What Would You Say To Your 18-Year-Old Self

I did something today I’ve never done before: I picked up a hitchhiker.  He was on the highway right outside Elisabeth’s work with a sign that said “Portland”.  Traffic was stuck and I spent a few minutes just watching him. His other sign said “Just Showered” – that one made me giggle.  He was a kid, I guessed him to be 20 or so. I have no idea what inspired me to pick him up, but I did. I pulled over, he came running to the window and I said, I can get you close, within about 40 miles. He smiled, and said “Anything’s better than here, right?” I popped the trunk and he threw his incredibly large but very well and tightly packed backpack in the trunk.

As he jumped in the passenger seat, he said, I’m Jack and stretched out his hand.  He’s 18 and this is his college education.  He graduated from high school, came to Port Angeles for a family reunion with his family. When they flew home to Akron, OH he went into the woods for some solo camping. He made it from there to Seattle and from Seattle to Lakewood.  He doesn’t know what he wants to do, so he’s traveling a bit.  He figured why waste his parents hard earned money on a college education when he doesn’t even know who he is or what he wants. Smart kid – he’s getting an education by seeing the world and meeting people.  After a few minutes of introductions and the basics, there was a moment of silence and then Jack, with sincere desire for an answer, asked:

If you could say one thing to your 18-year-old self, what would it be?
I blurted out, “Don’t get married!” I followed that up with what I really meant: listen to yourself.  Don’t ever ignore that voice in your head, the feeling in your gut, the tightness in your throat.  Trust yourself more than you trust anyone else.

When I got married at 18, I knew it was wrong.  That single decision to ignore the sound of my own voice, the tightening in my throat, the feeling in my gut  shut down the voice in my head for the next 27 years.  My voice was silenced and replaced with the desire to please men and their voices became louder than my own.  The next 27 years were spent riding a roller coaster fueled by the lack of ability to hear myself.  It took almost complete devastation, getting my heart broken in a million pieces, having my reputation tarnished and getting physically assaulted before I was broken open enough to once again hear the sound of my own voice.

The past two years have been spent in a great deal of alone time learning to recognize the sound of my own voice, to ask myself what would make me happy and learning to trust in my ability to make decisions.  Learning to once again trust in my gut and respond to the tightness in my throat.  Learning to recognize what I sound like.

In an effort to correct some bad choices, more wounds have been opened but in the end, it’s worth it.  Doing the right thing rather than the easy thing is not painless, but it is much more rewarding.
Jack is coming to hang out after his time in Portland before he takes the next leg in his journey.  I’m proud of both of us for trying something new. Him sticking his thumb out and me sticking my neck out.  I believe I entertained an Angel today. 

Expectations

Love is always bestowed as a gift - freely, willingly and without expectation. We don't love to be loved; we love to love. - Leo Buscaglia

 

True, but so hard to do. Expectations lead to disappointment. But is the lack of any expectation just an acceptance of the status quo?  Without expectations, how do we achieve goals, or build relationships, or succeed at anything?

 

I'm struggling today with the balance between expectation and acceptance. Is accepting something that is less than I want a good thing? Is lowering expectations to meet the lack of enthusiasm of another how I want to live?  Do I just settle for less than in order to remove all expectation of fulfillment?  And, why would I do that? But, what is going to happen if I don't do that?

 

Facing a future disappointment seems more frustrating and heartbreaking than having high expectations and getting disappointed until I can figure something else out.  Settling...is there a positive way to look at that?  It sounds to me like it lacks passion.  Fulfillment. Fun.  

 

No one has ever said life, or love, would be easy. 

In The Mirror

In the mirror I see the image of my mother

At times it is an extreme bother

At others, I realize

Moving on is what’s wise

Why ponder the past

Stop beating myself up at last

For fifty years pleasing you

Has kept from doing things I want to do

You are my kids, my work, my friend

The list, it has no end

I don’t want to please you any longer

Pleasing me is a need much stronger

I sleep with me

In the mirror, it’s me I see

Rejections, reflections,

Ideas and perceptions

Yours no longer take precedent

Time with me alone is well spent

I am leaving to somewhere new

By myself, with no you

My Sister Is My Reason

Sometimes the reasons we do things may not be so apparent.  The reasons are ours and not meant to be shared. A woman came to the shelter I was the director of straight from prison. She’d been incarcerated for well over a decade, a lot had changed and some things remained the same in her life.  Her first weekend of freedom, she relapsed.  The staff had failed her…I failed her. I hadn’t made a plan for her to get her through the weekend without someone there full time for her to lean on.  On Sunday night when she didn’t show up, I called a friend and we went in search of her.

