bittersweet musings

I thought I would end 2020 on a positive note.

On December 2019 I was diagnosed with depression. That surprised me.

If you and I have ever met, that might surprise you too.
I started antidepressants a year ago. I remember the morning they started to work; I woke up and felt energy for the first time in years.

I realized that I had previously been so consumed by fog and lethargy that I could barely get through the day. Getting up was hard, staying up was harder, sleeping was all I could do not to feel sad or tired.

My meds took me from this hollow-feeling husk of a person to a person I had not been in years. Myself.

I had energy to think, try, and do– for the first time in a very long time.

But I was scared to try anything new.

In part because I am a perfectionist and I get irrationally angry when I can’t do things perfectly the first time. In part because I didn’t want to be embarrassed or uncomfortable if the thing I created wasn’t what I wanted.

That’s where the Year of “Yes” came in.

This year, any challenge that I met with an audible or internal “I can’t do that,” immediately had to be done.

At this beginning of this year I “could not:”
– Write – Garden
– Draw – Walk more than 2 miles (without my feet hurting)
– Bake – Get involved with my community
– Cook – Code
– Play Soccer

I have gone on to do all of these things! Not perfectly and not even well. But each imperfect attempt was a step towards letting go of the insecurities that have held me back over the years.

Learning to sit with the imperfect and to lean into my mistakes has been a gift to me this year.

The year of yes has taught me the importance of the process. The journey matters more than the destination and you learn more from your mistakes than you do from your triumphs.

If you, like me, have been standing in your own way, I encourage you to try the year of “yes” approach. I never regretted anything that I tried, and I have found joy in so many places I never thought possible.

This year has taught me that I can bake a wonky pie, draw an ugly picture, and throw-out the third plant I over-watered from the farmer’s market and the world will keep going.

Better still, so will I.

After writing about the election last month, I still felt a bit adrift. I wanted to go out and put SOMETHING good into the universe.

I would like to say that I was searching for something to do for the greater good, and while that’s partly true, I was also searching for something I could exert my control over. As someone with chronic anxiety, I find this power struggle manifests in various forms when a “big stress event” happens.

With COVID-19 closing in on its one year anniversary, I was trying to find something I could do safely that would have a positive impact on something I cared about. I thought back to a beach cleanup I did with my friend last summer, grabbed some gloves and a bag, and went to the beach.

I walked the length of the beach and came back with less than half a bag of trash, which surprised me. Still, I felt accomplished. I felt good being seen by other beachgoers cleaning up the beach, I felt good about improving the health of the bay, I felt like I was making a difference. I patted myself on the back and went home, not thinking much more about it.

That is, until I started taking morning walks around my neighborhood. My neighborhood is situated on the Sarasota Bay with storm runoff drains on each corner that drain directly into the bay. The more I walked around and got to know my neighborhood, the more I noticed the trash accumulated on the sidewalks and in the street. So, one morning, off I went again with my gloves and bag. I barely made it two blocks before I had to come back and drop off my bag, it was overflowing. I kept bringing full bags of trash back home to throw away.

There are no neighborhood sidewalk cleanups in my neighborhood, and I have never seen anyone pick up trash here before. The drains in this neighborhood and the bay access point, both littered with trash, touch the same body of water and disturb the same ecosystem as the trash at the beach. No one thinks about that when they think about the health of the beach, they think about the beach.

This got me thinking. The popular and easy way to participate in cleaning up the bay is a beach clean-up. You don’t have to do anything beyond showing up to the event, where you will be joined by other volunteers, and usually get some sort of pay off for your hard work. You get to be seen by your peers, you get to feel good about the impact that you had, and then you go about your life and don’t really have to think about it again. Some people don’t even get to the beach, they simply share about the cleanup on social media and then consider their work done.

But what about all the other neglected areas, like my neighborhood, that drain into the bay? They will continue to pollute the bay.

This act of civil service mirrors our election participation in a lot of ways. We come out on social media, come out and talk about the national election, vote in the national election, talk about issues on the national level, support candidates on the national level.

