Hope in the cycles that continue

Plus, losing it in public + masking to keep people comfortable

I make it a habit to temper my personality and strength. Maybe you can relate. There are few spaces where the full force of self feels welcome. This decade, especially, I treasure the people who are relaxed and unbothered when I am who I am. Listen, I may not pretend and perform like a circus monkey anymore but masking is still required.

Tressie (one of my favorite writers and thinkers) captured the feeling well. I don’t have the compounded issue of race impacting my masking but as women, we know intuitively, that bringing our whole selves to the table is a non-starter in most settings.

To be honest, I both love and hate this. I love that we still have social norms that keep people from talking crazy and I hate that social norms hinder us from speaking plainly. (Okay, fine, some people won’t stop talking crazy no matter what it costs them.) I’ve been mulling over the threshold necessary to push us over the edge.

What makes you address something immediately? What makes you circle back to a person for something they did or said? What is the right amount of relational and circumstantial factors that will make you bury a thing that bothers you? What is the scenario that drives you Moana-lava-lady levels of crazy?

I remember the way I used to bury my anger and frustration about my personal life and relationships, too afraid to speak up both because I lacked the language and skills to do so and I lacked the wherewithal to understand that silence cost me more than confrontation. As Tressie described, I also felt a persistent need to present a different way to people to help them feel more comfortable around my strength and stature, but in my twenties, I didn’t know how to channel that energy into healthy outlets for relief and respite.

So, it came out sideways.

My favorite way anger came out in my early twenties is on the streets of Los Angeles. On some despicable weekday, I drove from Hollywood to Mid-Wilshire via Highland Avenue. For those with no context, this is a busy city street with too many stoplights that gets backed up easily. A poor, unsuspecting man, made the regrettable mistake to cut me off so that he could get one car ahead of me. Since we were bumper to bumper, barely moving, at the next stoplight, I punched my Acura into park and got my ready-to-rage behind out of the car.

Not mine because phones didn’t take photos back then, but here she is in her glory!

I marched to the front of his car, lifted my hands high into the sky, and slammed them down onto his hood. The obscenities flowed freely. He stared in horror at the giant woman in his eye line, and cowered behind his steering wheel. Then I, feeling absolutely satisfied from releasing pent-up rage, skipped back to the driver’s seat and drove myself to choir practice at church, free as a bird.

The problem with misdirected communication is that we (and others) are at the mercy of the things we refuse to face.

At the same time, I hold to the truth that every now and again, we should have time TODAY, okay, fam? You can’t just say and do any old thing with no real-time consequences. Social media has people convinced you can troll and shame and gossip and spew on the internet that if you said/did them in real life, whew chile, somebody’s mama would slap you into next week.

For example, one day while walking down the street near our former home in Manhattan, pushing my two kids in the stroller, a man who was standing with two other men began to make vile, sexual comments about what he wanted to do to me. This is so regular for women — cat calling and body commenting — that I can usually let it go. But his words were humiliating. I burned with rage and frustration that men do this, that they speak this way to women, and turned to shout at him.

“Shut up! Shut up! Shut the HELL UP!”

You’ve never seen jaws drop like that. Three men hurling verbal violence at one female with children do not usually experience women talking back. Obviously there is a danger for when we address this behavior head-on. We usually smile and nod or hustle past them so we don’t get assaulted or killed, or called fat, ugly, b*tch, whatever. But I was tired that day. And mad to see neighbors behave that way in front of my sons. Sometimes, enough is enough.

I felt safe to respond on the NY streets because there were so many people around that it would have been hard to assault a woman with two kids under four. I also felt a bit emboldened by my stature.

Standing at six foot two, I feel less threatened by small men with big mouths.

So, when I told him to shut up, was his response to stop? To apologize? To acknowledge his inappropriate language? Nope, of course not. He said, in a whiny, condescending tone, “Oh real nice. You like talking like that in front of your babies?”

Apparently, it was fine for him to describe what kind of violent sexual acts he wanted to do to me in front of my sons, but it was not fine for me to tell him to shut his foul mouth. There should be consequences for men when they speak terribly to women, but because society gives them none, they keep doing it. And they do it front of little boys and young men in their lives and the cycles of violence against women continue.

But whenever it’s safe to do so, we must disrupt those cycles because it’s a tale as old as time, women being undervalued or devalued.

It’s why we hide and secretly rage; why we smile and nod when we’d rather flip the bird; why we bury our tensions deep inside and throw ourselves into addictions or achievements; why we are filled with grief over the things we didn’t say that we should have said; why we choose self-harm and self-denial over burdening another person with our pain and desires.

The old testament bears a crushing witness to this, including women in power using their position to further abuse and misuse other women. The new testament ain’t better but I suppose a more hopeful angle with the nature of God in the flesh. What I can appreciate is that unlike many Sunday morning services, the Bible does not sugar coat the very real reality and pain point that women, and anyone outside whatever is the normative standard of the day, are at a real disadvantage.

As a lover of candor, it comforts me, because reality is acknowledged. As a lover of hope, it grieves me, that the reality remains. A few friends and I are talking about the big question, “Is God good?” Why do the patterns and cycles remain undefeated? How do we reconcile suffering here on Earth with God’s promise for redemption and restoration? Is Earth its own kind of hell on the way to heaven? Why are Christians committed to doubling down on the legalities instead of mobilizing effectively?

Trafficking is not down; it’s up. Domestic violence is not down; it’s up. Poverty is not down; it’s up. What does this mean for us? What does it mean about God? What does that mean for heaven? And why do things seem to get worse before they get better?

Per usual, I have more questions than answers, but here we are, born into a context —that does not surprise God — accepting the assignment to love and be loved. To value ourselves enough to tell the truth, to love the literal hell out of others, to focus our attention and energy into the places and spaces where it is most liberating and useful.

I’m not sure why this is what’s flowing out of me, but I love women so much and I’m thinking about you. Do you feel free to be yourself? Free to be honest in your real life and relationships so you don’t have to cuss strangers out on the freeway? ;)

I wonder if you feel fairly compensated for your work. If you feel valued in your home. If you feel able to care for yourself the way you need. If you feel surrounded by friendship or isolated and alone. If you feel like you can accept yourself. As you are. Right now. If you feel permission to evolve.

Through recovery and friendship, I’ve learned that Earth is heavy but we don’t have to be. There is hope for redemption, liberation, community, and rest. And it is possible on this side of heaven.

So let me remind you, if you haven’t heard it lately. You’re so beautiful. So loved. You’re wanted and needed. The unique contributions you make are special and significant. The full force of who you are is welcome in the right spaces. Please know that we are not the same without you. It is so very good that you’re here.

Friend, we won’t make sense of many things but we’ve got the good sense to love ourselves and love each other and that is what makes life worth living.

Blessing you in my prayers tonight. I love you so.

Ashley

I would have lost heart, unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living. Wait on the LORD; Be of good courage, And He shall strengthen your heart; Wait, I say, on the LORD! (Psalm 27:13-14 NKJV)