Lies We Tell Ourselves - Rites of Passage (11/15/2008)

(Note: Names have been changed to protect the mean—err, innocent. No . . . mean.)

As a young girl I had the great misfortune of being an early bloomer. In movies and books it is always some special and magical thing to get your first training bra or start your period. A girl suddenly becomes the envy of all her friends and boys look at her differently. But it’s really not so glamorous.

When I was in fourth grade I was going through what you might call a "chubby" phase. Some of this extra bulk found its way to my chest. One day I noticed my mom looking at me critically, her gaze falling in the pectoral area on my body.

“We need to get you a training bra,” she said, and she grabbed her purse.

After the mild embarrassment of being measured by some stranger with cold hands, I came home with a few plain white cotton bras (though they were only bras in the academic sense). The next day I wore one to school—the first day of a lifetime of mammary restriction.

At one point during that day I heard a boy whisper to another “she has a bra on”—or something to that effect. I definitely heard the word “bra” in there. But rather than being thrilled and practically fainting from the male attention, as I apparently should have, I felt exposed and embarrassed. I realized that my shirt must be partially see-through, the avoidance of which would become the central preoccupation of my subsequent shirt-buying patterns.

My standard coping method for embarrassing situations at that time in my life was to pretend I didn’t hear someone so that I didn’t have to think up a witty response. It lessened the chance that others would remember the incident. If I could just pretend nothing happened, I didn’t have to deal with it.

Still, I am quite sure that by the end of the day everyone in class knew that I was wearing a bra, and I am near positive I was the first girl in my class who wore one. But none of my friends congratulated me on the way out to the bus. None of them whined about how they wished they could wear a bra. In fact, I got the distinct feeling that they felt bad for me. So much for the movies.

Ironically, the same year I started wearing a bra I was mistaken for a boy. Perhaps in overcompensation for the thin shirt phobia, I started wearing more sweaters. I must have thought that their bulky knits and colorful patterns would throw the eye off the trail of my lurking undergarments. I also decided that year to get my hair cut short. I was the only girl in my class who ever had short hair from fourth grade until eleventh grade when I acquired a copycat. I think my classmates thought of my hair as strange, but I just liked it short. It looked good on me.

However a certain substitute teacher thought it looked like a boy’s haircut. Combined with the apparently unisex sweater that hid my blossoming womanhood, the haircut registered me as “boy” with her. When I raised my hand to answer a question I was acknowledged by the sub as “the young man in the back.”

There is no way that my classmates didn’t hear it. There’s no way that it didn’t occur to them that the teacher was actually talking to me, a young lady in the back. But, in my normal fashion, I squelched my humiliation, answered the question, and then hoped to God that somehow this would slip everyone’s mind and it wouldn’t follow me all of my days. And it didn’t. No one made fun of me. Even that substitute teacher didn’t remember. When I saw her again years later she remembered who I was, but she didn’t recall mistaking me for a boy.

But these fourth grade incidents were just the prelude to the mortification that awaited me in fifth grade when--you guessed it--I started my period. Movies and books are full of vicious lies when it comes to these female rites of passage. I don’t care if you belong to a culture that praises womanhood and throws you a big party when you start menstruating, no one wants others to know that she is bleeding from a major orifice in her body. No one.

In fifth grade I started synchronized swimming. My instructor was also my Girl Scout troop leader and the mother of one of my best friends. Never has there been a kinder, more generous woman. So, when I started my period the day of my very first synchronized swimming recital, I was relieved that my mom told my instructor about my little predicament and that she was there to reassure me. Remember, I’m in a swimsuit here. I got through the recital just fine. It was what happened afterward that was the problem.

I would later find out that my instructor’s daughter, still a good friend today, had overheard my mom telling her mom about my “condition.” She then told two of my other friends and asked their advice about whether or not they should tell Crissy, who was sort of like a fifth grade female mafia boss. She was a round, ruthless, and pushy girl who reveled in controlling her “friends” and making their lives miserable while at the same time making them afraid to just tell her off. She was not terribly attractive, unlike most of the popular girls, and her house smelled faintly of cat. It’s not that girls wanted to be her friend; it’s that they were afraid not to.

I think you know where this is going. Crissy did find out and she did make my life hell. When I walked up to a group of kids on the playground she would loudly proclaim that there was a WOMAN there now. When I wore an Ohio State sweatshirt she asked me knowingly why I was wearing RED. She made sure that, in everything she said to me or around me, at least one word was in all caps and italicized.

My old tactic of keeping silent didn’t work around her because she kept bringing it up all the time. So, for the next four months of school my old friends avoided me in order to avoid spillover insults from Crissy. There was some respite during the summer when softball started up (a slug like Crissy wasn’t going to be huffing and puffing around any bases) and I thought that when sixth grade started things would be different. A new school with lots of new kids from the other elementary schools in the area. Surely Crissy would be over it by now.

