her, I'm feel a fierce love for my wonderful daughter.)
We are in troubled times, and we need clear voices. Politically, we need as many people as we can speaking up for what is true, right, and good.
This, Ms. Swift, is where you are most interesting.
You said that you wanted to be good, and that somebody told you how to be good.
I have a different idea of goodness than I used to.
Be good - but not by being quiet, by looking conventionally pretty, but by speaking your truth. It seems like someone told you a long time ago that being fearless meant striving for Grammys, or that speaking about your relationships was your truth. Those things ARE true, as your fans attest. But they are not the only truth.
You are a grown woman, and your truth is rich, nuanced, and needed by the world.
I think that to be good does not mean what you and I were taught to mean.
To be good means to be deeply authentic, to be honest with ourselves and the world. To be good, is to make the world a better place. To be good is to refuse to back down, to be brave. Sometimes, being good means making people angry.
Your kitchen in Miss Americana, where you can be seen enjoying a simple meal with your dear friend, is full of color and texture. I think that you were taught not to have a hair out of place - you so often look so perfect! - but I thought that the magnets on the stove were perfect. They were joyful, personal, and there because you wanted them to be there. The world needs more of that.
I am so tired of doing what I'm told, of only wanting what I'm told to want. At fifty, my body has changed more than I want to admit; it is a relief to hear that the woman on the stage in sparkling short shorts was NOT the goal anyone should aspire to; I'm utterly convinced that your size 6 self is more beautiful, because you are fit and healthy and not afraid of occasional burritos.
I love that you're keeping your relationship private, that you're speaking up - not just in a "yay, PRIDE way" but in a deep and meaningful way - about LGBTQ rights, women's rights, equality. I look forward to hearing more about what you have to say.
You've always had a way with words. and you've always known how to touch our hearts and minds. Now that you've figured out some more of what you want to say, who you want to be, I think you're becoming more interesting, not less. Speak louder. Keep speaking up. You will continue to make a difference.
One more thing: I know that you and I live in different worlds (and I'm not talking about the distance between Seattle and Nashville or New York or London)...but please hear me out, because as much as I've learned from you and the parts of your journey you've chosen to share, I do have something to offer you, too, a gift of my own words.
At thirty, your life is just getting started, and you are in a position to change all of the rules, so if you don't like them, for the love of God, re-write them. Yes, Hollywood or the music industry has discarded talented women left and right, but honestly, at fifty, I want to hear some wonderful stories that have more nuance than a teenager can give me. At fifty, my life is just getting started, and I'm sure of this. My relationships are so much deeper than they were at thirty, and my taste is my taste and not what I think I'm supposed to like. Your life, Ms. Swift, is about to get way better than you ever imagined. It will have some bumps, of course. (My life has had cancer and divorce: I don't recommend this if you can avoid it.) But it will have joy that you've never imagined. You'll write more songs that please you, you'll treasure your dearest friends in a different way. I believe that part of your new version of goodness is refusing to allow women to be discarded the first time they gain weight, get a gray hair, or hit their thirtieth birthdays. You are not everyone. You can help set the tone for the rest of us, and when you succeed, we all succeed.
At fifty, I'm better than I was at thirty. I don't look better, but I AM better. Do not discard yourself so easily. You are just getting started.
I absolutely love your song The Man. "Yes, yes, yes" I thought when I first hear it, and now I sing along, embracing every lyric. But I'm looking forward to the day when I can be The Man by being The Woman. I'm looking forward to the day when you are compared not to Bing Crosby, but to the possibilities of the future.
Young girls, and middle aged ones, are watching you. All of those concerts filled with adolescent girls had moms in equal number standing next to them, and we grew to love you, too. Talk to us. We're listening! We are dying of thirst for what is good, and right, and true, and we know it's not thigh gap that makes us happy; we know that we are more than our relationships.
I would be very surprised if you read this, but I hope you do. You have wonderful gifts to share, and with your documentary I began to hope that we have just begun to hear your best work, to see the goodness that you have to share with the world.
With gratitude,
Kristina
Today I stayed home from work with a bug (why is it that I fear coronavirus when my symptoms aren't the same and I haven't been to China?!) and decided to watch your documentary Miss Americana.
Thank you.
You and I go way back, though of course we've never met. I have a seventeen year old daughter, and when she entered her Taylor Swift phase I didn't mind. Driving my daughter to play dates and rock climbing, she sat in the back seat cheerfully singing "why you gotta be so mean?" and I didn't mind singing along. It wasn't long before I knew all of your songs as well as she did, and we had some wonderful, enthusiastic kitchen dance parties as we made dinner.
When you came to Seattle for the 1989 tour, I scraped together the cash for the cheap seats, and gave my daughter tickets for Christmas - the "big" gift, the one I hid behind the tree, and wrapped in a big box to trick her so she wouldn't know what it was. She screamed in glee, and I got a huge hug. A few months later, my daughter, myself, and a handful of our mother and daughter friends went to the concert. My daughter wore cat eye makeup (painstakingly applied with the help of friends) for the first time. I sat near her, watching her dance and laugh with her friends, delighted that I could participate in her happiness, but I have to confess, the moms had a really great time, too. *I* had a great time. Your lyrics resonated, and I felt a little silly because I know that I'm not your target audience, but I related to every word.
I love your music, and I'm grateful for the role you've played in my life with my daughter.
Ms. Swift, you're not alone. I too grew up in a world where I was told to be good, to be nice, to smile and look pretty. I too have had uncomfortable conversations with my father about politics and my need to speak my truth. (I count you lucky that your father hugged you afterwards. That's progress, in my mind.)
When I watched you become political and find your voice, I felt maternal love for you. (By the way, your mom seems like an amazing person. Like her, I'm a breast cancer survivor; like her, I'm feel a fierce love for my wonderful daughter.)
We are in troubled times, and we need clear voices. Politically, we need as many people as we can speaking up for what is true, right, and good.
This, Ms. Swift, is where you are most interesting.
You said that you wanted to be good, and that somebody told you how to be good.
I have a different idea of goodness than I used to.
Be good - but not by being quiet, by looking conventionally pretty, but by speaking your truth. It seems like someone told you a long time ago that being fearless meant striving for Grammys, or that speaking about your relationships was your truth. Those things ARE true, as your fans attest. But they are not the only truth.
You are a grown woman, and your truth is rich, nuanced, and needed by the world.
I think that to be good does not mean what you and I were taught to mean.
To be good means to be deeply authentic, to be honest with ourselves and the world. To be good, is to make the world a better place. To be good is to refuse to back down, to be brave. Sometimes, being good means making people angry.
Your kitchen in Miss Americana, where you can be seen enjoying a simple meal with your dear friend, is full of color and texture. I think that you were taught not to have a hair out of place - you so often look so perfect! - but I thought that the magnets on the stove were perfect. They were joyful, personal, and there because you wanted them to be there. The world needs more of that.
I am so tired of doing what I'm told, of only wanting what I'm told to want. At fifty, my body has changed more than I want to admit; it is a relief to hear that the woman on the stage in sparkling short shorts was NOT the goal anyone should aspire to; I'm utterly convinced that your size 6 self is more beautiful, because you are fit and healthy and not afraid of occasional burritos.
I love that you're keeping your relationship private, that you're speaking up - not just in a "yay, PRIDE way" but in a deep and meaningful way - about LGBTQ rights, women's rights, equality. I look forward to hearing more about what you have to say.
You've always had a way with words. and you've always known how to touch our hearts and minds. Now that you've figured out some more of what you want to say, who you want to be, I think you're becoming more interesting, not less. Speak louder. Keep speaking up. You will continue to make a difference.
One more thing: I know that you and I live in different worlds (and I'm not talking about the distance between Seattle and Nashville or New York or London)...but please hear me out, because as much as I've learned from you and the parts of your journey you've chosen to share, I do have something to offer you, too, a gift of my own words.
At thirty, your life is just getting started, and you are in a position to change all of the rules, so if you don't like them, for the love of God, re-write them. Yes, Hollywood or the music industry has discarded talented women left and right, but honestly, at fifty, I want to hear some wonderful stories that have more nuance than a teenager can give me. At fifty, my life is just getting started, and I'm sure of this. My relationships are so much deeper than they were at thirty, and my taste is my taste and not what I think I'm supposed to like. Your life, Ms. Swift, is about to get way better than you ever imagined. It will have some bumps, of course. (My life has had cancer and divorce: I don't recommend this if you can avoid it.) But it will have joy that you've never imagined. You'll write more songs that please you, you'll treasure your dearest friends in a different way. I believe that part of your new version of goodness is refusing to allow women to be discarded the first time they gain weight, get a gray hair, or hit their thirtieth birthdays. You are not everyone. You can help set the tone for the rest of us, and when you succeed, we all succeed.
At fifty, I'm better than I was at thirty. I don't look better, but I AM better. Do not discard yourself so easily. You are just getting started.
I absolutely love your song The Man. "Yes, yes, yes" I thought when I first hear it, and now I sing along, embracing every lyric. But I'm looking forward to the day when I can be The Man by being The Woman. I'm looking forward to the day when you are compared not to Bing Crosby, but to the possibilities of the future.
Young girls, and middle aged ones, are watching you. All of those concerts filled with adolescent girls had moms in equal number standing next to them, and we grew to love you, too. Talk to us. We're listening! We are dying of thirst for what is good, and right, and true, and we know it's not thigh gap that makes us happy; we know that we are more than our relationships.
I would be very surprised if you read this, but I hope you do. You have wonderful gifts to share, and with your documentary I began to hope that we have just begun to hear your best work, to see the goodness that you have to share with the world.
