Strong, Independent Woman

For as long as I can remember I’ve wanted to be described as a strong, independent woman. It’s been my aspiration, my north star. It’s all I’ve ever wanted to be.

Strong. I have this image of strength and resiliency looking like Wonder Woman walking tall and proud while she’s being attacked from everywhere, yet she just keeps walking, as if nothing is happening, because she’s just that tough.

Growing up I thought I was strong because I was so focused (and good at) proving that I was just as good as boys, that my gender did not come with limitations.

I thought to be strong I had to find an endless reservoir of resilience. When I fell I picked up my own damn self quickly and moved on. I don’t get hurt. I don’t have regrets. I don’t show weakness or insecurity.

Independent. I like to think that what independence means to me is I can make my own decisions and that I have a mind that is fully capable of formulating its’ own opinions and beliefs. I like to think independence means I’m fully capable of really doing anything.

But somewhere along the way independence turned into not dependent on anyone for anything. It turned into being (or at least feeling) alone and needing to do everything for myself by myself.

When I reflect on my life and think about my “weakest” moments it is when I’ve had to ask for help. It’s when I hit a wall and could no longer do it myself. I pushed myself so hard and so far that I fell and had no choice but to have someone help me therefore failing to deliver on my independence.

(Quick shoutout to my parents who have consistently been the ones to pick me up in those situations. And sincere apologies to my parents for not always being the most graceful or grateful of your help in those times – I promise I’m working on it… keep reading.)

On March 11th of this year I went into the hospital for a planned week long stay.

Six years prior to that I had a series of seizures and was diagnosed with epilepsy. A couple of months before that I had crashed my car into cornfields. I remembered nothing and we had no idea what happened. A couple of weeks after I had the seizures, I went to the ER with sever stomach pains. I was told it was an ovarian cyst and that it would resolve itself in the next couple of days. But instead, what happened for the next couple of days is that my appendix proceeded to burst inside of me. Long story short — three hospitals, countless doctors, four stomach drains, one surgery, and almost eight weeks later I was better.

Six years later I was back in a hospital. The goal of this hospital stay was to really understand my epilepsy. In order to really do that the doctors need to actually see a seizure. And not just witness you while having a seizure but to see what happens in your brain when you have a seizure. So they put all these monitors on your head like you’re a science experiment (I even had tiny, tiny needles put into the sides of my head) and then you just sit there, in the hospital, with the hopes that you have a seizure.

I had done this once before a couple of years ago. This was after years of knowing I have epilepsy and taking 3000mg of medicine a day but still feeling well… not good all.the.time. I called them my “seizurey” days. As far as I knew I wasn’t having seizures but I was feeling a lot of the symptoms I felt before I did have seizures.

These were days where I just felt off. I felt disconnected from the world. I could see what was happening around me but I felt like I couldn’t engage with it. I’d get a strong sense of deja vu (which, turns out, is a real neurological symptom) and many other symptoms that are just too weird and complicated to explain.

After talking to my doctor about these feelings we decided I should do the first hospital stay to see if we could find anything. We didn’t. I didn’t have a seizure. We learned nothing. And my doctor told me on the spectrum of epilepsy I was a pretty minor case and I should focus on learning how to live feeling this way.

So that’s what I did. I pushed symptoms away. I was strong and tough and just kept going.

Then, I decided that was crazy. I needed to keep trying to figure this out. I went to my primary care doctor (who I love) and asked what she thought I should do. I went to a couple of people she recommended who were helpful. And then eventually I discovered my new doctor who specializes in women with epilepsy (who I also love).

It took six months to get an appointment (not an unusual wait time for an epilepsy doctor because they are in such short supply). At that appointment, I explained my history, what I’ve been through, what symptoms I feel, and how often I feel them.

She looked at me and said (something along the lines of) – This is not okay. Something is wrong. Your epilepsy is not being effectively treated. Your epilepsy will be treated when you feel good all the time and are able to just live your life. 

That felt pretty good to hear. She put me on a new med (based on her suspicion of what was going on) and we scheduled another week-long hospital stay to see if we could see anything.

Now, this being my second time around I was more prepared (I even brought a noise machine for my hospital room!). But, more importantly, I had a much better understanding of what triggers my “seizurey” days and I knew I had to try to force myself to feel that ways so we could see what was going on. I spent the week leading up to the hospital stay stressing myself out at work (I did 15 phone interviews in one day and the next day flew to New York for 6 hours). I deprived myself of sleep and got really, really drunk two nights before I checked in at the hospital.

When I checked in on Monday, March 11th I told the doctors all of this and they got big smiles on their faces and said great, way to go. Yes, it’s just as weird as it sounds. 

Tuesday night in the hospital they prescribed sleep deprivation so I stayed up till 4am. Then, as I was about to fall asleep, I felt it. The strong sense of deja vu came over me, I knew where I was and what was going on but felt completely disconnected to it. I was supposed to hit a button if I felt anything so I hit the button. Nurses came in and my Dad was there. I talked to them but couldn’t really describe how I was feeling and told them I was really fine and maybe I just wanted something to happen so bad I thought it had. Then I feel asleep.

I woke up a couple of hours later when the doctors came in. They calmly looked at me and said – we saw around five seizures in your sleep.  I looked at my Dad and we smiled. Maybe, just maybe I’d get some answers. Maybe, just maybe, I wasn’t crazy and something actually was going on.

Then I slept. I slept all day Wednesday (turns out triggering your own seizures is exhausting). Thursday my main Doctor came in and explained everything to me. Turns out my “seizurey” days were actually seizures.

They were able to find out where in the brain they were happening (my temporal lobe which controls memory and language). They learned that though small – and that I remain conscious – they were frequent. Based on all they learned they were able to create a treatment plan.

I left the hospital – a day early nonetheless – completely validated and hopeful.

I spent the next couple of days happy. I had been right this whole time. And I was hopeful, hopeful that maybe I’d feel better soon.

But then Sunday I had a panic attack. First, I was nervous about going back to work. Would my brain work the same way? (Obviously I’d been working a lot while having a lot of seizures, but still…) But that anxiety went away the next when I went to work and, turns out, my brain was still highly functioning.

