Pride

I don't think of pride often. Not specifically.  Last night that envelope was pushed and so here I am, exploring meanings and pushing them into shape. First I should say I grew up in a Christian household.  My parents tried really hard to instill in us the fear of a wrathful God.  Getting tattoos and being gay will send us to hell. I'm tatted up.  I want more ink one day.  I decided loving gay people was better than being hateful.  I believe you get out of your faith what you put into it, and it's important to see what faith means to you, and not what others tell you it means.  The United States was based on a separation of church and state, and I'm still working out a separation of church and my parents.  I'll have to let you know how it goes once I get there.

Before hitting Junior High, I had a huge crush on one of my sister's friends, only to see him grow into a drool worthy specimen of masculinity that likes other boys.  It can be hard to be aware of what sex for him would look like and still be attracted to him, but I manage. He loves his body as much as I do and I appreciate his work outs and selfie moments.  Yes, I still see Crossfit as God's gift to me.

When I was in high school, I had a few really great guy friends that would sit and talk about cute boys with me because they liked the same boys that I did.  These men grew up to have stories about the first time they got their asses handed to them for loving someone of the same sex, or being far more feminine than I am.  It wasn't a big part of who we were together but I know their existence was full of more heartache, grace and empowerment than I have ever known and their ability to walk in love is a strength deserving of admiration. Around this time I used to joke and say, "that's gay, but not like jailhouse raping gay . . . you know, plan your wedding gay.  The good gay." (No, I'm not proud of that.)  I didn't understand then how offensive I was being.  There's no good or bad gay.  There is a mix of pain and sorrow and grace and beauty and my ignorance in a time when "gay" was being used as an insult only normalized those that were behaving badly in "innocent" hetero fun by othering my friends.  We were laughing at the expense of those who have to fight family and friends to love and be who they feel comfortable being.

I have a confession to make.  When my sister came out of her closet, I must have been in high school or just out of it.  (My old kicks in and the years blur at times.)  I had to really look at what that meant to me, because I was under the false impression that who she loved had something to do with me.  I went through the shock that looked like disgust.  I thought silly things: was she getting off in giving me a bath when I was a kid?  Never mind the fact that she is my sister, and we're talking lesbian love, and not incest.  At the end of the day, and after I saw her go through lesbian and gender normative relationships, I realised all I wanted for my sister was for her to be loved like a coffee mug.

I later went through my own curious phase.  It lasted long enough to know I don't like kissing girls because they are too soft.  As exciting as porn might have looked, because boobs are awesome, I like mine enough to not want to touch anyone else's.  Then breastfeeding happened and touching them can be annoying instead of arousing.

I have a cousin that came to the states from Thailand when he was in middle school or high school.  (Again with blurring years.) As normal as it is to see Thai Lady boys, he is the only transgendered, gay person on that side of my family.  He's fiercely beautiful and still othered for who he is.  It's not normal in our family and while he's loved beyond words by his brother, he's also teased by that same brother.  He's still beautiful and fierce, and brave to me.  He will help me with my makeup, dance in 8 inch heels, tell me I deserve better, and still cut a bitch for looking at him wrong.  He's diva and beautiful and I love him madly.

When my boys were little, they each went through a nail polish phase.  I didn't mind and indulged in it.  Their Dad was angry about that, but how he feels is no longer my problem. I tell my boys I will always love them, no matter who they love. All I want is for them to be happy and know love. Male or female, I want my sons to be loved deeply and treated well.

For the LGBT community, pride isn't frivolous or silly.  It's not just rainbows and unicorns.  It's what survivors have when they didn't have someone to pave the way for them. As a black woman, I have in my bloodline a heritage that knows oppression and struggle.  My bloodline knows segregation and living in fear, but I don't.  I know emotional and financial abuse.  Having full control of my own finances is so liberating. I've never lived in fear that I might not survive the night because of my looks or how I walk and talk, or who I love. Even my parents, a black man and Thai woman knew oppression for being a mixed couple that I didn't, having married a white man.  I've never lived through being called names and being attacked and accepting that this was normal.  I don't mean when I was teased in elementary school.  For a while when I was in the second grade, I was teased and called slave girl and told to go back to Africa. I changed schools and went to a school with fewer hispanic kids and more black kids but I didn't have the same hair and I didn't talk the way they did, so my best friends had fair skin and hair textured closer to mine, but several shades lighter.  Schools changed again and I was teased for having liver lips, and Chewbacca hair.  But I didn't have to live in fear.  Not really.