With gratitude,
Kristina
Saturday, January 25, 2020
Fear
I've always loved the Anais Nin quote:
Today, I'm looking at it differently. I think this quote is about how fear controls us.
Being the eternal optimist, I've always viewed this quote as the hopeful possibility of the future: the potential that lies within all of us. But today, I'm thinking about how the flip side of that possibility is how we let fear become our driving factor, and how we can choose fear because the fear is more comfortable - painful that it may be - than the risk of stepping outside of fear. It occurs to me with some shock that we can choose the comfort of our fear. The comfort of our fear? Isn't fear uncomfortable? Isn't fear the enemy?
Maybe. But we can grow comfortable with the monster we know, and more afraid of the monster that we don't. We can choose to stay where we are because the fear we know is manageable in some way, and we embrace how scared we are because we're used to it.
I'm experiencing this in three new ways right now:
1) I have been really scared to tell my family story in a meaningful way. While I am crystal clear on my position around my family's Nazi past, I had chosen to stay small with it. I knew that my story was worth telling, but I also feared the repercussions of telling it. I was choosing to stay small. Well, last week I chose to tell it as boldly as I knew how, and I burst through that fear.
2) I have wanted to be a writer ever since I was a little girl, and I have feared that I wasn't good enough or that only "fancy people" could be writers and I was too ordinary or weird and that I could never be a real writer. But this year, I vowed that despite my weirdness or my ordinariness, I'd put myself out there and share what I had to say in an intentional way, and that I could accept if people loved it or hated it, but I had to try anyway.
3) I have a beloved friendship that has spanned many years, but I haven't established healthy boundaries; when things have been uncomfortable, I've chosen to stay quiet. Recently, I set a firm boundary with this friend - and my fears came true. They (I'm not going to reveal their gender as part of anonymity) were angry, hurt, and completely withdrew from me. Two things instantly became clear to me: 1) my fears were founded, and that is why I had not established and maintained healthy boundaries; and 2) I am not who I was, and I am okay despite my friend's reaction.
In all three cases, I've been living smaller than I should have been.
I'm not surprised that in the space of a week all of these things happened. I think that I'm ready, and that I've been setting myself up for growth for a long time, and now the seeds that I've planted are growing.
I grew up in fear that if my parents knew who I really was, they wouldn't love me. It was made clear to me that when I stepped outside of family traditions (gender roles, established patterns, political and religious views, etc.) that I was deviant, unacceptable, mistaken, or just plain stupid. While I've been battling that my whole life (the confines never fit me properly, and I struggled against them), it wasn't until three years ago when my father laid it all out for me that I knew that the line had been crossed - that I did indeed have a boundary, and I'd just discovered it. It's funny that he rejected me, but that was the first time I felt free to say "No."
In the three years since, I've done plenty of reflecting (and therapy) and reading around boundaries, relationships, and why I have the thought patterns that I do, and where those thought patterns serve me and don't serve me. I think I've grown more in three years than I'd grown in the 47 years that came before.
So now that growth is building within me, and I'm not the person I was before. The growth has come with strength: I am much clearer about what I want, what I can tolerate, and what I cannot tolerate. I'm much more clear on what makes me happy, and who I am and who I wish to be (and the overlap between these two is much bigger than it was three years ago).
I made a decision to write; I chose to write about my family history. I am strong enough to weather the consequences - if people resonate with my story, or ignore it, it's okay. If my perspective is flawed, I'm willing to listen. If I have wisdom to offer, I'm willing to own it. My fear, which had been holding me back, suddenly seemed small compared to my desire to be my whole self, to share my truth, and to explore the big world to see what was available to me.
I wasn't consciously thinking about my friendship with X. or how that friendship needed to grow with me. The friendship has many beautiful qualities, and I treasure that friendship genuinely. I see the goodness in X. I also am a different size and shape than I was when the friendship started, but in many ways the friendship hasn't changed shape, and so suddenly I am awoken to the realization that I am uncomfortable, so I said, "I'm uncomfortable, and I need to enforce this boundary, which is about me, not you." X. was hurt and insulted. I looked at my heart, my boundary, my intention. I said, "I do not want to hurt or insult you. This is what I need. I still care about you." I don't know what will happen next, but I know that X. has the right to end the friendship, to refuse to honor my boundary, or to accept my boundary. I am not in charge of X.'s decisions, but I'm not afraid of them. I am at peace with me. I hope that X. and I can remain close, but if we can't, I can accept that too, because I can honor myself as much as I honor our friendship, and because I'm not in charge of other peoples' behavior.
I've never thought of myself as a particularly fearful person. At 22 I traveled Europe alone with a backpack and a Eurorail pass, and found that my spirit was adventuresome. I fought the confines of my family's expectations for me, and created a life of my own. I backpack in bear country. I had the courage to get divorced, I had the courage to change careers. I have faced chemo, radiation, and so many surgeries. I thought I wasn't fearful. People have told me for years how brave I am, and I thought I believed them.
But there are layers to people, and my brave exterior hid an interior that was shaking, frightened, and lately I decided that I was sick of it, that it was time to get real. Pretending to be brave, or being brave only some of the time, no longer serves me.
So here I am, with a clarity that I've never felt before.
Buds are beautiful - they are symbols of hope. But I long to burst into full bloom, to explode with color and gorgeous fragrance and the luxurious velvet of petals. I long for the honeybee to pause, to gorge itself with sticky sweet pollen, to rest on me.
I'm not afraid. I'm not afraid that I will not be beautiful enough, that nobody will enjoy my fragrance. I suddenly that bees love all blossoms, and that my destiny was always to blossom, whether I am the kind of flower that people notice with awe, or whether I am a dandelion in the lawn. I don't know yet what my bloom will look like, but I want to know, and I'm willing to try, because the bud is too small and I can't move and it feels tight and painful. If I'm a dandelion, I hope a child clutches me and presents me as a gift to someone loved. If I'm a rose, I hope that a painter captures my elegance for all time. If I'm a wildflower I hope that the breeze caresses me and that the mountain adores me. I don't know what happens next, who I will be.
But I'm not afraid.
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Being the eternal optimist, I've always viewed this quote as the hopeful possibility of the future: the potential that lies within all of us. But today, I'm thinking about how the flip side of that possibility is how we let fear become our driving factor, and how we can choose fear because the fear is more comfortable - painful that it may be - than the risk of stepping outside of fear. It occurs to me with some shock that we can choose the comfort of our fear. The comfort of our fear? Isn't fear uncomfortable? Isn't fear the enemy?
Maybe. But we can grow comfortable with the monster we know, and more afraid of the monster that we don't. We can choose to stay where we are because the fear we know is manageable in some way, and we embrace how scared we are because we're used to it.
I'm experiencing this in three new ways right now:
1) I have been really scared to tell my family story in a meaningful way. While I am crystal clear on my position around my family's Nazi past, I had chosen to stay small with it. I knew that my story was worth telling, but I also feared the repercussions of telling it. I was choosing to stay small. Well, last week I chose to tell it as boldly as I knew how, and I burst through that fear.
2) I have wanted to be a writer ever since I was a little girl, and I have feared that I wasn't good enough or that only "fancy people" could be writers and I was too ordinary or weird and that I could never be a real writer. But this year, I vowed that despite my weirdness or my ordinariness, I'd put myself out there and share what I had to say in an intentional way, and that I could accept if people loved it or hated it, but I had to try anyway.
3) I have a beloved friendship that has spanned many years, but I haven't established healthy boundaries; when things have been uncomfortable, I've chosen to stay quiet. Recently, I set a firm boundary with this friend - and my fears came true. They (I'm not going to reveal their gender as part of anonymity) were angry, hurt, and completely withdrew from me. Two things instantly became clear to me: 1) my fears were founded, and that is why I had not established and maintained healthy boundaries; and 2) I am not who I was, and I am okay despite my friend's reaction.
In all three cases, I've been living smaller than I should have been.
I'm not surprised that in the space of a week all of these things happened. I think that I'm ready, and that I've been setting myself up for growth for a long time, and now the seeds that I've planted are growing.
I grew up in fear that if my parents knew who I really was, they wouldn't love me. It was made clear to me that when I stepped outside of family traditions (gender roles, established patterns, political and religious views, etc.) that I was deviant, unacceptable, mistaken, or just plain stupid. While I've been battling that my whole life (the confines never fit me properly, and I struggled against them), it wasn't until three years ago when my father laid it all out for me that I knew that the line had been crossed - that I did indeed have a boundary, and I'd just discovered it. It's funny that he rejected me, but that was the first time I felt free to say "No."
In the three years since, I've done plenty of reflecting (and therapy) and reading around boundaries, relationships, and why I have the thought patterns that I do, and where those thought patterns serve me and don't serve me. I think I've grown more in three years than I'd grown in the 47 years that came before.
So now that growth is building within me, and I'm not the person I was before. The growth has come with strength: I am much clearer about what I want, what I can tolerate, and what I cannot tolerate. I'm much more clear on what makes me happy, and who I am and who I wish to be (and the overlap between these two is much bigger than it was three years ago).
I made a decision to write; I chose to write about my family history. I am strong enough to weather the consequences - if people resonate with my story, or ignore it, it's okay. If my perspective is flawed, I'm willing to listen. If I have wisdom to offer, I'm willing to own it. My fear, which had been holding me back, suddenly seemed small compared to my desire to be my whole self, to share my truth, and to explore the big world to see what was available to me.