So that was good. But the next couple of weeks … well … sucked. I had come off of one medicine and was slowly weaning onto a new one and was getting headaches every day. But, really what sucked was the reality of the last six years sinking in.

I had gone to so many doctors. I tried so many things. I spent so much money. But, worst of all I completely minimized my pain. I ignored my suffering. As a strong, independent woman I told myself repeatedly I was fine and to tough it out. 

(To be fair to myself many doctors told me the same. And to be fair to m doctors these were very hard to detect seizures and it remains true that on the spectrum of epilepsy I am very fortunate. My story only speaks to how much there is still to be learned about epilepsy and how stretched thin neurologists who specialize in epilepsy are.) 

Anyway, thinking about all of the last six years, well, sucked. All of my well-intentioned and loving family and friends kept telling me not to dwell on the last six years and focus on the fact that now we had answers and things would be better moving forward. And, yes, that is true yet I can’t help but think about the last six years. I was 24 when this mystery journey, that I didn’t even really know I was on, began. I wondered what I’d missed out on. I wondered what might have been different if I had I been treated effectively for the last six years.

And yes, I am so ready and eager to move on. I’m so ready to feel good and to regain control of my life. But, what I’ve slowly realized over the last couple of months is that I can’t ignore the last six years. I can’t keep suppressing that pain. I need to acknowledge that there’s very real pain and trauma that I need to deal with in order to move forward. New medicine is just one part of the treatment plan. 

I tell the story of the last six years casually like it was no big deal and just some bad, annoying things that happened to me. As a strong, independent woman I don’t want that to define me. I worked so hard to make sure it didn’t drag me down. I also knew that so much worse (so much worse) happens daily to so many other people (so many other people) – so my circumstances weren’t that bad. I just needed to get over it.

But now I’m owning it – I’ve had some really crappy things happen to me. It’s been really hard. It’s sucked a lot. It seems unfair often. I’ve been feeling lost and confused and uncertain for awhile now. I have to keep telling telling myself that I have a real disease so I can accept it but that also means accepting that I have no idea how to actually live with it. I’ve also realized that to really move forward I need to deal with the pain and trauma of my life and I don’t know how to do that either.

So throughout these realizations one question just kept running through my head, “How can you really be a strong, independent woman when you feel like anything but that?”

I’ve been wrestling with this question for weeks now. I’ve been wondering if I actually am strong and independent. I’ve been exploring what does being strong and independent actually mean. Have I failed at being a strong, independent woman if I’m 30 and finding myself having no idea how to take care of myself?

Slowly I started to realize (with a little help from Brene Brown) that being strong doesn’t mean I have to be tough all the time. It doesn’t mean I can’t show weakness or not let things impact me. Being strong doesn’t mean I don’t get hurt.

Independence doesn’t mean I can’t ask for help, it doesn’t mean I should be alone. It doesn’t mean I can’t let others in. It doesn’t mean I can’t let others be there for me. It doesn’t mean I have to do it all all the time.

I’m trying to redefine what it means to be a strong, independent woman.

I think strength means acknowledging there’s pain and having the courage to deal with it. That image of Wonder Woman marching forward unscathed is not what strength looks like. Being strong doesn’t mean never letting anything hit you or slow you down because that’s a false choice. Things will hit you and they will slow you down.

Strength shows up in doing what you need to do to recover from that hit and then eventually, when you are ready, getting back up again to keep moving forward tall and proud.

Independence means having the confidence to know what’s best for yourself and what you need to do to best take care of yourself. It turns out allowing yourself to be vulnerable is key to this. Vulnerability doesn’t mean putting yourself on the line and bearing your soul to whomever. Vulnerability means having a true and deep enough understanding of yourself so that you can get what you need – what you need from yourself for yourself and what you need from others.

Right now, what I need from myself for myself is to cut myself a little slack. To give myself the space I need to cope and not put pressure on myself to figure everything out right away or do it all, all the time. What I need from others is help and I need real support, and that’s a pretty scary thing for me to admit.

So here I am. A strong, independent woman with some real stuff to figure out but confident my strength and independence will get me through this.

a slew of random thoughts

Below is a rambling of thoughts that have been running through my head for the last week or so. They have no order or logic.