But she wasn’t. And after I endured a month or two of the same sort of treatment, my friend Justin asked me why I hung out with her. He reminded me of all the people I had hung out with on my softball team that summer, suggesting I stop hanging out with Crissy and start hanging out with them.

Well, yeah. That seemed like a good idea.

This was a turning point in my youth. I had become overly conscious about how others perceived me, so much so that I subjected myself to daily ridicule by continuing to hang around a girl who obviously had it in for me. I wonder how I might have turned out if Justin had not given me the courage to stand up for myself. I could have ended up quite weak instead of the person I am today, confident and relatively secure in my own skin. Granted, there are many other things in my life that reinforced this new outlook, but it all started when a friend, a guy, told me I didn’t have to be a victim.

I never got Crissy in front of a crowd of our peers and dressed her down for the way she treated me. I never embarrassed her in the ways she embarrassed me. I never made her feel as bad about herself as I could have (I spent much of high school honing my skills in the fine art of scathing sarcasm). There have been times that I have regretted this wasted opportunity. But not now. Now I am happy that I didn’t sink to her level or give her the satisfaction of all that attention. Over the years in school, Crissy faded. She was always just as belligerent and mean-spirited, but people didn’t pay much attention to her anymore. And I have to think that is a worse fate for someone who likes to be in control than if she had gotten reamed out in public. It’s hard to dominate people who just don’t know you’re there.

In a bizarre postlude to our relationship, Crissy invited me to be her friend on on a social network. I had to stop and think before I chose to click "accept" or "reject." How fitting. I think I made the right choice.

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The Unexpected Blessing of False Starts (9/10/2008)

You know how when you were a kid you came up with these phenomenal ideas that would undoubtedly change the very course of your life—if you could just stick with them? Like remember when you suddenly decided to make everyone call you by your middle name? For at least a day, maybe two, you refused to answer to your first name in hopes that you could effectively change your name and your destiny. But when it didn’t work right away, you lost interest and forgot about it. Or the time when you realized how cool it would be to be ambidextrous, so you practiced writing with your non-dominant hand and ended up with spaghetti all over yourself. Yeah, that lasted all of twenty minutes.

I have found that this desire to write our own destinies, to force ourselves into an ill-fitted mold, doesn’t necessarily go away as we grow older. We can be perfectly content one day and frantic for change the next. In my case, I’m a chronic reorganizer and redecorator. I’m always looking for a better way to arrange the kitchen cupboards or a better configuration for the furniture. I move things around, put new pictures in the frames, recover chairs, and look for that one special item that will pull the look together. It drives my change-phobic husband batty. But this constant feeling that I need to improve upon and perfect things has led to a very important turning point in my life—one of those destiny things.

A couple years ago, I decided to go back to school. Hoping to be able teach writing at the local community college, I enrolled in a program in literacy and pedagogy at Michigan State University. But after one and a half semesters I realized that this was not the right path. I had had just three classes (not even three really, since I was only a few weeks into my second semester) when I decided that I would drop out.

Not normally one to drop out of anything, this was a big step for me. Not only had I put money, time, and effort into this program, I had told a lot of people I was doing it. I had gotten it into my head that another degree would get me a higher paying job and that it would bring me prestige and that I should not be content with where God had put me. It wasn’t that I was unfulfilled in my life—after all, I have a great job, a beautiful home, a loving husband, a new baby, and satisfying hobbies and volunteer work. It was that I felt that I shouldn’t feel fulfilled. I had contracted a bad case of a common American malady: ladderclimberitis. Despite the fact that I had everything I needed, I thought I should always be striving for more—more money, more stature, more stuff, more letters after my name.

But after a lot of prayer, soul searching, and discussion with the important people in my life, I realized that I didn’t really want to get another degree at this point in time. It was, in the end, not that difficult of a decision. I realized that teaching in college was an old dream of mine, and that I didn’t necessarily want that anymore. During the time I was in school I found that all I could think about was what I wished I had time for—gardening, finishing the mural I had started at church, visiting with family and friends, and working on my creative writing. I had time for all of these things before I went back to school. I just hadn’t realized that these were things that made my life fulfilling.

I was left to wonder why I wasted eight months of my life working on a degree I wouldn’t get. But I soon realized that that time was not wasted at all. If I hadn’t found myself on the wrong road I might never have realized that I had been on the right road before turning off. My restless, discontented spirit would never have recognized that the road I was on was the one God had laid out for me.

I have found a new appreciation for the false starts in my life. Each of us experiences these times when we think we see so clearly the path God wants us to tread, whether it be in relationships, career choices, or even where to live, and it turns out differently than we expect. One of the reasons I was sure that I was supposed to go back to school was that we happened to move to a city right by a prestigious university that had a program that seemed ideal for me, and there was a community college right down the road where I could teach. Surely, I thought, God must have been orchestrating that. And when I started having doubts I was in turmoil. How could I know what I was really supposed to be doing? I felt so aimless and lost.