I wasn't consciously thinking about my friendship with X. or how that friendship needed to grow with me. The friendship has many beautiful qualities, and I treasure that friendship genuinely. I see the goodness in X. I also am a different size and shape than I was when the friendship started, but in many ways the friendship hasn't changed shape, and so suddenly I am awoken to the realization that I am uncomfortable, so I said, "I'm uncomfortable, and I need to enforce this boundary, which is about me, not you." X. was hurt and insulted. I looked at my heart, my boundary, my intention. I said, "I do not want to hurt or insult you. This is what I need. I still care about you." I don't know what will happen next, but I know that X. has the right to end the friendship, to refuse to honor my boundary, or to accept my boundary. I am not in charge of X.'s decisions, but I'm not afraid of them. I am at peace with me. I hope that X. and I can remain close, but if we can't, I can accept that too, because I can honor myself as much as I honor our friendship, and because I'm not in charge of other peoples' behavior.
I've never thought of myself as a particularly fearful person. At 22 I traveled Europe alone with a backpack and a Eurorail pass, and found that my spirit was adventuresome. I fought the confines of my family's expectations for me, and created a life of my own. I backpack in bear country. I had the courage to get divorced, I had the courage to change careers. I have faced chemo, radiation, and so many surgeries. I thought I wasn't fearful. People have told me for years how brave I am, and I thought I believed them.
But there are layers to people, and my brave exterior hid an interior that was shaking, frightened, and lately I decided that I was sick of it, that it was time to get real. Pretending to be brave, or being brave only some of the time, no longer serves me.
So here I am, with a clarity that I've never felt before.
Buds are beautiful - they are symbols of hope. But I long to burst into full bloom, to explode with color and gorgeous fragrance and the luxurious velvet of petals. I long for the honeybee to pause, to gorge itself with sticky sweet pollen, to rest on me.
I'm not afraid. I'm not afraid that I will not be beautiful enough, that nobody will enjoy my fragrance. I suddenly that bees love all blossoms, and that my destiny was always to blossom, whether I am the kind of flower that people notice with awe, or whether I am a dandelion in the lawn. I don't know yet what my bloom will look like, but I want to know, and I'm willing to try, because the bud is too small and I can't move and it feels tight and painful. If I'm a dandelion, I hope a child clutches me and presents me as a gift to someone loved. If I'm a rose, I hope that a painter captures my elegance for all time. If I'm a wildflower I hope that the breeze caresses me and that the mountain adores me. I don't know what happens next, who I will be.
But I'm not afraid.
Tuesday, January 21, 2020
Taking the Leap
How do we know when we are ready to jump? Why is it that we can stand on the precipice in fear, our hearts pounding against our ribs, our breath difficult, sweat pooling as we think "I can't. I can't!" and then suddenly - we just do.
I remember when Tessa was quite young, years ago, and we went to a pool with a high diving board. She climbed the ladder, stood at the top, and froze. She really couldn't do it. She tried several times, bowing her head, her cheeks red, as she backed down the ladder to let the next person climb up to take the leap.
But then one day -she trembled at the top, but then she leaped. She splashed. She swam, spluttering and smiling, to the wall, climbed out of the pool, and went straight back in line. She never hesitated again.
I'm interested in understanding that moment between knowing "I can never; it's not possible" and "I'm terrified, but I'm doing it anyway."
***
Some people seem to naturally go for it. Some people are born at ease in the world.
I am not one of those people. I'm awkward and confused and eager to please, quick to wonder if I'm the one at fault. I often think that everyone else has it figured out, and I'm left wondering when I will figure it out.
But then people reveal their truths, and I realize that those at-ease people aren't at-ease at all. Very few people are, actually. Everyone is scurrying around, trying to prove something to themselves, or their fathers, or someone, that they are okay. It's a rare person who radiates joy and peace.
Once I started looking for the "radiating joy and peace and at one with themselves so they weren't afraid to jump" people, I started to see how rare they were.
***
My grandfather - the one in the "Telling" post, the one who was a Nazi soldier - took risks. But he didn't do it with love and joy, and he felt no peace. He plowed through everyone in his path, knocking other people down with insults, money, or power, so that he could get what he wanted. He took financial risks, and he took relationship risks. The financial risks paid off: he died with a lot of money in the bank. The personal risks did not pay off: rather than garnering respect for his professional accomplishments and wealth, he died without a friend. I remember 12 people at his funeral; though he barely knew my ex-husband (they didn't even bother going to our wedding) my ex was a pall-bearer because they didn't have enough people to carry his coffin (and his granddaughters, flesh and blood he'd known all their lives, didn't count, because they were female).
So, he found the courage to move to a foreign country (twice), starting his life over. But I think he was running away as much as anything. I rarely saw joy in him, and I never saw peace.
***
There are a few people that seem to know things like when to jump. Oprah, Barack and Michelle Obama (together and separately), Maya Angelou (rest in peace), Brene Brown, and Cheryl Strayed come to mind. These people draw people from near and far - we're drawn to them; we can't get enough. I think it's because they know how to be their best selves, that they have tapped into something deep within themselves that we really want.
When Oprah says "this I know for sure..." I am sure that she really does know. When Barack said "yes we can" I believed him. When Maya said that she was phenomenal, I didn't have a doubt in my mind.
They are so sure of who they are that they take the leap. They become presidents and poets, writers and wives, philosophers and professors, because they are sure. They just - leap. And we watch them, and we are awed.
But I've read enough of their words, seen enough of their stories, to know that if any of them were reading this, they'd shake their heads and say, "no, no, no."
Just because they do it doesn't mean it is easy.
***
When Tessa stood at the high board, failing and climbing down on multiple occasions, she wasn't failing at all. She was proving that she was bigger than her fear. She measured the size of the fear - height, width, depth - and found it immense. But at one point, one that she knew was coming - for, after all, she didn't climb up just once and change her mind, she climbed up again and again. She must have know, somewhere deep inside, that she COULD do it.
The very first time she was climbing down the ladder, there was still a little voice inside her that said, "I'll try again. I can." She failed many times before she succeeded - but then, I think that's wrong. She never failed. She just wasn't ready. When she was ready, she leaped. The success was always lurking within her.
I know my daughter is brave because she was terrified, but she chose to overcome her fear. She made a conscious decision to do the thing that scared her.
Have I mentioned yet that she is my favorite person, and that while she certainly drives me crazy, she is also incredible, strong, and wise beyond her years?
***
I'm trying to take the leap in several places in my life. I have an old, valued friendship that is falling apart, and I'm taking the leap to bring my authentic self to it even if that means that the friendship is over. I'm trying to write, and to share something true as I write, not just words. And I'm trying to put myself out there to find a partner who makes me laugh and helps me grow and fits me like my favorite pair of jeans.
Not easy.
I'm still at the top of the high board, trembling. No, wait, I'm mid-air! Will I survive the fall? Will the pool embrace me with a laugh, or turn to stone as I land?
My story will unfold. I don't know how it ends. But I know this: pools don't turn to stone. I'm a good swimmer. And the falling, the letting go, comes with some freedom. Maybe it's easier to fall than it is to tremble at the top, questioning every move. Maybe I was made to fall. No, maybe I was made to fly, to splash, to feel the water's embrace.
Aren't we all?
Where are you standing, trembling? Where are you leaping? What is the shape of the water you're diving into?
I think it's time. It's always time. My heart is pounding, my skin is sticky with nervous sweat, and I'm not sure why what looks so easy for everyone else is so hard for me, but I'm doing it anyway.
Ready, set....
I remember when Tessa was quite young, years ago, and we went to a pool with a high diving board. She climbed the ladder, stood at the top, and froze. She really couldn't do it. She tried several times, bowing her head, her cheeks red, as she backed down the ladder to let the next person climb up to take the leap.
But then one day -she trembled at the top, but then she leaped. She splashed. She swam, spluttering and smiling, to the wall, climbed out of the pool, and went straight back in line. She never hesitated again.
I'm interested in understanding that moment between knowing "I can never; it's not possible" and "I'm terrified, but I'm doing it anyway."
***
Some people seem to naturally go for it. Some people are born at ease in the world.
I am not one of those people. I'm awkward and confused and eager to please, quick to wonder if I'm the one at fault. I often think that everyone else has it figured out, and I'm left wondering when I will figure it out.
But then people reveal their truths, and I realize that those at-ease people aren't at-ease at all. Very few people are, actually. Everyone is scurrying around, trying to prove something to themselves, or their fathers, or someone, that they are okay. It's a rare person who radiates joy and peace.
Once I started looking for the "radiating joy and peace and at one with themselves so they weren't afraid to jump" people, I started to see how rare they were.
***
My grandfather - the one in the "Telling" post, the one who was a Nazi soldier - took risks. But he didn't do it with love and joy, and he felt no peace. He plowed through everyone in his path, knocking other people down with insults, money, or power, so that he could get what he wanted. He took financial risks, and he took relationship risks. The financial risks paid off: he died with a lot of money in the bank. The personal risks did not pay off: rather than garnering respect for his professional accomplishments and wealth, he died without a friend. I remember 12 people at his funeral; though he barely knew my ex-husband (they didn't even bother going to our wedding) my ex was a pall-bearer because they didn't have enough people to carry his coffin (and his granddaughters, flesh and blood he'd known all their lives, didn't count, because they were female).
So, he found the courage to move to a foreign country (twice), starting his life over. But I think he was running away as much as anything. I rarely saw joy in him, and I never saw peace.
***
There are a few people that seem to know things like when to jump. Oprah, Barack and Michelle Obama (together and separately), Maya Angelou (rest in peace), Brene Brown, and Cheryl Strayed come to mind. These people draw people from near and far - we're drawn to them; we can't get enough. I think it's because they know how to be their best selves, that they have tapped into something deep within themselves that we really want.
