Monday, October 19, 2020
Forget #noregrets and cue #1millionregrets
There has been a lot of news lately, whether rhetorically or directly about how people can support Biden/Harris when they've held controversial, and yes even sometimes hurtful, positions on particular issues in the past. It got me thinking about the #noregrets culture that has been so popular, and how that has somehow been a funnel into the current cancel culture we are experiencing so visibly today. I am not sure how it started, or why it started, but I do know it is COMPLETE. BULLSHIT. I kind of went crazy in college and did some erroneous stuff. Gram, if you're reading this is where you want to stop, trust me. I lived in large houses packed in with several friends and we had some of the wildest parties I have ever attended, and our yearly Halloween parties were amongst the craziest. My friends and I would come up with wild costumes and fill entire coolers with everclear and any other liquor we could secure with our fake ID's (I don't mean put ice into the cooler and then put in bottled beverages, I mean just pour the liquor straight into a cooler and then ladle it out into a plastic cup). There are photos of me dancing on a pool table, mostly (OK, fully) nude and acting like a lunatic. I am not sharing all of this to relive the "good old days" but to set the scene for something I am about to type and put on the internet that I am so deeply ashamed and certainly have one million regrets over. One year for Halloween, I dressed in black face. Sigh. That sucked to even type out. I just typed and then deleted an explanation of why I did this because honestly it doesn't matter. It was hurtful and it contributed to systemic racism and is a blaring example of my white privilege. If I could go back and change it, I would. I am embarrassed and my views (obviously) have shifted dramatically since that time roughly twenty years ago. It's something I'll have to live with when I lay in bed next to my black husband and perhaps my daughter will see someday and to which I might have to offer an explanation. /// I say all of this to go back to the original point which is people change and evolve and hopefully their evolution is for the better. Thinking of my coming out story my own mother wept for her child, worried about his soul and if he'd secure a place in heaven for being gay. Fast forward a few years and she wept tears of joy at her son's wedding to the man of his dreams and wrote a blog for other struggling parents of LGBTQ youth. And it's not just changes from decades past. I regret deeply my tone yesterday with my husband. I regret not taking the plunge and restarting my career sooner. I regret not finding a way to spend more days with my sister and my dad and my Grandpa while they were here. We are all works in progress. /// A few years back I was really personally struggling in my retail career and somehow convinced my employer to let me be the social media "face" of our brand (sidenote, still can't believe they said yes). I knew I couldn't do the 60-hour-a-week intense job for much longer so I just made up a completely different job that I thought might fulfill me. The company flew me to New York City and I took a video making boot camp and was off to the races making videos for customers about the company, brands we sold, and showcasing my own parenting skills by including my daughter. Things went great for the first few months and I felt really happy with the 100K+ views my videos were getting. I would wake up sometimes in the middle of the night just to check the views. It was like a drug. I even flew across the country and made an "event appearance" at one of our store locations in the midwest. There were other blogger competitors in the field who were pretty unhappy about this and when I did a video on a product that directly impacted child safety (BTW, to which I was and still am totally unqualified to be talking about to thousands of people) the entire web lit me up. I started getting death threats in the comments, people sent letters to the CEO about how I was a baby-murderer, and one of these bloggers actually issued a post to their millions of followers calling for the "cancellation" of my entire company because they "let me post this inaccurate garbage to the internet." It totally sucked. But here is another example of this cancel culture. Should I have known better and done more research and been more prepared? Absolutely. I never did another video and wallowed in that job for another year before finally having the bravery to finally leave and pursue my true passion. It was a learning experience in listening to myself, that inner part of me and to "don't go chasing waterfalls."/// So back to the beginning. I have dozens and dozens of things I am deeply regretful of. I just admitted some of them to you. Sometimes a simple "sorry" just isn't enough, especially if you've hurt people. You have to just keep saying it, and more importantly SHOWING IT, and reconcile it within yourself. I've changed so much in the past ten years, and ten years before that, and tens years before that too. My learning has directly and indirectly hurt some of the people I love the most. So I don't buy into #noregrets and as I sort through this internally think it actually is really harmful to have this mentality. Growth is hard, but necessary./// Back to this election. Before anyone goes in on me, I get it---we can't have it both ways. I can't forgive Joe and Kamala for the sins of their past and not be willing to forgive Trump. But, here in proves my fundamental issue with Trump and his followers. I never hear "I'm sorry" or "forgive me." In fact, I hear that "systemic racism isn't real" and lots of bullying and mean tweets to anyone who demands an apology for the way he treated them or spoke to them. I can understand the defense of saying things you don't mean about war heroes or those with disabilities, but you've got to stand up and say sorry and change your ways. Maybe the "you're fired" and cancel culture are connected? As we all begin voting (PLEASE VOTE) my bets and hopes are on the empathetic person who I've seen overcome tragedy and heard time and time again, "I made a mistake, I was wrong, please forgive me." And even more importantly, I hope others see me this way too. If I have hurt you in the past (which is likely as I type this out) whether directly or indirectly I am so sorry and please forgive me.
