Speaking up

I care far too much of what people think of me, and perhaps this post is one of the first public manifestations of a long string of minor subterranean adjustments. That finally I am willing to bare my soul on this subject, knowing full well that people will read this and will disagree, and may feel compelled to tell me in no uncertain terms.

To that, I say I hate arguing. I refuse to engage in a passive aggressive Facebook-comment-esque fight over politics and ideologies. But I do want you to think. To extend a possibility that some of you might not have considered.

I only ask that you make no quick judgments as you read this. Not for my sake, but for yours, and for the sakes of the marginalized. For this whole battle of technicalities we are engaged in, which is pulling us further and further from the real focus.

+

Society is changing. Some aspects for the worse, and some for the better.

I personally consider the feminist and LGBTQ movements to be among the better.

Why?

Because, man or woman, straight or otherwise, we are people. Human beings. As a culture, we are moving to find and embrace whatever we are, whoever we are. To get to know ourselves and assert our value despite being misunderstood. We do not fit in a preconceived box or align well with dominant culture. And that is valid. We are valid. Because God says we are.

Believing it for ourselves is harder, though, and that is why I think the major social movements of our era are so incredibly important.

Because God cannot be contained in a box. Should not His people also transcend boxes?

But we are warned about being like the world. Left to our own devices, humans tend toward destructive behavior and we must not compromise ourselves and blend in too much with the dominant culture. But, to some degree, sanitized, Christian, evangelical culture has become like a secondary dominant culture.

And the dominant cultures are still unaccepting of marginalized groups (which isn’t a new phenomenon). We still tend toward forming sanitized, gated communities and wondering why the outliers are so averse to that. We get so stuck in our ways of thinking and doing things that we get too comfortable and stick to what we know, to the detriment of those our systems don’t take into account.

But where is the line between compromising our moral standards and being even remotely relatable to real people? How much is our in-group mindset and how much of the alternative are we better off embracing?

Isn’t lifting people’s spirits good? Isn’t convincing them they matter good? Isn’t it good to fight against cultural and racial and ideological barriers that tell people they should be who they clearly are not, and whose persistent denial is serving no productive purpose?

That is not to say we are to baby people and only tell them what they want to hear. Because that isn’t loving. That’s lame and patronizing, and counterproductive. I’m not saying we should avoid setting people straight when necessary. But we must really think hard about what we’re trying to set straight and decide before we hurt someone whether it is something that really needs to be fixed.

“What feels right” is a term scorned by the conservative, evangelical community I grew up in. But there’s a lot of truth in it. “What feels right” is a valid starting place. Follow your heart, your head. But follow God. He’ll work with you in the spots He’s not cool with.

Learn, grow, keep an open mind. Dare to be wrong for a little while in search for what’s really true. Because I know for a fact that God is very much not cool with stagnancy and marginalization.

But am I getting desensitized? Desensitized to the blatant depravity of the world and its devices? Buying a lie? Slipping to the dark side?

The Holy Spirit lives in me. God guides me, and watches out for me. And right now, I see our sticking to our guns—our conservative, men and women have their places, gays will tear the world apart mentalities—as doing so much more harm than good. It is divisive, and smells too much of “I know your place. Here, let me put you in it.”

The territory’s uncertain, so of course we’d be apprehensive, but we’ve come a long way as a species. And maybe the world will come to ruin. In fact, unless drastic intervention takes place, I believe it will.

Because I see the signs everywhere:

Violence, dehumanization, objectification, and abuse.

No desire to understand, no empathy, no selflessness. No care, no time,

Addiction, destructive sexual habits, destructive relationships.

Unspeakable things done to other human beings out of greed.

Ignorance, arrogance, spite, entitlement, exploitation of the defenseless.

I don’t see self-acceptance, validation, empowerment, protection, or equality fitting into that list.

Anywhere.

If anything, the very social movements I see pushback against are in part solutions to the problem—persistent humanization and validation of people as people, and support as they search, as we all are, for our identity.

