5/27/18
Sometimes I remember that night.
Rain pouring down around us,
Your kisses hot and wet,
The taste of salt on your lips.
The hood of your brother’s car was
The perfect brace in a pinch.
God, if only you’d understood
How much I loved you then.
If only I’d known it wouldn’t matter.
-Sarah Clinton
Ask a woman, especially a woman of color, how she felt watching the video of Maxine Waters “reclaiming her time” as U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin tried to dodge her questions with some BS, irrelevant flattery and you’re likely to get responses that include pride and empowerment.
Sometimes, strong people overlook how much they have overcome. We forget to praise our own resilience, to cherish the perseverance that bears witness to a lifetime of trial by fire. That, this week, is what I am remembering to love about myself.
I often fail to notice when I am tired or overwhelmed because for so much of my life, I haven’t had the luxury of doing so. That’s something I learned from my parents. I do have that luxury now, however, and self-care (beginning with self-awareness) is starting to emerge as a theme I should carefully integrate into my week.
When I turned 27, one of my challenges to myself was to begin acting on Maya Angelou’s wisdom that, “When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.” Key word here being “first.” If you know me well, you know that despite everything, I believe in people. I believe in their goodness, their capacity to change for the better, their ability to achieve anything they put their mind to. Try as I might (and trust me, I have TRIED), I can’t help that—it’s just how I’m wired. That quality is part of what makes me a good coach, a good teammate, a good partner and coworker…but it also means that I don’t walk away from unhealthy relationships, toxic work environments, or generally persnickety felines when I really should.
12/20/17
It’s okay to drink
If wine is all that’s keeping you
From falling to your knees
At the feet of a man
Who is unworthy
Of kissing the ground you walk upon.
-Sarah Clinton
Tonight, I settle into bed with a cup of chamomile tea, a curious and loving furball of a cat, and (nearly) a full night’s sleep ahead of me before I get up to coach in the morning.
I find myself thankful for my independence, my health, the opportunities that lie ahead of me (including a lucrative contract position I’m taking on next week!), and the fact that I had the luxury today of curling up with a good Harry Potter book and forgetting the “real” (read: Muggle) world while I read.
Part of the reason I was so broken when it was apparent that D. is not who I had believed was the realization that after all this time, I still had not learned to stop giving men the benefit of the doubt, to stop trusting their words even when their actions suddenly tell a very different story.
But maybe now, that lesson is finally hitting home.
If there is anything I think I finally, finally need to thoroughly learn this year, it is to stop trusting men I care about more than I trust my own intuition. “Always trust your gut” is an adage I’ve heard probably from the time I could walk, but it’s a lot easier said than done when going with your gut means acknowledging that someone you love, admire, esteem, etc., is lying to you or simply isn’t who you thought they were.
It was a Makarov IJ-70. Soviet-era, heavy. She’d chosen it for the five-point star on the handle— which reminded her of her home state—and the image it evoked of a war-hardened military commander who, surely, would have fewer second thoughts than was she. She didn’t much want to admit it, but she’d also chosen it for the 16-pound trigger pull. Her brother had told her she could carry it safety-off with no trouble; she just wished she didn’t have to carry it.
When you’re hurting, I think it can be easy at times to allow your world to fade into gray. And that’s okay: sometimes, you have to do whatever it takes to get through whatever trial you’re facing.
Typically, I haven’t had the “luxury” of taking the time to process whatever grief or anger a situation has caused. This time, I made sure to go through that process. I’ll be honest, it was hard as hell and it pulled me way out of my comfort zone, but it was probably a lot healthier to allow myself to heal and gain wisdom from the experience.