• I’ve had “I Just Want To Dance with Somebody” stuck in my head all day and my solution was to play it on repeat. That can’t be the solution. What is the solution for getting a song out of your head?
• Queer Eye for the Straight Guy v2 on Netflix is a cultural revolution that everyone should be a part of. Like, right now. It’s everything. On the surface QE is 5 amazing gay guys, who’s every single outfit I envy, making over every aspect of basic (mainly white) dudes lives — clothes, hair / grooming, living situation, cooking / entertaining, and the dumping of emotional baggage. But it’s so much more than that. First, the makeover isn’t merely superficial at all. It also doesn’t leave you saying well, ya if I had reality show money re-do my life I’d also be great. What they’re actually doing is teaching. They are teaching self love. They are teaching pride. They are teaching confidence. And what they are teaching can be applied to everyone. Since I binged watched the series I’ve been constantly asking myself, what would the QE guys say? And I’ve been feeling happier and better about myself. Also, they get real. They have meaningful conversations across difference. Karamo, the only black member of the QE squad, has a conversation with one of their makeover clients, a white, Nascar-loving, self-proclaimed “redneck”, cop who owns a “Make America Great” hat that actually gives you hope and will bring you to tears. The client described the conversation as the best part of the whole experience and says if everyone in America just had a conversation like they did we’d be in a much better place as a country.
• I don’t get Justin Timberlake’s new song (also who is Chris Stapleton?). The song leaves me wondering if Jessica Biel goes back through all of his songs and tries to dissect how he actually feels. Because what I hear is he’s currently settling …. “maybe I’m looking for something I can’t have” and “sometimes the greatest way to say something is to say nothing at all”. I don’t know. Also, in this moment of #MeToo and #TimesUp and literally everything I think we’re living in a time when the best thing to do is to actually say something … But not sure JT would really get that…
• New sheets are an amazing thing. So is calming pillow spray. I actually feel calmer before writing in my daily gratitude journal and going to bed.
• Now, before I get into this next one let me state something for the record. If Lena Dunham were a political spectrum I would be squarely in the issue-specific Independent camp. I find most people are either for or against Lena, whereas I see her for what she is a nuanced person (like all people) who sometimes I agree with and applaud what’s she’s doing and sometimes I really scratch my head and am not really at all sure what she was trying to do. The point is when I say the thing I’m about to say it is not clouded by fan-girling or an obsessive need to stand by her. Lena’s decision to have a hysterectomy and her essay about it was incredibly, incredibly brave. In typical fashion, people have since come out very strongly against and for her decision. I saw one post on a random Instagram account I followed about how she had other choices, she didn’t need to make such a dramatic decision, and she should have eaten more micro-nutrients when she was 14 and that would have prevented this…. WHAT? Oh, so you aren’t just shaming her for the choices she made on what to do with her body but you’re shaming her parents for not giving her micro-nutrients when she was a teenager? Also, were micro-nutrients even a thing when she was 14? Also, we’re talking about someone who has all the money and resources in the world including access to the best doctors and they couldn’t find anything to cure her. If you’ve been following her even a little bit she’s talked about her challenges with this for a long time. She was out of choices. Also READ THE FREAKING ESSAY. Nothing annoys me more than people commenting on shit they ain’t even read. She’s tried everything and she’s been in constant uncontrollable pain and all she’s ever really known she’s wanted is to be a mother, to be pregnant. Her story is one of bravery and I applaud her.
• I should blog (in general / more).
• Russia really fucked with us and we’re pathetic for it. Like they just snuck into our lives through the Internet and told us what to think. I heard that one of the Russians running these bots was surprised at how well it was working in America because it doesn’t work in Russia. They aren’t susceptible to propaganda because they’re more critical of what they consume. We have to build those muscles. Or else we’re going to be further fucked. And I don’t even know what to think about Facebook!!! What a mess!
• #WakandaForever Black Panther is dope and lives up to all the hype. Another thing everyone needs to get into like now. If anyone ever tells me they don’t have any plans I’m just going to tell them to go see Black Panther and/or watch Queer Eye for the Straight Guy.
• So tying the last two thoughts together (despite saying there was no order to this)… I told my cousin I saw Black Panther and she asked if that was a new movie because she hadn’t heard of it. This was fascinating to me because my social feeds have been blowing up about Black Panther for weeks and haven’t stopped. Just reiterated to me the bubbles our social feeds can really put us in.
• I have an interesting array of interests…
• I went to this BANG! Workout/dance class that was basically Zumba + hip hop + kickboxing and besides being a truly awesome and fun workout the instructor was amazing! She doesn’t have the traditional physique of a workout class instruction yet brought more energy to any group class I’ve ever had (and I’ve been to a lot). She completely owned the room and it was just a blast. I realized there’s something so contagious about body-confidence and I want to be around it more. In that class I also actually accepted that working out is truly about so much more than losing weight. That’s something I’ve always told myself yet I’ve always tied working out to a desire to lose weight. But in that class I just felt free and was having fun while I happened to be working out. I’m super bummed that the class is on Monday’s at 10 or else I’d be there every week.
• School shootings have and always will be the saddest thing. It’s hard to think of a greater tragedy than a place where you are supposed to be safe enough to learn and become an adult become a place of terror. The students of Parkland though are awe-inspiring. Their grit and determination, but mainly their organization has me so hopeful that maybe, just maybe, we can finally get something done on this issue. While it’s hard to actually believe that I have to. In a podcast this week someone said I’m sick of the cynicism from people that want to get something around something ever actually getting done. If we don’t believe and fight for it to happen, then who will?

 

Lemonade Should Have Been Album of The Year.

Ah, 2017 nevertheless you persist as a racist, sexist, disappointment. As we accept the reality that yet again Beyoncé was denied album of the year let’s get a couple of things straight…

 

1. You can think Beyonce deserved album of the year and still have all the respect in the world for Adele. You can still adore Adele. You can still think 25 was a beautiful album.

 

2. I saw Adele live in July and she commented then on how inspired she was every day by Beyoncé, how in awe she was of her work. Adele and every other artists’ adoration, respect, and appreciation for Beyonce is real. Artists can recognize great art. Adele truly believed Beyoncé should have won. She said it earlier today on the red carpet and in any Grammy related pre-interviews.

 

3. 25 was beautiful, but it was not transformative. There are not now syllabi to help dissect and understand the myriad of cultural and historical of 25. It did not challenge your perspective, force you to expand your understanding of the world, and make you uncomfortable yet inspired and bewildered while doing so. I didn’t make you feel feelings you didn’t know existed.

 

4. If you don’t think there are racial underpinnings to Lemonade not winning Album of the Year then I suggest you download the Lemonade syllabus. Again, even Adele seems to be aware of this reality. One tweet I saw read, “We just watched a star reckon with white privilege in real time at the Grammy’s. Adele knew why 25 beat Lemonade. She understands.”

 

5. Beyoncé does not need an Album of the Year Grammy to be Beyoncé. Trust me, nevertheless Beyoncé will persist.

 

Finally, I’d like to conclude my 5 point defense of why Lemonade should have won album of the year by saying this: Beyonce fans, including myself (actually I will say particularly seemingly crazed, white, fan-girls like myself) get a bad reputation for having a shallow obsession for Beyoncé and not being open-minded to other types of artists (i.e. The Beygency). That’s bullshit. My respect and admiration for Beyoncé is not because of the sparkly gold outfits she wears or because she produces beats you can’t help but dance to. It’s because of her unmatched ability to turn her experiences into profound reflections of the human existence through art. It’s because of her relentless pursuit of expression. It’s because of her unparalleled ability to conceptualize an entire experience for the viewer that always pushes the limits of what we thought was possible while grounding us in the past. It’s the way she makes art activism.

 

I, along with many other members of the BeyHive, study the depths of Beyonce’s artistry the same way an art history major would Michelangelo. But, then again, if there was a version of the Grammy’s for art during the Renaissance maybe Michelangelo wouldn’t have won painting of the year. But Beyonce is just too beyond her times… still, I urge any of you that haven’t listened to all of Lemonade, watched the full visual album, and read some articles about it to do so. It’s never been more important than during the times we find ourselves in.

