Choke

* to stop by strangling, stifling
Like Pavlov's dogs, I respond to their reactions. An endless cycle of act and react, the latter beginning to paralyze me.

* to stop the breath by squeezing or obstructing the windpipe
The more they squeeze, the faster I run. After all, I have to breathe.

* to suppress an emotion
I will not give in to the angerandfrustration. I will swallow it again and again and again. And though I am full on it, though it rises up in my throat, I will choke back the words and bite my tongue; shed blood in my mouth to keep the peace.

* to check or slow down the movement, growth, or progress of
Aging faster than I'd like to admit and surrendering my independence inch by inch. As the days grow closer to thirty years, I grow more and more emotionally crippled.

* to fill chock-full; jam
And it's like this over and over again in my life...memories flood back to me. Thirty years of redirection through tense silence and direct assault. In the classic words of parents everywhere, I've had it up to here.

* to enrich the fuel mixture by diminishing the air supply
It crushes my ribs, collapses my lungs and pushes every last bit of air out of me. I am gasping. But the independence that's been jammed down to the pile simmers, threatens to ignite.

* to seize with a chain, a cable or the like to facilitate removal
It's time to free my independence and move forward. To rise above and sail away. With the fire fueled quietly, kindling underneath the surface, I fan the spark.

* to shorten one's grip on
I'm firming up my grip on myself and my emotions, preparing my grasp for what promises to be a fight. I flex my fingers, try to be strong and dig in.

* to fail to perform effectively because of nervous agitation or tension
Again and again, I shy away from the confrontation. I choke under the onslaught of terse words, unpronounced judgments. I forget how to be me. I forget how I want to be. Because I'm trying so hard to be what they want me to be.

* to become speechless from the effects of stress or emotion
And I realize after all these years, I can no longer say I'm sorry. I know they want me to have words for why I am as I am. Why I am different. Why I break the mold. Why I go forth, marching to the beat of a drummer no one else hears. And truly, there are no words other than to say I am me. I am me.

* a slight narrowing of the barrel of a shotgun to concentrate the shot
Choking on the crowd of selves trying to prevail, I narrow my focus. I have to push the one I want to the front. I have to be to the world as I am. I have to be true. I have to make independence my target. I have to keep my inherent fragility in my sights. I have to be ready, aim, fire and shoot-to-kill the illusion of me that threatens to destroy the reality.

Calendar Girls: The Posts of 2007

This year, 2007, was among the most turbulent, most emotional, most awful years of my life. Amidst the chaos and the despair, there were, of course, some bright shining moments of euphoria, like Dillon's grand entrance into the world - which changed everything about our lives. And on top of that, I decided to change virtually everything about my own life.

Looking back through the posts of '07, I realized just how much I've been through, and how much I've grown. And changed. And cried. And I figured the only way to review '07 was through the posts that said it best, brought to you by the calendar girls of the year.

Right now, I'm looking at 24 more hours in the year, and I'm not sorry to be closing the books on this one. I'll be holding my breath as the clock ticks toward midnight tomorrow that '08 will turn out to be a better year. Happy New Year, y'all.

January: A Very Happy Announcement



February: My Life the Democracy


March: Georgia on My Mind


April: Leaving: Part One



May: Taking the Long Way (or the Unplan Plan)



June: The Girl Who Lived


July: (Untitled)


August: Sister Mary Sunshine Gets Sucker Punched



September: Handle It


October: Shoreline
November: On Meeting People



December: Bones

A Mistake in Judgment

I came across an article on Yahoo last night about a new book called The Feminine Mistake by Leslie Bennetts. I couldn't find the same article this morning, but I did find this insightful piece about the book on Salon.

In the book Bennetts makes a call to arms for young women not to sacrifice career in order to stay at home with children. Her argument is rooted in staying self-sufficient, maintaining earning power (which drops 37% after just three years out of the workplace) and being prepared for a husband or partner who loses his job, develops a drug, alcohol or gambling problem, or skips out on the marriage for a newer model (usually one, according to Bennetts, who is more career-minded).

Bennetts' arguments are not new. In fact, this debate has been going on since women entered the workplace, and I suspect it will go on for generations to come. In my view, the stay-at-home or stay-at-work choice is intensely personal. I have close friends who come down on both sides of the fence for reasons that are personal and economic. So that is not why I call attention to this article.

Instead, I call attention to the crux of the first paragraph of Joan Walsh's review: If female fear and self-doubt were ever eradicated, the publishing industry would collapse....no matter the issue, the premise is pretty much the same: We're doing something wrong. And in the article I read last night, Bennett was quoted as saying, "Women are so defensive about their choices." Well, no wonder. We're under attack from all sides for what we did or didn't do.

Look at me. I'm 27-going-on-28, unmarried and childless. For every person who thinks I'm living the life, there's someone to judge me as inept, incomplete, or just plain sad. A career may be completion to some, and for others, I simply haven't found my purpose until I have a baby. There's judgment for all of our choices, and most of the time, they come from other women.

We have so many choices today - which is a blessing and a curse. Believe me, I'm thankful for that - if I ever needed further convincing, I could revisit my Women's Lit text or rent HBO's Iron-Jawed Angels to reaffirm that we've got the long end of the stick. But because our place isn't dictated by society anymore, it's dictated by us. Which puts an enormous amount of pressure on choosing a direction.