But do we know and tend to our own backyards? Do we know our neighbors and their struggles? Do we know and talk about local policies? Do we know our local politicians?

I don’t. Certainly not as well as I know the latest thing AOC said, the latest thing Mitch McConnell blocked, or the last idiotic thing Trump said. Local elections matter, certainly on the micro-level because the policy directly affects where you live, but also on the macro-level. The senators in Congress and the state governors today started as local officials. They are what ultimately drains into the “bay” of national policy.

Most of us don’t watch our local debates or show-up for midterms and then we are surprised and disgusted by what is offered up on the national mainstage. We don’t do the challenging work of talking to neighbors and friends that are different from us, we simply delete them off of Facebook and think “that showed them.”

We do all the superficial political things that give us instant gratification and then call it day. We vote once every four years and think it’s going to make a huge impact. You know, like the beach only needs to be cleaned once a year to make a difference.

If we started doing the real work, what would our national stage look like in a few years? If we start cleaning up our neighborhoods, would it improve the health of our nation? If we talk to our neighbors, can we overcome partisanship?

Maybe, maybe not.

But getting involved at the community level, getting to know and love our neighbors and neighborhoods, well, that seems like the right place to start.

The past 48 hours have taken a toll on our nation.

Yesterday we woke up without a declared president. I personally woke up and ran through a slew of emotions: relief, anxiety, paralysis, disappointment.

How could the election be THIS close again? How could so many of my fellow citizens choose this president AGAIN?

I feel you. As the daughter and granddaughter of women I love, women that voted for Trump twice, I have felt that same pain and disappointment over the last 4 years. I woke up one day and my family seemingly stopped holding the values I grew up with and embraced Trump with fervor. I remember my mom holding her nose while voting for Trump in 2016. “I don’t waaaant to vote for him, but it’s better than Hillary.” Over the past four years, she has stopped pinching her nose and instead uses her hands to wave a Trump flag.

How could the people I know and love have changed so much? I experience this on a micro-level with my mom and on a macro-level with our country.

But then I remember the 2000 election. Vaguely. I am 8 years old.
I remember my mom telling me that if Bush doesn’t win this election, this country is going to be lost forever. This was terrifying to my 8 year old brain, but Bush won and I relaxed (despite not knowing, or understanding why).

It’s the 2004 election and I am 12. Once again I am told, if Kerry wins this election, this country is going to be destroyed by democrats. I am scared. In 7th grade civics class, we take quizzes to find out which political party we are aligned with. I align as democrat. I am dumbfounded and I am angry. How could I be a democrat? I vote for Bush in our school mock election anyway. Bush wins the school and the national election. My mom and I go on to watch The Apprentice that year.

It’s 2008 and Barack Obama is running for president. My mom is thankful he is at least running with Joe Biden, at least he knows what he is doing. For once, I don’t remember her saying that the country would be destroyed if a democrat won, but she doesn’t like Obama. He is too young and inexperienced. She votes for John McCain. He loses. My mom becomes a Tea Party member.

It’s 2012, I don’t vote because I figure, Obama’s got this and he barely manages to win over Romney. I notice my mom has started to hate Obama with a fervor while I have been away at college. She tells me he is the most divisive president we have ever had. She tells me her life under Obama was lived in fear.

It’s 2016 and she is saying the same thing she said in 2000 and 2004, 2012. The candidate she embraces isn’t McCain or Romney, it’s Trump.

Trump from The Apprentice who says what no one else will. Trump that is willing to advance the agenda of the white Christian Right without seeking compromise. Trump who will fix the US and bring it back to how it was before 9/11 but after Clinton. Trump will do the things that the Christian Right cannot dirty their hands with and they embrace him as a tool for God’s work.

So, when did things change?
The truth is, if my mom is an allegory for the nation, they haven’t.

This is how the majority of our countrymen are. They aren’t working for the advancement of the country as a whole and they have stopped seeking compromise because the alternative is “to lose the country to the democrat/devil/immigrant.”

