10 Things I Wish Normal People Knew About Me

In conversations with my fellow SGAs we talk a lot about ‘passing’. Passing is a concept familiar to marginalized people – a transgender woman longs for the day she will pass as any other woman would. Closeted gay men try to pass as straight by being uber-macho. Some persons of black decent have passed as white due to their features. Basically, it’s the feat of being seen as normal when people usually perceive you as different.

We, the children raised in the cult-like subculture of conservative evangelicalism or the Christian homeschooling movement, spend a lot time and energy trying to reclaim the birthright of fitting into our generation. Sometimes we pass as normal. The longer we are ‘out’, the more it happens. Finally, we appear to be just like everyone else – a few oddities, perhaps, but who doesn’t have those?

But the thing about passing as that by definition it hides who we really are behind the mask of what we want to be seen as. So for all of you who may have befriended one of us and are occasionally perplexed, her are some things we want you to know.

1. Sometimes when I’m wearing a summer dress, or shorts and a tank, or even a pair of jeans, I feel naked.

2. I have no idea whether you just referenced a song, a movie, or a modern novel. I did get the Bible reference.

3. I’m not more mature or even-keeled than most people – I just know how to put on a good front.

4. I associate criticism with pain and humiliation. It’s hard for me not to take things personally.

5. I honestly have no clue whether you are flirting with me or just being friendly.

6. Ignorance and religious oppression are not quaint or funny to me. They were a very destructive force in my life.

7. I don’t have many friends or family members to call on when I need help. Cults will do that to you.

8. I’ve never seen that TV show. Or that movie. And as much as I’d like to ‘catch up’, I’m always going to have that knowledge gap.

9. I’m not stupid, but I may be ignorant. There’s a difference.

10. I still struggle to recognize my own feelings and wishes as opposed to what I think I’m supposed to want and feel.

On being poor.

I want you to know something about being poor.

But first, let’s be clear: I’m not poor. Sure, last year’s tax return shows a four-digit income, but I’m actually not anywhere near poor. I’m not poor because I have a relative who is willing to let my family live in their house so I haven’t had to raise my three preschoolers on the street for the last year. I’m not poor because I live in a society that finds it unacceptable for people to go hungry and so supplements my meager income with food stamps. I’m lucky because someone is willing to help me pay for childcare so I can work at the job that someone else was kind enough to give me a chance at. I’m unbelievably privileged to have a vehicle, so that I only spend an hour each day commuting instead of the two or three that my route would take by bus.

I’m not poor because I have a quick mind and if I work hard (50+ hours a week) I should have my AS degree in about 3 years, at which point I may just be lucky enough to convince someone to give me a job where I can make enough money to convince someone else to lease me an apartment and I will, at some point, be able to go home. See, I’m not poor. If I play ally cards right and work really hard I may get somewhere eventually, and that’s a lucky chance that many people don’t have.

But here’s what you need to know about being poor. Life is the Atlantic Ocean, and the objective is to get from New York City to London. If you’re poor, you don’t have a boat. If you’re an incredible swimmer, by dint of hard work you may make it 500, 1000 yards into the ocean. You may break every distance swimming record mankind has ever set, and everyone will be impressed and applaud, but you’ve moved only a minuscule fraction of the final distance. You can swim until you are numb and exhausted and dying of thirst and I promise you you will not be within sight of London because this is freaking impossible. Some people might pull alongside and offer you a drink or some food or maybe even a tow and if you accept you’re sure to hear those on the fanciest boats complaining about freeloaders, but it doesn’t really matter, does it? Because I’m the end you are going to drown in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean and the world will shake their heads and say, what a pity that you gave up!

That is being poor.

For the Parents

I’m sorry
You say, with tears;
But these are not the tears of remorse,
Of penitence, of change.
These are tears of self-pity,
Mourning that all is not as it was,
That your children are no longer your pawns,
No longer malleable clay to be formed into your image,
No longer puppets to do your bidding.