Last night I was back to school shopping with Kid2 and Kid3.  Kid2 wanted a pair of Pride sunglasses from Target.  I had no problem with it.  I probably wouldn't have bothered with an explanation but their aunt was with us and started to explain what it's about.  She told them that Pride means accepting the fact that people can love whomever they love and we are going to be okay with that.  It's a great explanation for my 13 year old autistic child and my 9 year old, but then I remembered they're my boys, and there's a deeper meaning they should understand.

My explanation started in the store but finished on the way home and sounded more like:

You know your Auntie that dates women? And my cousin that dresses like a woman sometimes and dates men?  Pride means they can do this and we support them.  Some people don't like that and wearing something that says you're proud means you are okay with standing up for something that might get you hurt because people that don't like things tend to make their opinions known in unfriendly ways.  You know I'll love you no matter who you love, but what you may not know is that not everyone is as accepting of that as I am.

I walked away from our car ride discussion realising it's not enough to be able to have fun at a gay club.  I should be expressing my Pride.  I don't walk through what it means to me enough to teach my boys what Pride means.  What I want them to know is that for some people, gender is a fluid idea that isn't fully realized.  There are people that were born as boys but grow up to become women.  There are girls born who later become men, and the truly free present themselves as "they."

I was born a woman.  I live as a woman. It is how I feel comfortable, and even then, I have moments when living in my skin itches and pulls and I want to peel away the layers of weight and disgust but I can't.  It pulls uncomfortably like skin that has been burned and dried out by the heat of an unforgiving sun. My Pride is about accepting those that are comfortable in their skin, even if it means I am going to ruffle feathers and disgust people. It's knowing what may not be accepted and knowing that what I know to be right is more important than being accepted. My Pride means I won't flinch over which bathroom is being used.  As a Mom, I will always fear a bathroom that has my kids in it without an adult I know and trust. I won't get angry at seeing two men kissing.  I won't tell you how to live your life because frankly I'm still trying to figure out how to live mine.

Taking a Step

My walk has been a topic of conversation today.  I don't do it on purpose.  Not anymore. That strut that I step out in has become part of me.  I don't even think about it.  I found a video of a pink elephant that was walking like I do and had to share it on Facebook to laugh, because that is how I walk.  And I'm great at laughing at myself.

This morning at the grocery store, when picking up sugar snap peas (my go to snack - raw and undipped) the checker asked if I'm a model. She saw something in the way I walk.  It's with purpose (food and time are great motivators).  I look up and ahead.  I don't worry about where my feet fall, and smile at others because I'm usually playing a great song in my ears.  I don't worry about whether or not I can walk in heels.  I do, and I don't think about it because I trust my body.  I learned months ago that my muscles make up for my insecurity and that's when my calves hurt.  If I step out in confidence, it happens and others stare.  Or look away.  It's a toss up and I don't care anymore.

At work today, one of the women I sit with asked if I know I walk like a model.  I took it as a compliment and had a question to ask elsewhere.  I came back to giggling looks and knew she was asking someone else for an opinion on the way I walk and I laughed it off.

I was a t.v. extra.  It's a rite of passage in my city.  I acted on stage in high school.  I'm a bit of a ham.  I've never once modeled.  I'm not a model, nor do I care to be.

I don't walk like a model.

I walk like a mom.

I walk like I know great heartache can help me appreciate greater love.

I walk like I love silliness and frivolity because laughter is healing.

I walk like I'm inspired by sunshine and warm breezes with birdsong and honeysuckle on the wind.

I walk like smiles are free and hugs are healing.

I walk like it's an honor to be an inspiration to friends and strangers.

I walk in confidence because I know I will be okay.

I walk fearlessly because it feels better to be fiercely brave.

I walk like there's no turning back and the past isn't where I live anymore.

I walk like I'm stepping in gratitude.

I walk like there is beauty in everything I look at.

I walk as if I'm made of magic and stardust and there is something beyond belief holding me up and keeping me going.

I walk in the knowledge that I'm not different from any other person and anyone can walk like I do.

Righting a Wrong

Confessions

I have a confession to make.

Kinda.  Sorta.  Not really.  Not right now.

In the last year or so I've been really big on authenticity.  I've been embracing my truth and interpretation because to deny or normalize what is uniquely me into what I think might be accepted means I'm not okay with myself. When I'm wrong, I quickly admit it and do my best to address it immediately.

