Untitled 2.0 (or Ugly Revisited)

I have been going to therapy for over five years. Faithfully. Weekly. For over five years. Youʻd think Iʻd be “better” already, wouldnʻt you. Ha!

The big lesson Iʻve learned is that sometimes a shit ton of healing needs to happen.

Over the last few days, Iʻve been feeling super insecure. Iʻve been feeling ugly (thatʻs a huge one), inadequate (another biggie), and unworthy of love (fuuuuuuck me). I am scared that these failings of mine will repel love, ruin friendships, and leave me woefully alone. I am afraid that my soft heart and big emotions are repulsive. I worry that I am a burden, that Iʻm creating a huge mess, that Iʻm taxing your resources because Iʻm feeling insecure and require some extra TLC.

I donʻt know that Iʻm wrong, and I donʻt know how to think different thoughts about myself. I feel ugly and, lacking any proof, I donʻt know how to be like, “No, Iʻm not.” But I can remind myself that this is really old and deeply entrenched pain. These are beliefs that Iʻve held for literally as long as I can remember. This is pain that Iʻve felt for equally as long. Of course I don’t know how to think different thoughts about myself! Iʻm totally inexperienced!

“Iʻm ugly” is part of the story I tell myself about my inadequacy, about why I donʻt matter, why Iʻm unlovable. I donʻt actually know if Iʻm ugly or not. I might be hideous. I might be a fucking troll. Honestly, I donʻt know what ugly is, and I donʻt know that any of it matters. But for a long time, those thoughts explained everything: If I could be pretty and thin and tidy, perhaps I could be loved.

I donʻt know if Iʻm ugly, but Iʻve realized that my objective isnʻt to change my mind about my appearance because itʻs not about that. Itʻs about making space for this pain. To feel it and claim it and to look at it without judgement. Itʻs about making space for me. Claiming space for myself.

And so I begin with a question: What will happen if I talk about it? Will you reject me? Judge me? Think less of me? Will I be too much? Will my insecurities repel you?

Say all of my fears come true. Just say it does. What would that mean for me? Could I handle your rejection, your judgement? Or would it do me in? Is your acceptance and your comfort worth making myself small and hiding my sensitive self, pretending to be someone Iʻm not? To protect a relationship in which I need to be someone else in order to be loved and cherished? Do I want to be in relationships with people for whom my sensitive heart is a burden?

On top of that, do I even believe the stories Iʻm telling myself? Do I believe that vulnerability is unattractive? Do I believe that being a sensitive person is unattractive? Does this resonate with me? If my kids came to me saying they were feeling insecure, would I shame them? Would they repulse me? Would I reject them? Or would I pull them closer? Would I want to hear more? Would their feelings irritate me or inspire compassion and love? Would I think it a personal failing on their part if they believed they were ugly or unlovable or inadequate?

I would never. I have never and would never reject them or judge them for their insecurities and self-doubt. I would embrace them, listen, support, encourage, and love. And I do not want to be partnered with someone who treated my feelings as a tedious, inconvenient chore. I do not want to make myself smaller to be loved. And guess what? I would survive the loss if it came to that.

So why am I doing this to myself? If I donʻt buy into the bullshit anyway and donʻt want the company of people who do, why do I listen to these old, fucked up narratives?

This is old pain that requires a lot of healing. Not being “better” yet isnʻt a personal failing, it isnʻt a character flaw, it doesnʻt make me weak or undisciplined or too needy. Itʻs just a deep wound that needs lots of care, and I can do that for myself.

9/7/2018

Today marks five years since my hysterectomy. Sometimes it seems like such a morbid thing to recognize, year after year, when it was the thing that ended life as I knew it. For five years, Iʻve been gaslighting myself, wondering if Iʻm attention seeking or just beating myself up as a means of redemption.

But today, I feel different. I cried, yes. Itʻs hard shit, yo, what Iʻve been through. I celebrate this anniversary today with tears because I can finally turn toward it instead of pushing it away. Instead of denying it or downplaying it or telling myself to just get over it already. I open myself up to and invite in all the difficult emotions, all the confusion and contradictions, the relief and even the joy.

For example, I learned a few weeks ago that I still harbor sadness over losing my ability to bear children. Like, what the fuck is that? And by “still,” what I really mean is that I never even realized I felt that way, especially because I have no desire to have more babies and feel immense relief that I would never have to worry about it again. I still donʻt understand it, except that maybe because my choice was taken away? Or maybe itʻs even that Iʻm intensely grateful to have borne two awesome-ass human beings. 