We have no use for these tears.
We do not want to hear “I’m sorry”
When you are sorry that things are different.
We do not want your tears,
Longing for the way things used to be.
We do not want things to be the way they used to be:
No voice, no choice,
No personhood,
Only your dreams pressed upon our lives.

No,
Do not give us these tears.

If you want to weep,
Weep for the pain.
Weep for this:
Your reputation meant more than your child’s life.
You were blind, deaf, heartlessly and unthinkingly cruel,
Betraying the one you gave life to
Because that life held no value for you.

Weep for the pain when you turned your back,
When you were trusted and you walked away.
Weep for the nights you would not see the terror;
For the frightened child,
The troubled teen,
The fellow adult you could not see
Because you could not see past your own face.

Weep for these.
See.
Feel.
Listen.
Approach us as men and women,
Strong in our own right,
Stronger for our pain.

And then maybe,
Just maybe,
We will be able to hear you say
I’m sorry.

A Cosmic Bully?

Let’s talk about God a bit.

But first, let’s say you knew a person with all of the following characteristics.

1. He was in a position of power.

2. If anyone attempted to assert themselves as being on the same level as him, he threw them out on the street.

3. If people banded themselves together for a common goal, he felt threatened and conspired to divide them.

4. He gave people the following choice: either do whatever I say without question or get beat up. Forever.

5. He gave his followers a tool and then told them that to be successful they could never use it. If they used it they would get beat up. Forever.

6. Good and evil were arbitrary, based on whatever he liked or disliked.

7. He didn’t care about anyone’s feelings.

8. He destroyed his enemies without a flinch, even if they didn’t know he existed, simply for not knowing he existed and doing his bidding at all times.

9. He made bets using his friends as pawns – it didn’t matter what happened to them as long as he won.

10. Ultimately, he only cared about his own power and reputation and demanded that all decisions everywhere be made on that basis.

Hopefully you started screaming “NARCISSISTIC PSYCHOPATH!!” about 6 points ago. If this described a person, no one would like him. No one would recommend that you comply with his demands because he really had your best interests at heart. This kid was the school bully. He’s the abusive boyfriend. He runs the mafia. He’s the horrible dictator that no one wants to stand up to.

If you comply with a bully’s requests you are reinforcing his power. If you comply to save your own skin from a beating you are a coward. Heroes are the ones who stand up to abusers. Heroes are the ones who refuse to align themselves with corrupted power, even at great personal cost.

But that list of characteristics perfectly describes the God I was taught to worship. He was all-powerful. Good was good, and evil evil, because he said so. He tolerated no competition, no insubordination, and no questioning. He cared about his own glory and about no one else’s feelings whatsoever.

I can’t capitulate to that kind of cosmic bullying against my conscience. If this is God, then I’m out. Or, in the words of Rapunzel in Tangled, “I will fight, every moment of every day, for the rest of my life.”

More God-talk to come.

Regrets

They told us that they had regrets,
That was why.
Regretted kisses, touches,
Stolen moments
Lost forever.
But they were theirs.
Theirs to give, to steal, to lose.

Well, I have regrets.
Regrets for a first kiss, forced
Not at the right moment;
The right moment, stolen
Forced not to kiss.
Regrets for divorced emotions,
Empty intimacy,
Love’s meaning lost.

Regrets that I had no choice.
How can you say yes
When you cannot say no?
How say no when you cannot say yes?

They had regrets
But they had choices.
I wish
They could have taken responsibility
For their choices
And let me take responsibility
For mine.

The Truth, and The Whole Truth.

I’m writing this post because I have a policy of not getting all controversial and argumentative on Facebook. And sometimes a girl’s gotta vent.

