This post is the 27th in a series.
I did quite a bit of journaling through the time when I was coming to recognize my reality. I would like to share some of these entries with you as a window into what it means to come out. Please come back to read through the rest of the journey. If you haven’t read the first, you can click here to be redirected to that post, called Truth. From there, at the bottom of each post you can navigate to the next.
August 18, 2020
0930hrs
I’ve just received a work email sent to two of us, addressed as “Hello ladies!” And now I’m in tears. Not because being addressed as a lady is so painful (it is painful – I hate it – but not painful enough for tears, at least not today), but because now I have a decision to make. I’ve written a reply: “Just a gentle reminder that I’m not a lady.” I can’t send it. I can’t not send it.
My whole life has been about peacemaking, appeasing, placating. My modus operandi is absorbing the emotional hit and not demanding or even asking someone else to take some of it back. I’m total shit at standing up for myself. I’m also shit at standing up for others when it involves confrontation. Teaching, guiding, enlightening, conversation I can do. As soon as it smacks of (my oversensitive sense of) confrontation, my heart starts to pound and I’m anxious. I know I’m worth it. I know others are worth it. But I have an incredibly deep-seated aversion to conflict.
So I sit here, crying, looking at one sentence that at once seems reasonable and straightforward and also looking like the very gates of hell. I want to add qualifiers: “I know it’s a challenge,” “it’s okay to make mistakes,” “I understand.” But those all give a way out and I can foresee a future of continued slip-ups. I don’t want to keep absorbing the hurt and putting in all the emotional labour. Barry suggests that if I put the qualifier first (“I know it’s a new thing to remember but just a gentle reminder…”) it makes it sound less apologetic. The thing is, as much as I hate confrontation, I kind of want it to sting a little. The problem is that when I screw up enough courage to be forceful and then the other person lets me know they’re offended or hurt, then I feel even worse. I want to sugarcoat everything so no one gives me (has reason to give me) backlash. But am I really worth it? Are the people who come after me worth it? Yes, we are!
Part of this comes, I think, from my own need to be correct. Being corrected shakes me. So I think everyone is the same way and will react as I do. But I need to remember that not everyone is like me. Not everyone is hypersensitive about even appearing to have made a mistake – even when mistakes are allowed. Some people actually appreciate being corrected because they don’t want to go on making the same mistake, possibly continuing to cause offense. In the right frame of mind, I can be there, I’m learning to be there more often. I think I’m just less likely to remember that about myself and others when I’m in a heightened emotional state. Gotta go to a meeting.
1103hrs
Sent the email without the qualifiers or apologies. She responded right away apologizing and committing to not repeat it in future.
August 19, 2020
0024hrs
I couldn’t sleep and thoughts were swirling around in my head, so I wrote them down. They took the form of a poem.
“Hey Ladies!
it began.
All wide-eyed and innocent
it skipped into my inbox.
Unaware and unprepared,
I clicked Open.
Innocuous enough
to the outside observer,
it carried a painful poison.
I’m not a lady.
Despite the two lumps on my front
I lack the necessary parts
that count:
the “I am a woman” inside.
Now the me without “she”
staggers under the load.
Do I leave it alone?
Do I chance to say No?
Both seem impossible,
one cutting me
the other cutting them.
What will you say?
What will you do?
Whose remains on the ground?
How can I know?
Say Sorry?
Or stand proud?
A little pain today
for them?
Or repeated pain tomorrow
for me?
I don’t want to decide!
Take back your ladies!
Take back the soft innocent lamb
obscuring the wolf.
I’m spent with the effort
of weighing my future
for the price of a word.
“Just a gentle reminder,”
my fingers type out,
“I’m not a lady.”
And Send.
Photo by Paweł Czerwiński on Unsplash
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