Dear Family:

I'm going to begin with, "I love you," because I do.  I don't always understand you, and you don't always understand me.  I think where there is misunderstanding, resentments can fester.  How can we bridge the gap of understanding?  I think a certain amount of willingness is key.  Are you willing to learn more about me, and to understand me so that we can move beyond the edges of resentment?  Ok, you're willing?  Now, what is required is listening.  The trouble is, effective listening isn't something everyone is capable of.  If we were capable of it, we wouldn't be in this pickle.  It's a learned behavior.  Search the internet for "Active Listening."  Practice it.  If I tell you something from the heart, your job is to receive that information.  That is all.  Just receive it.  Don't meddle with it, turn it upside down and shake it, and please don't make it about you.  Now that you've actually listened to me with an objective ear, you might be a little bit closer to understanding me.  If you aren't, then you need more practice.  

I love you and I would like to be given the chance to listen to you, too.  Are you looking for deeper, more honest relationships?  I am.  I hear that you might not want to get too close to other people's flames, but honestly, what kind of life is it to refuse to acknowledge the discomfort of others?  Tell me what makes you uncomfortable so I don't have to guess. Sometimes, when you bottle that stuff in, your idea of reality is nowhere near the truth, and you've been worried about something that doesn't exist.  Challenge yourself to find an interpretation that isn't dramatic or traumatic. Own your pain. Let other people own their pain. You can't have mine and I don't want yours! Don't try to take control of my struggle and make it yours. 

I love you, but generalizations about me aren't helpful.  If you tell me that I always act a certain way and I'm behaving in a typical pattern, you are demonstrating your lack of awareness of my growth.  I'm a dynamic person, and I am always changing.  So are you.  If you peg me into a square hole in your head, you'll never get to experience my roundness.  If you have bought into the idea that people don't change, there are no legitimate studies that support your claim.  Quite the opposite.  If you keep expecting people to not change, you aren't leaving them any room for growth. Sometimes, it's easier to act out expected roles than to deal with the pushback of change. You probably don't want to be responsible for hindering another person's growth.  Keep your eyes open for humans exploring their potential.  And, please, explore your own. You aren't trapped. I would love to see you grow.  It's happening whether you admit it or not, so let's celebrate your growth and change.

I love you, but when you question my choices, you question my humanity.  You don't get to play God with my choices, especially at my age.  If you don't like how I present myself, or who I spend my time with, or if you think that I am hurting someone by being my true self, or if you refuse to be in parts of my life but want full access to other parts, something is really wrong with your concept of "love and support."  You don't get to come into my life only if I continue to act in ways that don't disrupt your concept of who I am.  You are afraid of something, but it isn't me. If the people I surround myself with make you uncomfortable, consider that they may be my chosen family.  You get to choose whether or not you accept my chosen family, but you don't get to reject my family and then complain that I never call or visit you.  It shouldn't have to be an act of bravery for me to show up in my true form, but it is.  I have had to work on being brave all my life. I'd like to see you be brave and accept my true form -- my shifting, growing, true self.

I love you, but acting out of shame and fear is not love.  When you protect the tender feelings of others from my reality and my truth, you are not doing anyone any favors.  When I embarrass you because I did something you think is inappropriate, that is your shame talking, and it has nothing to do with me.  Shame has no place in loving relationships.  Shame is the most damaging and isolating act you can impose on another, especially if you are calling it "love." Calling fear and shame "love" is really confusing. I am working on becoming resilient to your shaming and fear and I'm learning what love really is.  It's your work, too.  I don't know who taught you these tools of shame and fear, but they were wrong to do so.

Some day, we're all going to be dead.  I have one chance at this life, and I recognize that you might miss me now as if I am already gone. I'm not.  I'm here, ready to sit down to dinner with you, but on my terms of mutual respect and dignity.  I won't accept an invitation with caveats of rejection.  I won't be treated as if I am less-than, an embarrassment, or that I've made poor choices, just so I can gain your approval.  I love you, and I accept that you might not like my terms.  The invitation still stands.