It’s easy to beat ourselves up over these seemingly bad decisions and wonder how we could have been so dense. But maybe, just maybe, God wanted us to spend some time on the wrong road in order that we might appreciate the right path once we get back on it. Perhaps those times when we get it in our heads to change everything, to become ambidextrous or change our names, are God’s way of helping us to be happy with who and where we are.

With my newfound sense of purpose and contentment, I’m looking forward to the days, months, and years ahead, when I can be sure I’m going the right way for the right reason. But if later in life I find myself on a side track again, I think the way back to the main road will be easier to find and easier to take.

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The Literary Mystique (12/3/2008)

There was a very funny scene in an old Seinfeld episode (I guess they're all old now) wherein George was upset that he had left his books in the apartment of a woman he was no longer seeing and he wanted them back. Jerry asks, "What is it with people and books? . . . Why do you need it after you read it?"

What is it about books that we cherish so? Even books that we don't have any intention of reading again—or that we say we will read again but know deep down we will never get to—fill shelves in our homes. We move them from place to place; we box them up to lug them across the state or the country when we move, we move them from room to room when we need to make room for a piece of furniture. We rearrange them. We shelve them by subject, author, title. In one of my more brilliant moments (I think) I shelved all my novels from college in chronological order of when they were written, with each continent (where the writer was from) on a different shelf. That felt so right, so satisfying. (Side note, I claimed all the expatriates as American despite the fact that they lived and wrote in Europe. And I claimed T. S. Eliot, too.)

When my husband and I moved from Grand Rapids to Lansing we had 40-50 boxes of books to move. Some were for his office, some were from college, some were for fun, some we'd had since we were children. Before we moved we got rid of a few things, but no books were left behind. When the movers estimated the price of the move they apparently didn't understand that books are very heavy en masse because, though told that the imposing wall of boxes was all books, the estimator grossly misjudged the weight. And though each trip to Lansing before the move we loaded the car up with books until it sat mere inches from the highway speeding away underneath, we were still over the weight limit for the truck when we moved. They had to get an additional truck and throw a few things in it to be "legal" on the road (which of course took a couple hours) and we ended up moving in around 10pm at night.

Why go through so much trouble and expense for books? Why do we love them so?

When I was pregnant two of my baby showers featured books. At one people brought and signed board books rather than cards and the other was simply a book shower—all the gifts were books. I was so excited to get so many books for my little guy. And I still can't stop buying them. Just Monday night I bought another picture book that is much too old for him, but I couldn't help myself. I want our son to love books as much as his parents.

Because I love books I want to share them with others. Just like when I see a movie I know someone will love, when I read a book that is perfect for a friend, I loan it out. And I do expect to get these loaners back—especially since with non-fiction books I'm a highlighter and note-taker. Three of my books are currently MIA: Birth: The Surprising History of How We Are Born (which I loaned to my mother-in-law and which I think is now being held hostage by one of her coworkers), Confederates in the Attic (which I saw on the shelf at my in-laws' house at Thanksgiving, bookmarked about 1/3 of the way through), and If You Want to Write (which I loaned to a member of my writing group only to find out later that she is terrible at returning things and I may never see it again). [2011 Update: I rebought the birth book, got Confederates in the Attic back, and still haven't seen the writing book.]

But the art of retrieving your books is complicated. Like George indicated, I can't just go up to someone and demand my books back and I can't break into someone's house and just pull my book off their shelf or out of some stack of papers and junk mail it's been lost in. I did take a book back from my parents' house once and they have never asked me where it went so I'm sure they didn't remember they even had it.

But I don't want to ask for a book back before the loanee has had a chance to read it because I want them to read it—that's why I loaned it out in the first place. Plus, if I was the loan initiator and the book hasn't been read yet, I can't expect the loanee to be immediately as excited about the book. It may take them time to get around to reading it—after all, they didn't even ask for it. And in at least one case, I also have a book on my shelf from one of these people that I haven't gotten to yet. So everyone should get a little bit of grace.

Regardless of the situation though, I do eventually want my books back. Why? In the cases mentioned above, I really do intend to read them again. But even if I didn't, I know I'd still want them back. Books are a part of my identity (and if you're still reading this blog right now, I suspect they are part of yours as well). Books on the shelf in someone's home (like CDs in their car and DVDs in their entertainment center) help you get to know them better. What sorts of books do they like to read? What have they read? What common ground do we have? Do they like this author as much as I do? Will they get it if I refer to this character or recite this line? How do they treat their books? All of these things can help us know one another more.