My friend had nothing to do with social work; he was just a big guy who cared about me. When you’re about to go hit the streets and parks of Seattle in the middle of the night, a little backup is necessary.  We went to Freeway Park, we went to Broadway, we went to Victor Eckstein park…and we finally found her.  High, wet, cold and frightened.  We put her in the car, took her to the Hurricane Café, fed her and she very honestly said she had a little more and she wanted to finish it…it was gonna eat her alive to not. So, we made a plan to meet at the benches at 6 AM…just a few short hours away. My friend and I went home.  The next morning I went alone to the park, found ‘V’, took her back, fed her again, she took a shower and went to bed to sleep it off. She’d been out of prison for 5 days.

The powers that be fired me. Said I crossed boundaries, acted unprofessionally, told me it wasn’t my job to chase clients through the streets of Seattle.  They couldn’t understand my reasons.

My sister is my reason.  Today is her birthday and she tried to drink herself to death.  My gut couldn’t rest after our morning phone call, so I went to find her.  When I did find her, she was – literally – moments from death.  She was non-responsive, nearly over the edge.  We spent her birthday together at Harborview.  This isn’t the first time I’ve found her like this, isn’t the first time she’s drank so much she nearly died, not the first…or even twentieth or fiftieth….trip to the hospital.  It’s the third just this month.  And no matter how many more trips we take, no matter how many more drinks she takes, or where she lives, or how she lives, I’ll be there.  And when she’s lost, I’ll go find her. When she is covered in puke, I’ll hug her. When she’s scared, I’ll promise to never leave her.  She’s my sister.

My reasons for giving my all for mentally ill, incarcerated, addicted, homeless people? My sister. That person in front of me may not be my sister, but they’re someone’s sister, mother, daughter, brother, father, son, friend. 

You see a drunk, homeless, worthless person. I see my sister.  Look in her eyes…they look just like mine. 

A Crucible....

Can a human be a crucible? According to Webster, a crucible is "a heat resistant container in which material can be subjected to great heat". Let's ponder this one....Is holding other people's pain "heat"? I take in their stories, hold it, reform it, re-tell it, teach them to re-invent and then give them their material back. Maybe I'm a crucible.

If I Told You...

If I told you how scared I am sometimes, would it change your mind?
If you read my journals, would you be more kind?
If I told you about my mother,
Would you find it a bother?
If I told you I want you to know me,
It's the real me I want you to see,
Would you listen
Or just walk away pissin'?

Forgive: to cease to feel resentment against

Yesterday I asked forgiveness from someone, someone who my actions had offended. I didn’t sugar coat, didn’t minimize and didn’t blame. I stated forthrightly that what I had done had been outside the bounds of my agreement with them and I had been dishonest in my cover up of those actions.


Let me tell you about this person: they are a strong advocate for prison reform, they work diligently to provide opportunities for people who are incarcerated, they espouse publicly that everyone deserves a second chance, that people shouldn’t be defined by their mistakes. They align themselves with folks who most of society would deem reprehensible and deserving to be locked away for life. This is a person who offers compassion, opportunity and understanding to folks who have committed egregious acts that most other individuals couldn’t look past. These are qualities I’ve always admired in this person.

Their response was startling and hurtful. Their response was full of anger, lack of forgiveness, saying that as far as they were concerned the bridge was burnt and no forgiveness would be extended. And in fact, told me that they thought I should have nothing to do with anyone involved in any sort of advocacy work. Ever.

It took my breath away. It knocked me on my heels, I was reeling for hours from it. Maybe still am a little.

What did happen is that it offered me the opportunity to see that folks rarely actually live the values they espouse publicly. This person obviously has some sort of rescue mission and deems the population they work with as needing compensation the rest of the world doesn’t. Forgiveness and compassion are offered in a public arena but not lived values in their private life.

Thanks to my friend Anthony I have a new word for that: hyposhit. A hypocrite espousing bullshit.

Let me tell you something: even middle class, highly educated women get involved with abusive men and make poor decisions. Even a wickedly smart woman can be duped into a façade and make poor decisions based on that façade. In the end, I got my ass beat, lost my job and clearly have spent the last year trying to recover and make amends. In my family, we worked through my absurd behavior and know that it will never happen again.

As I begin to emerge from my shell, I am finding that victim blaming goes far beyond what happens in a court room or a doctor’s office or within families.

I was used, manipulated, deceived, controlled and eventually physically assaulted. I own my part in those events. I own that I made poor choices based on false information and trickery. I don’t own that I did anything to have the shit beat out of me when I finally started coming to my senses and found courage to walk away.

Am I embarrassed? Fuck yes. Do I want a do ever? Fuck yes. Do you have the right to judge me when you have limited and likely false information? Fuck no. Are you entitled to tell me who I can or cannot talk to now? Fuck no. Are you in a position to tell me who I can advocate for and who I can’t? Fuck no.

So, let me put this out there. I believe in change. I believe that education changes lives. I am not going to judge an entire population of people by what one person did to me. I believe that when a person is truly remorseful for their actions and willing to be held accountable, change does happen. I also believe that no one is better or worse than me…just different with different experiences. I also believe in forgiveness, compassion and second chances – for everyone. My experiences haven’t changed my core values. It’s not just a public performance; it’s how I live my life.