A Reflection: Women’s March

If you’re reading my blog chances are you know enough about me to not be surprised that I marched in the Women’s March in Chicago. It was a shockingly warm and sunny January day in Chicago there was a beautiful spirit in the air. The crowd was connected in their unity and determination. We looked at each other in a knowing yet humble way. We understood each other yet know there’s so much to learn from one another. Most importantly, there was a shared awareness that said this is great but it’s just a kickoff, we’ve got a lot of work to do.

It was a special, special day. The exact morale boost we all needed to take on a Trump Presidency together. I feel lucky to have been a part of it.

I got home from the march and turned on the news to watch coverage of the march. No matter what channel these were the two questions dominating the conversation:

1. Where were all these people for Hillary?
2. Shouldn’t these marchers give him a chance since he hasn’t even been there a day?

Okay. So. Before we get to how much these questions just miss the point let’s answer them shall we…

Where were all these people for Hillary? Standing right next to her. 

Apparently we’re just going to have to keep saying this over and over and over but Hillary Clinton won the popular vote. Over 65 million people in this country voted for her. No, I don’t know for sure that every single person voted for Hillary or even voted. But, I do know that more Americans voted for Hillary Clinton than Donald Trump. And among other things, this march was to remind President Trump of that.

Shouldn’t these marchers give President Trump a chance? 

 

 

 

Yup, really only felt like gifs could appropriately answer that question. What a fucking joke of a question.

When he was sworn in that doesn’t erase everything that he has said or done before that. The questions and deep, sincere, and very real concerns we – the majority of Americans – have with President Trump don’t just go away.

But also, by the time this march took place he had plenty of “chances”… His transition, most notably his cabinet selections, only solidified the need for this march. He could have used his Inaugural Address to unify the nation. He could have spoken to the many concerns and core issues that the march was standing up for. An Inaugural Address is an opportunity to say whether you voted for me or not I’m now here for all of you, I work to serve and represent all of you, and I’ll work to resolve our differences. He did no such thing.

The Women’s March had a clear mission, vision, and principles. At marches across the country there were diverse and eloquent speakers that addressed the range of issues marchers were concerned with. The march was bold, thoughtful, historic, and peaceful. Whether or not every marcher voted for Hillary Clinton or even voted at all, whether or not the marchers gave President Trump “a chance” this march was the ultimate display of democracy. Embracing our freedom of speech and right to assemble are some of the most American things we can do. And right now it’s some of the most important things we need to do.

 

Thanks, Obama.

I share a lot of posts and thoughts about President Obama. Usually they are pretty focused on his policies, what he stands for, or something he did. Usually I focus on what he’s doing for us, Americans. But today I want to talk about what he’s done for me, just little old me.

Barack Obama changed my life.

I know he changed a lot of people’s lives in a lot of different ways but right now – in this moment – I want to talk about how he changed my life. If you remove Barack Obama from the equation of my life it is a completely and entirely different story. I can probably only say that’s true about two other people – my Mom and my Dad. Yes, if you removed other people from the equation of my life it’d be different but not completely and entirely different.

So this is the story, the way I want to remember it, about how Barack Obama changed my life.

The first memory I have of a President was Bill Clinton and the Monica Lewinsky scandal. I was 9 so I was just coming to understand that there was a world around me. I don’t really remember this incident so much as shaping my understanding of what a President is but more so what the news is. This is a distant memory, not really a formative one.

Similarly, I vaguely remember George Bush’s first election. I remember that I voted for Gore in my school’s election and he won in my elementary school. So when he wasn’t actually President that was confusing for a minute, which was made even more confusing by whatever was going on in Florida. But then I got it, George Bush really did win and he’d be President. This actually made sense to me. I thought of it kind of like a sport. Clinton was on the same team Gore was on and people were mad at him because he did a bad thing so the other team won. And that’s the full extent of my 5th grade thoughts on George Bush’s first election.

I definitely remember September 11th. I was in 7th grade. I remember that things felt different. I remember being confused and scared and unsure. I look back and think that no one really comforted me and made me feel otherwise. Sure my parents were there, they told us we were safe and I believed them. But looking back at this time it’s so clear to me that what our country needed the most was a leader. We needed someone we could look to with confidence. We needed someone with the right words and actions. George Bush was not that person, he couldn’t live up to that challenge. He did have a couple of good moments he gave a decent speech amongst the rubble of the towers and threw out the first pitch at Yankee Stadium. But we needed a leader in the weeks and months to come, one that could make us less fearful. Instead, we started becoming a country that scared easily.

To be fair I’m not sure there were too many people that could have lived up to that challenge. Well, except maybe Barack Obama.

When I was first started getting to know Obama I kept thinking about how he would he have handled September 11th. How would he have brought us together? What would have been his response? What would have been his actions? Would we be more tolerant and less afraid as a people?

I always thought it was weird how often I would wonder how a President Obama would have handled September 11th, but I guess it actually makes a lot of sense. September 11th is what brought the role of the Presidency into my consciousness. It was what first defined the role of the President for me. I guess it makes sense that it became my Presidential litmus test.

My sophomore year of high school one of my assignments was to watch a debate between John Kerry and George Bush and write a reflection on it. I remember I had to babysit my cousins the night of the debate (and this is pre-DVR) so I was watching the debate at my Aunt and Uncles’ house and ferociously writing tons and tons of notes. I think I turned in a 5-page reflection when maybe a paragraph was due. What I remember is that I didn’t know if I was a Democrat or a Republican. I don’t think I could really even begin to explain the difference between the two parties (except that Democrats were pro-choice), yet I knew George Bush was not presidential. He could not live up to duties and significance of the office. And that’s what I wrote about.

Yet, he won. Again. So the whole time I was in high school – really, truly learning about the world – George Bush was President. Here’s what I remember about him: he dragged us into a war with no purpose or plan, he spoke unintelligently, he never really seemed to know what he was doing, and he never really seemed to be all that engaged with the American people. What I most remember feeling was that he just didn’t really seem to care about me.