When Oprah says "this I know for sure..." I am sure that she really does know. When Barack said "yes we can" I believed him. When Maya said that she was phenomenal, I didn't have a doubt in my mind.
They are so sure of who they are that they take the leap. They become presidents and poets, writers and wives, philosophers and professors, because they are sure. They just - leap. And we watch them, and we are awed.
But I've read enough of their words, seen enough of their stories, to know that if any of them were reading this, they'd shake their heads and say, "no, no, no."
Just because they do it doesn't mean it is easy.
***
When Tessa stood at the high board, failing and climbing down on multiple occasions, she wasn't failing at all. She was proving that she was bigger than her fear. She measured the size of the fear - height, width, depth - and found it immense. But at one point, one that she knew was coming - for, after all, she didn't climb up just once and change her mind, she climbed up again and again. She must have know, somewhere deep inside, that she COULD do it.
The very first time she was climbing down the ladder, there was still a little voice inside her that said, "I'll try again. I can." She failed many times before she succeeded - but then, I think that's wrong. She never failed. She just wasn't ready. When she was ready, she leaped. The success was always lurking within her.
I know my daughter is brave because she was terrified, but she chose to overcome her fear. She made a conscious decision to do the thing that scared her.
Have I mentioned yet that she is my favorite person, and that while she certainly drives me crazy, she is also incredible, strong, and wise beyond her years?
***
I'm trying to take the leap in several places in my life. I have an old, valued friendship that is falling apart, and I'm taking the leap to bring my authentic self to it even if that means that the friendship is over. I'm trying to write, and to share something true as I write, not just words. And I'm trying to put myself out there to find a partner who makes me laugh and helps me grow and fits me like my favorite pair of jeans.
Not easy.
I'm still at the top of the high board, trembling. No, wait, I'm mid-air! Will I survive the fall? Will the pool embrace me with a laugh, or turn to stone as I land?
My story will unfold. I don't know how it ends. But I know this: pools don't turn to stone. I'm a good swimmer. And the falling, the letting go, comes with some freedom. Maybe it's easier to fall than it is to tremble at the top, questioning every move. Maybe I was made to fall. No, maybe I was made to fly, to splash, to feel the water's embrace.
Aren't we all?
Where are you standing, trembling? Where are you leaping? What is the shape of the water you're diving into?
I think it's time. It's always time. My heart is pounding, my skin is sticky with nervous sweat, and I'm not sure why what looks so easy for everyone else is so hard for me, but I'm doing it anyway.
Ready, set....
Monday, January 20, 2020
Knowing & The Universe
In all of us there is some knowing. There are some things that we are sure of, deep in our bones.
Sometimes these things that we know are wrong. We are taught sometimes that we are worthless, or we think that we're bad at math because our teachers didn't know how to teach us. We sometimes think we're stuck in the lives we live, because we forget how to change. Sometimes the things we know aren't true - the truth simply doesn't reconcile. (Republicans and Democrats cannot both be right about Donald Trump. Somebody has to be wrong, or there has to be some combination of sides being wrong, but it is not possible for two such different views to both be right.)
So, we make mistakes. We stumble. We forget about that still, small voice inside us, and we get lost. We forget our truths, and we head the wrong direction.
But I don't want to talk about that.
I am filled with wonder at the things in my life that I know, deeply and truly, with certainty and peace. Not things like the Pythagorean theorem, or pedagogical methods, but deeper things. Soul things.
I knew when I saw my daughter's face for the first time, damp and squalling, that I loved her so wholly and completely that I would give anything for her well being. That is more true than ever, nearly seventeen years later.
And I knew the moment when I needed a divorce. One minute I did not know, and then the next, I did, not dramatically because of some giant incident, but because in my bones and my soul I knew it was true. I knew I must, I knew I would, and I was filled with the truth of it. I haven't regretted it, even on the worst days, all these years later.
And I knew one day, years into the cancer journey, that I was okay, and that I would be okay. I went from constant fear that Damacles' sword would fall and slice me open, to looking up and seeing sunny, blue skies. I couldn't explain how I knew... I just knew that I was okay. I went from shaking in fear that any day I'd be dead, to feeling fully alive and hopeful. It has been nearly 15 years.
Sometimes we just... know.
I was at Banff National Park in Canada in 2017, taking my annual one week vacation with Tessa, camping and hiking and exploring the sights, when I had one of these epiphanies. I'd helped two fellow campers who had a dead car battery, and they invited me to join them for a glass of wine at their campfire afterwards. We sat around their fire pit, surrounded by trees and stars, and I found out that they were both retired teachers. We spent an hour or two swapping funny teacher stories and discussing the profession, and I felt the lightening bolt hit me: I was supposed to go back to teaching. Given that I didn't know these two very well, I didn't feel up to saying "I've just had a major life changing realization" (I was sure they'd think I was nuts), so when we wrapped up our evening and Tessa and I went back to the tent, I lay there thinking, "Can I make this work?" and plotted a plan of how to make it happen. Far from wifi, I couldn't look anything up, but I figured it would take me a year to renew my certification, that I'd have to quit my job to go back to school... but that it was worth it. I knew.
When I got home from the trip, a few days later, I logged on to the OSPI website to figure out the details of renewing, nervous about how I'd afford the coursework. To my shock, all I had to do was pay a small fee, and I was re-certified. I cried, I was so happy. I quit my job before I had another job lined up (I calculated that I could substitute teach, or do temp work, if worst came to worst), but in the end, I finished up the old job on a Friday and began in my own classroom that Monday. Weirdest yet? I got my old teaching job back. Same school, same classes.
Sometimes, the Universe just really wants us to have something. Teaching has been right, and true, and good for me, and I'm so grateful I found my way back. I knew I was on the right path - I just KNEW - and the Universe stepped up and gave me the opportunity to make it happen with an ease that was shockingly delightful.
It's happening again, and I feel it in my bones.
I know it's time to write (and the NYT said, "we'll publish that!"). It's just time. I'm as ready as I'll ever be.
I know it's time to date, because I know I'm ready to fall in love.
I have been fearful about falling in love. The past few years I've said, "My life is so good - why would I want to mess this up?" but I've known that I needed to figure something out, too. I was fearful because in the past, when I've cared about someone, I've let them walk all over me. I've had flexible (read: not there) boundaries that meant I wasn't getting my needs met. I've been so flexible that I've sent the message "you can behave however you want, and I'll still be here." I never want to feel like that again.
And suddenly, I know that I can hold a boundary, that I can take the risk to speak my truth, and that I can live with the consequences. I know, and I'm sure, and I'm sure that means I'm ready.
When I realized the writing, it was a few days later that the NYT wrote me. (But I had to write them first, of course.) Now I realize that I'm ready to be open to love, so I signed up for a dating app. I don't know if that's the right way to go about it, but I know this: I've changed. Just like that, very gradually then all at once, I'm a new person again, and I'm ready.
I don't know when I'll get published again. I don't know when I'll write something really worth reading again. What I know, though, is that I know that things are new, that I need to write, that I am finally - at long, long last! - ready to fall in love and be loved. And I'm old enough to know that when these feelings come, I should listen. It's time. And I'm not going to fight and scratch and scrape, I'm going to get excited and yell "THANK YOU!" when it comes through. Maybe that thank you will be due tomorrow, or maybe the next day, or the next year, but it's right around the corner. I feel it.
I've got "Defying Gravity" going through my head non-stop. I must not be the only person who has felt like this before if it's already been turned into a song. I'm going to trust it, do the work, and wait for the Universe to work its magic.
When have you known? Did the Universe respond with big messages once you figured it out? I can't be alone in this experience - tell me about your interactions with knowing, too! I look forward to hearing from you.
Sometimes we just... know.
I was at Banff National Park in Canada in 2017, taking my annual one week vacation with Tessa, camping and hiking and exploring the sights, when I had one of these epiphanies. I'd helped two fellow campers who had a dead car battery, and they invited me to join them for a glass of wine at their campfire afterwards. We sat around their fire pit, surrounded by trees and stars, and I found out that they were both retired teachers. We spent an hour or two swapping funny teacher stories and discussing the profession, and I felt the lightening bolt hit me: I was supposed to go back to teaching. Given that I didn't know these two very well, I didn't feel up to saying "I've just had a major life changing realization" (I was sure they'd think I was nuts), so when we wrapped up our evening and Tessa and I went back to the tent, I lay there thinking, "Can I make this work?" and plotted a plan of how to make it happen. Far from wifi, I couldn't look anything up, but I figured it would take me a year to renew my certification, that I'd have to quit my job to go back to school... but that it was worth it. I knew.
When I got home from the trip, a few days later, I logged on to the OSPI website to figure out the details of renewing, nervous about how I'd afford the coursework. To my shock, all I had to do was pay a small fee, and I was re-certified. I cried, I was so happy. I quit my job before I had another job lined up (I calculated that I could substitute teach, or do temp work, if worst came to worst), but in the end, I finished up the old job on a Friday and began in my own classroom that Monday. Weirdest yet? I got my old teaching job back. Same school, same classes.
Sometimes, the Universe just really wants us to have something. Teaching has been right, and true, and good for me, and I'm so grateful I found my way back. I knew I was on the right path - I just KNEW - and the Universe stepped up and gave me the opportunity to make it happen with an ease that was shockingly delightful.
It's happening again, and I feel it in my bones.
I know it's time to write (and the NYT said, "we'll publish that!"). It's just time. I'm as ready as I'll ever be.
