Wall of Freedom

My husband and I bought my grandparents' house about a year and a half ago. My grandparents lived here for 35 years. These two people have brought such joy and nourishment into my life that I couldn't bear to let their house go to strangers. So when Grandpa passed and Grandma had to move to an assisted living facility, we moved in. It was decorated like an octogenarian couple lived here. When our shower flooded, we had laminate wood floor put in the living room and two walls were re-textured and painted the color of our choice. The other wall was left with my grandmother's wallpaper.

About a month ago, I read something (I can't even remember what!) that inspired me to think outside the box on my art. I have a HUGE wall in my living room that is going to be textured and painted before we move...what's stopping me from having fun on it now? I first checked with the husband to make sure he could live with this. He said he didn't care.

One day a few years ago, I got off work a bit early. I piddled around some of my favorite spots for creative inspiration-a few stores on Route 66. When I came home, I still had time before picking up my boy. I turned the corner into my living room and there was that wall in all its crazy-flowered-wallpaper-glory! I tore a little piece off...then another little piece. Before I knew it, I had a big white spot on the wall. I hesitated as I thought of my husband coming home from work to see the wall torn apart but no art. I looked at the wall again and decided it was too late to turn back now.

I threw on some grungy clothes, cranked up my Pandora Pink station, spread out an old sheet and started in earnest. As I pulled off layers of the wallpaper, symbolism overcame me. This shiny, colorful, traditional wallpaper began to take the form of conventionalism, and fear, and being who everybody else wants you to be. Underneath, I found my grandfather had left the previous layer of wallpaper. This one was a tiny pink (my grandma's favorite color) pattern that instantly took me to my childhood. I was back in the days of innocence, the days when I was still whoever I wanted to be, as yet unmolded and as yet unscarred. There are places I went a little deeper taking the wallpaper off than I intended to just the blank yellowed color of the wall underneath; I thought of places where my life stripped away even the good I started with. There are places my grandpa had plastered over some hole or otherwise covered a blemish; places where I needed to fix where I had started with or fix where life gouged a bit too deeply.

I had an unfinished wall in my living room-as unfinished as my life. But now I face a wall  on which to paint whatever I want. It's so much better than the blank white slate of a canvas. It's as though I can start with the little girl of unfettered potential and add the self I long to be. And because I hope to raise a child who always feels like he can do anything, my son helps when he wants.

As I listened to every song that played, it was like I was doing hard therapy...working on my inner self as I worked on that wall. As I ripped off layers of old lady wallpaper to the soundtrack Pandora provided, I swore I smelled vanilla pipe tobacco just like my dad smoked.

When I picked up my son, we covered that wall with rainbows and blobs and whatever else! Months later, I added a huge ocean patch with a bubble in which a rose is suspended. My son helped me again with (a little) more sophisticated art than the previous time.

Every time I look at that wall, I smile. When people come to my house for the first time, they are surprised. If they know me well enough, they are not too surprised. But everyone is delighted (well, maybe with the exception of my mother-it was her parents' house) and I think a little bit jealous that they don't have a wall like this in their living room. I have had friends express a desire to paint on it themselves-they are welcome! So far, time or inhibitions have kept them from it....but I'm sure it will happen soon.

I love that we have this wall. It is a part of my life that is exactly as I want it. And it is made all the better for the memory of how it came to be!

Why Should We Talk About It?

I was browsing my Facebook newsfeed today and I came across an interesting interview with Mike Wallace and Morgan Freeman. In it, Morgan Freeman (an actor I greatly admire) says we should stop talking about race. Of course, this got me thinking. Why should we talk about race? Or why should we talk about gender?

There has recently been a definite uptick in the amount of chatter about race and gender recently. Between Ferguson, MO and GamerGate, or even the Kim Kardashian photo "scandal" (a two-for-the-price-of-one: race AND gender), discussions about racism (particularly in a white vs. black context) and feminism are not only being discussed in the serious circles in which they've long been discussed; they're now permeating even the most benign pop culture. Unless you've been living under that proverbial rock, you've heard about at least one of these issues recently.

