I think this goes for any and all relationships right now.
I’m in a place where I need all my relationships to be nutritionally dense. I am in transition. I need nutrients to grow. I need meat n’ taters.
I discussed this with a friend and she put it well.
She reminded me of when Michelangelo sculpted “David.” When asked how he was able to carve a perfect man out of a slab of stone he said he could see David inside and just chipped off the parts that weren’t him. That’s me right now. I am the sculptor and the stone.
In this part of my journey, I have to hunker down and chip away the parts that aren’t completely aligned with me. The litmus in this process is this:
Does this person help me grow?
How does this person make me feel? The only acceptable answer is “good.”
“Bad” and “neutral” are not acceptable answers right now.
Social networking has created a new bizarre and irrational set of rules for socializing. There is this weird ickiness associated with “unfriending” but maybe the word “friend” should have never been involved in the first place.
My friends call me on the phone. They stop by. They email me and I them.
The people who need me to be their comedian or their mini-Oprah are not necessarily my friends. They are cool and interesting people who I may run into or may not run into. They are people I like and respect. But that doesn’t make them my friend.
And here’s the crazy part. That’s okay.
There don’t have to be hurt feelings and drama. There can just be a calm acknowledgment and maintained mutual respect. Any time I have looked up and found myself “unfriended”, I have thought, “Yeah, he’s right…we’re not really friends.” I mean, it’s totally cool to use Facebook as a networking tool or to keep in touch with your zany Aunt Linda. That’s just not what I need it for.
I have very little adult socialization, so when I turn on my laptop to visit with my peeps, I need to it feel enriching and filling and hearty. I don’t have “room” for the polite social niceties right now.
Yes, it’s interesting that we went to the same school, or worked at the same place, or were best friends twenty years ago, or used to go bar hopping together, or I had a crush on you when we were in show choir together. But if we are not engaged in one another's lives, we are not friends. We are spectators. That’s not the same thing.
Many months ago, my cell phone broke. I replaced it, but never told anyone my phone number.
You know why?
Instant gratification creates entitlement. We feel entitled to portions of our friends’ lives and time now. When someone texts me and I don’t answer back in the mysteriously predetermined “correct” amount of time, that person starts going down a spiral.
“Where is she?”
“Is she mad at me?”
“Did I say something wrong?”
“GAWD TEXT ME BACK”
Um, who ever told you you had access to my time?
Maybe I’m driving. Or I'm taking a poo. Or I just don’t want to. I don’t owe you anything.
I thought that because I didn’t have a phone I was free from this circus, but I realized it just carried over to Facebook instead.
When you share the majority of your pie and want to keep some to yourself, you’re still going to have those people coming at you with a fork after they’ve gobbled their share.
That entitlement is such a part of the “language” of social networking that people don’t see it as entitlement at all. If I go one day without updating my status, I get concerned messages and wall posts about my “quiet” or how I’ve gone “missing.”
“Well, it’s just that you usually…”
No. It’s that you’ve gotten used to getting your “fix” every day and I had the audacity not to supply. It is much more about you than me. But you’re right. I do spend a lot of time on Facebook.
So you know what I’m not doing?
Writing my book, reviewing paperwork, finding funding, reading my assignments.
Life. I’m not doing life.
So I’m thinning as a means of discipline, firstly. And because I just want people to water, feed, and sunshine me, secondly.
I will only be keeping the cheerleaders on Facebook. The ladies and men I have divorce-bonded with. The friends whose social and political views are different than mine, but who can discuss it respectfully, forcing me to evaluate my beliefs. The pushers, the helpers, the lovers, the believe-in-you-ers. And one or two people whose egos are so delicate that I still don’t think they’d be able to handle my unfriending, even with this attempt at diplomacy.
Jaya and Changing the Future - June 2013
No amount of hovering and helicoptering can protect my children from emotional pain, but I'm starting to see that my parenting can protect them from suffering
This whole parenting biz...sigh...Okay, here's the thing.
One of my biggest fears when my oldest daughter was born was that she would follow in my footsteps.
I was sexualized early. I wasn't prepared for it. And it changed the next fifteen years of my life very negatively.
I was always a pretty child. I remember being four and five years old and people stopping my mom to tell her what a cute kid I was. But by the time I was ten years old, I was 5'5", wearing a bra, had my period for a year, and looked 14. But I was 10. I was a child.
But I didn't have a child's body. The world reacted differently. My first recollection of this was in fifth grade. The school I attended went from 1st to 12th grade. It was a common tradition for underclassmen to be assigned a senior who was sort of like a big brother or big sister. They would come to your class at assigned times and do crafts with you, or hang out on the playground.
Typically, younger girls got big sisters and boys got big brothers, but due to an uneven ratio, I was assigned two big brothers, one who we'll call BJ.