This is what we are up against. I have spoken to my mom so many times over the past four years about policy, personal feelings and pain. She still voted for Trump this past election.

I don’t have an answer for how to move forward, other than to keep having hard conversations. Keep being curious about the world and keep learning. Share that excitement for knowledge with others. I was scared until someone told me not to be. I was ignorant until someone showed me I didn’t have to be. We can change minds if we engage thoughtfully.

As I grieve for the nation, I will be turning to my own community and starting the work of shaping the nation from my own back yard.

This past September 23rd was “Bi Visibility Day,” a day dedicated to showing the world that bisexuals are real and do exist.

I thought it would be helpful to give an overview of how I got to the point of “coming out” by working through my past experiences.

Growing up, I knew being gay was “gross,” it was “bad,” it was “evil,” it was “wrong.” I (ironically) used to dislike gay people! I remember my friend and I talking about NOT moving to Canada in 9th grade because they allowed gay marriage. The culture of the time and the teachings from my church, made me fear the littlest things that would even come close to making me look gay, something I felt especially prone to growing up as a “tomboy.”

So, how did I get here? Well, first an adult I was close to came out and I had to reconcile my feelings about homosexuality. If I love this person, and they just want to be loved for who they are, why is that wrong? This was my first step towards clarity.

Fast forward, I kissed [some] girl[s] (and I liked it), the summer before my senior year in high school. I remember being very confused and talking to a friend about it later. He told me he thought I might be bisexual, and I told him that wasn’t a real orientation. I still believed that sexuality was black and white. This archaic view on sexuality, coupled with my sexual assault my freshman year of college, would continue to cause me pain and confusion in my journey towards self-acceptance and understanding.

I was sexually assaulted in a frat house my freshman year of college. I went into a deep depression following the assault. I felt confused, hurt, loathsome, unlovable. I went on to have my first sexual experience with a woman shortly after that. This created a new level of confusion within me. My thoughts were racing, “Am I gay because I was raped? Have I always been gay and just didn’t know? But why am I so attracted to men?” I couldn’t figure out who I was because I still clung to outdated notions about sexuality and did not accept the concept of bisexuality. I remember bawling on the phone to my friend’s mom one night in the rain (the one that came out and changed my life forever) asking her if I was gay. I was so distraught trying to make this distinction between being straight or gay.

I also knew, I didn’t want to be queer. Being queer means being disgusting to my mom and grandparents. Being queer is a slap in the face of the way I was brought up. Being queer is an additional embarrassment my mom has to bear, how much more pain was this heathen, agnostic, liberal really going to inflict on her family?

So I shut up about it. I quietly accepted my identity and moved on. What a privilege that was when I began dating Nick. I got to be straight passing, I didn’t have to worry about disappointing anyone and I didn’t have to worry about rejection from the queer community or the straight community. I could keep quiet when people would say things like “I thought they were gay, why are they dating a woman/man now?” Or, “bisexuals just can’t make up their mind what they want.” Or, “bisexuals are just gay and won’t admit it.” Or, “bisexuals just want attention.” These comments, coupled with my silence, always brought me back to that phone call in the rain. I was so distraught because I didn’t know anyone like me and I didn’t have anyone tell me that who I am is valid. Who I am is real. Who I am is OK.

Fast-forward to September 23. I get this churning in my gut, I feel like I can help open the door a little wider for someone else like me. Let someone else know that they are okay the way that they are. But I am really scared. It is 2020 and I am scared. My heart is racing as I post. I consider taking it down. Why?

It is worth mentioning that I shared the details of my rape in 2017. I was scared then too. Going to post for Bi Visibility Day, the same feelings from posting in 2017 come rushing back. I think to myself, “why am I more afraid to be bisexual than a rape victim in 2020?” I realize that it’s because these two particular identities, rape victim and bisexual, require acceptance on the audience’s part. I can tell someone I was raped in 2011 and they can choose to believe that isn’t true. The audience has the power to reject a piece of my identity and invalidate it if I don’t convince them what I am saying is true. The same can be said for being bisexual. It took me so long to get to the point of accepting that “yes, this is who I really am,” but many people don’t believe that identity to be valid. When I really thought about it, that post was like sharing a piece of myself that was so vulnerable that I protected it for 9 years. I am choosing to share about it now, not out of pride but out of fear that someone else is hurting just like me.