My freshman year of college was right when the Iowa primaries were heating up. Barack Obama came to speak in Madison and I went. There were maybe 3,000 people there. I left feeling inspired, which is an obvious thing to say now but at the time it was a pretty weird feeling to have. That’s the thing. We forget now – 8, 9 years later – just how profound some of the things Barack Obama was saying when he started running for President were.

That first time I heard him speak what he did was redefined the concept of the President of the United States. Suddenly there was an aspirational vision for America and one that included us all. It was clear he not only believed in me, but he cared about me.

Then – and here’s the important part – he empowered me. He gave me an opportunity to believe in myself. He gave me a place to be a change maker. He allowed my voice to influence the direction of the country. I always felt somewhere within me that I could make a difference and then Barack Obama said, yes you can. And more importantly he gave me an opportunity to do that.

When I attended that first rally there were people outside the rally telling people what to do, where to go, etc. I thought that’s so cool, I wonder how they got that job. I asked one of them and they told me they were volunteers and that I COULD BE ONE TOO. This was insane to me, I could volunteer for a guy trying to be President. Uh okay, sign me up. So I literally signed up not expecting much.

A couple of weeks later I got a phone call because I signed up on that sheet of paper. They asked if I wanted to go to Iowa for a weekend to talk to people about voting for Barack Obama. This seemed crazy to me. Not because it entailed getting into a car with a bunch of strangers to go to the middle of nowhere Iowa. No, that wasn’t the crazy part to me. The crazy part was that Barack Obama wanted me to go to talk to people about voting for him. I immediately said yes.

I remember that trip to Iowa and all the excitement and wonder and joy it brought me like it was yesterday. I can’t think about it without smiling. If you had told me that day that five years later I would be standing on a stage telling thousands of people about that trip before Vice President Joe Biden and President Clinton spoke to re-elect Barack Obama I would have thought you were insane. But that’s what happened.

In both the field pitches I gave in 2012 I told the story about my first trip canvassing in Iowa. About how I went up there with strangers, how the snow was almost up to my knees and the houses were blocks a part. How I didn’t really remember a single conversation and am pretty sure I didn’t convince anyone to vote, but how good it felt to be told my voice mattered and that it deserved to be heard. I told them about how I ran back to my dorm to tell all my friends about the incredible experience I’d just had helping someone become President. About how we had the opportunity to go from a President that I was pretty confident didn’t really care about me, to a guy that said being President isn’t about the person holding the office but about us.

From that moment my involvement on the Obama campaign was nothing short of a rollercoaster. I kept volunteering, especially when the primaries got to Wisconsin. The campaign said they would pay me $250 if I would take the week before the election off school and knock on doors every single day all day. I said HELL YA. I didn’t cash that check for awhile, and still have a copy of it.

Barack Obama came back to Madison during the Wisconsin primaries, this time there were 30,000 people, an overflow room, and I was one of the people telling people where to go and what to do and signing up others to volunteer.

Then I signed up to be an Organizing Fellow for the summer of ’08 in North Carolina. At our first training we went around and said why we picked North Carolina and everyone had all these pretty profound, interesting reasons. I thought it’d be a fun place to spend the summer. Best decision I ever made.

Next best decision I ever made: quitting school for a semester to stay on the campaign as a Field Organizer. All that meant was they were going to start paying me to do everything I was already doing so ya I was super into that. (Side note: I recently heard someone say that most people spend their whole lives looking for a job they are passionate about. Passion being defined as they would probably be doing it even if they weren’t being paid to do it. Needless to say, I got pretty lucky with my first official job.)

So I worked. I made exactly a gajillion phone calls, knocked on roughly a trillion doors, didn’t interact with anyone without first asking if they are registered to vote, and meet and engaged and empowered hundreds of people with incredible stories including a ridiculously amazing group of high school students.

I got to be a part of an incredible team that helped elect the first black President of the United States. I remember the exact moment I found out we won North Carolina. I remember watching Barack Obama give his acceptance speech and finding a quiet hallway to call my parents and cry.

I went back to school and graduated right in time to hop on the re-election. This time I was a Regional Field Director in Wisconsin, a state I had grown deeply attached to. The 2012 campaign was definitely different. Asking people to keep you in office is different than asking people to give you a chance at it. Having a record to defend made the nature of the campaign different. It was different for me personally too. I had also done this once before, I was a “vet” and expected to bring that experience into my work. It was less of a rollercoaster and more of a we’ve got a job to do. I was in the congressional district I oversaw for 14 months and had a team of staff and fellows and volunteers that reported to me. The ante had been upped in so many ways.

High stress, high stakes, and high pressure, absolutely. Yet the whole time, even on the craziest, most stressful, insane days of which there were many, I never lost that sense of gratitude. I still couldn’t believe I got to be a part of this. That Barack Obama had created a space for me to play a small role in his history. I saw this job as a rare and unique opportunity to really have an impact on this country.  So for those 14 months that’s all that mattered.

During that time my job took priority over absolutely everything else. Being a good daughter, sister, friend, my health and sometimes hygiene, my career, relationships, literally everything came second to me doing everything that was being asked of me and then some to re-elect Barack Obama. I’ve never been so laser focused in my life. Everything else was a distraction in the rear view mirror, I’d get to it later. I gave all of myself to that campaign. And while it turned out this approach took me some time to recover from in lots of different ways, I regret nothing.

On Tuesday, January 10th, 2017 President Obama gave his Farewell Address in Chicago and I had the opportunity to be at the speech. At the end of his speech he thanked Michelle and his daughters, Joe Biden and his staff, and then the craziest thing happened, he thanked me.

And to all of you out there – every organizer who moved to an unfamiliar town and kind family who welcomed them in, every volunteer who knocked on doors, every young person who cast a ballot for the first time, every American who lived and breathed the hard work of change – you are the best supporters and organizers anyone could hope for, and I will forever be grateful. Because yes, you changed the world.

Tears just streamed down my face as I thought about each time I packed up my life to move to an unfamiliar place, every stranger that took me into their homes and their lives, every door I knocked and phone call I made, every person I registered to vote, every time I got to cast my ballot.