What Iʻm saying is that Iʻm still learning about the ways that this hysterectomy has affected me. Is affecting me. More than that, Iʻm OPEN TO THE EXPERIENCE. 

Celebrating this anniversary-- marking this day as special-- gives me the opportunity to reflect on it, to make space for it, to remind myself that I indeed went through some fucked up shit and not only endured, but softened, grew, healed. I am redefining “strength” and “trust” and “love.” My softness is my strength, presence is my trust, and love? Boy, that love is tenderness and vulnerability and boundaries.

The hysterectomy changed everything. And it did, though I amend that statement today: My hysterectomy was a catalyst. It wasnʻt just a thing that happened. It was not a passive voice— “a hysterectomy happened.” No. It was a force, it was an agent. My hysterectomy was a loving and insistent hug, whispering, coaxing (because power and strength and force will not be conflated with anger, guilt, or shame today), “Itʻs okay, Kanani. You can let go.” 

So today I celebrate with tears and grief and mourning. I celebrate with laughter and friendship. I celebrated by submitting my very first request for vacation time and it was approved almost immediately. I am not where I was one year ago, let alone five, and things… CHANGE, rather… rarely ever looks the way I think it will, and that is a good thing. Change can be a SAFE thing.

Today, I celebrated by sharing with a few friends how Iʻm feeling. I set aside some time and made the decision to talk about how I experienced today. Thatʻs different.

Today, I celebrated by going to pole. I was very limited in what I could do because of my chewed up right hand, but I wanted to dance. I wanted to celebrate with dance. And community. I wanted to laugh. I wanted to feel my body the way it is now: powerful and sensual and goofy and hale. I wanted to be among friends, to feel known and seen and loved.

September 7 is a complicated day for me. I mourn because I have lost, I celebrate because I am healing, and I rejoice because I am alive. I feel such gratitude for all the love I have in my life and for the tremendous opportunity to hold myself with tenderness and compassion.

Dear Kanani, A Love Letter

My Dearest Kanani,

How could I ever convey to you how magical you are? How special? How beautiful? Words are so inadequate, but I am not a painter nor a musician. I am not a sculptor nor dancer. All I have are words.

You have been through so much, my love. Enough to freeze your heart, to turn away, to lose hope. And still you love, you hope, you dream. You continue to believe in people, to strive to ease suffering where you may, and spread joy if itʻs within your power. You so want to believe in the goodness of people and in the world even when it costs you.

You have been a good mom. All you need to do is look at your children to see it. Noah and Lucy are such amazing humans and they love you and want to protect you so fiercely. They are kind and generous and weird— just like you! They love you so much, Kanani, and they are not garbage people. They are stunning and vibrant, like their mom. I know you wish you had done some things differently— listened to them more, gave them better advice, provided a better home life, but I know you were doing the best you knew how.

Kanani, you think a lot. Perhaps you overthink. Maybe itʻs the writer in you, though you say youʻre not creative, but youʻre always coming up with narratives in which horrible things happen to yourself. But that brain? It is wonderful. It might just be the most beautiful thing about you. Your curiosity and desire to learn. You question, you turn a critical eye on things, you want to know why. That brain! It writes! You tell stories, whether fiction or non, that resonate with others. Many have commented on the strength of your voice, on your ability to verbalize a thing and connect an idea with an emotion. 

And when you turn your sights on a person, the love letters you write! Holy shit! You pour your heart into those letters. You paint pictures with your love and admiration. You turn that shit ON. Can you imagine what it feels like to be the focus of that much warmth? That much love? You understand that love is textured and layered. It is about who an individual is— their personality, their looks, their likes and dislikes, etc. Itʻs also about how they treat others, how they treat you, how they make you feel. You can take the smallest thing, the most seemingly-insignificant thing and turn it into gold. And not because you can, but because that thing matters that much to you.

Oh, to matter that much to you! I would love to matter that much to you. I would fight for it! I would fight to have your attention, to be in your circle, for you to see me and turn that smile and intelligence in my direction. So that we might have a philosophical conversation or a good and hearty laugh. So that maybe I could hear about your challenges and help ease your pain. So that we can make better sense of the world. Together.

