Sober Saturday (speak up)
It’s time to say what I need and ask for what I want.
Yikes, that sounds horrifying.
I’ve been doing a little soul-searching. Looking back at the last 40-some years and reflecting on specific memories and trying to figure out what the heck it all means. Full disclosure, I don’t have any “Big T” traumas in my life. Plenty of “little t” traumas, but nothing earth-shattering or life-altering. And I’m well-aware that I could continue on with my life without so much as a second look at any of all of this stuff in my past. In fact, that’s exactly what I’ve done until recently. The trouble is I suspect it may have something to do with whatever struggles and unrest I might ever experience at any given moment in my life. Things I never learned how to handle or manage. Coping skills and problem-solving skills I never quite mastered. Liiiike, speaking up for myself.
Could it be a predominantly female problem? Perhaps. Is it that I am by nature an introvert and an empath? Maybe. Does my only-child position have something to do with it? Sure. I think all of these things, and how I was raised, some specific events that took place in my life, all under my particular astrological sign (why not?), combined to shape a quiet, cooperative, and painful existence. One in which I have, for as long as I can remember, felt too paralyzed to speak up.
Some interesting examples:
Not my Grandma
One summer, when I was 6 years old, I was traveling alone to visit family on the east coast. This required changing planes in probably Chicago. As an unaccompanied minor, I was a member of a small group of kids of all ages and an unassuming elderly woman in a wheelchair. As we trekked through the terminal, trailing behind our attendant, who was pushing the woman’s wheelchair, a teenage girl asked me if that woman was my grandmother. Busy airport, lots of people and noise, I didn’t quite hear the girl’s question. But I was too ashamed and embarrassed to say that, so I did a rapid rundown in my tiny little brain, attempting to reason between which is the most common answer to any given question; yes or no. I decided that ‘yes’ was the safest bet. So now this teenage girl thought that elderly woman was my kin and (somewhat sassily) asked the next logical question, which I did hear, because I was now alert to any potential interrogation, “Well why don’t you go up there and walk beside her?” Um, because I lied and she’s not actually my grandmother. But I couldn’t say that because that would be even more absurd and juvenile and bizarre. I’m sure I mumbled some sort of nonsense because the girl proceeded to chatter on to the other kids that I wouldn’t go walk with my own grandma! All because I couldn’t speak up to begin with.
No Speaking Part
In second or third grade, our classes we busily working on a spring production of some kind. There would be speaking parts and songs to sing and sets to be painted. All good fun. But on the day of our little tryouts, I literally and physically could not raise my voice. Other students were catching on that in a play, one must speak loudly and project one’s voice to the very back of the room. I tried. Honestly I was giving it my all. But no matter what advice anybody offered or how many times I tried, my voice would not rise past about a 2 or 3. They told me to go home and yell and scream as loud as I could in my backyard. Which of course, is the last thing I would ever do. I did not get any speaking part in that play.
Just Hang Up
When I was about 11 years old, home alone, I unfortunately answered the phone to a prank predatory pedophile asshole caller. Now, this was before cell phones, caller ID, and long before robo-calls forced us all to ignore that landline. Needless to say, this guy was a creep and deserves to rot in hell, but that is not up to me. I’ll just sum up by saying his cover was that he was calling from the lingerie department at Macy’s or somewhere like that and had questions about my mother’s recent purchase for me. He did a lot of talking, said a lot of inappropriate things, and asked me to do unspeakable things to myself and then tell him about how that felt. OF COURSE I did not DO the things he asked of me, but I also was powerless to speak up to say ‘Fuck off, perv!’ or ‘Shut the fuck up!’ or even simply to hang up. So I endured the shame and suffered through the slow seconds ticking by, eventually curled up on the floor, shut inside a closet because I couldn’t stand to be in my own skin by the time he was through with me. I probably even managed a polite ‘good-bye’.
A Paragon of Patience
Even now, in the bedroom, after 25 years of wonderful marriage to an amazing and incredibly long-suffering man, I’m only now learning how to speak up for what I need and want. As some consolation, I have reason to believe that today’s young women, wives or not, are much better equipped, mentally and emotionally, to speak up for their intimate needs. Hallelujah and amen! I hope they don’t struggle with their own voices for as long as I have. And I have to say, my man, bless his heart, has been as intuitive and sensitive and patient as any man could possibly ever be. I am finding my voice, much to his relief! And God knows, not for his lack of asking.
So it is not lost on me that alcohol is the international, inter-racial, gender-inclusive social lubricant. When I drink, I can speak! Imagine that. No surprise that I was drawn to it. And then hooked on it. And finally seized by it. Alcohol took over my faculties and I found myself right back where I started; unable to handle or manage life’s problems and unfit to speak up for myself.
Now what? Fuck that. Let that shit go.
How ever I got here, I’m here. Now, how do I want my life to be? Mute or melodic? Vague or vibrant? Absent or abundant? So I somehow learned early on to not speak up. OK. So it hurt that people weren’t there for me when I needed them to be. Fine. So I was dealt a couple of tricky hands. Alright. I have survived every single one of my worst days. I also made some stellar decisions throughout my life. At age 18, I chose my husband, even though it meant I would miss out on the approval I so desperately wanted. I knew I wanted him and our future family more. Good. I welcomed and adored our three children, for whom, it’s worth mentioning, I ALWAYS spoke up. Amazing. And now, I choose forgiveness. Thank God. Holding on to the pain is simply too heavy. Much of it was not necessarily about me anyway, but rather the pain that came before me; my parents brought their own hurt and weaknesses to my upbringing, as did their parents, and theirs, and so on. As did I to my own children. As do we all bring these things to every relationship and interaction. I have faith that we are all doing the best we can with what we’ve got. When we know better, we do better (thank you, Maya Angelou and Oprah).
Let all that shit go and speak up now. I’m not selfish; I’m human.
It’s time to focus on the good things. The positives that were ever-present throughout my youth, the wonderful things I see around me every day, the amazing and precious people who take up space in the life I have created for myself.
The psychology of how I am the way I am is interesting. But not nearly as interesting or beautiful as the life in front of me.