I was consumed by vivid flashbacks… me waiting at Memorial Union in Madison for a bunch of strangers to pick me up and go to Iowa. To looking at my Dad on our drive to North Carolina and asking him, “What if this is a bust?” and him saying, “Then you come home, but at least you tried to do what you believed was right.”  I remember walking into Clem and the Dickerson’s houses for the first time thinking how crazy it was that they were just going to let me live with them so I could work on the campaign. There was the older, black man in North Carolina I was trying to register to vote and he pulled me aside to tell me that he couldn’t vote because he had been convicted of a felony. I asked him if he was off probation and parole. He said of course, it had been a one time bar scuff over 20 years ago. I informed him that since he was off probation and parole he could vote. He didn’t believe me. When I showed him the details on the voter registration card he started crying. He said you’re not only telling me I get to register to vote, but I get to vote for Barack Obama? The woman who came screaming out of her house after I had knocked on it explaining to me that she would never vote for a man that did put his hand on his heart during the pledge of allegiance and before I could respond the high school girl I was canvassing responded with grace and poise I had never seen. Flashes of dozens of faces of people that told me “they couldn’t do too much to help” not because they didn’t have time but because they didn’t think they were capable or have much to offer blossom into incredible volunteer leaders. Now I see them on Facebook still leading their communities. I remember every vote I casted for Barack Obama. From the Wisconsin Primaries in ’07 to waiting in a long line for early voting in North Carolina for the general election to 2012 back in Wisconsin.

When the speech ended there was a beautiful celebration for campaign alumni. I spent the night reminded of just how special what we had all been a part of was. I literally bumped in to person after person who had crossed my path at some point or another over this journey. When we embraced there was something unspoken between us, something that said, I know what this means for you too, something very real and special happened and yes, we got a chance to be a part of it all thanks to Obama.

 

 

 

 

E pluribus unum

“E pluribus unum”

Out of many, one.

This week has been, well, this week. I’ve been unsure of what to say or what to do, which, for those of you that know me or really all of you because you have chosen to remain my Facebook friends, has been weird for me. Usually I have strong, specific, fully-formulated, opinions, especially on political matters. I have none of that this week.

I’ve spent the last week processing and absorbing information and insight. Not so much news and analysis but insight from real people, people I know and don’t know from as many different places as possible, just listening to people and what they think and how they are feeling about the results of this election. From my Facebook feed to my friends and family to the guy at the corner store to my Uber drivers.

While listening the phrase “e pluribus unum” kept rising to the top of my consciousness. No matter who I was talking to I kept thinking, “out of many, we are one.” I realized there aren’t two sides to this election each with one unified reasoning, feelings, or reaction. There are many. And together all of us make up America.

We are Democrats and Republicans. We are Socialists and Tea Partiers. We are women and men, and however we choose to identify. We are Christians, Catholics, Muslims, Jews, and many other religious beliefs. We are white, Black, Latina, Asian, and many, many other races and mixed-raced. We are middle class, working class, uber wealthy, poor, and everything in between. We are gay, straight, transgender, bi-sexual, and other sexual identities. And we are racist, xenophobic, homophobic, sexist, and hold so many more prejudices. We are also the victims of racism, xenophobia, homophobia, sexism and so many other other prejudices. We are these things and we are so many other things. So many other things. None of these things singularly define any of us as individuals. We are each the sum of all our parts. And America is the sum of each of us.

Like I said, I don’t have any sort of fully formulated thoughts on this election or what a Donald Trump Presidency will mean for the future of America and I certainly have nothing that can even begin to be an “answer” to anything. But I think we have to start talking to each other and really listening to one another, we have to understand all of our many parts – not just the ones we likor the ones that are like ours.

The responsibility to have these conversations, to try to better understand each other, relate to one another in order to build stronger, more united communities and eventually a country is on all of us. It is not the responsibility of “the left” because it lost or “the right” because it won. Plus, again, there aren’t just two “sides” there are many, many “sides” and opinions and feelings. This is on every single one of us and it’s a two way street. I need to understand how my opinions, beliefs, and actions make others feel as much as I need others to understand how their opinions, beliefs, and actions make me feel and make others feel. We need to understand why we hold the opinions and beliefs that we each have and why we act the way that we do. We need empathy in order to grow and change and progress and heal.

President Obama has regularly said throughout his campaigns and presidency that this (his candidacy / presidency) was never about him, it was about us. His words have never been more true. I’m not belittling the role of the president, it’s very important and powerful, but I am saying that we as a people have an opportunity to be more powerful together if we choose to. We have an opportunity to heal our divisions if we choose to.

While writing this I kept getting nervous that I was saying something wrong, that I was saying something that would get me in trouble with my friends on the left because that wasn’t exactly the right way to say it. Maybe that’s what it feels like to feel threatened or demeaned by political correctness? I don’t really know, but maybe?

I was (or really still am) worried that my progressive friends are going to say that just talking to each other for understanding isn’t enough or the answer. I know that. I’m worried my progressive friends are going to say I’m defending racists or validating sexist attitudes or that I’m not coming out strong enough fighting Trump’s agenda and acknowledging those that will need real allies and protection in a Trump administration. I promise you I’m not doing any of that. But what I am saying is that calling someone racist, xenophobic, homophobic, sexist, a bigot or simply telling them they are bad or wrong or incorrect or ignorant doesn’t seem to be doing much to stop or prevent any of those sentiments. I’m saying that in order to heal those very real attitudes in this country we have to start talking to each other and we have to start listening for empathy and understanding. I need to understand where someone is coming from that has what I would consider sexist or racist or homophobic sentiments as much as I need them to understand what it is about their attitudes or opinions that makes me and others feel that way. Then we go from there. But that’s where we have to start. And, like I said, it has to be a two-way street.

So we have to engage in conversations with each other in order to understand our differences. In doing so I think we’ll learn a lot about ourselves and each other. It’s going to be hard and uncomfortable and it’s going to take a lot of work. It’s also never going to end but we have to start.

Like I said at the beginning I don’t have any sort of answers. I don’t know exactly how to do this plus everything else that needs to be done but I am going to try. I also don’t have have a lot of fully formed thoughts but I do have a lot of thoughts. So moving forward I’m going to use this, my blog to share my thoughts and what I’m attempting to do to move forward on a path of greater understanding and empathy.

