Tag Archives: vulnerability

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Why The Simple Things Aren’t

Movie Poster from Where the Wild things Are

Movie Poster

Where the Wild Things Are is on ABC Family right now. I need to own that movie. I’ve thought so since I saw it in the theaters.

Aside from having an amazing sound track by one of my favorite female singers (Karen O from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs), it is one of the most emotionally powerful, complex, and visually stunning movies I have ever seen. It was billed as a kid’s movie, but it has far more depth than what I ever expected. The movie is about growing up, learning about emotions, and understanding other people.

We are born with emotions, and it seems like they should be so simple to understand what they are and how they work, but it isn’t. Growing up we are bombarded by all of these feelings and reactions that we are simply not born equipped to deal with. We are given emotions but not the innate understanding of what they are and how to deal with them. As if that wasn’t complicated enough, we have to learn that others have emotions too, and we have to learn how to interact with those too.

Here is the thing: no one is the same, and every situation is different. Some of us are taught that emotion is dangerous, and we must hide them, or tightly control them. Sometimes we teach that there are acceptable emotions and unacceptable emotions.  For some reason, people think anger is more acceptable than hurt or scared, so we teach our children to be angry. We teach our kids that vulnerability is bad and should be avoided at all costs. We teach them that real adults armor themselves, and any visible emotional reactions outside of set parameters is wrong and weak.

I’m not saying this is wrong. I still don’t understand to this day how to find that balance between feeling and letting feeling control us. I started my adult life by locking things down tight. I had serious depressive issues and, if I didn’t lock emotions away, they would overwhelm me. I had to be cold to survive.  Even after that, I felt allowing too many emotions in made me vulnerable, and I feared vulnerability more than anything. The older I get, the more I understand my fear of being hurt and being locked down tight hurt me more than anything life had thrown at me. I realized that we survive pain if we allow ourselves to feel it and move through it naturally.

Now, as a grown ass woman, I am trying to navigate this amazing field of emotions, I didn’t figure out a way to deal with when I was younger. It feels like being crazy, but in the best way possible. I still have those old voices, though, telling myself to lock down any emotion and go forth. Those instincts to be a passive observer of my own emotions, to look at them with a clipboard full of notes, instead of feeling them, is still there. I still feel the shame at letting myself feel and not control. I just don’t know.

Which is healthier? Am I happier? I think I am. I feel batshit crazy sometimes, but when I feel happy, it is like when I am swimming under the water. I am hyper aware of every part of me and everything around me. When I am under the water, every sound counts more, I can feel my lungs, and the light through the water makes everything look different. It is a lot of emotion, and I am letting it effect my productivity. Should I lock it down?

I don’t know.

I also don’t know how we teach kids to understand what they are feeling and how to react in a healthy, productive way, without pulling from their emotions. How do you teach a child to see their anger is from being scared, and how to deal with the fear? I’ve known adults who couldn’t see the distinction, and let the anger reign. Can we tell kids that they will never fully understand emotions, but they have to try? I mean, that is the point of it, is trying to understand emotions as they come.  At what point do we stop putting all the emphasis on control and start trying to understand? I’m thirty, and I don’t know when I should control and when I should feel. I’m barely past the protecting myself against all pain part.

I just don’t know. The simple things rarely are simple. I’m not ready to quit trying to understand yet.

 
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Out of Nowhere

Sometimes things come out of nowhere and effect you. My interwebz surfing generally centers around funny stuff. I have a few sites I go to on a regular basis including the Scrw Media sites. This site started as an attempt to be cool enough to contribute to urlybits.com (where I got this video.)  I have been lucky enough to be friends with the founders Paul and Sara O’Flaherty for a year now. Anyway, I was cruising around because they have the best of the funny and the cool when I stopped to watch this video that Paul posted:

I cried like an emo little girl. I watched it three times and cried all three times. I will probably watch it again after I post this and cry again.

Okay, I know that I am apparently a dirty hippie, and I believe in happiness and rainbows and kindness and crap. I used to believe I was a misanthropic misfit that hated all thing pop culture and all of that bullshit. Truth is I have always been a bit of one those crazy people who have always been positive in spite of myself. So, of course this made me cry. I have the strangest set of biases ever.

I have thought all afternoon about why this video effected me so much. I think I have figured out some of it.

My most superficial reaction is: “Who the hell wouldn’t be a bit weird-ed out by someone standing in the middle of the street wanting hugs. That is so Pedobear.” (If you don’t know who pedobear is then you fail at the interwebz. Here, educate yourself.)

I hate this reaction. I hate that I had it.

I have this strange habit of giving total strangers compliments. I will go out of my way to tell someone that I like something they have or have done and I always try to tell parents if their kids are cute or well-behaved, normally in front of the child.  I have embarrassed the hell out of some my friends and family by doing this. Honestly, I don’t care. I believe in telling people good things. I know how a compliment can make a day better or make someone walk taller. I know giving someone a compliment can make them a little happier. So what if I look like an ass?