BJ was an excellent big brother. Even though there were assigned times for him to visit, he visited on his off time too. He came to hear me recite my report on black widows. He clapped the loudest. He gave me a big box of candy for Valentine's Day. He remembered my birthday. None of the other big brothers or sisters did that. He ate with me at lunch. He pushed me on the swings at recess.
Only now do I realize he must have missed a lot of class to be so omnipresent. But he changed my view of myself forever. He was the first of many men to do so.
One day, I was on the playground with him and another older female student who was a mutual friend of ours. I can remember exactly where we were standing. It's a parking lot now.
He said with a dangerous-sounding giggle, "Jessica, did you know that when you are 18 I'll only be 25?"
The older girl shot him a look I didn't understand. I nodded and shrugged. Our ages had no significance to me.
Then he said, "So Jessica, would you say that you're...easy?"
At this point the older girl marched over and punched him hard in the chest. I still didn't understand. He laughed and ran away spewing false apologies. I didn't understand his words... but I understood his eyes and his tone, and I knew things had changed.
A few years later, I had a male teacher who I considered a mentor. We had a conversational banter, and he often let my circle of friends and me eat lunch in his room. My seat was the closest to the door. One day, another male teacher came to give him something. They were friends. The other teacher looked at me with that look. He muttered under his breath, "Is that the one you were talking about?" My teacher nodded. The other teacher let out a long, slow whistle and gave my teacher a face that read "Oh man..."
That time I understood, and it was tattooed into my brain. I resigned to the truth about myself:
Congratulations. They don't actually like you. They all just want to fuck you.
I spent the next several years pivoting on that central point. My oxygen became male sexual attention. My entire sel
f-worth was steeped in it. This addiction led me to become pregnant my senior year of high school by a man who was ten years older than me. I was pregnant again a year and a half later by a man I'd known for six months. I married that man and suffered a miserable, high-drama marriage. Being a sex object altered my future. It's a massive chapter in my story.
So here I am, several years into parenting. My children are all quite pretty. When my oldest daughter was in 3rd grade, it started.
She went to a "good" charter school, in a "good" part of Tampa. She was close buddies with a classmate - a little boy.
One day she found out that he'd bragged to his buddies that she was his girlfriend. I've always been extremely open and honest with my children, volunteering information in ways my parenting peers would probably think is "too much, too soon." My parents spared me gory details and I learned a lot, lot, lot the hard way.
So in front of a few classmates my daughter told this boy, "Look, I like you as a friend, but we are not, by any means, boyfriend and girlfriend." His shame got the better of him and he went on the attack.
For the following weeks, he tormented my daughter. He flipped her uniform skirt when she walked by. He talked about her boobs. He drew dirty pictures of the two of them and passed them around. The entire class was enthralled in the drama. Finally, when it got to be more than she could handle, she came to me.
I. Was. Livid.
But more than livid, I was terrified.
It's already started. I didn't protect her from anything.
I asked her how she'd been handling it, and apparently she fought fire with fire. She'd told the teacher, but the teacher would only separate them and tell the kids to quiet down. I don't think she was aware of how bad it'd become.
"I'm really sorry, mom, but I called him a fuck-face."
"That's fine, honey. He is a fuck-face. But now I have to involve the principal, since your teacher isn't doing anything."
We went to the principal the next morning. My normally painfully shy daughter stood up straight and spoke with a clear and direct tone, and told the principal everything.
The principal invited the little fuck-face into the office, and for the next half hour brought in witnesses to confirm his lechery. He cried and whined, but eventually his parents were called and my daughter and I were dismissed.
I looked at my daughter, aching at the attack on her innocence, but I could see a little strut in her walk.
I realized I had changed the future.
Where I was clueless, she has knowledge. And with that knowledge, she has a voice. And with that voice, she stood up for herself. Something I never learned to do. Ever.
It happened again recently.
Now my daughter is 10 years old. She has her period. She is 5'4". She wears a bra. She looks 14. She is modest and insecure about her body because it is so different from her peers. She often walks with her arms folded across her chest.
I'd told her once about the episode of South Park where one character grows boobs and all the boys literally turn into cavemen.
"This is the truth, girl. It's real. It's what happens. You're a child, but your body is not a child's, and everyone treats you differently and it sucks."
"It does suck," she said somberly, but with eyes that said "thank you for understanding."
Anyway, my mom took my kids on a trip to a local water park.
While she swam, a group of young boys stood nearby whispering and pointing. In her words, "it was like being molested by eyes."
Finally, one by one, they approached and introduced themselves - clumsily and stupidly.
"Hi, I'm _______ and um, that guy over there thinks you're cute."
"Hey, that guy over there wants to know if you'll go out with him."
"Hey, I'm ________. Do you have a boyfriend?"
She answered directly.
"I'm 10 years old. I don't need a boyfriend."
This didn't stop the pre-pubescent hecklers who were now starting to turn on each other.
"You see that fat kid? Yeah he wets the bed, don't go out with him."
She answered, "Now you're turning on your friend, real attractive. Look, I'm just here to swim. Leave me the hell alone."