Today I spilled coffee everywhere on the bus.

Below is an excerpt from Tiny, Beautiful Things by Cheryl Strayed. The book is a collection of responses from her advice column, Dear Sugar. This is a snippet of advice to a young, self-described struggling writer.

The most fascinating thing to me about your letter is that buried beneath all the anxiety and sorrow and fear and self-loathing, there’s arrogance at its core. It presumes you should be successful at twenty-six, when really it takes most writers much longer to get there. It laments that you’ll never be as good as David Foster Wallace – a genius, a master of the craft – while at the same time describing how little you write. You loathe yourself, and yet you’re consumed by the grandiose ideas you have about your own importance. You’re up too high and down too low. Neither is the place where we get any work done.

We get the work done on the ground level. And the kindest thing I can do for you is to tell you to get your ass on the floor. I know it’s hard to write, darling. But it’s harder not to. The only way you’ll find out if you ‘have it in you’ is to get to work and see if you do. The only way to override your ‘limitations, insecurities, jealousies, and ineptitude’ is to produce. You have limitations. You are in some ways inept. This is true of every write, and it’s especially true of writers who are twenty-six. You will feel insecure and jealous. How much power you give those feelings is entirely up to you.

……

How many women wrote beautiful novels and stories and poems and essays and plays and scripts and songs in spite of all the crap they endured. How many of them didn’t collapse in a heap of ‘I could have been better than this’ and instead went right ahead and became better than anyone would have predicted or allowed them to be. The unifying theme is resilience and faith. The unifying theme is being a warrior and a motherfucker. It is not fragility. It’s strength. It’s nerve. And ‘if your Nerve, deny you —,’ as Emily Dickinson wrote ‘go above your Nerve.’ Writing is hard for every last one of us us — straight white men included. Coal mining is harder. Do you think miners stand around all day talk about how hard it is to mine for coal? They do not. They simply dig.

So write. Not like a girl. Not like a boy. Write like a motherfucker.

Replace every reference to writing with work or life and you have yourself the only self-help guide every millennial needs. Cheryl Strayed simply has this way of saying everything that needs to be said in a way that you actually hear it. She delivers hard truths with a soft touch that makes you feel understood and comforted.

Today I spilled coffee everywhere on the bus and the world didn’t end. My day wasn’t ruined. It was simply something that happened. I moved on and got to work.

Parts 1, 2, and 3

For 10 solid days I was annoyed. I was annoyed and I was angry. I was annoyed, I was angry, and I was bitter. Some things happened sure, some people did things sure. I was tired and stressed, sure. But for the most really there wasn’t much to warrant these feelings. I just felt annoyed, angry, and bitter. So first, I chose to acknowledge those feelings. Then, I chose to accept them. Finally, I chose to do something about it.

Part 1: Acknowledgement

I was very in tune with my feelings to the point I remember the moment I began my 10 days of angriness. I felt something in my chest and by the time it reached my throat I acknowledged it as anger. I realized immediately that this anger wasn’t coming from any justified place and I knew that I was likely to misdirect these feelings. By acknowledging these feelings I was able to manage them. I was able to stop myself from lashing out or remove myself from a situation before anger or annoyance or bitterness got the best of me.

Part 2: Acceptance

Although I couldn’t completely justify my feelings I chose to accept them as my feelings. I didn’t make myself feel guilty or beat myself up about them. These feelings were real and mine and that alone validated them. I accepted that life has moments like this. It doesn’t mean the world is out to get me or I need to go into a deep hole. But it means that I’m living life and sometimes things don’t go my way or work out as planned, even the little things. And that can make any person angry, annoyed, or bitter. But it doesn’t make them an angry, annoyed, or bitter person. So I allowed myself to feel the way I needed to feel.

Part 3: Doing Something.

While I accepted that this was how I was feeling I also knew that this was not how I wanted to be feeling. I didn’t want to be angry. I didn’t want to be annoyed all the time. I didn’t want to be bitter. So I chose to do things to make myself feel better – feel more the way I wanted to feel.

I worked out. I talked to my Mom, my best friend. I went out and drank with friends. I stayed in and watched TV alone. I colored. I meditated. I went for a walk. I tried a new thing. I indulged on a delicious non healthy meal. I made myself a really healthy meal. I went to Yoga. I listened to my favorite podcast and Ted Talk. I journaled. I buried myself in work. I slept. I went to church. I listened to Lemonade on repeat. I went shopping. I read. I did all of these things in the span of 10 days – despite some of them being contradictory. At any given moment I chose what to do by listening to my body and what I thought I needed most. Every decision was intentional and relentless.

No one thing “fixed me”, there was no immediate cure. I just kept choosing to do something, I didn’t give up or get discouraged.  And in choosing to do continually do something  I started to feel better. Yesterday I woke up feeling brilliant. Today I’m still shining. I feel positive. I feel positive and I feel optimistic. I feel positive, I feel optimistic, and I feel excited.

There’s nothing extraordinary about the last 10 days of my life. It’s normal to go through a funk. Honestly, I don’t think 10 days even counts as a funk. Life has natural stressors that just get to you at times. Everything I felt was pretty normal. It’s also normal to get yourself out of it. But there was something striking to me about the process I went through to get out of my funk that I wanted to capture.

A couple of years ago I had a bad habit of making a 10 day funk, a 10 week funk which slowly blurred into a 10 month funk and before I knew it, well, a couple of years went by. And it sucked. It was because I hadn’t developed these skills to pull myself out of it. I know my process now. I know how to pull myself out of it. During these 10 days it was also striking to me how many different options I had at my disposal to help make myself feel better, feel more like me, feel more like the person I wanted to be. When I was in my couple of year funk I really only had a couple of options – eat, sleep, or watch TV. Now I feel like I have a tiny army on my side ready to go to battle when need be. I had to build that army one soldier at a time and I have to know when to deploy which troops. But I have the muscle. I have the ability to pull myself up and move on. And I’m really, really proud of myself for that.

Lemonade.