But does talking about it just perpetuate the problem? If, as Mr. Freeman seems to suggest, we are contributing to the problem of people with brown or "black" skin being treated differently than those of us with beige ("white") skin just by talking about that difference, then the easiest solution is to stop talking about it. I have a former professor who is terribly brilliant and successful. She lives and works in an all men, very powerful world. She has told me that her approach to making career opportunities more equal for women is to simply live it. And kudos to my former professor and Mr. Freeman for their abilities to live beyond the everyday discriminations facing the majority of women and people of color in this country. But will stopping the conversation make it better for the rest of us?

I must at this point in our conversation offer a clarification. I am white. And I am a woman. I absolutely benefit from white privilege so my observations about race are fully subject to scrutiny from those people who may speak from a place of personal knowledge (i.e. people of color). I am not saying I know better than Mr. Freeman or any other person who has been the victim of racial discrimination on a firsthand basis. However, I live in this world and desperately want to see it become a better place where people of all color and gender live in harmony. From that perspective, and my perspective as a woman, I offer a reason not to stop talking about these issues.

If we stop talking about it, hate becomes the only voice in the room. 

By not talking about these important issues, we amplify the messages of those who want our differences to hurt, diminish, stunt, restrict, constrict, limit, or incapacitate us. Many of those who are perpetuating these messages do so because it gives them an advantage. Many others continue these ideas because they don't know better: it's how they've always done things. Why is it so bad to have a majority of men in the media, or the CEO office, or the White House? The world has been running just fine that way-we even finally put a man of color in the latter. Why is it so bad that black mothers teach black boys how to avoid looking suspicious to police while white mothers teach white sons that police are our friends? The black boys are probably up to no good anyway, right? Why else would a police man target them? Their ignorance may be bliss for them, but it is hell for those on the receiving end.

We cannot allow people to continue in their outdated, harmful, ignorant ways. It would be lovely if, by not talking about these issues, we could erase them. If by not pointing out that Morgan Freeman is one of only a handful of award-winning, black leading men (and even fewer leading ladies) we could just even the playing field in Hollywood, I would recommend we just shut up. But not pointing out the issue, not speaking up, has gotten us even further into the mire of discriminatory practices. We must point out all the ways girls and women are disadvantaged from infancy so that people will begin giving them not an advantage, but an equal footing. We must point out that people of color are hindered at many points in their lives so that we can begin to remove those hindrances-not so that people of color have more opportunities, but the same ones as the "white majority."

Please, please, until things are much, much better (and maybe not even then), don't ever stop talking about it.

Revisiting Fear

The #notallmen hashtag craze reminded me strongly of a line of thinking I explored years ago. I felt it warranted a partial repost. The original post can be found HERE.

I walk around a local park at lunch most workdays. I'm trying to fit some fitness into a crazy, hectic schedule and this is an opportune time. It's in a well populated area (a church with a daycare directly across the street and a few social service buildings nearby as well) and there are always plenty of people around. I don't actually feel threatened or logically think something will happen to me while walking around this public place. However, there are times when I pass a lone man or a group of people and I feel fear. As a woman, I have felt it many times in my life. I know that even the bravest, most confident woman knows what I'm talking about. There is a vulnerability unique to our gender of which we must remain hyper-aware. It often protects us and is often based on instinct. But I don't think men have the same innate fear.