In our increasingly digital age, where iPod playlists are hidden and the websites someone visits are not in plain sight I think we may be missing out on some interesting ways to get to know one another. We rarely visit one another at someone's home, instead meeting at coffee shops because our houses are messy or we just don't want to take the time to get "stuck" at someone's house. How much better could we know one another if we could see the physical evidence of what interests us?

Books are part of me and my family. Though when I was growing up my love of books was an anomaly (dad read the paper, mom read price tags, and my sister read teen magazines--though now they are all readers in the more traditional sense). Somehow I ended up a little library nerd from the very beginning, and I'm glad I did. I have been more places, lived in more times, loved and lost more people (and pets!), found more murderers, discovered more treasure, and mused about more things as a character in a book than I could in ten lifetimes.

So what is it about books? Why do we need them after we read them? Because they are part of our personal history. They are like photo albums. If I take and keep pictures of significant vacations or trips or events, of course I am going to keep the record of my adventure as a rabbit in the English countryside (Watership Down) or my family's travels across the harsh American frontier (the Little House series) or that summer I spent in Spain (The Sun Also Rises). It's all part of my inner life, my personal history.

So tell me (please!) what books you will never part with. Comment (no need to sign up for anything) and share your favorite stories with me!

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Ego Boost

When I went to college I already had an engagement ring on my finger. Zachary proposed the summer after my senior year of high school (at about 2am, on the beach, under the stars, at the summer camp where I worked, where I was later baptized, and where our son later took his first steps—a very special place to us). He was essentially marking his territory before I went off to a fairly large university full of single guys. In the immortal words of my pastor, "At least he didn't pee on her."

It worked. Having an engagement ring in college means that for the most part no one hits on you and almost no one gives you a second glance. You're already taken and there are plenty of other coeds in the sea. (Interestingly, we found that after we were married and he had a ring on his finger, women hit on him more. Catty and conniving little tramps.) Because you get significantly less attention from the other sex, the young engaged woman can feel pretty unattractive and uninteresting at times. So that when you do occasionally turn a head, it makes you feel really good.

This happened once in a while to me during the winter on campus when gloves hid my engagement ring. But it has happened very little since college. In fact, I can't remember it ever happening, so if it did it must have gone unnoticed by me. After all, I rarely make eye contact with men I don't know. Then this morning, thanks to the reflective qualities of the glass doors at Meijer, I caught a guy looking at me as I left the store. In a city filled with slim, gorgeous college students who dress in the latest trends, this is something.

Now, I have to say that I always get lingering looks and compliments and flowers and gifts from my husband, so I'm definitely not starved for love and attention. And my mother and father always compliment me when they see me dressed up or have noticed that I lost weight. And thanks to Facebook I get compliments on occasion from friends who live in other cities and states. But to get a compliment or a look from a total stranger helps confirm that the people who love you aren't just looking past your glaring faults and that you really do look nice. It's just a boost to the ego, which most women could use every once in a while.

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Living with the Size of Your Life

On billboards all across the greater Lansing area are pictures of people looking suitably impressed with themselves accompanied by the huge headline "Every Spartan Has a Saga." A Spartan, for those of you who do not live in Michigan, is a person who goes to Michigan State University, which can be found about two miles from my house. I started noticing these billboards a few months ago and my immediate reaction was "I very much doubt that." A story? Maybe. A saga? Probably not.

These billboards are indicative of a pernicious trend in American media and culture that makes us think that a normal life is no life at all, that to be true, complete human beings we must be doing something incredible or admirable at all times. You see this in advertising of all sorts. This message is disseminated in TV shows and movies and on the internet (aside: I'm done capitalizing internet no matter what the Chicago Style Manual and my spellcheck say). You can see it in the rampant overuse and misuse of the word "epic" to describe everything from an epic weekend to an epic fail.

Yes, a lot of that is tongue-in-cheek, at least for adults (I hope). But there is this underlying message in our culture that says every one of us is super-duper epically special. But if we're all that special, then no one is special, right? If every Spartan has a saga, then doesn't every Spartan merely have a story? And likely a fairly boring story at that?

Just saying something is epic doesn't make it so. Just changing your vocabulary to incorporate as much hyperbole as possible doesn't actually make your life any more interesting. But the big question is, why do so many people feel the need to present their lives as far more interesting and amazing than they are?

I have never felt like I could satisfactorily answer the question "So what's new in your life?" or its close cousin "What are you up to?" (This is a favorite of nosey baristas who feel for some reason that they need to make a fakey "personal" connection with every customer. But that's another rant.) What have I been up to? What I'm always up to. I get up, work, eat, work, maybe do some laundry or cleaning, work, play with and feed my son, sew, maybe read a bit or watch a DVD, spend time with my husband, write, and go to bed. Every day. That's my "saga."

This does not bother me. I'm happy with the size of my life (which, truth be told, is probably the size of most people's lives). I don't feel I'm lacking anything. My life may not be epic. But neither is yours.

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