In my ignorance, I once invalidated the very people I now defend. And I regret it. I pray that I never do that again. That I never be the person to tell someone their feelings and experiences are invalid.

I pray that I will be open-minded, patient, flexible, and brave. That I will be able to distinguish the key components of my moral compass at all times—that God’s business is God’s business, and love trumps absolutely everything.

I pray that we not become, or remain, “Pharisees,” freaking out about doctrine and technicalities so much that we miss the point and reduce people to mere problems. To poor, misguided souls.

I follow God. The wild, confusing, benevolent, persistent God.

I believe technicalities are not nearly as important as a person, and I will always do my best to keep my current biases and prior conceptions out of the way.

I believe the push for gender equality is so incredibly necessary. For the sake of everybody, not just women.

I believe the LGBTQ community needs to be welcomed, respected, and embraced. They are not a threat to the world order, or to the human race. In fact, we could learn so many things from them about honesty, identity, courage, and self-acceptance.

I believe the American church has some wires disconnected, but that they are beginning to reconnect. I believe we can repair this ostracization.

I believe that men and women are different only in genetics—and the physicality and hormones that arise from that—but that the differences have no bearing whatsoever in their roles as human beings. Biologically male or female or in between, we can be whatever the heck we want to be.

I don’t doubt I have more to learn. I will have more to learn until the day I die and then some, but for now I don’t want to be right.

I want to be real. I want to be useful and nurturing and understanding.

Because maybe all those prayers that this generation would open up their eyes are working.

+

I know for some this must be extremely uncomfortable to read. By now, you may be feeling an odd twisting inside your chest, a direct challenge to what you thought was cut-and-dry, a discomfort with the subject and a temptation to retreat and hold to what you’ve already figured out. I have felt it many many times along this journey. We just want things to be black and white, right and wrong—but there are far too many factors rendering such simplicity impossible.

So thank you for making it to the end of this piece. Even if you ultimately don’t agree with what I have said, I appreciate your time, attention, and your willingness to think about this.

Because in such a revolutionary time, there can be no complacency.

There can be no “us” vs. “them.”

Ventilation

I always wanted to be a prodigy. I easily took to things, and if I liked it, I practiced it obsessively.  My phases were rife with flares of thwarted, perfectionistic fury–until I achieved proficiency, at least. I wanted to be the youngest, the reliable, the extraordinary. Not the best, necessarily, but undeniably impressive.

Yet I always seemed to come late to things. Gymnastics, for example. I cared little for the sport until the 2004 summer Olympics. After a single night, something arose from within me, and I knew this was going to become a key passion. Something that would mark the rest of my childhood, perhaps even my entire life.

But I couldn’t enroll in classes right away. My friend did, though, and whatever she taught me, I practiced constantly, relentlessly. Finally, at 12, I was able to start recreational classes. In a fortuitous string of events, I was admitted onto the level 4 team. The typical profile of level 4 gymnasts was 8-10 years old, and under 5 feet tall. I was 15 and 5’5″. I can only imagine what my coaches must have been thinking when they decided to give me a shot. I struggled and fought my way through conditioning. I had such a long way to go to build the muscle necessary to support my adolescent frame, while the younger kids were downright feathers. But despite any pain, frustration, and countless ripped blisters, back problems, and aching muscles, I loved it. And I progressed quickly. In two and a half years, I was training to compete level 8–though the demands of my senior year of high school and college preparation drove me to step out of the sport earlier than I had planned.

Gymnastics wasn’t the only late-manifesting obsession. My interest in drawing became preoccupation when I was a sophomore in college. It not only rose to prominence as a main hobby, but completely changed my career focus. I spent the summer after that year drawing from noon to 5am every day, with the exception of the month I studied abroad in Costa Rica. Sometimes I look back on that time and think to myself. I’m insane.

