Measuring
The list of my city's Top 40 under 40 came out this month and I know about eight people on the list. Young, ambitious, go-getters, doing good things for our city and for the world, and all that jazz. And as I read the write ups on all of them, all I could feel was, "SHIT! Most of these folks are 10 years younger than me, what the heck have I done with my life?" I had to stop for a minute and think of what I have done with my life.
I put myself through university, paid off my student loans (eventually), had a successful career in the Pharmaceutical industry, jointly saved up and paid for our destination wedding, designed and built THREE houses in the past 10 years, birthed two children, started my own business, helped to create a community of and for like-minded parents online, (re)discovered my love of writing and embraced my feminist self. And all of this life experience, I am using to continue to write and opine and educate (myself and others) through my blog and on social media. It's really not that bad of a list... so far.
So much of what we do and see and say these days is so outwardly focused. We are online throughout our days seeing what other people are saying and doing, waiting to find out what the "right" response should be about world events and news, what charity to support, whose bandwagon to jump on this week, what new fandangle all the cool kids are doing (um... hello Ello!). It can get a bit overwhelming and sometimes even depressing, especially when we start feeling like we don't measure up to the these standards of success or status or "coolness" that we have given credence to.
One of the major lessons that I have learned in my life, and to be honest, probably just in the last few years (so, that would be AFTER 40) is that making a difference in the world or in someone's life, is not about doing the "volunteer all your time, give all your money, go to al the GALAs and do all the FLASHY things" stuff. It is about finding what speaks to your heart, being true to yourself, setting healthy boundaries and not living within a framework of fear, shame, and scarcity - which too often seem to be the default settings for many in our world.
It's the scarcity one that gets me all the time though. You may be more familiar with it as, " I am not ___________ enough.". And it is statements like these that can send me into a tailspin of self-doubt and negative self-talk faster than a room full of toddlers an hour after eating red-icing covered cupcakes. It is what happened as I was reading all the Top 40 nominees and their long lists of accomplishments. It's what happens when I read bios for other bloggers and presenters at social media conferences and yes, it even happens on the playground or school yard when I start hearing about all the extra curricular activities and programs other families have their kids enrolled in. I get out my imaginary measuring stick and it all goes downhill from there.
I sometimes feel like the scarcity issue is a double-edged sword too. One doesn't want to seem too cocky about oneself either and be all, I am enough, I have enough, I DO enough. Especially if there are those around you who actually don't have enough. There's this feeling that lurks around telling us that if we are TOO happy, then there must something wrong with us. This results in conversations that turn into a competition for who can out-misery the other. "Your kids won't eat their lunches? Well, that's nothing, MINE will only eat peanut butter, from the jar, with a special spoon." "You think you are busy with your two kids in hockey? HA! I have to balance hockey, piano lessons, KUMON classes AND gymnastics for three kids." In the end, there really are no winners in a misery war.
The thing with these imaginary measuring sticks is this. One - they are IMAGINARY! And two - there is no standard length for them. Everyone's is different and all of these things that we feel the need to measure: happiness, success, business, balance, etc..., they are subjective. Someone having a REALLY good day and saying so on Facebook, doesn't mean that your day is bad. Someone getting a writing gig with a magazine, while you still trudge away writing on your little blog doesn't mean that your writing sucks. And someone whose kids do ALL THE THINGS, doesn't mean that their kids are any happier than or are "getting an edge over", your kids. What all of this means is simply, different strokes for different folks.
I am sitting here looking over the Top 40 list again and doing so from a slightly different angle. One where I am not in the picture. One where I can be proud of the young, vibrant voices of the women and men that live and work in my community and my city and that are putting it on the map for the world to see.
I am putting away my measuring stick. Or repurposing it. I think I'll make it into my new walking stick and I'll take it with me along this path that is MY life. One in which I really am enough. One where I will walk beside my fellow humans, who also have their own walkings sticks. Some taller than mine, some made of a different wood, some decorated with fancy inlayed beads. And all the while, while we may admire each other's sticks, I'll know that my own stick is the one that keeps me upright, helps me navigate my footing in this world and is the one that is perfect, that is ENOUGH, for me.
n~
how many joy units is that?