On Friday I made a mistake at work.  It was big enough to tie my stomach in knots and make my clumsiness much more pronounced.  I even broke my coffee mug.  I was holding it until I wasn't and it tumbled out of my right hand and somersaulted out of reach after jumping through my left hand before shattering spectacularly on the concrete floor. Try to imagine the echoes I can't forget.  It was loud and probably applause worthy but certainly epic. I knew I had to own up to it and walked around the inside perimeter of the building trying to figure out how to fix it and decide if explaining what I did was something to do in person or by email.  I decided to do it in person because I'm not big on hiding.  Not lately.  By the end of my run on sentence it wasn't a big deal.  It was even nothing that required more than a notation.  I worried about nothing.  The fact that I worried means that I cared, and my first concern was that I was creating more work for someone else to fix.

Confession is rarely for the benefit of the person we're confessing to.  When I confess something I've done it has gotten to the point where what I have done is making me uncomfortable.  I'm not happy or at ease with what I have done, and removing the guilt and shame looks like telling on myself.  I need you to know what I've done and the weight of what is on my shoulders needs to be explained so that you can see what I did.  At the end of the confession, the confessor has a heavy burden lifted, without concern for the new weight sitting on the shoulders of the person they've confessed to.

It's like admitting to a lover that you strayed while you were still unofficial.  You unburden your conscience but with little regard to the person you say you love.  They now have to carry your actions they might have been okay living blissfully ignorant of.

Forgiveness

When we offer forgiveness, it's a gift we give ourselves.  We don't have to tell a person we forgive them.  If they've done something wrong, they will have to find a way to make it better.  If they confess, giving your forgiveness means they still have to accept it and let it ease the disquiet of their actions.  In giving forgiveness, you release them from the responsibility of your feelings.  In forgiving, you give something to yourself so that you feel peace about a situation.  There is no reason you need to make someone feel better about how they treated you.  They will have to find a way to feel better about what they did or failed to do.  Forgiveness is something we sometimes need to repeatedly offer for a single offense.  Sometimes a single situation has a myriad set of reactions that become unreleased offenses.  For me, this looked like my ex leaving, and every single way my life changed for the worse become an unreleased offense until I realized this was the greatest gift beyond our kids he could've given me.

What I'm still learning is that when I do something wrong, and I've confessed and been forgiven, the hardest thing to do is to accept my own forgiveness for breaking a commitment to being the person I want to be.  I have to forgive myself for something I did when I didn't stand up straighter for my beliefs.

When I was just out of high school I had a friend that was one of my favorite people.  We hung out together.  We drank together.  One night at a party, I was very nearly gang raped in my own bedroom.  A guy I was seeing left me alone to grab this friend, who burst through the door, yanked me off my bed and ended the party for me while I sat and shivered on a couch between him and other friends.  A while later he was angry with his girlfriend and I stood between him and her with his fists raised in anger.  I knew he was hitting her and I repeatedly chose our friendship over what I knew was right.  Over 8 years ago I decided I couldn't condone that and I completely severed the friendship.  I still haven't forgiven myself for what I did in accepting him and not telling her to leave him sooner than I did, then walking away to not be involved.  It's enough to leave a sad look on my face that makes others ask if I'm okay.  I wasn't okay and that in itself is perfectly appropriate.

Apologies

I'm trying to teach my boys that an apology isn't enough.  There are some things I really am sorry for and when I do something wrong, I try to apologize. I apologize to my sons a few times a week at minimum. Sometimes I apologize to the air I'm breathing because there are times my rage is so much stronger than the debt I feel to the person I'm angry with.  Being angry has nothing to do with right or wrong.  What I feel doesn't legitimize what I do because of feelings. You know what feels right to you instinctively and human brains are usually good at deciding the rest. There is no reason to feel other than how you feel or to apologize or explain it.

When I say I'm sorry, and I really mean it, I will go into the ways I felt I've wronged someone and I will tell them what it made me feel about myself.  I will tell my kids I'm sorry I yelled. I lost it and my reaction is not your fault. I will do better next time because nothing means more to me than you do. (Even a fight that leaves another broken dish on the floor.) I will try to correct the committed offense and ensure it won't happen again because being the mother I want them to have means fewer therapy costs. Anything less and I'm breathing air and it's meaningless.