A week or two ago, I was at home alone with my two children. My toddler was down for his nap and my daughter was watching a video while I cleaned. We are in a house that's new to us but in a wonderful neighborhood. While I was occupied, the doorbell rang. My daughter (eight and a half) ran to the door and came back to me saying, "It's some men I don't know." I answered the door to find 3 young men. They asked if we needed our yard mowed. My husband does our yard work so I politely turned them down, making sure to mention that my husband takes care of that. When I went back to my daughter and told her who they were, she told me they had looked scary to her. I realized that I had felt a moment of fear also and that I had made a point of letting them know I am protected by a man. This event made me sad. It made me sad that my eight year old daughter already knows this fear. It made me sad that even in a nice neighborhood and a safe house, I had feared these males younger than I. It made me sad that I felt I needed to hide behind the protection of a male. I realize my daughter is safer for being aware of not talking to strangers and for recognizing her own instinctual reactions to potential threats. I realize I'm safer for it as well. But it frustrates me a great deal to realize that in this, I am indeed the "weaker sex"! I don't want to raise my daughter in fear but it seems to be a necessity. I work on my own fear daily and try to find the balance between heeding it and maintaining my own confidence.

It is a challenge to be a woman in today's society. But it is a challenge I face with excitement and determination. I will succeed in spite of (or maybe because of) my gender. I will raise an empowered young woman and a young man and woman who do not step on the hand of anyone but are respectful of all regardless of age, gender, race, religion or ability!

My job is different now and we're settled in to the house mentioned. But the fear and the concern for other women feeling the fear are just as real years later.

Ten Years

Ten years. A lot can happen in ten years. It’s a measurement of time that has been coming up for me a lot lately. There’s the ubiquitous “where do you see yourself in ten years?” question. There’s the student who recently told me I’m an “old woman” because I’m ten years older than she is. And there is the ten year anniversary of a local organization called Panhandle Twenty/20.

Ten years ago, I was 23. I was recently divorced, working two jobs (a waitress and a receptionist) and was living all by myself for the first time in my life. My biological dad had died 6 months prior. It was a rough time. I had an Associate’s degree in English; I had worked as a waitress, a substitute teacher and a secretary. Had I continued on that path, I would not likely make much money ever or be very fulfilled in my work. I probably would have been fine, but I think today I’m much more than fine.

In the past ten years, I have gotten married, become a mother, and obtained a Bachelor degree. In another eight months, I’ll have a Master’s degree and I’m contemplating a PhD. I no longer work two jobs (an argument could be made that I work at least three jobs under the guise of one, but I digress). 

A lot has changed in ten years.

I attended a working lunch meeting today for PanhandleTwenty/20’s tenth anniversary. Ten years ago, a group of community leaders had Dr. Steve Murdock speak to them and decided they had to do something to address poverty in the Panhandle. They decided education was the “something” they must do. Ten years ago, I was working two jobs and barely paying rent. I was in poverty. It was situational poverty, but poverty nonetheless. I marveled that I was sitting in that room full of community leaders today discussing what our next step for the community should be. 

I realized for the first time that I am one of the people who got out of poverty because of education. My story is a bit complicated. My husband has a job that doesn’t require formal education and he supported me through deciding to get an education and actually getting it. But I am at home in that room full of community leaders because of education. 

I will never have to work two jobs again. I will never have to bargain with my landlady again about paying the rent or getting kicked out. 

I have been putting a wall between myself and the people in poverty that we are seeking to help. Not because I don’t care about them. I was raised in a middle class family that highly values education and many of them have grown up in poverty with no emphasis placed on education. When a local speaker talks about the eviction notices these people receive, I think, “I will never be at that level of poverty.” Today I remembered that brightly colored piece of paper on my apartment door ten years ago. I was able to scrape together enough tip money to pay the landlady. I had a support system and my parents paid my car payment a few months (I later paid them back). If my parents hadn’t been there, I don’t know where I would have lived. 

The only difference between me and “them” is that I was lucky enough to be born in a home where my parents had opportunities and could give the same to me.

A lot can happen in ten years. To go from an eviction notice to a room full of community leaders is quite a trip. Now, where do I see myself in ten years? Only time will tell!

Happy 10^th birthday to Panhandle Twenty/20! This is an incredible organization and I encourage everyone in the Panhandle to see how you can get involved with them or their mission.

Courage

Last night, I took my kids to the park. It was a lovely evening and we headed out about 45 minutes before sundown. As we walked and talked, my kids and I all learned some good lessons...or at least I did. 