There’s a petition going around the conservosphere right now asking people (read: parents (read: mothers)) to sign to “protect every child’s privacy.” It claims that a California law going into effect on January 1 will require all school bathrooms to be coed bathrooms, and appeals to (mothers (of girls)) to protect their children from the horrors of having to use a bathroom with a member of the opposite gender. They even have picture of a scary sign presumably hung on a girls’ bathroom door informing parents that “this bathroom will be used by both boys and girls.”

Except that isn’t true.

The law they refer to is Assembly Bill No. 1266, which Governor Jerry Brown signed into law earlier this year. The law requires schools to allow students to use bathrooms and participate in gender-specific sports consistent with their gender identity, regardless of the gender marker on their records.

I understand that there are people uncomfortable with this, and that is their right. But I get very angry when blatant misinformation is spread, and I think when people sign this petition they DO have the right to know what they are voting for.

So, for the record, when you sign the “privacy for every child” petition, you are not signing to keep scary teenage boys out of your little girl’s bathroom. That was never going to happen. You are, however, putting your name behind something, and you deserve to know exactly what that is.

When you sign to block California’s transgender student law, this is what you are voting for:

You are demanding that a child who is already at risk of being teased, bullied, and tormented be further singled out by needing to use a separate bathroom from every other student at school.

You are preventing a high school boy from participating in his favorite sport.

You are expecting young, vulnerable girls to use the boys’ bathroom.

You are asking for school policies that encourage students to judge and avoid those who are different or “not normal.”

You are saying that some children are worth less than others and don’t deserve to be treated with equal respect and dignity.

Basically, you are making yourself look like an ass and giving your children a wonderful example of how to be bigoted, entitled, heartless jerks.

A few things you should know:

Many children affected by this law have been living as their preferred, identified gender for years.

If you met a transgender child on the street you probably wouldn’t even realize it. This could be your neighbor kid we’re talking about here.

This law allows children to use the bathroom and play sports with their friends instead of always being an “other.”

All every transgender child wants is to live a normal life. This law makes that one step closer to possible. You just made it one signature farther away.

So, do two things for me.

First find out if you can take your name off that petition. Seriously, you’re better than that.

And second, don’t ever sign another petition without finding out what you’re signing for.

Pretty please?

Candy Crush Moments in Life

When things really are impossible and your life needs to be rearranged.

Sometimes I wish that the universe would be all like, “no more possible switches: reshuffling,” or whatever it is that the candy gods say.

When you fail by default because you quit.

It’s really true: the only guaranteed way to fail is to give up. If something is as important to you as reaching the next level, you’ll keep playing.

When you look away for two moves and the chocolate takes over.

There are just some things you can’t keep on top of. Like bills, laundry, and Twitter.

When the striped fish bite the cream cakes.

Also known as a total waste of striped candy. Or, you know, whatever you have going for you that you don’t take advantage of.

When you finish with 29 turns to spare.

Go you! Go me! Go us!!

When you can’t go on without your friends.

We need each other, if only so we have company eating chocolate and crying.

When a time bomb is about to go off.

You know you’ve felt the pressure…

When the colors keep changing.

Plot twist! You know how it goes; you were counting on that something to come through and it turns out to be something different. Total game-changer.

When you get two color bombs next to each other.

Oh yeah. This is being in the right place at the right time. You’d better not throw it out!

When you had the perfect line-up – and slide your finger the wrong way.

Darn it! Oh well; much like Candy Crush,life has no undo button. You’ve just got to make the best of it.

When you’re just waiting for the game to load…

…

You’re WHAT?

“I don’t disagree, you know, but I’m just tired of hearing it. I’m tired of being told that we shouldn’t objectify women.”

Yes, I’m sure that’s what you said. Unfortunately for you, you’re a man and saying this makes you sound like a big, horrible jerk. Now, you might not be a jerk; but it’s hard for me to think of any good reason to say what you said. I’ve come up with three possibilities:

• 1. You think the objectification of women isn’t a problem because it isn’t happening.
• 2. You think the objectification of women isn’t a problem because it’s ok.
• 3. You just don’t care.