Body Image

I like to think my body image is healthy.  At the end of the day it comes down to knowing that not many people complain. I walk with confidence - usually.  I know my ethnicities intrigue and my curves entice.  I've been told these things since I was a little girl and it was really creepy.  It's not about conceit.  Knowing you are a face and a body and often nothing more doesn't feel good and I'm as self deprecating as the next person.  I attack other areas I have no control over. I will still think of my nose as large and flat and it will always make me think of peanut butter the way it spreads across my face.  It's adorable on my kids but it will always keep me just shy of beautiful when cute is the attainable title. My eyes will always be a dull brown that is nearly black when I've always wanted them lighter.  I have my Dad's cleft chin and my resting bitch face looks just like his everyday face when he's not fake smiling and a little creeptackular.  It's not pretty and it might be why I smile so much. It might also just be that I'm really happy most of the time lately.  I often hear from old friends that I didn't smile this much when I was happily married. When it's not my face but the rest of my body, I'm quite happy. When I was a little girl, many of my family pictures included me in the front, rounding out my belly, sticking it as far as I could.  I can't tell you why I did this because I have no clue.  I do know that I've never been one to suck in my stomach.  I might turn a certain way because there is artistry in angles, but I don't suck it in.

I was always fairly active as a child.  When I wasn't sitting in a sunny window, collecting bits of trash and calling them treasures, I was outside.  I rode bikes, tried skateboarding, played pickle and kickball with the neighborhood kids. . . Play was active.  I got older and my mom started sticking me in ballet, tap dance, jazz, Hawaiian dance, swimming, and gymnastics.  I got to junior high and joined Drill Team.  In high school there was more dance with theater and I also did karate.  Aside from my larger than average bra size, I was always fairly thin.

When I left high school, I worked in a lingerie store where I learned the average bra size was a 34B.  In high school I was wearing a 36DDD and couldn't even find my size in Victoria's Secret.  My relationships averaged a year and a half each and I never had complaints about my looks, but contentment often meant I got softer and larger because I ate the way my ex's ate and I was less active when we were hanging out the way we did. At my largest, my bra size was 40F.  (The complaint was I was too nice and too needy.) After the long term before the marriage I wasn't in relationships as much as hook ups.  There might have been one or two special boys at that time, but no one worth keeping.  Again, I didn't have complaints about my looks.  I also learned that what you looked like was less important than your willingness.  Most men are easy to read and easy in general.  Maybe that's why I'm not easily flattered and more interested in the boys that make me think.

Motherhood happened and I remembered my first endeavor after Kid1 was born.  I put on a pair of jeans, felt leaky everywhere because that is what childbirth does to a mother's body and went to the grocery store.  My hair was a mess, I was exhausted, and some poor boy was still hitting on me in line when I was still having a hard time walking. My ex didn't complain about my looks until I heard from his current one that I'm physically unattractive.  Since I wouldn't date her, I will assume we just have a difference of opinions.

My whole life, the only man to complain that I could and should lose weight is my Dad.  He means well.  I realized when he was taking me home from the hospital after visiting my infant who stayed a total of 10 days in the NICU that I had to just let it go and accept that I will never be thin enough for him, but no one else complains.

Really, I know what I look like.  I can see my stretch marks and extra skin and the parts that sag.  I know the random places where a gray hair will show up and even found one on top of my head.  (It was soft gray and I was so excited that I have a gray hair and no one will yank it out because I've earned it and I'm keeping it.)  I stand and judge the first tattoo I ever got because it was a jailhouse tat done badly and I want to one day repair it.  I'm waiting for the meaning to materialize and then I will have a concept to bring to the artist.

I also know what my body is capable of.  I have carried and birthed seven children.  I have hiked through dangerous terrain. I have danced and walked and kicked and punched. I can still roundhouse kick at chest level but I couldn't guarantee the power behind it. I was able to do my right and left splits until Kid3.  I'm flexible enough to bend over and reach my toes without stretching.  I have gone farther than I thought I could and I have done it with laughter and through sorrow.  I know what it is to run along wet and dry sand.  I know what it feels like to push past exhaustion into feeling like you have limitless energy.  My body knows pleasure beyond words and what it really means to be able to do nothing but feel because good and bad, it always comes in waves. I can survive pain that is emotional until it's also physical.  My body amazes me.

I have moments of insecurity at a beach when I'm first exposed in a bikini.  Then some random guy won't be able to look away and my confidence is back because I know no one else looks as closely as I do and in spite of my flaws, I'm still amazing to me.

It's not enough though, is it?  It's not enough to love my body for what it looks and feels like and what it can do.  I have young men and women in my life and I owe it to them to pass on what has been internalized through so many heartaches. I need them to know they are so much more than the pleasure that can be found in their bodies because that would make it easier to see the fallacies in being told that they can never find better than the one that makes them feel bad about themselves.  There's a push to end childhood obesity, but it's really not just about eating too much and being inactive.  It's about what we do to cope when life does the unexpected and we can't appreciate the change.  It's about not teaching our children that comfort tastes like sweet or savory textures.  It's about a healthy image of normal.  We don't all look like what we see on television.  If the only naked bodies I was ever exposed to were in porn, I would never know what a woman's body should look like.  You can't look at porn or magazines or actors and call that your normal.  Its beauty is in its rarity.  I was lucky that I often saw my mom in different states of undress.  I know what a normal woman is supposed to look like.  My mom is solid.  She has never been slender to me because she has always had Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Legs.  She's always been strong and powerful and to want her to fit into the ideal of what society would push would take away the beauty I grew up internalizing and her beauty looks like strength and independence.  When she was slender in the idealized way, it was before motherhood forced her body through maturity and to love the body of a young girl and only that image would be to rob us of the pleasure found in a mature body.