You don’t have to know me too well to know that I love Beyonce. Love her in a I have 3 “I Woke Up Like This” coffee mugs and I put the launch of Ivy Park on my calendar kind of way. Love her in a whenever she’s on the cover of a magazine that magazine automatically goes front and center on my coffee table kind of way. You get the point.

Throughout the years I’ve always liked Beyonce just fine and then she released her self-titled album, Beyonce, and the world I thought I knew shattered. Her every move became a passion of mine and I subscribed to the bible of Beyonce. This blog doesn’t have too many posts, yet I’d venture to say that a majority of them mention Beyonce, if they aren’t solely devoted to her. 

Needless to say when Lemonade dropped I was pretty excited. But something else happened, all of these people started reaching out to me asking what I thought about it, looking to me to help explain or understand.

But I can’t explain Lemonade, let me explain why…  

I wasn’t able to catch the live premiere on Saturday night so Sunday morning I turned on the visual album as I was getting ready for a family party. Less than 10 minutes in I realized that something very real and deep was happening that was going to require my full attention so I decided to wait until after my family party to watch it. It was a long day.

After I watched it I think my feelings could best be expressed as shock and awe. It was a lot to process (still processing) but I knew I had just witnessed a work of true art. As more of my friends started watching and asking me about it I encouraged them to watch it as if they were walking into a modern wing of an art museum. This isn’t a “pop star” music video. No, this was so much more than that. This is complex and nuanced and beautiful and tragic. It’s so many things, but a lot of it I didn’t  “get”.

I certainly didn’t “get” it as compared to her last album. When I watched her last album video my heart leaped out of my chest because I was bursting with this feeling that someone was saying all of the things that I’ve ever wanted to express about the complexities of being a woman. Immediately I was struck by how much she gets it, she gets me, she gets us – women, and grateful that she was able to say all the things we’ve all been trying to say. I instantly felt so deeply and personally connected to that album. I didn’t feel that way with Lemonade.

With Lemonade there was a lot I didn’t understand or I couldn’t relate to, but I wanted to. I mean it’s Beyonce and it was beautiful and moving, but it was also different and unfamiliar to me. I knew I needed some help.

So I started to read tons of articles (which there is no shortage of) about the album in order to better understand. At first, the majority of articles I stumbled on focused on the “drama”…   did Jay-Z cheat? Why did she stay? Who is Becky? I don’t give a shit about any of that. I also knew that while there was a lot about the album that I didn’t understand, but I understood enough to know that focusing on any of that completely misses the point. So moving on…

 

Eventually I stumbled into a couple of articles that started to help me better understand. The key takeaway from these articles was that I don’t “understand” a lot of this album because it isn’t for me, Lemonade is for Black Women.

See I was, like many privileged white people, being selfish. I wanted Beyonce all to myself, I wanted this to be about me. When in fact it has nothing to do with me, and that’s why I didn’t “get” it. But instead of this creating a wall between me and her and her music and her videos and walking away from the album because it’s not “for me” it actually brought me closer. I started listening to the album on repeat just like I did with her last album.  I ached to understand as much as I can while completely accepting that there will always be limitations to what I can fully understand because I am not a Black Woman.

I fueled my curiosity by reading, and continuing to read, more and more with a focus on the historical and cultural significance of the album. And I started to learn. I learned things like when you get past the bullshit of “Becky with the good hair” what “the good hair” really means.

The idea of good hair actually has its roots in slavery, when white owners would deliberately separate and assign slaves with light skin and straighter “good hair” to household work, leaving the punishing field work to those with darker skin and kinky African hair. In their essential guide, Hair Story, authors Ayana Byrd and Lori Tharps explain what happened next and for generations to come:

Black people themselves internalized the concept … [and] propagated the notion that darker-skinned Blacks with kinkier hair were less attractive, less intelligent, and worth less than their lighter-hued brothers and sisters.

These damaging messages were passed on for centuries, and black women and girls in particular had to do the work of deprogramming. Spike Lee famously tackled the painful subject in a musical number called “Good and Bad Hair” in School Daze, his 1988 comedy about fraternity and sorority members at odds at a historically black college. More recently, comedian Chris Rock revealed that he was compelled to shoot his 2009 documentary on the subject after his daughter Lola confronted him with the question, “Daddy, how come I don’t have good hair?”

So when Beyonce tells her cheating man he “better call Becky with the good hair,” she’s nodding to our historical baggage and signifying far more than just a girl with a bouncy blowout.

I had no idea. And I’m ashamed and I feel ignorant yes, absolutely yes. But I’m also grateful that my eyes have been even further opened to how little I know and understand.

Isn’t this what art is supposed to do? Isn’t it supposed to challenge our understanding of what we think we know? Isn’t it supposed to introduce us to new perceptions and a different way of thinking? If that’s the case then Lemonade is one magnificent piece of art.

So yes I loved Beyonce’s last album because it was an anthem for me as a woman. It was something I could stand on a table and shout “YAASSS!”. But Lemonade has equally shattered the world I thought I knew and opened my eyes. Just this time I’m not the one standing on the table. Instead I’m sitting at a table that Black Women are standing on shouting “YAASSS!” and I’m listening as closely as I can. I’m not doing the talking and certainly not the explaining.

Lemonade is not for me to ever fully understand or get and certainly not for me to explain. But it is for me to listen to.  It is is for us, white people, to listen to in order to be more empathetic, to be better allies, to be more inclusive, to be better fucking people. There are absolutely limitations to what I’ll ever be able to understand about going through the world as anyone other than myself, but I can try. And this album allows me to try in ways I previously couldn’t.

Recommended Articles:

• White Commentary on ‘Lemonade’: No One Asked Us (pretty ironic, yes)
• Forget the Cheating Rumors, “Becky With the Good Hair” means something else 
• What Black Girls Really Mean by ‘Good Hair’
• Dear White People: Here’s What to Write About Beyonce’s Lemonade

 

When are you going to stop worrying about what people say? When I look into my suggestion box it is full. People have a lot to say about the way I live my life. But there is only one comment card that I pay attention to. And you know what that card says? It says, ‘Great job, keep it up!’ You know who filled out that card? Me. You know how I know? Because I recognize my own mother freaking handwriting.

• Winston Bishop, New Girl