The freedom to choose has also given birth to some sort of inherent insecurity about those choices. Instead of banding together and supporting each other and embracing the classic viewpoint that it takes all kinds, we spend our time defending ourselves to each other in case anyone should think we've failed womankind by taking a certain path.

All this to say that I find people like Bennetts distasteful. Her need to push her lifestyle choice to the front, to suggest that anyone who doesn't go that way is damning herself to a life of misery, points to insecurity rather than certainty. I know several stay-at-home moms who are very happy, in healthy, stable relationships and very fulfilled by the time they spend with their children. I also know a number of women who work every day and love and support their children just as much as the stay-at-homers.

Beyond the Mommy Wars, the pressure to have the right career, choose the right husband, be the right kind of homemaker is overwhelming. The Have It All Agenda is still out there, providing the illusion that we can have it all with no sacrifice - and that anything short of the sum total of all the facets of wife, mother, career woman, and individual - doesn't add up.

Yet, I think of the women I know and the choices they've made - my mother who gave up an excellent job to stay home. Pen, who stays at home and Andi, who is a working mom. Niki, who's pursuing law, and Jenn, who's pursuing social work. All of the women who read this blog and are career women, students, writers, mothers, wives, friends. And I'm proud of them all for making the decision that was right for them. No judgment. Other than I think you're all amazing women.

Georgia on My Mind

Other arms reach out to me. Other eyes smile tenderly. Still in peaceful dreams I see, the road leads back to you....Some sweet day when the blossoms fall and all the world's a song, I'll go back to Georgia cause that's where I belong. -- Stuart Gorrell and Hoagy Carmichael, "Georgia on My Mind"

About six years ago, I sat in a dorm room and wondered what would happen after graduation. I'd applied to five grad schools, received nice and less-than-nice rejection letters from four and clung to the single hope that my place on the waiting list of the fifth would give way to an actual spot in the M.F.A. program. And two months later, it did.

I made my way to the Carolina coast and started grad school - and at barely 22, I was about as tender and green and unprepared as I could be. But after about a semester, I had managed to find a few friends and a job. I had cried a lot and felt lonely more. And I wondered if I would ever feel at ease in this town. And two years later, I did.

When I arrived, I never imagined that I would stay so long. That grad school would run its course - rife with good friends, good memories and bad workshops. That my part-time job would turn into a full-time career. That I'd start to think of the big yellow house with the red roof as home. That unexpected relationships would be unexpectedly important.

But in the past year, I've started to tire of the long way home. It's six hours at best - and I've seen a few speeding tickets trying to make it less. I long to be closer to family and to put my roots down in the Georgia red clay. I suddenly noticed how flat it is here and found myself wanting hills. Smelled the salt and wished for pine.

And so I've decided to head back to Georgia. It's long been on my mind to do it, and I finally decided that the longing wouldn't go away, no matter how hard I tried to make it. I'm still getting my plans in order, but suffice it to say, I'll be weathering my last spring in Wilmywood. It's been a difficult decision to make - to pack up and say goodbye after so many years. To leave behind friends who have been my family away from family for so long now.

I won't be going back the same person I was when I left. I depended on my family for everything then - I'd hardly ever stepped out of the nest without someone holding my hand. Now I've grown so independent they hardly know what to do with me. I'm so proud of what I've accomplished while I was here and who I've become. And I will miss Wilmywood and the house on Grace Street and the river and the downtown streets. And more than that I will miss friends and faces and morning coffee across the desk from S. and girls' nights with Pen and Mel and gatherings at the bar with my old grad school comrades and dinners at Circa with Justin. I will miss the part of my heart that I will leave here.

And then I will find out if it's true that you can't ever go home again.

On My Way to Winning the War

Me: (On the phone making a case for what I want to do. Feeling like it's going to be one of those situations where I concede a point.)

Mama: Well, you just let us know what you want to do. And we'll do it.

Me: (Silence. Maybe a little lump in my throat.) Thanks. And I love you.

Declaration of Independence

You may recall that my New Year's resolution had something to do with being happy with myself. Simple enough. And yet, I find that upon close examination, I've spent a great deal of my life being unhappy with myself. Whether because of poor choices I'd made at any given time or guilt over feeling that I didn't measure up to some unrealistic expectations I'd set for myself, I've let too many days pass in self-loathing.

I want to make my family proud. I want to them to be happy with my life. Happy for my life. But sometimes, I realize that what I want and what they want are contrary. And that's okay. It doesn't make either party wrong or bad. It just means we've reached an impasse. The question is always who will give in - and it's usually me. I usually concede the point, at either the sacrifice of myself or, at the very least, at the expense of feeling like I'm a disappointment.

And so now, I'm making a declaration of independence from this endless cycle. In the spirit of my resolution, I'm forging onward with my determination to like myself - and stop obsessing over what I lack, where I fail, who I wish I was. Instead, I want to like me for who I am. To accept who I am...all the ways I am outside the box, rebelling against the group think, swimming against the status quo. Just like these guys.