It's not about learning an ideal and shaming all else.  It's about finding beauty in what we have and loving the way it feels and knowing we are far more than an image.  It's knowing I'm not average but that is what is beautiful.  It's knowing that the reason a man is in porn isn't because he has a pretty face, but because he has an abnormal size or endurance.  It's teaching our boys what normal is so dysfunction can be addressed and not stigmatized or feared.  It's teaching them that actors are paid to do what they do and that doesn't make it pleasurable.  My son is fascinated with porn right now.  We have many talks and I openly discuss the violence and try my best to humanize the actors in a way that he can see there really isn't pleasure in violence.  I don't want him to grow up thinking that what he sees is normal in relationships because that is a rare snowflake that likes that flavor of kink and you should either run or hold on, but never take it for granted.

See me.

I'm into selfies.  It's never about makeup or an outfit. My selfies are about any given moment and how I feel in it.  I look through my Facebook or Instagram and I can tell you about that moment, because that was what I was capturing.  This was on Mother's Day.  I was with family at my Mom's house and the dog was ours for many years, but I gave him to my niece.  He was so happy to see me that he wanted to jump up my dress.  There was surprise and silliness and tons of happiness.  I was in the early happy stages of online dating and joking about the many dates I had that week.  That week, I had a couple of morning or lunch dates with different dinner dates.  It was a happy moment of attention and I loved it at the time.

I was in front of my bestie's car.  He drives enough horses to make me a little jealous and I love my car.  We hadn't seen each other in a really long time and we were hanging out at a barcade for drinks, laughter, reminiscing and ego boosting.  I was with friends I have known over two decades and at one point I asked one of them to stand out of my line of sight because there was a beautiful boy in front of me with a southern drawl and I was feeling silly and boy crazy, but not at all on the prowl.

This was Monday at the Mondrian on Sunset Strip.  I've lived in Los Angeles my whole life.  Specifically, I've had four addresses and they were all in Los Angeles County.  I have always wanted to party on Sunset Strip but never had an excuse or company.  It was a 20th Anniversary showing of Romeo and Juliet poolside with cocktails.  I was there with friends and excited for the opportunity to listen to the Q&A with casting director David Rubin and the opportunity to be with the woman behind GenArt.  (She's full of amazing, if you wondered.)  It was a great night before my week turned.

This was yesterday.  I was having a moment of loving what I was looking at.  We can ignore the fact that I was looking at myself.

Life happens.  There is no need for excuses or explanations.  It is what we've made it and the power of it all is in our interpretations because perspective is a chosen way to look at life. Today was a much better day, but there was a moment once I parked my car before meeting a friend for dinner when my thoughts were serious and intense and while I wasn't overwhelmed, those ideas needed full credence and I was giving those thoughts my full attention.

I posted this to my Instagram and Facebook:

"I glanced in the rear view mirror and caught myself sifting through thoughts deep enough to drown in.  Not hiding this moment became the moment I choose to share."

So many are used to my happy moments that one picture prompted phone calls and text messages.  I promise I'm okay, but clearly not good at thinking and smiling at the same time.  This was a moment of standing proudly in who I am framed by what I was feeling.  I was feeling a moment of sadness.  It's been a rough week but mainly I was thinking back a couple of decades and not proud of the woman and friend I was.  I was feeling the weight of free falling through situations I can't control.  I was taking a moment to stand in the strength of defending myself yesterday because I chose to not be yelled at and hang up the phone and answer when and how - on my terms when I was ready.

I will not listen to you yell at me because I am not your child.  

This is not a discussion.  

In those two sentences I felt taller, and the rage that flowed around me became ripples that broke around but not on top of me.  Those two sentences were years in coming and I was the only one to celebrate them when they came.  And my moment was full of many other thoughts in several directions because I can't shut that part of my brain off.  There may have been some angst and longing in there as well.

Night has fallen and I get to marvel at what it feels like to be loved so deeply that others want to know what has stolen my smile.  This is what it feels like when others take notice and want to help get that smile firmly back in place.