The Consort has been hounding me for months (or possibly years) to read a book. Not just any book, because I do read a lot of them, but one particular book. This one.
And this weekend I caved. I had just finished a different book and was looking to start another and he, ever so nonchalantly, went to my bedside table, grabbed this book and placed it beside me on the couch.
OK, dude. I get it. I'll read the damn thing.
We all have those books that transform us or speak to us in ways others do not. When my husband was leaving his family home and taking off to the adult world of undergraduate studies at the ripe age of 17, the original "Wealthy Barber" book was given to him by his father. This is HIS book.
I am pretty sure when TC is doing anything financially-related in any way, the voice he hears in his head is David Chilton's. "Is this worth it? Are the joy units going to last long with this purchase? Have you saved FIRST?"
I fully admit that I am the spender in our family and The Consort is the saver. I do the clothes shopping for most of us, all of the grocery shopping and I am the one who buys the gifts for all the birthdays, anniversaries and holidays. Yes, we do have a family budget, that I stick to - about 87% of the time. It's that other 13% that gets TC's knickers in a knot and why he wants me to read what Mr. Chilton has to say about finances.
The funny thing is, that in the past year, I truly believe that my spending habits have changed. Or more specifically, my shopping habits have changed.
I know that part of the change has been a response to the life-altering time we experienced this past summer and from that has come much reflection on the things that truly matter in our lives. And you know what? More stuff is not IT. Another part of why my shopping habits have changed, is that I am much more aware of the influence that marketing has on us as consumers. Years of being a breastfeeding advocate and seeing the ways that infant formula is marketed has rubbed off and has me looking a lot more closely at the way ALL products are marketed. Being a blogger and a mother, I've also seen the way that marketing has taken hold in this age of new media and I am VERY sensitive to this in the blogging world. I am more aware now about the message I am hearing and who that message is coming from as well.
~~~~~
This past weekend, we were supposed to go away for a short little mountain getaway. That didn't happen, mainly because it snowed and I have crap for tires on my car and we couldn't even get out of our little neighbourhood, let alone make it 300 kilometres to the lodge in the mountains. For the next four days we had to use my husband's compact car (which thankfully has AWD and all-season tires) for all our outings. What we both noticed over the weekend is how surprisingly easy it was to function with less car. And this included multiple errands, grocery shopping, and hauling all four of us around to various activities to make up for our missed trip to the mountains.
I have also recently purged every single closet in this house. My wardrobe alone is roughly HALF of what it was a month ago (if you know me at all, this is HUGE!). I am not quite down to Capsule Wardrobe numbers, but the philosophy behind this concept is guiding me right now in regards to what I keep, what goes and how I look at clothes shopping now. It's definitely a change. Especially for one like me, an admitted shopaholic, who gets greeted at Anthropologie BY NAME!
All of these things - reading David Chilton, surviving a week as a family of four with one compact vehicle, minimalizing our wardrobes - have happened at the same time and have caused a kind of cosmic convergence in my mind about how I want to live my life and about the lessons about money and spending and the value of what we HAVE versus the value of what we DO, that we are modelling for our children.
My family lives a very comfortable life, one that I am so very grateful for each and every day. It's just time for me take stock of all that we have, not get caught up in the game of keeping up with the proverbial Jones's and resist the messaging that we are bombarded with each day that we need MORE! More car, more house, more toys, more clothes, more STUFF.
Because we really do not.
My kid is not going to remember the expensive brand name winter boots he was wearing when he was eight years old or what kind of car I drove him to school in. He is more likely going to remember that his Mom bought new snow pants for herself that year, so that she could play outside and build a snow fort with him.
And trust me Mr. Chilton, the "joy units" from that purchase will never depreciate!
n~
Welcome to my guest house.
Sometimes life is hard.
The news is not good. People are awful to each other. Fear and hate seem to be winning and love and compassion become afterthoughts to feelings being expressed in 140 characters or 1000 word blog posts. There seems to always be a "spin" being put on the information we receive and deciphering this coded language is enough to make even the most hardy of folks weary and tired.
When life is hard, when the world feels like it is going to hell in a hand basket, I tend to curl up in a ball like a southern three-banded armadillo and wait for the "threat" to pass. I shut myself away from everyone and everything until I feel like I can come out and deal with it all again.