Where the #metoo movement created dialogue surrounding the public’s perception on rape and rape victims (in fact, that’s what made me brave enough to share my story), Bi Visibility Day aims to take the stigma and taboo away from the bisexual identity. There are so many bisexuals still in the closet because they believe themselves to be “wrong” or “invalid.”

So here I am at this moment, 9 years in the making, where I have finally (and publicly) made peace with who I am and what that means. I still haven’t talked to my family about it because I am scared of facing their pain, disappointment and shame.

But the weight is finally gone.

I grew up believing the world was going to end at any minute.

It’s funny, I remember a time that my mom and I were traveling through the fog and mountains and three lit-up crucifixes had me in a near panic attack thinking that this was finally it, the end of my life. The second coming. 

It never sat right with me. The second coming, I mean. The sheer thought of leaving everything I knew for a paradise that would not even welcome my own cat, where I would be forced to sing and dance about God forever. I would be safe and happy while my friends suffered and were tormented —  and I just wouldn’t think about it? or remember it was happening because I would be safe in Heaven?

Just blissfully dancing and singing over the screams down below. How the hell is that paradise?

And until Heaven, my “great reward,” I had to spend my life in terror. Terror because I never felt “safe” that I was “saved.” 

I used to repeat my salvation prayer over and over at night because I was so scared that I hadn’t “really meant it, hadn’t really believed” when I had said it all those times before.

I think that the concept of the rapture and Heaven made me realize how cruel religion could be. 

There is a paradise but you can only go if you have heard of Jesus and accepted him.
If you hear and don’t accept him, you burn in hell.
If you accept him and then reject him, you burn in hell.
If you don’t hear and don’t accept him, you burn in hell.

*Unless the rapture comes, then you might actually have a chance.

I had the distinct privilege of growing up in an Independent Baptist Church.
What does that mean?

It means women are treated as second-class to men. Women must ask their husbands for permission to do things. Women must not wear bright nail polish, ankle bracelets or two-piece swimsuits, because the male gaze is ever-present, and you see, they can’t help it. God made them that way. It is our job to make sure they don’t act on it. If they act on it, men are weak, and women are lustful.

I remember being allowed to carry the offering plate one Sunday evening. I remember the way I felt when I was finally chosen. It made my entire day, I was finally able to hold a basket and pass it up and down the rows. So minor, but in my 13 years of life, I had always been passed over. The two boys my age, and the younger ones that came after, would always be chosen instead of me. But not this time. Me, an usher. I was absolutely elated.

Years later, I remember being told that the man that allowed me to do that was punished by my pastor, He was told to never allow that to happen again. Being an usher is an honor, and it is not a job for women. It will never be. If a woman wants to honor the Lord, the kitchen and the children she raises are her trophy cases where she can hang her rewards.  

At church, I remember they would *wink* not talk about politics *wink* because they could lose their tax-exempt status. It didn’t stop political jokes and nods and winks from the pulpit. It didn’t stop a pastor from another church printing out my Facebook page and smearing the word “Democrat” with a highlighter before handing it off to my pastor for judgment. It didn’t stop a church member from tearing the Barack Obama sticker off of my bumper and having a good laugh about it with my mom. Why would I ruin a perfectly good Buick like that?

What the church mostly meant though, was Fear.

Fear of attracting the wrong kind of attention, fear of letting the evil and dangerous “World” swallow me whole, fear of telling my mom the truth, fear of loving sinners, fear of people different from me, fear of new ideas that might contaminate me, fear of dying and going to hell, fear that my grandparents were going to hell.

It is said that God is the epitome of grace, love, and mercy. But during my time as a believer, I never felt more abandoned, lost, and alone.