I know it's time to date, because I know I'm ready to fall in love.
I have been fearful about falling in love. The past few years I've said, "My life is so good - why would I want to mess this up?" but I've known that I needed to figure something out, too. I was fearful because in the past, when I've cared about someone, I've let them walk all over me. I've had flexible (read: not there) boundaries that meant I wasn't getting my needs met. I've been so flexible that I've sent the message "you can behave however you want, and I'll still be here." I never want to feel like that again.
And suddenly, I know that I can hold a boundary, that I can take the risk to speak my truth, and that I can live with the consequences. I know, and I'm sure, and I'm sure that means I'm ready.
When I realized the writing, it was a few days later that the NYT wrote me. (But I had to write them first, of course.) Now I realize that I'm ready to be open to love, so I signed up for a dating app. I don't know if that's the right way to go about it, but I know this: I've changed. Just like that, very gradually then all at once, I'm a new person again, and I'm ready.
I don't know when I'll get published again. I don't know when I'll write something really worth reading again. What I know, though, is that I know that things are new, that I need to write, that I am finally - at long, long last! - ready to fall in love and be loved. And I'm old enough to know that when these feelings come, I should listen. It's time. And I'm not going to fight and scratch and scrape, I'm going to get excited and yell "THANK YOU!" when it comes through. Maybe that thank you will be due tomorrow, or maybe the next day, or the next year, but it's right around the corner. I feel it.
I've got "Defying Gravity" going through my head non-stop. I must not be the only person who has felt like this before if it's already been turned into a song. I'm going to trust it, do the work, and wait for the Universe to work its magic.
When have you known? Did the Universe respond with big messages once you figured it out? I can't be alone in this experience - tell me about your interactions with knowing, too! I look forward to hearing from you.
Something has changed within me
Something is not the same
I'm through with playing by the rules
Of someone else's game
Too late for second-guessing
Too late to go back to sleep
It's time to trust my instincts
Close my eyes and leap!
Something is not the same
I'm through with playing by the rules
Of someone else's game
Too late for second-guessing
Too late to go back to sleep
It's time to trust my instincts
Close my eyes and leap!
Telling
Today is a proud day for me.
Yesterday, words that I submitted to the New York Times were published in the Sunday Times (online). You can find them here:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/18/opinion/letters/influential-books.html
Scroll down towards the bottom to see my words, displayed for all the world to hear in the world's finest newspaper,about my love of Anne Frank and my family's painful past.
I'm proud of this for two reasons.
First, I'm proud because I promised myself that this is the year that I'd get published, that I would put myself out there and make submissions and, well, try to be a writer. This is the year that I told myself that I was tired of the old voice that said I wasn't good enough, that I wasn't that special, that I didn't have what it takes. I went so far as to make a vision board with a focus on writing and telling my truth and being heard; I completed that activity on Saturday. A couple days later I saw the call for responses in the Times, and by Wednesday I'd received an email telling me I'd be in the Sunday online edition. I'm proud because I think if anybody knows what good writing looks like, or what's interesting, it's the Times. I'm proud because only 3% of submissions were accepted, and they chose me. I'm proud because I tried. I'm proud because they picked me. And damnit, if the NYT says I'm good enough to publish, why am I questioning them?! I need to get busy and write more.
But the second reason might even be bigger. I'm proud of this small article because not only did I share my love for Anne Frank, I also told the truth. My family's history is ... is ... what do I even say to finish that sentence? Flawed. Shameful. Imperfect. Embarrassing. Horrifying. Frightening. Which words get close to explaining?
I grew up with whispers about my father's side of the family. My father was born in Germany, and his parents (also of German birth and descent) moved to North America (first Canada, then the U.S.) starting when he was three, just a few years after WWII. My grandparents held their German accents and some traditions (daily sandwiches of dark rye break with deli meats not found at your average Safeway), but they didn't talk much of Germany.
One day in my adolescence, I was going through my grandparents' photo albums (found in the closet of their guest room), and I found pictures of both my grandmother and my grandfather in Hitler Youth uniforms. I found a photograph of my grandfather in his Kreigsmarine uniform, with a Nazi swastika stamped over it as official documentation. My grandmother shrugged off my wide-eyed questions, saying "You don't know what it was like. Hitler was charming and charismatic and he did good things for Germany, getting us out of a bad depression. He made the Autobahn, you know!" My grandfather said that he was in a POW camp for most of the war. My grandmother said she was part of Kristallnacht. She was unapologetic. She said that they were teenagers up to mischief, as if what she had done was T.P. her friend's house, not destroy lives or holy things.
My grandparents did not speak to me - though they lived nearby and our families were in daily contact - for two years when I dated a Jewish man during college. When he and I broke up (I was heartbroken; he broke up with me) they mysteriously welcomed me back into their lives.
My grandparents were hard people. They angered easily, never admitted wrongdoing, and my grandfather yelled and raged at tiny things, and when I was a child he terrified me. They had a local business, and in high school when my friends found out I was related to him, they all had stories about either how much he'd scared them or what a jerk he'd been to them. He believed in leadership through fear, he demanded loyalty and respect. He thought that money meant success. I never understood him.
***
Three years ago, I spoke the truth about my family out loud for the first time, not just whispered to a friend quietly, for the first time. Trump was newly elected, and alt-right groups were rising up and saying "Sieg Trump" and I was terrified. I put a post on Facebook with a link to the news, and said something to the affect of "As the descendant of Germans who fell for Hitler's lies, I'm scared. If you voted for Trump, now is the time to stand up and say "this is NOT what I want" and speak out against racism and anti-Semitism."
My fallout was immediate.
My father, alerted to what I'd written by a family member, called me in a rage. He told me that I didn't know what I was talking about, he yelled, and his final words to me were "I'm ashamed to be your father. I'm ashamed you are my daughter!" before he slammed down the phone.
I know why people don't speak up. People don't tell the whole truth because the truth has consequences. People don't always like the truth. The truth can make people really, really angry.
I haven't spoken to my parents in over three years. (I do not count cards from them that say "We are sorry for your anger" although there have been a few like that. We exchange birthday cards, but do not speak.) I do not know if we'll ever speak again, and of course it hurts. I want to feel loved, cherished, and understood by my family. I want to be united in a quest for truth and justice, for compassion and kindness. I'm not sure if my father disowned me because I spoke a truth about the family that shames him, or because he didn't mind the "Sieg Trump" alt-right and was mad at me for disparaging them, but in the end, as his daughter, that doesn't matter, because he disowned me either way. (To be clear: I had NO idea that my family would respond so negatively to my post. I genuinely believed that speaking up against anti-Semitism was, well, a basic, decent thing to do.)
We don't tell the truth because if we admit our mistakes, people will judge us, and because sometimes what we have said or done is ugly and shameful. We fear that if people knew the worst of us, they'd reject us entirely. We fear that if the family secrets get out, the world will end. Sometimes, we release our secrets, and they slither around like snakes. Sometimes, the snakes bite. My family secret certainly bit me.
But I'm still telling. I started by putting it on Facebook three years ago, and yesterday it was in the New York Times, and now I'm putting it here.
***
After that horrible day on the phone with my father, I did some research. I wanted to know the Truth with a capital T, and I didn't want to know rumors; I wanted facts, not speculation. I made two contacts: first, I contacted a government agency in Germany that releases military records from WWII. Then, I contacted a group (Yad Vashem) that collects the stories and names of those who helped Jews to escape, in a list called The Names of Righteous.
My grandfather was not righteous. He is nowhere on the lists. This is not a surprise, as it wasn't until more than a decade after his death that I first heard a family member say, "you know, I heard he helped people..." He didn't. If he had, we would have talked about that at his funeral, sung his praises. We would not have waited a decade or more to tell the stories, whispered. There is no evidence that he did any such thing. I think it was shame that made the family tell revisionist history. Isn't it easier to imagine our ancestors as heroes?
But I did get a response from the German authorities, who released my grandfather's military records and wrote a letter answering my questions. No, he was never a P.O.W. He was still in service when the war ended. He was stationed at a concentration camp, Bremen-Farge, which was a work camp. It was smaller than the big "famous" camps like Dachau and Auschwitz, with only a couple thousand prisoners, of whom an unknown number died (at minimum 500, but quite easily 1000, up to half of the people imprisoned there), mostly from overwork and starvation. He was a Kriegsmarine, and so most likely he was a guard. At this camp, the guards performed the work of S.S. officers.
It's pretty grim. I see no dignity, no humanity, in these findings. I understand why he wanted to keep these secrets, to move about in society as a regular person, going to restaurants and building a business and enjoying leisure time on his boat. He enjoyed buying my grandmother expensive jewelry. I can see why that is more appealing than reliving what he'd done. I think he carried his shame around him. I think that when he was on his yacht, he was surrounded by the ghosts of men in striped "pajamas" with their bones protruding. I think he wanted to keep it secret for fear of what would unleash if he told.
But I'm telling. I'm shouting it.
After the war, my grandfather would have been 24-25 years old. He had been a student before the war, then he was a low level military guy, and then the war ended and he was released. He and my grandmother married, and lived in a large house, and had a nanny and a maid to help with household tasks. I have to ask: where did he get the money?
I fear that my grandparents lived in a house stolen from Jewish people who may or may not have died in the Holocaust. I fear that they profited enough from war to create a brand new life, away from difficult memories, by stealing the property of others. I don't know. I can only speculate, but I don't know. My grandmother, if alive, is in her late 90s and was deep into her dementia when I last saw her; my grandfather died long ago. I may never know. Whether this fear is correct or not, I know enough, have seen the photos and the papers.