Science and writing are the two exceptions to this trend. I’ve always been a science nerd, and I’ve been writing fiction since I could piece together words.

Essentially, I need a forte, something to be really good at, along with a network of subsidiary proficiencies. I need to have something constructive available to constantly channel this persistent, nagging drive to pursue and create–a drive which has led me to writing, drawing, crocheting, unicycling, gymnastics, book-binding, biology, Spanish…among other things. My overarching journey of self-betterment and spirituality interfaces with and informs this need as well, but it seems to have its own distinct category.

And sometimes–these days especially–I wonder if my life would be less stressful if I wasn’t trying to pursue so much. In fact, I know it would be.

But my key pursuits are like ram ventilation: I have to keep moving to breathe. Like a shark. (Maybe I’m a shark.) And school has always imposed itself as an appreciated/hated mandatory reality, so it doesn’t quite count for me.

This need to find something to work toward and live for is not uncommon. Perhaps this is something sharks and the human spirit itself have in common. We can’t stay still. Except, with humans, our ram ventilation can get misdirected and land us into very deep trouble, or we run into trouble trying to quell the feelings of suffocation of having stopped. Some humans never learned the necessity of continual movement. Some came to a deliberate halt.

Some, like me, can feel the pace accelerating to a speed far beyond what we are perhaps capable of handling. But we try anyway. We angle ourselves directly into the flow and let the current buffet us. And it’s too much–so much that, interestingly enough, we can’t even breathe sometimes. Moving forward in such a torrent can strain and weaken us until we start to break under the pressure and pain of holding on.

We know we can technically step out of it, find out what it actually feels like to have everything stop. Sometimes suffocating in the cessation looks more appealing than continuing forward.

But we don’t remove ourselves. We stay in the current. In the pain. In the overwhelming hydroelectricity.

Because, despite the pain, it’s still worth it.

Because this is breathing, dangit, and we feel alive.

We feel alive.

Lines Crossed

Andrew sat rooted to the bench outside the principal’s office. Dead silent. Shoulders hunched forward. A scowl intense enough to melt steel trained on the wall across from her as she held a tissue to her bloody nose.

The setting sun threw yellow shapes on the hallway floor from the end window. Andrew kept an eye on that window. If any of John’s stupid posse of wannabes showed up to taunt her through the glass, it wouldn’t matter how emphatically she’d been ordered to stay put. They’d wish they were roadkill when she’d finished with them.

But Andrew would go from probably-grounded to dead-and-cursed-forever when her mom showed up if that happened.

Knowing Andrew’s luck, her mom would arrive the moment she took to beating the crap out of them. And Mom would bring Derek too. Sullen, noncommittal Derek, whose black hair always draped over one side of his face like a funeral curtain. Her adopted brother would have a heart attack coming upon the moment justice was served, and that possibility was the only thing obstructing Andrew’s full conviction of annihilating her idiotic, self-righteous peers.

Why did she wear “boy clothes?” Why was her light brown hair so short? Why didn’t she chase boys and talk about makeup and have really any friends? They asked too many questions. Never in an effort to understand, but to constantly peg her as a freak and a disappointment. Andrew already knew she was some kind of misfit without them rubbing it in her face.

Did it matter she didn’t care about what a lot of 12-year-old girls were “supposed to” care about? Did it matter that she didn’t have a crush on anyone? That her hands bore impressive calluses and she could outrun eighth-graders?

Andrew had tried to be civil. She’d tried freaking hard to be civil. But John and his friends became more and more unbearable by the day. They belittled her, scorned her. Especially when she fought back.

And finally, that day, all the way through the punch to John’s face, all she could think of were her mother’s words. Violence doesn’t solve problems, dear one.

But it was a beautiful sucker punch. And the sheer horror on every one of their faces—especially John’s—was worth the fight that ensued.

The principal just happened to be looking out his office window at the time.

Now Andrew was probably facing suspension. She guessed she was a perfect anti-example of her mom’s pacifistic advice. Mom would be frustrated, maybe even disappointed.