But today, I didn't.
Today was an odd day for me.
Today I looked outside of myself and tried to really see others around me and let them see me. Just regular people that I interact with in my day to day life. And yet today, because I opened up my shell a crack to let some of them in, they let me into their lives a bit too. Today was filled with moments with these people. Moments of clarity, of love, of acceptance. Moments when, for just a second, we recognized in each other that same scared little child, that hopeful kid, that barely-holding-it-together adult and said a silent, "I see you. You matter. Right here. Right now." to each other.
In yoga class, my friend Mandy shared this Rumi poem with us:
THE GUEST HOUSE
This being human is a guest house. Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all! Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows, who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture, still, treat each guest honorably. He may be clearing you out for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice, meet them at the door laughing, and invite them in.
Be grateful for whatever comes, because each has been sent as a guide from beyond.
~~~~~
So be hard World.
I can take it.
I will welcome the pain and fear, because beyond that is healing and courage.
Take all you want from my house, so I can make room for new guests, new thoughts, new paths to forge ahead on.
Spin all your news however you think it will matter. I won't let it spin me, or my conscience, or my convictions.
Today I learned that curling up in a ball may protect me for a time, but opening up and letting people in, that is what is going to really change my world.
And maybe,
in some small way,
eventually,
I'll change the the Big Bad World out there too.
Peace,
n~
this is six: the reboot
Six years ago to the minute (it is now 8:55 PM), after about 7 hours of labour, I was fully dilated and about to start pushing. By 9:05 pm, I had delivered my second child, a girl. Our perfect, full-term, straight to the breast, easy-peasy girl. When my husband first told me that she was a girl, I felt two things. Panic and complete and utter surprise.
And then panic again.
How was I going to raise a girl? I only know boy stuff. I have a house full of boy stuff. I know how to change boy diapers. I can DO boy. And I fully expected to be doing all that boy stuff again with our second one - hence the surprise part of my feelings.
Under the surprise and the joy was the panic though. That first night, she latched on to my breast within 45 minutes of being born and only came off for a quick wipe down and check by the nurses. She suckled all night long (her big brother had kept my supply going throughout my pregnancy so there was no real waiting for my milk to come in). And while she did, I stared at her. I stared and marvelled and traced every inch of her tinyness and fell in love.
And yet, the panic was still there.
It wasn't so much the logistics of caring for a newborn girl baby that had me all tied up in knots (although the amount of dirty diaper wiping needed for girl babies versus boy babies is vastly under-reported in all the baby books!), it was the whole concept of RAISING a girl in this world that had me feeling ALL the anxiety. It was the feeling of being a previously (and most likely still) slightly broken girl raising another girl. That first night, all the thoughts of what her life would be consumed me. I thought of how I was going to manage to not pass on to her all of my own issues with self-esteem and self-worth? Of how I would be able to help her navigate a world that automatically sees her as an other, just for being born a girl? Of how I was going to be able to help her through the mean girl years - teaching her both how to not be one and how not be picked on by one? But mostly, I thought of how this was the universe telling me that what goes around comes around. That she was going to be my mini-me and I had better be prepared for that.
Dear Universe. I do so hate it when you are right.
She is a mini me.
Except, it's in all the best ways possible.
And while I still panic every now and then about raising my daughter in this messed up world of ours, it is somewhat less than what it was on that first day when I held her and stared at her for 24 hours straight. Not because our world is any less messed up than it was then, but because I am. And because I am fixing the broken parts of me, the ones that tell me that I am not good enough, not strong enough, not {insert ingrained pattern of belief here) enough, I am in turn raising a girl child whom I hope will never internalize those kinds of beliefs about herself.
At six years old, my own world came crashing down around me as my parents split up. No one was able to tell me why in a way that made sense to my then six-year old brain, and the messages about myself that I have carried with me ever since have been ones of low self-worth and un-lovableness. It is hard to unlearn 30-plus years of patterned beliefs about one's self. BUT... Because I see so much of myself when I look at my daughter now, in those hard parenting moments {and in the good ones too}, I get to stop and think of what six-year old me needed to hear those very many years ago and say those things to my own child.
I want the words that my daughter hears me speak to and about her now, to become the voice that she hears in her head as she grows up.