See, it’s like this. I can say I’m tired of hearing about starving children in Africa. Maybe I don’t think there really are starving children in Africa, or at least it’s not as bad as people say it is. I can say I’m tired of hearing about whooping cough epidemics because I think having whooping cough is just a normal part of life and nothing to fuss about. And I can say I’m tired of hearing about the civil war in Syria, but only if I don’t give a *#^@ about anybody outside my little climate-controlled bubble of selfishness.

I haven’t pigeonholed you yet, so this is your chance to redeem yourself, or else brand yourself forever in my mind as either a dipstick, a dolt, or a d@*#head.

So maybe you don’t objectify women and you think most other men don’t either. (This would be sort of ingenuous of you, since you just watched a thirty minute presentation on women in advertising and if that wasn’t objectification, maybe you don’t know what that word means.)

But I don’t think this is you, because you introduced yourself by not-so-subtly mentioning that you would love to have a three-way with one of the girls in our class and your fiancé, and while I have no problem morally with a three-way if that’s what three people want, a three-way because that’s what one or two people want is pretty objectifying. It’s like saying “I want more boobs!” and not noticing that boobs come on people. So yeah, not you.

Perhaps it’s more that you don’t think objectifying women is such a big deal. To this, I have only one answer. Watch a room full of straight men when they find out one of their number is gay. If you’re capable of exercising any degree of imagination, put yourself in that room. Now how do you feel? That is how it feels to be objectified.

Don’t misunderstand me here. That gay dude is probably not objectifying you. But because you are transferring your feelings and thoughts towards women to him and applying them to yourself, you assume he is, and I guarantee you it makes you very, very uncomfortable.

When you put yourself on the receiving end of objectification, you understand very quickly that it is a big deal. So let’s just pretend this isn’t you either, ok?

I only have one option left, and I honest-to-God hope this isn’t you either. Can you possibly recognize that objectification is happening all around you and comprehend how badly it hurts your fellow humans, and not care? Are you that calloused, that self-centered, that soulless? Have you absolutely no empathy, no self-respect?

Now is your chance to redeem yourself. You can still retract your statement and remain in the ranks of the good guys.

But you can’t stand by your words and retain one shred of my respect. Because I am a woman, and I will not be reduced.

You get to be tired of hearing about how we shouldn’t objectify women when women are no longer objectified . If you want to do something to that end, be my guest. Otherwise, keep your mouth shut. You don’t want to see me angry.

On Friends

I don’t really have any friends right now. As in, when I have a bad day or good news or just want to hang out, I have no one to call.

I want to have friends. I get insanely jealous when I take my kids to the park, or stop somewhere for a coffee or take a walk and see small groups of people laughing, talking, and having fun. I’ve been tempted to punch the tv screen when I’m watching a show and the stupid actors have friends who still like them in spite of all their stupid stuff. I know it’s just tv and maybe no one actually has friends like that, but I’ll bet some people have friends they can pretend are like that. And that’s something I don’t have.

I don’t know how to make friends. Cold-calling and small talk are probably two of my least favorite exercises. I’m no good at either. I’ve walked up to a group of people and seen the conversation smother and die from my mere proximity. And then there’s the small matter of having things in common to talk about, and I don’t feel like I have anything in common with anyone. I never set foot in a public school growing up. I’ve never held a real job. I don’t have friends. I don’t get any pop culture references appropriate to my age group, and chances are I’ve never heard of your favorite author, musician, or actor.

I need friends. Who doesn’t? We all want to belong, to be accepted. I can remember two periods of my life when I felt that. One of them lasted about two months.

I’m terrified to make friends. I don’t ever want to give anyone the power to hurt me that badly again. People spook me without meaning to when they speak disparagingly of my wife and people like her. I can’t afford to let people like that anywhere near the friend zone. I’m not made of silicon.

