me too

The thing about being a writer is I often feel like I’m on the outside looking in on what happens in the world.  But then there are times when I am part of the story, but I’m not sure if that is how it happened, or how I am writing myself into it.  But right now a lot of us are saying #metoo. I have a story, too.  Of course I have a story.

I can probably count the number of times I’ve told it on one hand.  But completely, truthfully, maybe… only once.  And probably not now.

The first time I told my story was to my parents and then very shortly after to police.  But what does a seven, almost eight year old know of such things?  Fear.  Confusion.  And I don’t even think I told them everything.

Then there was a therapist.  I remember the doll house and the waiting room.  I don’t remember much else about that.  Again, I was eight.

Then it got tucked away in some part of my brain.  We moved into a new house in a new neighborhood and all that other stuff got left behind.  My parents said it was so we could go to a different school.  But I’m sure, thinking about the timeline now, that probably had a lot to do with it.

I got a new bedroom set too, with a canopy bed that I could stare up at as I fell asleep.  And when I was thirteen, I looked up at that canopy and told myself the memory when my older self understood the fear even more.  In a way, it was experiencing it again, but I didn’t tell anyone.  I chose God because He knew.  I became religious for another five or so years so I could believe in something else.  Shame.

There was more therapy, but I had already learned to downplay the story.  I realized well, I’m not that special.  There are a lot of stories and mine was so long ago, how does it matter?  Besides it happened once. Twice.  But I didn’t tell anyone about the twice.  So it didn’t really count. 

And if it didn’t count, it wasn’t that bad.  It’s a game of survival, that rationalization.  For myself in thinking about the memory, but it was reinforced when I’ve been told I don’t know how to take a joke or I’m a prude.  Cold.

But then I told someone, someone very dear to me one night after too many shots of tequila.   I had to warn him why I was so cold and heartless.  Why I couldn’t look him in the eye.  He tried.  I told him all of it.  And then I knew he saw my most vulnerable part of myself.  It felt more revealing than the physical that I showed him.  It was too much truth so I turned cold and lost that chance at… who knows?  That was a lifetime ago.  And the story went away again.

Then my sister found Jesus.  It annoyed me because Jesus didn’t help me.  We had conversations about our different dogma that went nowhere.  My side of the argument was seldom kind.  I wanted to tell her I knew what real evil was and attempted to share the details of how I saw the devil once.  But I couldn’t tell her everything… enough.  Many of my arguments against fundamentalism were pretty obnoxious, so I don’t blame her for not hearing me.

I think that was the last time I tried to talk about it.  Talking is difficult.  Because I cry.  Or I can’t find the words.  Or I feel like I’m trying to make people feel sorry for me.  Playing a victim card.  Exposing my weakness.  My fuckedupness.  I’d rather be kind.  I’d rather not dwell in the negative.

There have been times when I’ve wanted to say something.  To tell people.  Like once in a pub in London when a friend revealed a suspicion I liked someone I never looked twice at because I was weird during a game of truth or dare at the theater one night.  Or when someone (quite heartlessly) tells me I don’t understand fear because I’m not a mother and don’t what is like to be afraid for my child.  I’ve wanted to say, actually.  I know.  I was that child.

But I’ve never used that argument.  I don’t know what victory is worth dredging up personal tragedy as a one upmanship tool.  Things that happen to us shouldn’t be turned around and used as weapons against other people - especially in a petty pointless conversation.  They happen to teach and humble us, to inspire one to act with kindness and compassion.  At least that is what I try to choose.  It doesn’t always work.

So even as so many people, brave women – and some men – people I know from the headlines or through random theater connections or good friends or childhood friends – have voiced their story, I haven’t been able to find the voice for my own.  I want to know that it will bring forward some good, not just the seriously shitty trauma.

And honestly, I’m probably not going to tell you the details now.  That might require more tequila (which I really haven’t had since I confessed that all) or wine or just the quiet of a conversation that isn’t the internet.  But I will tell you is that there is a story.  And it has profoundly shaped my life.

That’s huge for me to even confess.  But a few weeks ago, I saw some posts on social media from more ‘conservative’ acquaintances questioning the validity of Roy Moore’s accusers.  Once or twice I wanted to type a comment, but restrained myself because – again – I don’t use personal tragedy to win arguments.  What I was tempted to write and felt rattling in my bones was, you have no fucking clue how hard it is to tell these stories.  To dismantle years of telling yourself that it isn’t that bad, get over it.  That claiming your victimhood means becoming a victim again – of people questioning your character, your motivation, and the legitimacy of what you think happened to you.

It's easier, seemingly, to not say anything at all.

And that’s when I realized the #metoo isn’t about the men we call out and fire and humiliate.  It is important – but I think we still need to understand what is a remedy vs. revenge (so much more to say on that – but that is for another blog or conversation).  This movement is about the power of truth and claiming that truth.  Saying IT IS that bad so stop it.  To stop telling ourselves that our silence is the better proof of character.  But, please, do shut up if you have the inhumanity to question someone for summoning the courage to tell her story. 

Maybe these paragraphs are a delayed reaction to a Facebook post.  Truthfully, the first few have been idling on my hard drive for a week or two.  But it isn’t lost on me that we are at the time of year when the light overtakes the dark.  Maybe it’s just time.  Time for me personally.  And time for us, as women, as Americans, as humans to say enough of this darkness.  Let us shine the light, rise up, and be better.  Stronger.  Louder.  And resolve to always hear, feel, and speak the #metoo.