Thursday, August 13, 2020
Day 151 and Counting
It's hard to believe it has been 151 days since we began this shelter-in-place began. In true AJ fashion, I am up early and feeling an intense desire to write. I just re-read my last post from early April where I was navigating feelings about 20+ days into isolation and how "this new normal doesn't feel normal at all." Fast forward 131 more and THAT time feels more normal than I can hardly remember. Back then, we were still cleaning out closets, coming up with home projects, organizing online school work, and still trying to treasure the slower pace and ability to connect as a family. I was still working on adjusting to seeing my clients virtually, taking my final final-exams for my therapy program, and contemplating what it would like when my Mom could begin moving here. I honestly thought that everyone was taking the pandemic seriously and it would last a month, maybe two if some people needed some convincing to stay isolated and stop the spread. Fast forward 131 days, I've received my associate license, began a private practice, traveled to Detroit for a crazy-scary super-invasive surgery for Mom that ultimately got the cancer out, and don't think twice about wiping everything down with a sanitazation wipe, getting tested weekly for COVID-19 (negative again yesterday), grabbing from our Corona-basket full of masks, gloves, face shields, and sanitizer every time I have to go somewhere (which is rarely) and have worn real pants maybe four times. Sometimes, the only time I exit my house gate is to move the car from one side of the street to the other to avoid a street-cleaning ticket. And there is no end in sight, it's like half way through a long-boring movie when you ask yourself, "does this even have an ending?" My baby starts fourth grade in just a few days; she'll learn from home watching her friends and beloved teacher from her device at the kitchen table while I work-from-home in the other room. I began, and stopped, and began again several times on trying to post about George Floyd's murder and the much-needed uprising that came afterward. I could just never find the words. I still can't. I have had to face my own privilege, superiority, and internal biases head on all while watching the man I love most in the world, who is also black, confront and process this trauma that's been with him his entire life. What a total mind-f@*k to try to be compassionate and empathize with someone trying to understand a system-of-pain that in many ways you, your ancestors, and people that look like you inflicted upon them in the first place. I have to do better, and I've made a promise to myself to do just that with a caveat that inaction perpetuates the problem so I can't be silent and allowing others to continue this infliction-of-pain by saying "All Lives Matter" or "I don't see color" or "my best friend is black" or "why does it have to be violent" or "why can't it be peaceful" or "I don't have a racist bone in my body" or "George Floyd was a really bad dude" or "Breonna wasn't really an EMT" or "Blue Lives Matter" or "Trump-Pence 2020" or "black on black crime is worse" or "why am I paying for the sins of my ancestors" or "I'm not really white anyway" and about 10,000 more statements that are actually re-victimizing black and brown people with every word, every post and we have to be better and do better. White people I am talking to you (and internally to myself). Let the black voices do the talking here and we have to work on listening, donating, supporting, and educating of ourselves without relying on the oppressed to teach us, the opressors. Whiteness is the problem and racism is the way it is presented. One of my favorite statements from a black woman and activist named Kimberly Jones (who is nominated for a NAACP Image Award, look her up if you haven't already) is "Y'all are lucky that we only want equality and not revenge." To those that are struggling, it's OK. To those that are thriving, that is good too. Each of us is doing the best we can. We have multiple pandemics occuring all at the same time, some global, some domestic, and some just in the four walls of our homes (if you haven't lost it yet). I keep hearing how people just want to get back to normal, but after this long is there any semblance of normal to even get back to? I know for me I am forever changed by these 151 days, and I'll continue to change. Even once there is a vaccine and we can go back to hugging and visiting and interacting in our older ways, this time will be logged for fundamental and deep rooted adjustments that were a long time in the making for me.
Friday, April 3, 2020
Still Here
This morning I woke at 6 am just as the sun was starting to rise. With everything that is happening in the world we've been staying up late and sleeping in so I laid in bed for awhile thinking I would fall back to sleep, but just couldn't. I've really needed a release as day 20 of shelter-in-place begins. It's hard to explain, but this new normal just isn't normal at all and I've been holding in so much trying to navigate it and be strong. I wasn't quite sure what to do, so I made a cup of coffee, sat down at the computer in the empty, quiet, and dimly lit house and decided that I really needed some sister time. It has been almost seven years since my best friend and older sister Crystal died. And in the years leading up to her passing, she wrote a blog similar to this one. I've looked at it from time to time, and usually could not get more than ten minutes in without completely losing it. But this morning, in this moment, I needed to hear from her. I started reading and kept going, and kept going after that, until I got all the way to the beginning. Her nearly four years of journaling was like hearing directly from her, in her own words. Often a photo would support a post and I closed my eyes to try to place myself there with her. Her love letter to her daughter, my niece Rilynn, on her ninth birthday made me realize that my own baby, the one she posted about coming to see and hold who was born one day before her thirtieth birthday, will be nine in one month! There was a post and a photo from her trip to Chicago with just her and I as we started navigating divorce together in the midst of her terrible cancer journey. I wept. And wept. She loved so hard. She fought so hard. She LIVED so hard. Once she heard that she would likely die, she traveled. To Costa Rica. And Hawaii. And Mexico. And St. Martin. And Miami. And California. She found new love. She cherished moments with her loved ones. As she would probably say, "I rallied." There were surprises too. She went and visited our paternal grandmother and her girls met their Great Grandma. I didn't know that happened; or if I did I must've forgotten again. On two of her trips to visit me in California she mentioned what she was doing while "I worked." Man, oh man. If I could go back in time, I would've quit every single one of those jobs to have a millisecond more with her. She flew to see me and I still went to work while she was there? She said things to describe the smell of the sea, her view from an airplane, the despair she felt as her body fought against her. For a moment, it was like she was still here. And it was magnificent! Life is chaotic right now. We are all doing the absolute best we can. My clinical work with clients is all virtual now, but it is a constant reminder to me that we are in this together. Each experience is unique and valid and important. I would encourage you all to spend even a few seconds this weekend finding some type of self-care, whether that be a trip back in time to "visit" with someone like I did, a Skype visit in the here and now with someone you've been missing, or start planning a trip for the future (while airfare and travel is so inexpensive). As I went to post this, a Facebook memory crawled to the top of my screen. Wouldn't you know, she was here all morning and I didn't even know it!