I’m afraid I’m not good friend material. I mean, I’m nearly thirty and I’ve managed to come up with no one who thinks I’m worth staying friends with when the shit hits the fan. I’m weird, and I overthink, and I’m unduly morose and introspective, and in general, I think people want to run when they begin to get to know me.

And it’s hard to make friends with the dust from their feet.

Is the whole friendship thing a pipe dream? I’m almost ready to give up and become a hermit. But I’ve got kids, and they deserve to have friends. They deserve to have sleepovers and camping trips and swim parties. They deserve to not have a weird mom.

Why it isn’t Working

The conservative, right-wing, religious sector of America is baffled. They’re stymied. They’re concerned, and they’re frantically theorizing and campaigning and etc. etc. etc. because my generation is leaving the church.

I’m not 30 yet. I’m noticing that I stand on a divide in our culture – there are the people older than me, and the people younger than me. I identify primarily with the younger generation; I think there are a lot of factors that go into who we are and the decisions we make, but today I’m just going to explore one.

The Religious Right is all aflutter because they’re loosing us. They say they want to know why. If they really did, they’d find out, because we’re out here telling them. If they would only listen.

See, the thing about my generation is that we can’t be scared anymore. We were raised, at least those of us who were raised in religion, with a constant barrage of adrenalin, fight-or-flight inducing scare tactics. There were the hellfire sermons. There were the emotional altar calls. There were the pulpit-banging sermons about homosexuals and the antichrist and about how Christmas is of the devil and how this country is going to the devil because we don’t celebrate Christmas, and about how Russia is the antichrist and how the Middle East is warming up for Armageddon.

We’ve heard it all.

And I can only speak for myself, but I have this sneaking suspicion that I’m not the only one who has become immune to the fear-mongering.

Take hell, for instance. We were all terrified if it when we were kids. That was the idea; they scared you and then got you to pray a prayer, and ever after that you couldn’t get away no matter how hard you tried. Or you had to watch every step so you didn’t trip up, depending on which version of Christianity you were raised with.

But here’s the thing. You can only use hell to scare people into your fold if they are ignorant or immature.

Children make decisions based on what will be best for them. When we grow up, most of us learn to incorporate things like empathy and morality into our decision-making progress. We were all raised to revere the martyrs, weren’t we? People who choose something that’s hurtful to them because the alternative would be wrong are heroes. And the vast majority of young adults leaving the church today, I’m going to venture, are running the risk of going to hell knowingly and deliberately.

It’s not that we want to go to hell; it’s just that we’ve weighed our options and decided that if there is a God, and if He is what we were taught He is, we’d rather not sell our souls to spend eternity in His heaven.

And all that end-times stuff? The what-is-this-world-coming-to act? This is of the devil and they are the antichrist? It worked on our parents because it was new. Some of them are still buying it. But we were around when it started, and we know that every few years there will be a new antichrist, a new Armageddon, a new evangelical scapegoat in the form of a children’s toy or a movie or a novel. And we’ve checked them out. We know how to use the Internet. We breathe the Internet. And guess what? They lie. They lied about Cabbage Patch dolls. They lied about Harry Potter. They lied about rock music and they lied about atheists and they are still lying about almost everything they open their mouths about. We haven’t figured out exactly why yet, but believe me, when we do the whole world is going to know.

And as for how we got to this place? It’s the church’s fault. They introduced us to this guy called Jesus, and they taught us concepts like love-your-neighbor and it-always-pays-to-do-the-right-thing, and perhaps most critically they taught us to never believe something just because that’s what everybody says. And then they gave us heroes who died for their faith.

We don’t have much choice. It’s increasingly difficult to find a church service where idiotic, bigoted bile isn’t being spewed all over the congregation. It’s discouragingly rare to stumble across a church that we aren’t ashamed of belonging to. We have to leave because staying is violating our consciences.

So, there it is from me. If anyone is listening.