I'm telling.
I'm telling. Snitching? Maybe. But I'm telling the truth. I'm telling the truth because if we don't tell the truth, if we aren't honest with ourselves, then how on earth will we ever learn and grow? If we don't tell the truth, how will we stop others from making the same mistakes?
My family doesn't want me to talk about this. My father is ashamed that I would tell (or so it seems from his words followed by his silence). But today, as we celebrate Dr. Martin Luther King's birthday, I am quoting the Scripture that Reverend King believed and saying "the truth shall set you free" (John 8:31-32). I believe that Dr. King was correct when he said, “The day we see the truth and cease to speak is the day we begin to die”.
I want to know the truth, and I'm not afraid to tell the truth.
My family members did unspeakable things.
Because of people like those in my family and maybe people in my family, people like Anne Frank died horrific deaths, and those who did not die suffered immeasurably.
My family lives, while others died.
My family has not atoned.
My family lives in shame and silence around this topic.
The Diary of Anne Frank or Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl is the book with the biggest influence on my life, because I saw what was lost when her particular form of genius left the earth, and because "knowing" her through her diary gives me courage to tell the truth.
I am not afraid of what my family will say: they have already disowned me, what else can they do? I am afraid of living my life in shame and silence: I think it possible that my grandfather was the most miserable person I have ever known on this earth. I will not be silent. I do not know how to manage the shame of such a legacy. But I do know this:
When I tell the truth, even when my voice is uncertain and quiet, I'm freed.
I am not the people of my ancestry. My father is not his father. But I believe that when families don't own what has happened - in war, in the Holocaust, or slavery, or any other atrocity - then the pain keeps going, it flows in our veins. Shame is powerful (just ask https://brenebrown.com/). But if we look our shame right in the eye, and speak our truth, doesn't that start to change things?
I don't own what happened before I was born, but neither do I think it has nothing to do with me. I have to choose every day to learn from what happened before, or I will be destined to repeat it, in some form or another.
I am not afraid to tell the truth. You can tell me that I'm a snitch or a tattler because I told, because I drug the family skeleton out of the closet and put it on the front lawn (of the NYT!) for all to see. Fine.
I told the truth, and I stand by it.
And today, I feel a so much more free. Saying the words out loud is powerful. My grandfather wore the swastika; my grandmother reveled in Hitler's charisma. I reject everything that stands for. I choose another path. My truth is not only that I know my family's history, my truth is that I refuse to condone it, that I'm fighting for an entirely different way of being. This is liberating! This - this is joyful! I do not know if I would have had the courage to help Anne. I do not know if I would have snuck bread through the fence, or pretended that a child was my own, or if I would have joined the resistance. But my actions now tell me yes you would. By speaking my truth, I'm saying "my values are bigger than my fear". I am not afraid. I am not afraid to do the right thing, to speak up, even when it's hard. What joy!
I know, that if we're not very, very careful, that ordinary people in a modern era can fall for terrible lies about immigrants, Muslims, Jews, gay people, black people, LatinX people. I know that if we're not very, very careful, it's easy to fall for the idea that the brown people over there stole something, or changed something, and to get scared of anyone who isn't like "us".
But I believe that we don't have to fall for those lies, because "us" has room for everyone. Because I'd rather be free than die from shame. Because I am creating my own story, not following someone else's.
So I told the NYT. I tattled; I told. Because some stories need telling in order to heal. In telling, we tell the world what matters. In telling, we give away the details about what matters to us. In telling, we are set free.
I'm telling, and today feels like a day that I begin to live in earnest.
Edited to add January 22, 2020:
I included a link to my blog in my comment on the NYT yesterday, in an article by Rivka Weinberg called "The Road to Auschwitz Wasn't Paved with Indifference". I received the following response from someone named Jake Roberts in NYC:
Sir, you could have no idea how impactful your comment is, and how grateful I am to read it. I'm glad I was alone when I saw it, because my eyes filled with tears. Thank you. The comments section is closed, so I hope that by chance you see my acknowledgement here. Your presumption offers me some healing. Your graciousness and kindness has touched me deeply. Thank you.
Yesterday, words that I submitted to the New York Times were published in the Sunday Times (online). You can find them here:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/18/opinion/letters/influential-books.html
Scroll down towards the bottom to see my words, displayed for all the world to hear in the world's finest newspaper,about my love of Anne Frank and my family's painful past.
I'm proud of this for two reasons.
First, I'm proud because I promised myself that this is the year that I'd get published, that I would put myself out there and make submissions and, well, try to be a writer. This is the year that I told myself that I was tired of the old voice that said I wasn't good enough, that I wasn't that special, that I didn't have what it takes. I went so far as to make a vision board with a focus on writing and telling my truth and being heard; I completed that activity on Saturday. A couple days later I saw the call for responses in the Times, and by Wednesday I'd received an email telling me I'd be in the Sunday online edition. I'm proud because I think if anybody knows what good writing looks like, or what's interesting, it's the Times. I'm proud because only 3% of submissions were accepted, and they chose me. I'm proud because I tried. I'm proud because they picked me. And damnit, if the NYT says I'm good enough to publish, why am I questioning them?! I need to get busy and write more.
But the second reason might even be bigger. I'm proud of this small article because not only did I share my love for Anne Frank, I also told the truth. My family's history is ... is ... what do I even say to finish that sentence? Flawed. Shameful. Imperfect. Embarrassing. Horrifying. Frightening. Which words get close to explaining?
I grew up with whispers about my father's side of the family. My father was born in Germany, and his parents (also of German birth and descent) moved to North America (first Canada, then the U.S.) starting when he was three, just a few years after WWII. My grandparents held their German accents and some traditions (daily sandwiches of dark rye break with deli meats not found at your average Safeway), but they didn't talk much of Germany.
One day in my adolescence, I was going through my grandparents' photo albums (found in the closet of their guest room), and I found pictures of both my grandmother and my grandfather in Hitler Youth uniforms. I found a photograph of my grandfather in his Kreigsmarine uniform, with a Nazi swastika stamped over it as official documentation. My grandmother shrugged off my wide-eyed questions, saying "You don't know what it was like. Hitler was charming and charismatic and he did good things for Germany, getting us out of a bad depression. He made the Autobahn, you know!" My grandfather said that he was in a POW camp for most of the war. My grandmother said she was part of Kristallnacht. She was unapologetic. She said that they were teenagers up to mischief, as if what she had done was T.P. her friend's house, not destroy lives or holy things.
My grandparents did not speak to me - though they lived nearby and our families were in daily contact - for two years when I dated a Jewish man during college. When he and I broke up (I was heartbroken; he broke up with me) they mysteriously welcomed me back into their lives.
My grandparents were hard people. They angered easily, never admitted wrongdoing, and my grandfather yelled and raged at tiny things, and when I was a child he terrified me. They had a local business, and in high school when my friends found out I was related to him, they all had stories about either how much he'd scared them or what a jerk he'd been to them. He believed in leadership through fear, he demanded loyalty and respect. He thought that money meant success. I never understood him.
***
Three years ago, I spoke the truth about my family out loud for the first time, not just whispered to a friend quietly, for the first time. Trump was newly elected, and alt-right groups were rising up and saying "Sieg Trump" and I was terrified. I put a post on Facebook with a link to the news, and said something to the affect of "As the descendant of Germans who fell for Hitler's lies, I'm scared. If you voted for Trump, now is the time to stand up and say "this is NOT what I want" and speak out against racism and anti-Semitism."
My fallout was immediate.
My father, alerted to what I'd written by a family member, called me in a rage. He told me that I didn't know what I was talking about, he yelled, and his final words to me were "I'm ashamed to be your father. I'm ashamed you are my daughter!" before he slammed down the phone.
I know why people don't speak up. People don't tell the whole truth because the truth has consequences. People don't always like the truth. The truth can make people really, really angry.
I haven't spoken to my parents in over three years. (I do not count cards from them that say "We are sorry for your anger" although there have been a few like that. We exchange birthday cards, but do not speak.) I do not know if we'll ever speak again, and of course it hurts. I want to feel loved, cherished, and understood by my family. I want to be united in a quest for truth and justice, for compassion and kindness. I'm not sure if my father disowned me because I spoke a truth about the family that shames him, or because he didn't mind the "Sieg Trump" alt-right and was mad at me for disparaging them, but in the end, as his daughter, that doesn't matter, because he disowned me either way. (To be clear: I had NO idea that my family would respond so negatively to my post. I genuinely believed that speaking up against anti-Semitism was, well, a basic, decent thing to do.)
We don't tell the truth because if we admit our mistakes, people will judge us, and because sometimes what we have said or done is ugly and shameful. We fear that if people knew the worst of us, they'd reject us entirely. We fear that if the family secrets get out, the world will end. Sometimes, we release our secrets, and they slither around like snakes. Sometimes, the snakes bite. My family secret certainly bit me.
But I'm still telling. I started by putting it on Facebook three years ago, and yesterday it was in the New York Times, and now I'm putting it here.
***
After that horrible day on the phone with my father, I did some research. I wanted to know the Truth with a capital T, and I didn't want to know rumors; I wanted facts, not speculation. I made two contacts: first, I contacted a government agency in Germany that releases military records from WWII. Then, I contacted a group (Yad Vashem) that collects the stories and names of those who helped Jews to escape, in a list called The Names of Righteous.
My grandfather was not righteous. He is nowhere on the lists. This is not a surprise, as it wasn't until more than a decade after his death that I first heard a family member say, "you know, I heard he helped people..." He didn't. If he had, we would have talked about that at his funeral, sung his praises. We would not have waited a decade or more to tell the stories, whispered. There is no evidence that he did any such thing. I think it was shame that made the family tell revisionist history. Isn't it easier to imagine our ancestors as heroes?