Loving words. Forgiving words. Kind words.
That is my birthday wish for her today and all her days.
My beautiful life lesson.
My gift from the Universe.
My girl.
XO,
n~
R.E.S.P.E.C.T.
Tonight's post was going to be about respect. Respect for people. Respect for our world. Respect for another person's piece of it.
And yet somehow, going off on a rant about my dumb-ass neighbours who let their giant dogs run willy-nilly all over the neighbourhood, peeing all over everyones shrubs doesn't seem right.
It doesn't seem right when in a small town in America, a man was shot six times and it is not called murder. Where the people of this town are living in a police state with a curfew in place and folks are getting tear-gassed and arrested for peacefully protesting.
My dog issues are nothing compared to the fact that in Gaza tonight, even the animals at the zoo are not safe from the crossfire of the Israel-Hamas conflict and the cease-fire deadline is approaching with no clear resolution in sight.
When a whole country is essentially on lock-down because of an Ebola epidemic, my privileged little first world problems becoming glaringly apparent as such and petty.
So, no, I won't get on my "be a responsible dog owner/neighbour" soap box tonight.
But I will say something about respect.
It's a common conversation in and around our house right now (and always). Respect for ourselves and how we talk about ourselves, respect for our possessions and the home that we have built for our family, and respect for others, in how we speak to them and about them and how we want to be spoken to as well. We talk about how we can be more respectful to Mother Earth and my kids are big into recycling, not wasting energy or water and thanks to the Kratt brothers, are all up to date on animal conservation as well. The concept and application of respect is truly a daily topic in our house. As it should be.
I came across this quote from Dwight D. Eisenhower and it seems to fit tonight.
"This world of ours...
must avoid becoming a community of dreadful fear and hate, and be, instead,
a proud confederation of mutual trust and respect."
The problem as I see it right now, is that in this world of ours, the pendulum has swung so far over to the fear and hate side of things, that we can't figure out how to get back to the mutual trust and respect side.
I don't know how exactly to swing that pendulum back, but I'll start small. At home, and in my neighbourhood, and in my communities both online and off. I will listen, I will speak with respect, I will not let hate into my mind or my heart and I will teach and model this behaviour for my children. Maybe if we all started small, we would eventually overpower all of that fear and drown out the hate.
Maybe...
n~
The clothes that you wear
A few days ago I was in our neighbourhood cafe around dismissal time for the local junior high school. The cafe is frequented by a lot of the neighbourhood kids and that day was no exception. It was one of our first VERY hot days of the summer and slushy drink sales were at an all time high! I was in line behind two teenage girls ordering said slushy drinks and I couldn't help but notice what they were wearing. One had on a tank top and the typical short shorts that one wears when your hips are still narrow and you are mostly legs and the other was wearing a very loose black tank top that had very wide arm openings that went all the way down to her waist and cropped black leggings. Underneath her tank top, she was wearing a sheer black bra. And in my head, two voices started battling it out. One was saying, "OMG! I can totally see ALL of her bra! That is so inappropriate! Why would her mother let her wear that! Stop staring at her bra!"
The other was saying, "Shut up already. It's hot outside and she is obviously very comfortable in what she is wearing. YOU are the only one who seems to have an issue here, get over yourself. You are not the fashion/modesty/appropriateness police, so just get your coffee and move on lady."
You see, I am a product of my society, the culture that I grew up in and in that culture, a woman's body (regardless of her age), and how she dresses it, are for others to comment on, to admire, to admonish, to assess and to judge. As much as I hate to admit this, a part of me did judge and I felt uncomfortable that I could see so much of this girl's underthings and went to that familiar, ingrained place of "has she no shame??".
I then hung my head in my own shame.
..........
This week my Facebook and Twitter feeds have been filled with story after story of young girls being shamed and punished for what they are wearing. Tank tops seem to be causing the most issues, because of those terribly distracting bra straps. Last week, 28 girls (and two boys - just so no one feels the need to point this out and then tell me this was not about gender discrimination) were sent home from a high school in Newfoundland because they wore tank tops to school on a hot day and this was distracting to some of the male students and teachers. A 17-year old was kicked out of her senior prom because her dress-code conforming fingertip length sparkly dress was making a bunch of 40-something dad chaperones feel uncomfortable and a Utah High school decided to arbitrarily photoshop year-book photos of female students who were showing too much skin.