I sat down on a bench while my wild 4 year old son ran...just for the sake of running! My 11 year old daughter climbed the rock wall (which she later declared too dangerous as she perched atop it) and told me that she is very scared about going to middle school. I asked her why. She told me about how her elementary school is all she's ever known and how she'll go from being top dog to being the youngest. I remember her fears as my own at that age.

I also recognized her fear as my own at that moment. 

I told her how I'm scared, too. How I will be receiving my Master's degree in less than a year and will have to leave my wonderful job and my wonderful boss and maybe even my wonderful employer (though I wouldn't mind staying in a different capacity). I am very comfortable where I am now, just like my daughter was comfortable with her elementary school. It's scary to graduate to the next level. I know from this side that her middle school will bring her all kinds of new and exciting opportunities and she will love it, too! 

I don't know if my next step will bring me the same, but I sure hope so.

As my daughter and I were talking, my son began hollering from across the playground. We looked up and saw him dangling from the (short) monkey bars. We both ran over to help. I tried to get him to climb up and drop to the ground to show him it was a short fall so not much to fear, but even after falling once, he was scared. He was so scared of falling that he wouldn't even try. 

I told him, just as I told my daughter, sometimes courage means doing something even though you're scared terrified.

I'm at a crossroads, facing down the next step in my life. It may not come for another 10 months, but it's coming. I'm so scared to leave my comfort zone and so scared of failing. But I will look in the mirror and tell myself that sometimes courage means doing it anyway. 

These kids teach me something everyday.

What You Should Know About Public Servants-OR-What I Want You to Realize About Benghazi

Politics is everywhere these days. I mean, Facebook, the news, the watercooler, Twitter, comedy, blogs...everywhere. And many people I know swear that they would rather just avoid politics because it just creates friction. Now I'm as anti-conflict as they come pretty much. You can ask my family; I really try to avoid conflict to the point that I really should start standing up and creating it more. But politics? Bring it on. See, for me, this is not just something to be avoided or not. It is a big deal to me. I am almost halfway through my Master in Public Administration (side note brag: the program in which I'm enrolled is now ranked SIXTH in the nation!). Public policy, politics, public management issues are all a daily part of my thinking. That being said, I want to let you in on some information you should know to really consider the whole Beghazi thing.

The Master's program in which I'm enrolled is an online program. We are required to show up in person twice during the two year program. The first residency weekend was at the beginning of the Fall semester last year (coincidentally, the Benghazi attack happened during this same weekend). I met the most amazing people who are also enrolled in this program. We all introduced ourselves the first day and told why we were pursuing this degree. Every. single. one. of these students (about 80, I think) basically wants to change the world (or their industry, or the government, or one challenge) for the better. These are amazing, giving people. We will not likely get rich. You can make a lot more money in the private sector than the public sector. We will not likely be famous. We are not in this for those reasons. These students are in it because they see how things can be better and they want to be part of that.

Two of my new-found friends in the program had a conversation which I didn't know about till later. They discussed the possibility of public service such as working at an embassy or for the State Department as part of their futures (or that of our classmates). They discussed that this career path is not without risk. We get it: we could get hurt. But the funny thing about people who are devoting their lives and careers to serving their country and their fellow citizens: they are willing to accept risks. THAT is what you need to know about US Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and the 3 others killed in the infamous Benghazi attack. They knew the risks and went anyway.

Does this mean it's ok to turn our backs on ambassadors and other public servants? Absolutely not. But it needs to be recognized that these individuals are not unlike our armed services in that they serve despite the risks. They should be honored (whether killed or not), but it seems that the current outrage discounts the accepted risks. It also dishonors the public servants to turn the incident into a political issue. If there is a legitimate reason to pursue the investigation of this incident further, I'm unaware of it. It is beating a dead horse at this point. What do we hope to accomplish? I think if everyone could back up and think about what really best honors these individuals, we all might realize it is not turning their deaths into political ammunition.