Tuesday, March 17, 2020
Operation Introspection
I think everyone would agree that it has been a strange couple of days as we begin 'social distancing' and navigate a new world (at least for awhile). I would ALMOST say this has been the oddest couple of my days of my entire life, but that would not be truthful. This moment makes me think back on some of the other times in my life when I was aware, in some way way back part of my mind, that this is one of those periods that has been tattooed into my brain where my grandchildren and great grandchildren might ask me "where were you when the world quieted down for a few weeks/months?" Can you imagine their faces when I tell them that their Mama used a 'website' called 'Zoom' to meet with her teacher and I used a 'video' conference room to meet with my clients 'virtually' while I stayed at home and played endless rounds of Clue and Scategories? I can already cue the questions, "what's a zoom? And what is video? And what in the heck is a board game?" Instead of hearing what we actually did here they'll be wrapped up in the terms of the "old days" and how primitive this all sounds. And we will laugh and giggle together, there will be some wonder and amazement in their eyes, and they might even roll their eyes to one another and talk about their crazy old grandpa and all of his nostalgia. It reminds me of my experience with 9/11. If I tried hard enough I could force myself to remember what I was wearing as I laid in my dorm room and watched the planes hit the twin towers, from a television the weight of elephant and called my room mate from a phone with a cord to please come back because I was so frightened to be alone. I could feel the rise and fall of my t-shirt as my whole body shook. My heart raced, fast. So fast. Was something coming right this very minute to crash into me? What am I actually seeing with my eyes? Will I survive? Will they? While I remember the feeling and emotion, do you know what my eight year old asks? Why didn't you just send a "I'm safe" sticker on Facebook? Um, honey, there was no Facebook. No social media at all, unless you count live journal. I mean, was there even Wifi then? And all of the stuff that came after is now just common practice.....no liquids through TSA (who didn't even exist beforehand), an endless war in the Middle East in countries I still could never identify on a globe, and the start of political polarization that forced everyone (online anyway) into whatever corner they would be defending until the death from that point forward since everything you believed would now be worn as a badge of honor on social media. In elementary school, I had a project to interview my parents about where they were when JFK was assassinated. We were supposed to draw it into picture form (which thinking of it now is kind of morbid) but I have a vague memory of not understanding how to draw a Cadillac convertible. Sure, my grandparents drove Cadillac's but my Mom said President Kennedy's was different. I was annoyed and wanted to see a photo, but then again there was no Internet, no google where I could just hit 'images' and I had to use my imagination. And we could keep going back and back and find endless examples. It's not just milestone memories either. 'Have you ever seen a person die Grandpa?' "Yep, and part of me died along with them in that moment." 'Have you ever seen a baby be born?' "Yes, I was in the room when your Mama was born and my heart exploded into a million pieces like a firework when I saw her for the first time." My point in saying all of this is to remind us all that I believe most of us are in a vulnerable and emotional space right now. We are aware of how scary and frightening this all is, and even if we put on a brave face and say things like 'it's not that big of a deal' or 'everything will be OK' part of us is aware of the emotional impact this virus is having on us. And it's not just emotional, my restaurant job has been suspended. Millions of workers are scared about how they'll survive financially in the coming weeks and months, especially if this keeps on going this way. Your feelings are valid and important. I have moments of pure terror and fear as well. But then I am quickly reminded that the 10-days of independent study, each round of a board game, each television show I let my daughter watch because I just need a minute and don't really care that she's watched ten hours of TV today, the stocked up fridge, the void streets, the constant media news cycle pumping us full of information, social media, and social distancing will not matter a decade from now. Not to us individually anyway. And somehow that gives me some peace to make mistakes, try to stay present, binge watch good TV shows, pray for doctors, nurses, and other leaders, drink good wine, play an extra round of cards with my kiddo, call my Mama more often, and cuddle with my spouse at night. We will get through this and when we tell the story of 2020 to our kids they'll simply want to know- where were you when COVID-19 changed the world for a blink?
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