The world can be scary, sweet girl, and I know you get scared. I know you are sometimes terrified to go out into it because thereʻs pain to be had and you never know when or where or how. I know you sometimes feel inadequate and unequal to the task. You feel small, insignificant, insufficient, and replaceable. You feel unworthy. But, Kanani, who is stronger? For real, girl, who? You have fought through so much and continue to fight. You keep pushing, you keep trying, you keep doing the hard work even if you think you look foolish. You expose yourself, you humble yourself, and you laugh. Oh, that laugh. That laugh that so many comment on. That laugh that I know you feel self-conscious about. Too loud, too brash, how annoying. No, sweet girl, no. That laugh that says “I love life.” That laugh is powerful.

I see you doing things that scare you all the time, Kanani, and I am so proud of you. I am in awe of you. I am so impressed that you can imagine a different life for yourself. And I canʻt believe how amazing you are and you donʻt even see it. That is a shame, a travesty, because you should know. You should know how loved you are, how amazing and kind you are, how talented and inspiring you are. You deserve to know. And if you ever doubt, if you ever waver, if you find yourself on the floor, sobbing, believing that you are unimportant, a burden, too much, not enough, crazy, unloved, unseen, broken? I will never tire of showing you how much you mean to me. How important you are to me, how I can never get enough of you, how your craziness just adds to my life, never subtracts. You are loved so much, sweet girl. I love you.

Postscript:

I sobbed while writing this. It has been a rough week and I started spiraling this afternoon. Then for some fucking bizarre reason, I thought I should write a love letter to myself (because I love receiving love letters). I immediately knew it was the right thing to do because of that feeling of my heart being torn to fucking pieces. That agony? That was the the feeling of paying attention to little Kanani who just craves tenderness and love.

Old Pain

I'm scared.

A lot of things scare me, like falling off the pole and onto my head, reversing my car into a pedestrian, my daughter walking home alone at night.

I'm also afraid of having friends, of not having friends. Of being loved, and of not being loved. I'm absolutely terrified of being vulnerable, which isn't necessarily the same thing as being myself because I'm not always afraid to be myself (have you seen me in public? Heard me?), though being exposed and unshielded scares the shit out of me. 

I cry.

I cry a lot sometimes. I cry because I get invited to fun things, because people include me in their plans, because people make space for me. I cry because I feel pressure to have fun, to enjoy myself. I cry because I suspect I'm not enough, I'm not good enough, because I fear being disposable.

I don't always know who I am, you see. You see, I'm in the process of relearning who I am in that cliched midlife crisis sort of way while simultaneously rebelling against that cliche in every way I can. And even though I believe this process is neverending and should ever be neverending, I wish it would end already with me on top of the world, happy, confident, and soft and tender and pillowy and full of love for myself and the world at large.

When I start to fear that I'm not enough, that I could never be enough to be loved, to be cherished, to be respected and honored; that I could never be enough to be honored with transparency and tenderness and with the love that I seek in the world; I've stopped telling myself that I know better. I've stopped (mostly) discounting those fears. I've (mostly) stopped scolding myself or even building myself up, puffing up my chest in defiance of my doubt. Because it's taken me so long to finally (FINALLY) accept that it's okay to be fucking scared.

Scaredy cat, crybaby, wuss, panty, needy. Call me whatever names you will, I'm (mostly) okay with that. Because I am scared and I do cry. And whatever negative spin you put on it, trust me, I've said worse about myself. And we'd both be wrong. Wrong wrong fucking wrong.

It's okay to be scared. It's okay to cry. I ask my therapist, "What the fuck good will it do just to acknowledge the pain I feel?" I laugh because I'm also stupid. So stupid. And I say that with love, yo. I'm fucking stupid. Because what in all the world have I ever wanted but to be seen, to be heard, and to be held with tenderness. And yet here I am, not seeing, not hearing, and treating myself with contempt.

So, Iʻve been holding myself close today. Telling myself the sweetest things even if I feel a fraud. Imagining Iʻm talking to one of my kids as if theyʻd said, “Mom, Iʻm scared” or “Mom, Iʻm scared Iʻm not good enough” or “Mom, the world is scary and I feel very exposed.” What would I say to that? How would I show them all the love in my heart? How would I show them they are not alone? How would I love the shit out of them?

How would I love the shit out of myself?

It seems impossible to me at the moment to fully embrace that I am enough. I know that in the course of my life, I will experience hurt and disappointment. I know that people will be dishonest, cruel, sometimes even with the best intentions. This is a normal part of things. Still, it seems impossible to fully embrace that I am enough and that I deserve all the fucking things I want and need. I will be hurt and disappointed and it is still safe to be open and to be soft and to love with abandon.