But I did get a response from the German authorities, who released my grandfather's military records and wrote a letter answering my questions. No, he was never a P.O.W. He was still in service when the war ended. He was stationed at a concentration camp, Bremen-Farge, which was a work camp. It was smaller than the big "famous" camps like Dachau and Auschwitz, with only a couple thousand prisoners, of whom an unknown number died (at minimum 500, but quite easily 1000, up to half of the people imprisoned there), mostly from overwork and starvation. He was a Kriegsmarine, and so most likely he was a guard. At this camp, the guards performed the work of S.S. officers.
It's pretty grim. I see no dignity, no humanity, in these findings. I understand why he wanted to keep these secrets, to move about in society as a regular person, going to restaurants and building a business and enjoying leisure time on his boat. He enjoyed buying my grandmother expensive jewelry. I can see why that is more appealing than reliving what he'd done. I think he carried his shame around him. I think that when he was on his yacht, he was surrounded by the ghosts of men in striped "pajamas" with their bones protruding. I think he wanted to keep it secret for fear of what would unleash if he told.
But I'm telling. I'm shouting it.
After the war, my grandfather would have been 24-25 years old. He had been a student before the war, then he was a low level military guy, and then the war ended and he was released. He and my grandmother married, and lived in a large house, and had a nanny and a maid to help with household tasks. I have to ask: where did he get the money?
I fear that my grandparents lived in a house stolen from Jewish people who may or may not have died in the Holocaust. I fear that they profited enough from war to create a brand new life, away from difficult memories, by stealing the property of others. I don't know. I can only speculate, but I don't know. My grandmother, if alive, is in her late 90s and was deep into her dementia when I last saw her; my grandfather died long ago. I may never know. Whether this fear is correct or not, I know enough, have seen the photos and the papers.
I'm telling.
I'm telling. Snitching? Maybe. But I'm telling the truth. I'm telling the truth because if we don't tell the truth, if we aren't honest with ourselves, then how on earth will we ever learn and grow? If we don't tell the truth, how will we stop others from making the same mistakes?
My family doesn't want me to talk about this. My father is ashamed that I would tell (or so it seems from his words followed by his silence). But today, as we celebrate Dr. Martin Luther King's birthday, I am quoting the Scripture that Reverend King believed and saying "the truth shall set you free" (John 8:31-32). I believe that Dr. King was correct when he said, “The day we see the truth and cease to speak is the day we begin to die”.
I want to know the truth, and I'm not afraid to tell the truth.
My family members did unspeakable things.
Because of people like those in my family and maybe people in my family, people like Anne Frank died horrific deaths, and those who did not die suffered immeasurably.
My family lives, while others died.
My family has not atoned.
My family lives in shame and silence around this topic.
The Diary of Anne Frank or Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl is the book with the biggest influence on my life, because I saw what was lost when her particular form of genius left the earth, and because "knowing" her through her diary gives me courage to tell the truth.
I am not afraid of what my family will say: they have already disowned me, what else can they do? I am afraid of living my life in shame and silence: I think it possible that my grandfather was the most miserable person I have ever known on this earth. I will not be silent. I do not know how to manage the shame of such a legacy. But I do know this:
When I tell the truth, even when my voice is uncertain and quiet, I'm freed.
I am not the people of my ancestry. My father is not his father. But I believe that when families don't own what has happened - in war, in the Holocaust, or slavery, or any other atrocity - then the pain keeps going, it flows in our veins. Shame is powerful (just ask https://brenebrown.com/). But if we look our shame right in the eye, and speak our truth, doesn't that start to change things?
I don't own what happened before I was born, but neither do I think it has nothing to do with me. I have to choose every day to learn from what happened before, or I will be destined to repeat it, in some form or another.
I am not afraid to tell the truth. You can tell me that I'm a snitch or a tattler because I told, because I drug the family skeleton out of the closet and put it on the front lawn (of the NYT!) for all to see. Fine.
I told the truth, and I stand by it.
And today, I feel a so much more free. Saying the words out loud is powerful. My grandfather wore the swastika; my grandmother reveled in Hitler's charisma. I reject everything that stands for. I choose another path. My truth is not only that I know my family's history, my truth is that I refuse to condone it, that I'm fighting for an entirely different way of being. This is liberating! This - this is joyful! I do not know if I would have had the courage to help Anne. I do not know if I would have snuck bread through the fence, or pretended that a child was my own, or if I would have joined the resistance. But my actions now tell me yes you would. By speaking my truth, I'm saying "my values are bigger than my fear". I am not afraid. I am not afraid to do the right thing, to speak up, even when it's hard. What joy!
I know, that if we're not very, very careful, that ordinary people in a modern era can fall for terrible lies about immigrants, Muslims, Jews, gay people, black people, LatinX people. I know that if we're not very, very careful, it's easy to fall for the idea that the brown people over there stole something, or changed something, and to get scared of anyone who isn't like "us".
But I believe that we don't have to fall for those lies, because "us" has room for everyone. Because I'd rather be free than die from shame. Because I am creating my own story, not following someone else's.
So I told the NYT. I tattled; I told. Because some stories need telling in order to heal. In telling, we tell the world what matters. In telling, we give away the details about what matters to us. In telling, we are set free.
I'm telling, and today feels like a day that I begin to live in earnest.
Edited to add January 22, 2020:
I included a link to my blog in my comment on the NYT yesterday, in an article by Rivka Weinberg called "The Road to Auschwitz Wasn't Paved with Indifference". I received the following response from someone named Jake Roberts in NYC:
Saturday, November 24, 2018
Home
The seasons turn, and life is wonderful and terrible and busy and quiet, and here I am yet again.
What a year it has been.
The only thing that is certain is change, and the year has been full of changes. My daughter went to school here, then there, and then back here. (Whew.) I have completed my first full year of teaching, overwhelmed with gratitude that I get to do the thing that I love *and they pay me for it*. My relationship with my family is still estranged, possibly forever. Our beloved old dog Shep crossed the rainbow bridge. I gained weight and lost fitness.
Mine is not a perfect life.
But, strangley, suprisingly, wonderously, I feel like I'm finally at home.
This story starts with a sewage flood in my basement.
A few weeks ago I woke up, put the coffee on, and decided to do a load of laundry. I carried the laundry basket downstairs, and at the bottom of the steps to the basement (the fully finished basement, half of my home's living space) I saw a disturbing liquid on the bamboo floors.
Yuck.
Beyond my disgust, I felt panicked. Horrified, but also utterly unable to deal with such a mess. With nausea bubbling in my stomach and a pain in my chest that momentarily made me question whether I was having a heart attack, I knew what I had to do: it was time to sell my home of seventeen years. I just couldn't handle it any more. There is so much work to do in an old house (mine was built in 1923) and as a single person on a teacher's salary, how could I ever handle it? Plus, the house is four bedrooms, and I don't need that kind of space for just my daughter (who will leave for college in a few short years) and myself. I don't even need a yard anymore, now that dear old Shep has gone.
I called a realtor friend and told her about my decision, and asked for her help. She ran comps, made suggestions about changes I should make in order to sell. (Paint this, stage that - you get the gist.) I spent hours online looking at smaller places nearby that would cost significantly less.
But in the meantime, I needed to deal with my basement. Thank GOODNESS I had recently had Roto-Rooter out to clean the line - annual maintenance that in some years I had not been able to afford, but just the week before I'd done it - and they guarantee their work for 60 days, so they came out to clean it again and determine the source of the blockage. They assured me that since this wasn't a maintenance issue, insurance would pay for damages and repairs, and sure enough, insurance agreed, and sent out a team to demo the basement, removing drywall, trim, and all of the flooring, in addition to the bathroom vanity etc.
Knowing that I'd need to sell the house, I realized that I should make some upgrades to the basement when the work was being done, so, heart pounding, I looked into getting a loan (HELOC) from the bank, figuring that I could do the upgrades for selling the house, then get the money back when I did so.
But getting a HELOC made my chest hurt even more. My whole life my father told me that I was bad with money, and I have heard his voice in my head for 49 years. I still operate as if at any moment I could lose everything, and I carry the belief that I am a hot mess financially.
I went to the bank mostly expecting to be turned down.
Instead, we ran credit checks - excellent. I asked for a sum that I thought was extraordinary and terrifying. They instantly suggested that I apply for double that amount. They held my hand, they assured me that all was well, and we even managed to reduce a credit card rate by 3%.
So now here I am, 49 years old, and it is occurring to me that I am not actually bad with money, that I am a good financial risk. I have a stable job with a continuing contract, doing work that I love with colleagues I adore, and in Washington State teachers got a raise this year.
The damages to the basement were extensive (currently I have concrete floors and studs for walls, and no second bathroom), and with insurance repairs and a bit of extra money it will look better than it has ever looked before when it's done in a couple (few?!) months. The repayment plan is manageable. I realized that not only could I afford to keep my house, but I really, really wanted to do so.
This house has seen so much of my life, including the worst years of my life, but also some of the best. This house has watched me grow and change. This house is the only home that my daughter has ever known. But more than that, this house is the center of my community. I know all my neighbors; I've eaten their food and shared mine. I've watched children grow up here; I've watched trees double in size. I have had a sea of children come through my front door, flopping on sofas, playing games, snacking. I have no idea how many sleepovers have occurred within these walls, or how many bottles of wine have been consumed around my table, but I do know that spontaneous gatherings occur with regularity.