At this point, my son took up position near her as protection and my youngest daughter was splashing the guys directly in the face.
My mom stepped in and told them to go find some business, but it didn't stop them.
Only now, dejected, they huddled and whispered to each other but loud enough for her to hear.
"She's a bitch."
"She's probably a slut."
When I was her age, this would have crushed me. I would be an insecure pile of mess. Actually, it probably would never have even gotten to this point because I would have picked one to be my boyfriend. Because after all, the girl who hangs with the boys is the "cool" girl.
I would have been their pet or mascot.
But she has me as a mother and I am the exact mother she needs.
I can see the future. I can see around the corners. I warned her and trained her and coached her.
And she was ready.
When she came home and relayed this story, I was in shock.
It's happening.
It's already happening.
And I wanted to pity her and hold her, but I didn't because I looked at her eyes. Her eyes were eyes of triumph. Her body language was strong and tall. She was so proud of herself. She was so glad she stood up to them. I didn't want to project my issues onto her, but my issues are what saved her self-esteem that day.
We can worry about our children. But our past doesn't have to be their future. We are manipulators of time, if we choose to be. If we pay attention and if we are honest and if we get real with ourselves.
My parents divorced when I was young. My mom worked all the time to support us. I was a lamb for slaughter. I had no map. I had no armor. I was Red Riding Hood and the world was the wolf.
But despite following my biological footsteps almost exactly, it isn't the truth for her. She is Alice and the world is the Jabberwocky. And she is slayin' it.
Boobs
I am my boobs and my new bra is life.
A few months ago I got a proper bra fitting and invested in some new bras. I encouraged a lot of my friends to do the same.
My boobs, over time, have gotten unreasonably big. Or, if I'm being completely honest, unreasonably long. Three pregnancies in five years and something like five straight years of breastfeeding mean that I no longer wear that perky 34C of yesteryear. I'm lugging 36DDDs around.
Unreasonable.
If you have boobs I'd be willing to bet you are wearing the wrong sized bra now. A girlfriend of mine whose boobs have got to be twice the size of mine was arguing with me that it was impossible that my boobs are bigger because "she wears a 36C."
But just because you're wearing a 36C doesn't mean you're supposed to be wearing a 36C. And bra sizes are not constant. Your 25-year-old boobs and your 40-year-old boobs are not the same boobs. Come to terms with that.
Here's a short lesson:
If there is any puckering going on in your bra between your boobies, your bra is too small. You know that little space of fabric between your bra cups? It should be flush against your breastbone.
You should be able to easily fit your fingers under your straps. The support should come from the band around your ribcage, not the straps. If your straps are digging into your shoulder meat, you're wearing the wrong bra.
The part where you fasten your bra in the back, that whole strip of fabric should be under your shoulder blades.
Your boobs should sit comfortably between your elbows and armpits. If your boobs are aligned with your armpits, they're up too high. If they're sitting on your belly or sagging as low as your elbows, they're too low. Got it?
K, get your tape measure and get your tits together.
Anyhoo, before my recent chest inv
estment, I'd been wearing the same two ratty, old bras for about seven years. The underwire was poking me in the chest, having worn through the fabric. I took the wires out and just wore the bra without them. It didn't support my boobs at all. But it did the basic job of holding my boobs in place and it kept me from embarrassing myself in cold weather.
The idea of dropping even thirty dollars on a bra, when I had a perfectly efficient one, seemed excessive and frivolous.
Let's really evaluate that for a second.
It was too much trouble to spend thirty dollars on something that would a) make me look better because my boobs would be in the proper place and b) take stress of my lower back which was creaking and groaning like a haunted house every day no matter how much yoga I did.
And thirty dollars for a decent bra is, like, nothing in real-life world.
But in the low self-worth world, apparently, it might as well have been a billion dollars. I just didn't care about myself enough. But now I'm single and kinda impressed with myself so dropping mad dollahs on a good boob-sling seems like a no-brainer. Of course I want to look better and relieve back pain! Doy!
But here's the funny thing that happened.
I got my new gigantic, expensive bras. I pulled them out of the plastic and tried them on and then guess what?
I didn't wear them.
I went back to my comfy, old, crappy ones. Talk about a metaphor for life!
The new bra, even though I knew it was better for me, felt restrictive and alien. The old, lazy piece-of-crap bra that was no better than wearing a few paper towels and duct tape, despite being less comfortable, was somehow more comfortable because it was what I was used to.
Oooooweeee, chile! Revelations are e'rrywhere. Ain't that just the way humans operate?
It didn't serve me. It didn't help me. It didn't make me look better. It made me slouch. It dug into me and chafed my flesh. It made my back hurt. But I'd already worn it for so long that it'd become "normal" to me. I had to consciously choose to wear the new bras. They literally force my posture to align properly - no biggole heavy boobs weighing me down.
Pancakes Taste Like Poverty: And Other Post-Divorce Revelations Page 16