It’s funny how much impact these two words, consisting of only five letters, can have on the person that says them. Over the past 24 hours, thousands of women have come forward about times they have been harassed or assaulted by men, in an effort to increase awareness and visibility of victims of unsolicited sexual advances. My facebook feed has been filled with one “me too” after the other.

As someone that has also found myself in the “me too” category, the response was overwhelming. In a sort of “fucked up” way, I found it comforting, there are other women who have been through something similar. I have allies and confidants I did not know before.But more than anything, It was painful to read each one.

The group of assault and harassment survivors is the group no one wants to be a part of. No one joined this group willingly, no one consented to it. And up until the “me toos”, this group was largely silent.

Think of all the women you know that have come forward in the last 24 hours and admitted to being harassed or touched without their consent. Now consider the women whose jobs would be at stake if they posted, the women who are sexually assaulted in their homes every night, the women who cannot access a computer that would also reply, “me too.” I still think about the victims of Trump’s sexual assaults and how their “me toos” fell on thousands disbelieving ears.  The magnitude of the “me toos” is astonishing. As a victim of sexual assault, I am overwhelmed by those who have come forward.

TRIGGER WARNING 

This article or section, or pages it links to, contains information about sexual assault and/or violence which may be triggering to survivors

My story is one that I only began to tell about a year ago, after 5 years of silence. The election stirred something up in me, something painful that I had avoided, fought, silenced, buried, ran away from, and cried countless nights over. It started where many assaults (unfortunately) start, in a frat house. I point this out because according to the Guardian, fraternal brothers are 300% more likely to rape and women in sororities are 74% more likely to experience rape than other college women (Source).

One cold night in March, I went to a frat I frequented many times before. On this particular night, I was drunk beyond coherence. Unfortunately, after having my heart broken the previous fall, that was my state more often than not during those days. I could not tell you who I was with or how I got into the room where my assault would occur, or even how I got home that night. I couldn’t stand up, I couldn’t protect myself. I had entered a room with only one other person in it, when I tried to leave, I was met with a demand. I couldn’t leave, not without “paying to get out.”

Without going into detail, I will tell you that the payment was not a cash transaction. I screamed for help but the house music was too loud. It was too late before someone heard me.

It was too late for me.

To this day, I could not tell you what the face of my attacker looked like, I was too drunk to remember. Does that cheapen my experience? Does that make me a liar? Absolutely not. But these are the exact same excuses hurled at women, like me, that have been assaulted. I wrestled with what happened to me for years trying to figure out if I could have done anything different to stop that experience from happening.

The sad answer is, I couldn’t have. Because even if I had been sober at that party, someone else would have ended up in that room in my place and I would not have heard someone crying for help over the loud music. If not me, then someone else. That is the sad truth about sexual assault.

The hardest part about my assault was the anonymity of my attacker. I did not know if I was interacting with him because I did not remember their face. I stopped going to that frat because I was fearful of whom I was talking to, I developed anxiety and depression, I gained weight, I couldn’t leave my bed, I would spend so many afternoons crying because I felt so helpless. I felt all alone in this world and with this pain. To this day I am afraid to be alone with adult men, to be alone in my home, or to be alone in an unfamiliar environment. I am battling this attack every day and have battled it since it first happened 5 years ago. I wanted to die. I felt worthless. I felt alone.

As the anniversary of me coming to terms with my assault fast approaches, I felt the need to tell my story. When I share that awful experience, I feel catharsis. The hold of my attacker over me fades, even if it is ever so slightly. My therapist refers to this as “taking my power back.”

So to all my fellow “me toos” out there, thank you for sharing, thank you for making yourself vulnerable so others can feel they are not alone. Thank you for taking your power back.

If you’re sitting here wondering why we still need to do these things to get Congress and men and anyone we can find to listen to us. To get the legislation to work for victims, to test the backlog of rape kits, to allow women access to the morning after pill when they have been assaulted (and even when they haven’t), to believe women when they report assaults, and to not blame the victim for their dress/inebriation/sexual history…

me too.