My house has never been the nicest, or most fashionable, or largest, among my friends - I hang out with a successful crowd. But still, my house is a place that people want to be. There's always cheese and crackers for snacking, and there's that wonderful shady spot under the tree for relaxing in the back yard on sunny days, and the family room is just perfect for teenagers to munch on disgusting junk food and make a lot of noise.
I never thought it would be true, but having a sewage flood has turned out to be a good thing. It has reminded me how much I love my home, and it has taught me that actually, I am a grown up, I can handle my messes, and I can still make lemonade from lemons.
***
Two years ago, when my father informed me that he was ashamed to be my father (because of a political post I'd put on Facebook; needless to say, he is as much a fan of Trump's as I am horrified by Trump), I felt relieved that my father had put out in the open what I had suspected my whole life; I'd always known that he did not respect me or value my opinions. But at the same time, I felt adrift in the world: with his words, my father had basically disowned me and made it impossible for me to have a relationship with him, and I felt incredibly alone, adrift. I kept thinking that I didn't feel grounded, that I had no home to return to, that without a family I was alone and untethered. I was sure that I would be unable to withstand life's storms, without a husband or parents to support me, and that this was where I would finally show the world my shame that I was incapable.
The opposite has proved true.
I am flawed, imperfect, and some days I really am a hot mess. It's true; I don't have it all figured out, and the amount that I do not know is quite astounding. However, it's also true that I'm no more a hot mess than anyone else, and sometimes, I even have my act together.
My sewage flood reminded me of the possibilities of my home, and the possibilities for myself. Being awash in shit - there is no polite way to say it - gave me, quite literally, a chance for a clean start. Professional teams came in to sanitize everything, and now we're starting fresh, and it's going to be better than before.
This holiday season, my basement isn't a cozy oasis for watching silly Christmas movies, but it's okay. Right now, despite missing walls, a lack of doors, and concrete floors, we put the furniture back, and we can hang out there anyway. I don't need it to be perfect; I know it's a work in progress, like I am.
The home I'm seeking is here. The place I've longed to go to is here. My home, like me, is quirky and perhaps even unfashionable, but that's not all we are. We're welcoming, warm, playful, and real. There's space in my home, and my heart, for others. There are quiet spots for morning coffee alone in thought. There are plenty of chairs around the table for pots of chili to share, or board games.
I finally found home, seventeen years after I moved in. It took me a while to figure it out, but in these four walls, I'm figuring out who I am, and where I belong. I belong here. This place is beautiful, strong, a haven and a safe harbor. These walls have seen pain, but they've seen even more love and healing. The furniture might have been thrifted, and there are scratches, but the pieces are solid and functional and people tell me when they walk in my front door "ohhh it feels GOOD here."
It feels good in my home, and it feels good in my life. 49 years old, and I'm starting to learn what I'm really made of, and I'm starting to imagine my own potential.
It's never too late to go home - I just had to realize that home was of my own making.
What a year it has been.
The only thing that is certain is change, and the year has been full of changes. My daughter went to school here, then there, and then back here. (Whew.) I have completed my first full year of teaching, overwhelmed with gratitude that I get to do the thing that I love *and they pay me for it*. My relationship with my family is still estranged, possibly forever. Our beloved old dog Shep crossed the rainbow bridge. I gained weight and lost fitness.
Mine is not a perfect life.
But, strangley, suprisingly, wonderously, I feel like I'm finally at home.
This story starts with a sewage flood in my basement.
A few weeks ago I woke up, put the coffee on, and decided to do a load of laundry. I carried the laundry basket downstairs, and at the bottom of the steps to the basement (the fully finished basement, half of my home's living space) I saw a disturbing liquid on the bamboo floors.
Yuck.
Beyond my disgust, I felt panicked. Horrified, but also utterly unable to deal with such a mess. With nausea bubbling in my stomach and a pain in my chest that momentarily made me question whether I was having a heart attack, I knew what I had to do: it was time to sell my home of seventeen years. I just couldn't handle it any more. There is so much work to do in an old house (mine was built in 1923) and as a single person on a teacher's salary, how could I ever handle it? Plus, the house is four bedrooms, and I don't need that kind of space for just my daughter (who will leave for college in a few short years) and myself. I don't even need a yard anymore, now that dear old Shep has gone.
I called a realtor friend and told her about my decision, and asked for her help. She ran comps, made suggestions about changes I should make in order to sell. (Paint this, stage that - you get the gist.) I spent hours online looking at smaller places nearby that would cost significantly less.
But in the meantime, I needed to deal with my basement. Thank GOODNESS I had recently had Roto-Rooter out to clean the line - annual maintenance that in some years I had not been able to afford, but just the week before I'd done it - and they guarantee their work for 60 days, so they came out to clean it again and determine the source of the blockage. They assured me that since this wasn't a maintenance issue, insurance would pay for damages and repairs, and sure enough, insurance agreed, and sent out a team to demo the basement, removing drywall, trim, and all of the flooring, in addition to the bathroom vanity etc.
Knowing that I'd need to sell the house, I realized that I should make some upgrades to the basement when the work was being done, so, heart pounding, I looked into getting a loan (HELOC) from the bank, figuring that I could do the upgrades for selling the house, then get the money back when I did so.
But getting a HELOC made my chest hurt even more. My whole life my father told me that I was bad with money, and I have heard his voice in my head for 49 years. I still operate as if at any moment I could lose everything, and I carry the belief that I am a hot mess financially.
I went to the bank mostly expecting to be turned down.
Instead, we ran credit checks - excellent. I asked for a sum that I thought was extraordinary and terrifying. They instantly suggested that I apply for double that amount. They held my hand, they assured me that all was well, and we even managed to reduce a credit card rate by 3%.
So now here I am, 49 years old, and it is occurring to me that I am not actually bad with money, that I am a good financial risk. I have a stable job with a continuing contract, doing work that I love with colleagues I adore, and in Washington State teachers got a raise this year.
The damages to the basement were extensive (currently I have concrete floors and studs for walls, and no second bathroom), and with insurance repairs and a bit of extra money it will look better than it has ever looked before when it's done in a couple (few?!) months. The repayment plan is manageable. I realized that not only could I afford to keep my house, but I really, really wanted to do so.
This house has seen so much of my life, including the worst years of my life, but also some of the best. This house has watched me grow and change. This house is the only home that my daughter has ever known. But more than that, this house is the center of my community. I know all my neighbors; I've eaten their food and shared mine. I've watched children grow up here; I've watched trees double in size. I have had a sea of children come through my front door, flopping on sofas, playing games, snacking. I have no idea how many sleepovers have occurred within these walls, or how many bottles of wine have been consumed around my table, but I do know that spontaneous gatherings occur with regularity.
My house has never been the nicest, or most fashionable, or largest, among my friends - I hang out with a successful crowd. But still, my house is a place that people want to be. There's always cheese and crackers for snacking, and there's that wonderful shady spot under the tree for relaxing in the back yard on sunny days, and the family room is just perfect for teenagers to munch on disgusting junk food and make a lot of noise.
I never thought it would be true, but having a sewage flood has turned out to be a good thing. It has reminded me how much I love my home, and it has taught me that actually, I am a grown up, I can handle my messes, and I can still make lemonade from lemons.
***
Two years ago, when my father informed me that he was ashamed to be my father (because of a political post I'd put on Facebook; needless to say, he is as much a fan of Trump's as I am horrified by Trump), I felt relieved that my father had put out in the open what I had suspected my whole life; I'd always known that he did not respect me or value my opinions. But at the same time, I felt adrift in the world: with his words, my father had basically disowned me and made it impossible for me to have a relationship with him, and I felt incredibly alone, adrift. I kept thinking that I didn't feel grounded, that I had no home to return to, that without a family I was alone and untethered. I was sure that I would be unable to withstand life's storms, without a husband or parents to support me, and that this was where I would finally show the world my shame that I was incapable.
The opposite has proved true.
I am flawed, imperfect, and some days I really am a hot mess. It's true; I don't have it all figured out, and the amount that I do not know is quite astounding. However, it's also true that I'm no more a hot mess than anyone else, and sometimes, I even have my act together.
My sewage flood reminded me of the possibilities of my home, and the possibilities for myself. Being awash in shit - there is no polite way to say it - gave me, quite literally, a chance for a clean start. Professional teams came in to sanitize everything, and now we're starting fresh, and it's going to be better than before.
This holiday season, my basement isn't a cozy oasis for watching silly Christmas movies, but it's okay. Right now, despite missing walls, a lack of doors, and concrete floors, we put the furniture back, and we can hang out there anyway. I don't need it to be perfect; I know it's a work in progress, like I am.
The home I'm seeking is here. The place I've longed to go to is here. My home, like me, is quirky and perhaps even unfashionable, but that's not all we are. We're welcoming, warm, playful, and real. There's space in my home, and my heart, for others. There are quiet spots for morning coffee alone in thought. There are plenty of chairs around the table for pots of chili to share, or board games.
I finally found home, seventeen years after I moved in. It took me a while to figure it out, but in these four walls, I'm figuring out who I am, and where I belong. I belong here. This place is beautiful, strong, a haven and a safe harbor. These walls have seen pain, but they've seen even more love and healing. The furniture might have been thrifted, and there are scratches, but the pieces are solid and functional and people tell me when they walk in my front door "ohhh it feels GOOD here."
It feels good in my home, and it feels good in my life. 49 years old, and I'm starting to learn what I'm really made of, and I'm starting to imagine my own potential.
It's never too late to go home - I just had to realize that home was of my own making.
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