All of this is happening in the wake of Elliot Rodger and the UCSB shooting and numerous posts being written about the insidious levels of sexism and misogyny that exist in our world. We've spent the last few weeks trying to come to grips with this tragedy and the very real fears that #yesallwomen have for themselves in this world that continues to want to make sure that women know their place in it and know how to dress and behave appropriately in that place, and now this. This shaming of teenaged girls. For what?
Having boobs?
And legs?
And skin?
The message here is loud and clear. YOU, oh girls and women of the world, must be ever conscious of your evil, tempting, womanly ways of instilling lustful thoughts in the minds of others (mainly men), by merely existing in this world. You must do this by covering your bodies, because otherwise, what is presented to the world is obviously meant for the taking. Or the judging, or the leering, or the cat-calling, or the grabbing, or the assaulting.
All these dress-code issues are really just thinly-veiled perpetuations of the kind of culture that we live in that blames girls and women for the thoughts and actions of other people. We have a name for that you know. It is called rape culture. It's the line we often hear that goes... "well, if she didn't want people to look at her like that/touch her like that/make rude comments to her like that, she shouldn't dress like that." It's the cop-out that many people default to when they say, "In an ideal world, it wouldn't matter, but we don't live in that world, so just be smarter about what you wear/where you walk/how much you drink, and those things won't happen to you."
The thing is, we are not talking about dangerous alleys in the dead of night here, we are talking about supposedly safe places like the hallways of high schools and parent-chaperoned prom dances and the pages of school yearbooks. And the people who are having issues and condemning these teens for their attire are the grown-ups in these situations. People who are having all kinds of "uncomfortable" feels because they are being turned on by, or disgusted by teenaged girls bodies. So, who exactly is the problem here??
One particular quote from a school board administrator in the Newfoundland case really made me ponder this issue. He said,
"Our focus would be around wearing clothes that's appropriate for a learning environment, making sure that we help students learn that as you transition through school and onto the workplace that the clothes that you wear respects the values of people around you, respects the diversity of the community that we live in ... so it's really about respecting others, as well as respecting yourself," said Pike. {emphasis is mine}
The clothes that you wear must respect the values of the people around you. Hmmmm....
I can see where this statement is true to a certain degree. When my husband and I visited Zanzibar in 2005, I was well aware that the area we were visiting was primarily Muslim. Out of respect for the customs and norms of the local people, I did not go out without covering my arms and legs and with a scarf on hand if I needed it to cover my hair, even when it was well above 30 degrees Celsius. So yes, I admit that there are situations that call for a certain kind of dress code, but the above statement also made me wonder. At what point do people around you respect you as a person, REGARDLESS of what you are wearing? Or is it as Mark Twain said, "Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society."?
Personally, I have to disagree with Mr. Twain on this one. I think that naked people, or naked women to be more exact, have had a big influence on our society. Pick up a magazine, watch TV commercials or browse online for a bit and you will find images of naked women, or parts of a naked woman (because it's not like women are ever portrayed as whole human beings), being used to try to sell you something.
{image credit: Suit Supply}
A constant barrage of images and messages constantly showing us and telling us that any or all of a woman's body is primarily a sexual "thing", makes it hard for society at large to see women as anything else. It is the reason that Facebook and now Instagram too, consider breastfeeding photos nudity and pornography and routinely remove them and ban the users posting them, yet will leave pages like "Big Boobs", which contains photo after photo of breasts in all states of undress, well enough alone. It is blog post after blog post telling women that leggings are not pants, and tumblr and Pinterest sites shaming women with people posting pictures of strangers to illustrate their arbitrary policing of others bodies. It's Robin Thicke thinking it would be "fun" to objectify women in his Blurred Lines video and not understanding why people were upset about that. While so much of this kind of thinking may be commonplace in our world, none of it is OK or acceptable and we should be doing all we can to challenge and change this status quo.
..........