Open Letter to the Man Who Kissed Me Today

Dear sir,

Today, there was an awkward moment when our lunch group was dispersing.  Everyone was hugging goodbyes, so I went ahead and reluctantly hugged you.  When my head went left, yours went the same direction, and you said, "I almost kissed you!" I was less than thrilled.  When you held me tighter than I wanted and you actually kissed my cheek, I understand why you did that, even though I had already said to you, "No! You will not!"  I understand you quite well.  You were laughing, and I may have laughed it off in the moment, but I'm telling you now that it was not funny. It was not just a funny kiss on the cheek.  You may wonder why I'll never let you hug me again.  I'll explain, even though it's not my job to school you because you're a grown man, and you surely know the rules by now.

You know that women don't want to be kissed when they say, "Don't kiss me."  But there's something you may not know.  You aren't the only one who acts like you don't know the rules.  I don't blame you for not knowing that your kiss represents the boy who groped my breasts twice in the hallways of my high school over 27 years ago.  The boy laughed, too. You wouldn't know that your kiss would remind me of the teacher who stopped me from chasing that boy so I could pummel him, and that the teacher asked me what I did to provoke the boy.

You probably thought I provoked you when my head came near yours.  It was supposed to just be a goodbye hug among friends.  But when I hugged you, you didn't know that in my first job I'd been subjected to unsolicited touching by men who were all my superiors.  You didn't know that when I told them to stop they acted like I had insulted their honor. How would you know that your kiss that I tried to stop would trigger a bad memory of when I told one aggressive coworker that he didn't understand the word "no." He acted like I'd accused him of rape, and he was so injured that he thankfully stopped coming around to my cubicle for a chat. When you kissed me you didn't know that you'd already made me uncomfortable the previous times you hugged me, by rubbing my back and lingering too long. I didn't make that clear, because it's not my job to tell you that I don't want you invading my space.  You're just supposed to be decent about that.

You didn't know that this is serious business. You assume I like it because I'm a nice person and I don't call you out like that bitch who suggests a guy doesn't know what "no" means.  So I also don't blame you for being dense because that seems to be how you get a pass every time you do this shit to women. Did you know that when I tell people about your actions they say, "Oh, he just doesn't get it. He means well..."?

Did you know that people don't believe you are in control of your own words and actions?  People say that about you, poor thing.  Remember that one time you told a joke about how you like women who can't escape you, and people just rolled their eyes?  I didn't roll mine. I was appalled and said, "That doesn't surprise me at all," and you kept on smiling. I think they roll their eyes because you generally put up a "good guy" front. People in the community like you because you do all kinds of good things. You're a liberal, peace-loving hippie with a penchant for making a certain demographic of women very uncomfortable, like when the waitress thought we were together and you suggested she thought we were lovers. No, that is not funny, and I told you so. And when women complain about it, you do that "I'm so misunderstood" thing and act confused and sad.  Let me tell you, that behavior is manipulative and lacks accountability.  It indulges the people who only see the good guy in you, and vilifies the people who have accused you of wrongdoing.

I once was acquainted with another good guy. The kids in the neighborhood loved him. He punched me in the face once because I ventured over see what kinds of fun things were going on at the swing set. When that punk died in a bar fight everyone was shocked that their beloved friend was gone. Not me. They wouldn't know that my knowledge of his violent temper put this little girl in a jam when he and some other boys told me to show them my body. I told them no, but they held me captive, just like you did.  I didn't want to get punched again, so I did it.  You have that peaceful front, but you do not remind me of peace.  You reminded me of these and so many other things -- That I've been bitten and grabbed. I've been punched and assaulted. I've been forced against a wall and pinned down with people watching and doing nothing but roll their eyes. I've been kissed by someone who heard me say firmly and clearly, "No, you will not."  And your reply was, "Oh, yes I will."  You actually said that to me.  Asshole.

Every time I tell someone who knows you well that this is who you are, they give you a pass.  But the next time you pull this shit you might feel the rage of a hundred wrongs done to me, including your own. (And I will see you again, because I refuse to avoid doing things because you might be there.) But if you touch me when I said no, I might become so angry that I will shout, "NO! I TOLD YOU NOT TO TOUCH ME, [your name, loudly here]!"to all the people on the street and all of your non-judgmental friends. I might swing an elbow or swiftly lift a knee. I am that angry.  I don't expect that this letter will ever reach anyone who will be sorry for being like you, because you really are a very dense lot.  I don't expect you to change, but be warned that I refuse to be silent.  I might be projecting a lot of anger at you that you don't fully deserve, but now you know where it's coming from.