The thing that stuck with me after the girl got raped in the parking lot of my old work place is that she was obviously in distress for a long time, and I did nothing to help her until she came to us. I felt low, very very low, that I let a child be in pain and did not help until she came to me, and then only after I saw the blood and it became real. It was this societal taboo on interference in strangers lives that kept me from walking over to her and asking her if she was okay. I decided that I was going to ignore that societal idea of non-interference and try to do what was right whenever I could.

Still.

My first thoughts were negative and ugly. I retreated back to that bullshit mindset of total self-involvement and mistrust of anyone willing to be open to the world.

Then that young big guy breaks from his group of friends and goes up and hugs the bear. That was an everyday act of bravery; he did something even though no one else would. (This is where the tears started to pour.)

Enter the video of all of the hugs. It was this simple and beautiful act of hugging someone and meaning it. I cried because all of these people were made so happy by this unexpected connection with another person. These people were doing something that I might not have had the courage to be open to. (For the record, I get why the parents were hesitant to let their kids walk up to a stranger in a teddy bear costume.)

What really hit me, though, is the end. The man took off the mask, and the tag line popped up, and I felt like such a douche cannon. The tagline is true. Honestly, I think most people would have been hesitant to hug anyone not in a costume, and the costume makes it easier it break through that barrier, but I KNOW most people (myself included) would have never hugged a stranger that had a visible disability.

That man brought so much joy to so many people simply by dressing up in a suit and hugging them. Without the suit, no one would have stopped, and they would have missed out on that joy.

It wasn’t just the disability. It is the strange aversion we have to openness because we might get hurt or something bad might happen.

I need to do better. I need to be braver. There is a lot of good that can come from being open and I don’t want to miss it from fear of the bad.

Tomorrow compliment strangers, you will see what I mean.

 

 

 
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Dreams

I had a dream last night that I found a review of my website in a book. It called my blog innovative, honest, funny, and a worthy read. I know there are no books that review blogs but it was a dream, several other things happened in it that weren’t real. In my dream, I was so elated.  I tried to explain to someone last night why blogging is more than pure narcissism and that it actually means something.  I know some people will never understand why this site means to me and why I am so willing to give up so much privacy to the mass world of the interwebz.

I spent so much of my early life trying to hide so much of myself. I was so closed off. I felt like I was too different to be anything of any worth. I was just too much and at the same time distinctly not enough. I always put too much pressure on myself to be something different or better than what I was. (I still do this.) I tried changing myself to fit everyone else and failed miserably. I couldn’t even fake being like other people, so I developed a coping mechanism in which I would find the part of my personality that was the most acceptable in that social situation and only show that side. I was completely myself with very few people because I felt I had to be careful what everyone saw of me. High school was a bitch and sometimes I feel like I actually started in college.

In college, I started to relax this but it took a long time. I faked it a lot at first. I decided before the first day of class I was going to talk to everyone and start over from who I was in high school and become who I wanted to be. Ironically, I met one of my best friends on that first day of college in front of our Art Survey class, we just didn’t know we were going to be best friends until a few years later. By the the last time I left college I think I was pretty good at being me. I still freak out about not doing enough or being good enough but I think that is just a core part of who I am.

I still had the tendency to be very controlling about how I showed myself. I know this part of the grown up world. I know everyone worries about appearance and presentation. I hate it. Sometimes I can manipulate parts of my personality to fit what the situation needs but I really hate it. I hate the feeling that I am going to stumble and my real personality is going to burst through. I am no good at containing what I naturally am, as a matter of fact, it makes me miserable. People tell me that not being careful about what I show or write will make my life more difficult. Trust me I know. I spent many years of my life trying to be more normal, more quiet, less reading and more sports, more make-up and high heels and less flip-flops and stupid skirts. I tried. I can’t do it. This is what  I am and trying to be anything different leads to failure.

This does relate to the the beginning, I promise. Why this blog is so important to me is because it is so very part of me. This is my place to get over those last bits of not good enough or too freaking weird. This is my place to test myself against my fear of vulnerability. This is were I learned that I am strange but I am so a like so many people. This is the one place I get to write straight out.

I have been sluggish on my book. I wrote the first twenty-five pages like I had demons in  my fingers. Lately, I have been using every excuse in the book not to write or when I do write it is forced and uncomfortable.  I think it is because I have been writing with my brain so much lately. I have been writing my blog with my brain and the book is all about the brain. I think I needed to write straight out. I needed to write something that wasn’t so controlled by my brain. I need to write on occasion without thinking about the purpose or the structure or the readability. I think I get like a balloon full of pudding. I get so strained from thinking and trying to produce and be and say and do the right thing that I feel like if I hit a corner too hard I am going to pop.

This place means so much to me and my friends who read this mean more to me because they provide me with a place to be everything I am unrestrained and uncensored. Rarely when I write here do I feel not enough or that I need to be different. Here I feel the most like I am the me that my closest friends see. I think every once in awhile the balloon needs to pop. Sometimes my heart needs to take over so I can get back to reveling in the joy of pure creativity and writing with my brain.

My life is a constant struggle for balance, like everyone one else, but I even have to do that different.

 
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Blog or Death

“Sorry, we are all out of blog.”

“So my choice is ‘or death’?”

Sorry I had to channel and ruin Eddie Izzard there.