This past weekend in my city it was the 4th Annual Slutwalk, an event that since it's inception in 2009 following remarks from a Toronto law enforcement official that "women should avoid dressing like sluts in order not to be victimized", is pushing out the message that there’s nothing a person can ever do to deserve sexual violence. I did not attend the walk this year, but heard from the organizers about a group of angry teenaged girls walking who got all up in the face of a member of a men's rights group protesting the event. I can't help but feel a bit of hope when I hear about things like that or watch videos from the young, bold, and super smart Laci Green, or read Claire's story about her prom experience, or know what Malala Yousafzai is doing for girls all over the world. Girls are speaking up, are saying ENOUGH and fighting back against a culture that is so reluctant to change the status quo. This new generation of young women, of young feminists, are giving me hope and teaching me a few things as well.
Back at the cafe, once the voices in my head had finally had it out with each other and there was a clear winner - I realized how much I still have to learn and UNlearn in this life. My thoughts were my own and I had to own that and admit my own shortcomings in this regard. And I know I have to do something about that. I have to do it for my children, because they are watching me and like the tiny little sponges they are, they are absorbing all the messages I am sending. What I say and do matters more now than it ever has before. And today's message is this: NO, clothes do NOT make the {wo}man, the person she {he} is does.
Now, go ahead, tell me that my bra strap is too distracting for you.... I dare you!
natasha~
the strong one
I have always been the strong one.
The one who rides in and takes charge.
The one who keeps her head in a crisis.
The one who numbs herself and focuses on making sure everyone else is taken care of.
The one who knows all the big words used by the doctors and nurses.
The one who can read the monitors and know what all the numbers mean.
The one who asks the questions that no one else thinks about.
The one who will go to all the appointments and translate what it all means.
The one who will gently help them transition from one way of life to another.
I am the child, who became a mother.
Who is now the grown child standing beside a bed,
stroking her hair, kissing her forehead and taking care of her.
My mother.
And I don't know
if I am
strong enough
for this
just
yet.
Why do we fall?
I live with superheroes. Seriously, I literally have superheroes all over my house.
A life-sized Captain America shield - check. Thor's Hammer - check. Collectors edition Superman and Spiderman figurines - check. Silver Surfer doing a drop-in off the top of my bed - check. And this is not even the tip of the superhero iceberg. There are toys, lego sets, books, anthologies, DVDs and boxes full of vintage comic books.
All of this is my husband's doing. He grew up reading comic books with his father and brother and learning life lessons from his heroes. He is now passing down that love and those lessons to our children and I have to admit, to me as well.
So, it came as no surprise to me that in thinking about vulnerability and doing some of the "homework" assignments for the Brene Brown Gifts of Imperfection course that I am doing, that one particular lesson from a superhero movie came to mind.
I have been taking a wee break from some of my social media sites this month and have had some time to really think about what effect social media has on me personally. Specifically, I have been staying off of Twitter and severely limiting my time on Facebook and Instagram. The effects of this tiny break have already been seen by my family and have given me some new perspective on how I interact and with whom on the internet.
There has been much written in the past few months about the toxicity of Twitter, especially within the circles of feminism. Michelle Goldberg's piece in The Nation on Feminism's Toxic Twitter Wars set of a veritable toxicity shit-storm across the interwebs and spawned yet another catchy, let's all be sarcastically and aggressively passive aggressive, hashtag called #whitefeministrants. Which, when you sit back and look, in my humble {and yes, white, feminist} opinion, does nothing more than add to the growing vat of toxic "talk" going back and forth. Many a post has been written in response to Goldberg's piece, but what Jessica Wakeman at the Frisky wrote struck me as the closest to the way I see things.
"The toxicity in online feminism contributes to the tuning out of the privileged folks who we all want to be listening. It’s a despairing twist after white feminists have shut out WOC feminist for so long, straight cis women have shut out trans and lesbian women for so long, and men have shut us all out for so long. The solidarity that I believe in is one where we make an effort, for our own betterment and each other’s. It’s one where we listen and learn and don’t jump to conclusions or interpretations of bad faith. It’s one where people who make a good faith effort — be they male or female, straight or gay, cis or trans, white or biracial or WOC — are given the benefit of the doubt. It’s a solidarity that is, above all, kind."
Kindness. There's a thought. What ever happened to that? Can it truly exist online?