There will be days that Iʻll know. Days that Iʻll be so fucking fired up with myself, filled up with myself, bursting with the knowledge of my own beautiful worth. This is my goal. I will not always be like this-- so fearful and unsure-- I will be somewhere else on this journey. I will not always be like this, I will be more sure-footed.

This is the life I choose, you know. I choose this difficult, sometimes ridiculous work of learning to be with old pain, of not running from it, of facing it and loving it and showing it the tenderness it so desires and is worthy of. The work I do is my path, and I believe that more than anything else right now.

The Great Responsibiity of Self-Love as Demonstrated in Spider-Man: No Way Home

Thereʻs a scene in Spiderman: No Way Home in which the three Spidermen? Spidermans? are preparing for battle and Peter 3 says to the other two, “I love you guys.” They look at him and each other and then thank him.

I love this moment because, shit, you see a man in a blockbuster movie say to other men in a completely earnest way, “I love you,” and that love is received with sincerity. But what just crushes my heart while simultaneously pumping it up five times its natural size is the realization that Spiderman is speaking TO HIMSELF. He is looking at his other selves from other dimensions, taking comfort in their presence, working with them to defeat evil, and LOVING them— loving HIMSELF. He is loving each of his selves AS THEY ARE.

They go on this journey together, and as they get to know each other, learn about their strengths, and share their vulnerabilities, they demonstrate compassion and acceptance. They discover theyʻve all suffered great loss and feel like failures. They can relate to each otherʻs trauma in such a unique way. Itʻs not lost on me that the other Spidermans are older and they are extending grace and wisdom to their younger counterpart. They work to help him heal so that he can flourish. In fact, thereʻs a whole part where Peter 2 reminds Peter 3 how amazing he is. Itʻs like a whole therapy session they have with each other.

 

And when they fight the villains as individual Spidermans, they fail! Theyʻre so used to fighting their battles alone that they suck at working together.  Until Peter 1 (of Team Avengers!) guides them and says, “Focus. Trust your tingle. Coordinate our attacks.” Augh! Guess what happens once they do that? Go on, guess!

The relationship the three Peters share demonstrates the kind of relationship I strive to have with myself. I want to love myself, work with instead of against myself, and defeat evil! I donʻt think thatʻs asking for too much.

It can be so hard to extend grace to myself when I feel shitty, but it becomes an easier exercise when I ask myself, “is this how I would treat someone else? A friend? My child?” The Peters didnʻt mock each other when they shared their stories. They didnʻt judge each other. You can see in their faces the empathy and concern and awe. Maybe if I can imagine this aspect of self— this hurt, scared, and sometimes angry aspect of self— as an entity outside of myself, I can be kinder and more loving. Maybe at the end, I can hug her, thank her, and flourish.

Side note: Never thought Iʻd be writing a blog about Spiderman. Iʻd recommend watching this one if you havenʻt already and if I havenʻt spoiled it for you here.

Over Myself

Do you know what being like me feels like sometimes?

Imagine every movie you’ve ever seen where the antagonist, the Bad Guy, who has been exploiting the evil spirits to forward his nefarious agenda, is slowly being consumed by the same evil spirits who were just given permission by the devil to abandon the nefarious agenda (it was stupid and doomed to fail, anyway). Think of that antagonist maybe hanging on the edge of something, looking upward toward the protagonist, eyes wide, begging, “No, don’t let them take me.” Meanwhile, the evil spirits undulate below, arm-like appendages reaching toward our Bad Guy, overwhelming him, towing him down, down, down.

I am the Bad Guy and those evil spirits are the familiar, painful narratives I tell myself: you are not enough, you are unlovable, you're a failure, you're a burden, why the fuck are you feeling sorry for yourself suck it up other people have it worse than you get back to work, you weak piece of shit.

Except there’s no Bad Guy or Good Guy, there’s just me. The Guy. Rather, the Girl, neither good nor bad, struggling to not be consumed by those painful narratives. There is no nefarious agenda, just the pursuit, like everyone else, of not sucking. Of happiness.

For that matter, there’s no devil even. Just a scared little girl— again, ME— using the monsters of her childhood to protect her from the monsters of her adulthood.

That’s what it sometimes feels like to be me in every eternal moment.

And I'm so fucking over myself.