In truth,
Angie

Age before Health and Beauty

As I walked up to a girlfriend, she was finishing up a conversation with another woman, who had just handed her a box of something that looked like fancy lotion.  A tall, slender box with silvery lettering.

"Use it for a week and then give it back to me," the woman said to my friend.  

"What is that, some kind of wrinkle cream?" I asked.

The woman fluttered her eyelashes and said, "Anything we can do to help get rid of those wrinkles.

Smoking Man in Beauty Shop
Nationaal Archief/Spaarnestad Photo
Flickr Commons

I'm actually only 23, can't you tell?"  And she flitted away, saying, "Just bring it back next week!"

"Oh dear," I thought to myself.  "Another woman trying to hold back the clock."

"Yeah," said my friend, as she opened the container to reveal a very fancy dispenser.  "It's night time wrinkle cream."  Then she lowered her voice, "I'm just helping her out with her business."

"I love my wrinkles.  They're beautiful!" I declared.  "I'm not going to stop aging any time soon, and the wrinkles are just going to keep coming.  What happens if I hate my wrinkles when I'm old?  I'll just hate myself."

My friend shoved the fancy dispenser back into the box as her husband walked up on the conversation.  "Wrinkles are good," he said.

Well there you have it.

Quantifiable beauty?

 Beauty contest in Turkey.
Men admiring participants beauty contest.
 Flickr Commons

Let's get something straight right now.  I can measure my height, weight, cholesterol, heart rate, blood pressure, and a large number of things that might tell me how healthy or fit I am.  I can count how many years I have been alive, and I my age is increasing at the exact same rate as every other living being's.  But no matter how hard I might try, I can not measure how beautiful I am.  Are we talking inner beauty or outer beauty here?  It doesn't matter.  Nobody has, nor will anyone ever build a foolproof, objective system for measuring beauty--beauty pageant judges included.

So why does society equate age, weight, health and numerous measurable things with something that can not be measured?  There is no logic behind it, other than oppression.  It is the driving force behind societal ills such as scientific racism, where body measurements have been used as justification for genocide, forced sterilization, internment, apartheid, slavery and other expressions of racism.  Equating beauty to age and health is society's way of building a false hierarchy of humanity.  I reject this dominant paradigm, and I invite you liberate yourself from it, too.

In the aching back, clogged arteries, and wrinkled eye of the beholder

The best connection I can see between beauty and the quantifiable is that our perception of ourselves,

 May, 1960.
Fern Derstine combs Mary Schlegel's hair.
Mennonite Board of Missions.
Illinois
Flickr Commons

our self-worth, can impact our health and aging process.  It has been shown in studies that increased pride in one's identity increases overall health.  If someone fails to perceive their own beauty, they will be unhappy with themselves and their health will decline, and health factors associated with age may become more apparent.

There is no standard for beauty beyond self-identification of it.  The one truth in beauty is that it is immeasurable.  If I choose to believe that I am beautiful, I define "beauty," therefore it is true that I am beautiful.  If others see me differently, their views are irrelevant and wrong.  The good news is that I will likely pass on my good looks to my kids, and also my healthy outlook.

Skin deep

What about all that inner beauty business?  Are people who love themselves for who they are the meanies and bullies of the world?  I mean, yeah you can read all about how school bullies are just climbing the social ladder and they don't necessarily come from abusive homes or have low self-esteem.  But really, come on.  It's insecurity that causes people to wrong others.  Jealousy, greed, and unkindness aren't born of self-love.  They may be born of megalomania, but that is arguably an overdose of self-esteem, or overcompensation for self-hatred.

Bully Suicide Project campaign
for Campus Harmony, Inc.
photographed by Fashion photographer Tracy Nanthavongsa.

So I say go ahead and love those wrinkles.  Let your hair go gray.  See it, live it, love it.  Overweight?  Still beautiful.  Fighting cancer?  You're gorgeous.  Did someone along the way say otherwise?  They were not speaking a truth.