~~~~~
The so-called "Mommy Wars" are waged silently and not so silently all over the place, with judgement canons shot daily from all camps. Gasps of "Oh, no she did not!" and "OMG, I would never" and "what the heck is she trying to prove" are heard/read/interpreted and internalized all over Facebook/Pinterest/Instagram and Twitter. Myths abound about doing it all, having it all and finding that mythical land called "Work-Life-Balance" and/or the peaceful island of "ME-time". Media images of being "mom enough" bomb us from every corner, while various labels of what kind of mom you are make it easy for new recruits to pick a side.
We make fun of celebrities choice of clothing, how much weight they gain during pregnancies and what they name their children. We jump all over a mom who writes a post reflecting her value system when teaching her sons about responsible Facebook use or crucify a woman for breastfeeding a three year old and judge her with ridiculous puritanical outrage while simultaneously 'liking' every naked-but-body-painted Swimsuit Illustrated image. And we @ and hashtag to death anyone who dares write something online (however well-researched it may be) that doesn't somehow address all of our collective experiences, cultures, identities and privilege or lack thereof. Our righteous indignation over the most minute of things becomes entangled with true outrage over really important issues, the result of which is a flattening of our response to people, a deadening of our compassion and a alarming foray away from empathy and kindness towards our fellow humans.
In other words, I can't help but feel like no one is allowed to fall anymore.
~~~~~
We have to fall. Like Thomas Wayne says, it's the only way we learn how to get back up. We teach this to our kids everyday. When they fall of their bikes, we teach them to brush themselves off, treat that little bit of road rash as a wicked cool battle wound and get back on their bikes. When they don't get something right the first time, we encourage them to try again. To figure out what went wrong and make the necessary changes to do it better. We teach them that anything worth doing takes practice and patience and perseverance and that in the end they will be rewarded for their efforts. We don't expect perfection from them and when they fall -- and they will fall -- we are there to help them up, to show them kindness and compassion and to encourage them to try again.
But if you are a grown up? Well, it seems the world has different expectations past a certain age.
Somehow as grown-ups we are expected to know it all. We are expected to know how to handle any and all people, situations and life events that come our way. We are constantly being told that "we should know better", but not allowed to make the mistakes that would enable us to learn those important lessons of knowing better. We are all human and we make mistakes. We mess up. We say the wrong thing. And sometimes we make the wrong choice. We simply can't know everything about everyone and every situation and so, we fall.
It is in this falling that we learn. We learn more about who we are, we learn more about the people, places and things in our world, and we learn how to get back up and try again, this time with our new knowledge to help guide us. In falling we recognize our own humanity and that we must be kind to ourselves, speak encouraging words to our inner 'kid who just fell off her bike', brush ourselves off, take a deep breath and get back up. And when we see someone else fall, we must resist the urge to point and pass judgement and announce to everyone around us just how bad a fall it was. We must instead, reach out a hand, help them up and recognize ourselves in that person and their fall. We have to let them know that they are not the only ones who fall and practice a level of compassion and kindness that we would want given to us in a similar situation.
In our overly-critical, hyper-sensitive, online world it's very easy to become afraid to fall for fear of the backlash and instant judgement that our connectedness enables. We are afraid to take a stand on something, because it may not be a popular one. Afraid to admit to doing something that breaks the illusion of perfection and put-togetheredness that we feel we must portray for the world. Afraid to call yourself a feminist because, while you believe in equality and the concept of feminism, you do not want to be lumped in with "that" group. Afraid to admit that you sleep with your kid most nights because that is the only way anyone gets any sleep, because that would make you one of those crazy hippy-dippy co-sleeping moms. This fear can be overwhelming for some and I fully admit that I have felt it more lately than at any other time on the internet and it's made me question what I 'put out there'. For the first time in a long time, I am afraid of being vulnerable (of falling) and that is not ME.
In the end, I have to tell myself that all falling really is, is admitting that I don't know it all, that I will always have more to learn in my lives and that it is OK to actually do that. That it is actually imperative for all of us to do that. And yes, sometimes when we fall, we'll get a bit beat up and a bit of road rash under our skin. Those are the battle wounds and scars that remind us of our falls, of how we got back up again and what we learned through it all.
Because really, where would the world be if Bruce Wayne never learned to pick himself up?
Natasha~