When I tell people that I eventually would like to enter politics and run for office, I almost invariably get responses of shock and usually jokes. Most people want to know why I would choose to enter that despicable field. As long as we continue to view the entire realm of public service (both political and and the less political appointed positions) as dirty and undesirable, we will have a shortage of willing entrants who will honorably serve. And treating those who are willing to serve their country in this manner only exacerbates the problem.

I just thought you should know.

The Truth About Being Fat

You hear on TV and movies a character say, "I got a wake-up call from my doctor about my weight." I never imagined mine would sound like this.

Do you have an exercise plan? Yes, I ran my first 5k last fall. Then you need to watch your diet more. You are a pretty girl now that your acne is clearing up.

I nearly cried when the doctor left the room. Did she think I hadn't noticed I weigh quite a bit more than when I was in high school or when I met my husband? Did she think I hadn't noticed my once pristine skin is now bumpy with acne scars and current pimples? Did she think I don't look in the mirror and ache seeing the woman stare back at me?

This was not a warning that my blood pressure is too high (it's not) or that my heart is not doing well (I have no symptoms of heart trouble) or that I'm at risk for Type II Diabetes (I haven't been tested for this but have no symptoms). I run jog around 5 to 15 miles per week. I can lift at least 53 pounds (my son's weight). I know many skinny people who are not physically capable of running  jogging that far or lifting that much.

I wallowed in my self-loathing in that exam room. And then I got mad. This was not about my health. This was about appearances. What may have even made it more appalling was that it came from a woman. She was perpetuating body issues women have been forcing on ourselves and each other for generations.

I know what people think when they look at me. I know that the assumption is that I am this weight because I am not committed enough or diligent enough or capable of working hard enough to get skinny. The assumption is that I got this way from overindulging myself and not knowing how to say "no" to another helping of cake/pie/pizza.

I am committed and diligent enough to complete a college degree while working full time and raising a small child. I am capable of working hard enough to maintain a 4.0 in graduate school while raising said child and still working full time.

I got this way mostly from eating out of grief. When my heart was ripped out when my two babies died in my womb before I had a chance to know them....I ate. When I got pregnant and then miscarried, then prayed and hoped for almost a year before getting pregnant again and miscarrying again and then waited another 11 months before finally getting pregnant again and staying that way the normal time period....I ate. I ate once every hour for 9 months so I wouldn't throw up and get dehydrated. I lost all the weight gained while pregnant shortly after my son was born (through the miracle of breastfeeding), but the grief weight has lingered. I carry my lost babies in my heart and mind daily still. And I carry the reminder in my body...but you don't know that when you look at me. You only know me as part of the obesity epidemic.

I know that "food deserts" and the "obesity epidemic" and "childhood obesity" are all very real problems in our culture. I know that we deep fry everything and fill it all with high fructose corn syrup. I know that our eating habits are deplorable. My eating habits are not what they should be but we do avoid processed foods more than what I suspect the average household does. I am very aware of my food and was a vegetarian for 2 years.

I decided to write this post because I know I'm not alone. I know there are so many other fat women...and men...out there who hurt because of what people assume when they look at them. Maybe a lot of them really are just lazy and unmotivated and overindulgent with sweet and fatty foods. But there is so often a bigger story. And there is so often a hurting heart under those layers of fat. I guess I just want us to make one more effort to show kindness to our fellow humans. If only we could all look at each other and just know that this person has struggles just like us and hurts just like us. If only we could forget about what society tells us we need to be pretty and realize that beauty and health come in different packages.

I am still trying to lose weight. I increase the time and distance I run jog on a weekly basis. I am restricting my sweet and fat intake even more (at least until I lose some weight). If I still don't lose weight, I will seek (another) doctor's advice to make sure there is not an underlying health issue. And I will try to learn to love myself at any size while trying to make my body healthier.

Because for me, the wake up call is to lose the weight and lose the stereotype.