So, time to point out something obvious: I have been a damn slacker lately and I missed TWO blog posts in a row. The interwebs gods are writing on their little tablet computers and marking me down as a terrible internet person. How do I ever intend on becoming on of the nerd queens of the internet if I do not write when I say I am going to write?  Bah! I do have reasons…. Kinda.

Saturday I was helping babysit my niece and nephew. We did not leave to go to my sister’s house early in the morning or anything. I just did not wake up early enough to write before we left and we did not get home until late Saturday night/ early Sunday morning. It was a blast. I love those kids. My gentle readers are just going to have to suck it up and deal. The lesson I learned was that if I want to do something like that again I need to plan ahead and write the blog the night before and just set it up to publish that morning.

Tuesday I was very busy not getting a job. I had a second interview for a job I was wanting. I woke up early-ish for me and put on my grown up clothes, grown up make-up, and did my hair in a grown up style. I showed up early with a really cute business serious woman purse. The interview took far less time than it took to get ready for it. The man conducting the interview was incredibly nice but I could tell my interview was a formality. He called me later to tell me that they had decided to offer someone else the job. I was disappointed. I had liked the idea of a job and a paycheck.  I decided to take a nap in my new bed in my newly redone bedroom.  Things always look better after you sleep on them.

Here is what I decided when I woke up: I was disappointed but I was not crushed. The job market sucks right now, especially around here. I am not going to starve or be homeless. I decided to be happy that next week I get to spend some time with Tina. My mom also has made me read awful books that she bought on the cheap for her e-reader. It was torture and it was enlightening. People will buy absolutely anything for 99 cents and you can make a decent amount of money for selling your stuff cheap. I also learned that people are far more willing to buy short stuff on e-readers than they are in actual paper books. I decided I was going to use my unemployed time to do cool things.

With e-readers a person can self publish. I am going to learn how to self publish. I am going to write some crappy romance novellas and sell them cheap (under a pen name of course) just to get started and then, after I get a feel for it, I am going to try and publish my good stuff. I just need to actually do it. For me, follow through is always the sticking point. Also, I have been informed that it is nearly impossible to tell me that I should do something or that something is a good idea. Apparently, one has to lead me to the conclusion so I can see it for myself. I am a pain in the ass, it is part of my charm.

I have major insecurities about my writing. I have things tripping me up in my head.  I know, I know, everyone has these things, and I should be bold and go forth. Well, as fore mentioned, me knowing something and me actually coming to the conclusion to myself are two completely different things. So I am trying to stare the dumb self-defeating shit that resides in my head directly in the face and try to work around it.

I have a chance to be what I wanted to be when I grow up. I have support and people who truly believe in me. I think I have a chance of being good and finding a place. The good thing about being so harsh on myself is that I know some of my faults and I can work to figure out how to handle them before they arise.

I have cancelled all gaming accounts. I am not going to play Rift or World of Warcraft. I downloaded Plants Versus Zombies and that satisfies my computer entertainment needs.

I know certain things about myself. One of those things I know about myself is that if I am only accountable to myself I will not do it. I also know that if I have some I care about to be responsible to I will do what I can not to disappoint them. It is why I have stuck with this blog for so long. I told Tina I would do it. Every time I miss a blog I feel like I am letting her down a bit. This is my 99th post because I told her I would.

If I am going to do this e-publishing/ crappy novella writing thing I know I will only succeed if I have someone to be accountable to. This is where the strange miracles of late come in. So Kathleen. She came back into my life. She is also a writer. She is an amazing writer and is the direct opposite of me creatively. We are going to be responsible to each other. I feel a chance for it to work out well for both of us.

Not doing something because of fear of failure is dumb. I am filled with trepidation writing this because of that nagging voice that tells me that it could be another one of my harebrained ideas that go nowhere and now I have put it out on my blog which means that people will know I had this harebrained idea that went nowhere. I told you my head is full of dumb voices.

I have learned something about myself through blogging about myself since my life blew up: I am bravest when I am the most honest about my vulnerable self and I create things I am the most proud of when I am honest. That is why the Brene Brown video Kathleen showed me meant to much to me.

My biggest fears are failure and missing life because of fear. (And falling from heights, I am the only person I know that has panic attacks standing on chairs changing light bulbs and it is a damn good thing I am tall.) I do not want to look like an idiot and I hate feeling like I am clueless. I also do not want to not do something great in life because I am afraid that I might look like an idiot or because I might be bad at it. I have decided the second fear is far more likely to help me be happy.

Part of the reason why I crashed into the wall was because I stopped being genuine. I lost touch with that truth that I found in vulnerability. I have decided that I am going to go crashing forth in life , like I do, with the grace and delicacy of a bull in a china shop with that heady freedom and power I found in being honest and vulnerable and genuine in some of those early post explosion posts. Part of me shudders at that idea. I am not afraid of vulnerability, I shudder because I have seen some really bad honest and open writing. Some people expose their souls and they do it with bad writing.

Not writing  because you fear writing badly is dumb.

Damnit.

I hate it when I have to accept logic.

Epic ramble done.

 

 

 

 
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