But maybe now they’d finally understand that she would not be pushed around.

Even if she had to break each of their noses twice, they would learn to respect her.

________________________

A/N: A small scene from one of my characters’ childhood. Her tolerance for jerks has substantially plummeted since then, but she puts her angst to good use these days.

The Prolific Writer Type

It didn’t take me long to learn that there are many types of writers. The prolific, the not-so-prolific, those that are good at beginning things, good at ending things, good at short stories, good at long stories, those that write all the time, those that struggle to feel motivated to write hardly at all. The list continues.

I am one of the prolific writers. Perhaps infuriatingly prolific writers. Who churns out pages and pages of content seemingly without significant obstruction.

Because, quite frankly, I am obsessed with it. Not that other writers aren’t obsessed. Writing is hard. We all have to be obsessed with it at least a little to make it a part of our lives.

For me, if I do not write almost constantly, I get heartsick. I tense up, I get restless and unstable and lose my ability to concentrate on anything else. The longer I put it off in favor of homework or other obligations, the worse it gets.

Usually, I take an afternoon/evening Friday sabbath and an all-day Saturday sabbath each week. Friday is to do whatever the heck I want to do as far as wandering around outside, going out to have coffee with friends, watching movies, that sort of stuff. Saturday is writing day. A time to satiate this fundamental, burning need. I’ll spend all day writing, editing, storyplanning (and drawing, because when I say “writing,” storytelling may be a little more accurate).

If you want a better chance of getting me out and about, talk to me on Friday.

Because Saturday is writing day.

Saturday is writing day.

But when my schedule consistently does not permit this? I hate it, for one. Absolutely despise it. It’s cruel and unfair and I cannot get myself to accept such a state. If anything, other things adjust to make room so that writing may remain constant. Other needs suffer in the long run, not writing.

Because there is always a point where it will not be denied anymore. It just takes over.

Like clockwork, this day ends up being Sunday, when I actually need to be working on all the homework I’ve been neglecting. But I can’t do anything until the weight is off my shoulders, out of my lungs, my heart, my brain. I am literally tied up until I have devoted at least a good 2 to 3 hours to some form of storytelling. (Usually through writing/doodling) But even then it’s not enough. Sure, it’s enough to put it off for a little bit, but I can still feel the need, slowly welling back up, constricting my throat, cutting off my ability to think or look at anything as more than a waste of time and energy–even when I value those other pursuits.

(In fact, this blog post is probably a prime example of the manifestation of this writing need taking over when I should be devoting my attention elsewhere, even after I spent a good two hours writing this afternoon.)

I am very seldom at a point where I can purely focus on homework. When I have nothing else needing to be drawn or written. I do homework to get it done. Sometimes I enjoy it. And I hope I learn as much as possible from it. But when it starts obstructing my ability to write, by either sucking up too much time or too much energy, it has severely overstepped its boundaries and needs to learn its place or I will kill it. (I’m at that point right now, actually.)

If anybody has ever envied my writer type, know that it’s a stressful existence. There are few other desires. All time is time to write. That is all I ever want to be doing. It interferes with schoolwork, with taking in new stories through reading/watching things, it dictates my social energy levels and interest. It’s a factor in pretty much everything I do. I cannot relax unless I have time to write. I write because I can’t not.

I can’t function without it. It is breathing. If anything interferes, it is suffocating, draining, panic-inducing.

Perhaps this is why I’m trying to make telling stories–writing, drawing–my career. So I can sustain myself financially the same way I sustain myself emotionally and psychologically.

And 8 weeks remain of my undergraduate degree. 8 busy, writing-choking weeks.

So far, the prevailing phrases in my vernacular are “I can’t be bothered to [fill in the blank].” and “I quit.”

I guess we’ll see what happens. Graduation is going to have to take place at the end of this semester–I will literally not stay here any longer than I have to.

Because I have stuff to write, dangit.