“I have been taught to filter.”

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My father always said that children were to be seen and not heard. I think of it often when I have a hard time finding my words. I think of it when I am angry and pissed and I struggle to keep my emotions in check, because when I am mad it is harder to use my words. I was not taught to use them. Since I knew to keep my mouth shut, I learned how to filter. If I ever made a bad choice, and got into trouble, then the potential punishment was in the form of his wooden fraternity paddle. That thing scared me. As did my dad’s disappointment.

I began to read voraciously when I was very young, and I started writing and illustrating my own stories too. Sometimes I wrote to get out of my world. Now I write to make sense of my world, to put the puzzle pieces together and try to understand it all. The thoughts and opinions I have of myself and how I perceive each situation. Did I handle it well? Did I react confidently and with poise? Or, did I go overboard and lose my cool? I remember a few classmates in college that impressed me with their writing ability. I can remember someone in particular that was able to put pen to paper about womanhood in the rawest of forms, and I never felt I could write like that.

So when I saw “Shrinking Women” it reminded me of my days studying Sociology, Women’s Studies, and Women’s Writing in college. While I was intensely into my studies, and at times felt like a hard-core feminist, I could never write poetry. I actually even had a hard time following poetry in general. Unless it was short and sweet, I was usually not interested. Lily Meyers, who wrote, “Shrinking Women” kept me listening. Maybe it is because I relate to her story. She won Best Love Poem at the 2013 College Unions Poetry Slam Invitational last April, and is a 2015 future graduate of Wesleyan University (Middletown, CT).

Here are a few lines that stood out to me:

“My brother never thinks before he speaks. I have been taught to filter…You have been taught to grow out. I have been taught to grow in…I learned to absorb…That’s why women in my family have been shrinking for decades…How much space she deserves to occupy…I asked five questions in genetics class today and all of them started with the word: sorry.”

Lily will make you think about how women view their body and their space, and how your actions might make your sister, friend, daughter, or niece view their body and space. It gets good at around 1:25 minutes. Maybe her passion, youth, and talent will make other women get rid of their filters. Enjoy.

Need for speed

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In a meeting one day this week someone made the comment: “Addicted to Speed.” It really made me think. We are so extremely addicted to things that are fast and furious. Think about it for a moment. We get impatient when our smart phone does not sync our email fast enough, or when our internet speed is too slow one day. We may be on the phone with a colleague and they say they sent that document to us via email, and we wait on the phone watching our inbox until it arrives.

We cannot download content fast enough over the Internet, we hate waiting for HTML images to download from our email. If we want to view a photo on Facebook and our phone does not have the best signal we get frustrated. The need for speed. We so badly want to honk the horn when the car in front of us is not driving the speed limit. Yes I am the worst offender and often I am in the passenger seat. Note to all: husbands dislike when we try to use the horn when we are not driving.

We want the pot on the stove to cook faster, either because we are very hungry, or we have other things to do. We dislike automated voice controls because they are slow and frustrating and if we could just talk to a human we could be done with our phone call faster. We want the cashier to go faster, but we miss out on that moment in our day when we can just stand and breathe.

We tend to always want to move to the next best thing, and get their as fast as possible, whether we are competing with ourselves or someone else. Why has the world gotten so fast? What are we missing by going this pace? Will we learn to slow down and just appreciate the moment?

#whytheneedforspeed

Have a little faith…

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I have blogged before about the emotion that comes when you hear a song, or you hear the words in a song. Last night after a long day, I was literally pooped, a bit frustrated, and slightly emotional. So instead of the usual routine when I come home from work, which is to immediately go for a run, I got comfy and curled up on the couch for some mindless television.

After catching up on some Modern Family, we watched an episode of The Voice, where one of the contestants sang John Hiatt’s song: “Have a little faith in me.” I guess after a full and exhausting day the song and words just hit me in an emotional way. Obviously I have heard the song before, but at that moment a whoosh of emotion hit me. Earlier in the day I had struggled with understanding why someone in my life has had some tough blows over the past few years, and for some reason it was effecting me yesterday. It was tearing at my heart. The lyrics: “When the road gets dark and you can no longer see…have a little faith in me,” got to me and made me think of things differently.

Maybe this song is about a couple in a relationship, or maybe not, but what came to me was about a higher power watching over us. I needed that last night. Sometimes we get so sucked into the shit that happens, we let it bug us, we agonize over whatever issue is causing us anguish, and forget that it is just a day, we can start it over freshly tomorrow. “Have a little faith.” It was just what I needed. It made me perk up and remember all that I am grateful for in my life.

Sometimes a cheesy singing competition, a snuggle on the couch, and words that poke into your heart is just what you need to shift your thought, and change the negative thoughts in your head to ones that truly matter.

Have a little faith.

Sliding Door Moments

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One of my favorite movies is Sliding Doors. When I first saw it I had short hair so I was completely into Gwyneth Paltrow’s short hair style. Yes, that was just the icing. Really I was engulfed in the story that the closing of a train door could completely change your life. You could miss that closing door, and it meant potentially not finding out that your boyfriend was cheating on you. (A story line in the movie).

I think of Sliding Doors often in my day-to-day life. Will this decision impact that decision? Will I regret it later? There have been many of those moments in my life. Taking a specific job, moving across the country, almost every decision we make could be a Sliding Door moment. Even some negative experiences we have can be Sliding Door moments, all based on how we react or respond to the situation.

I have one that I will not forget. I am not going to go into the details of the bad experience, but one night almost 12 years ago, a Sliding Door moment changed my life. I do not know if I would be sitting here writing this with Chris sitting ten feet away from me. That moment meant that instead of doing whatever I would have done that night, I was with Chris, and the conversation, love and support I received from him shifted something inside me and I was never the same again. One door shut and another was opened. I am not sure I would have seen the door open for me otherwise.

The rest is history.

If you have not seen the movie Sliding Doors, I encourage you to Red Box, Netflix, or borrow it from your local library. You will not be disappointed.

Apply to college to graduate high school

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One day last week, not long after I arrived at work, a story came on the television that airs the news or sports game in my team’s workspace. They mentioned a high school in Oregon that requires students to apply to college in order to graduate from high school. A few of us that were working away look up to the screen and want to more about the story. Why? Because the school was near us in Portland. I was intrigued. A high school in the Columbia River Gorge (about and hour east of Portland) in the Corbett School District may mandate this ruling for graduation. They want to make sure that students have options for their future. It made me wonder, do some students not know how, or have the support to apply to college, so they just do not even try?

I can remember in high school struggling to figure out the matrix of applying to colleges. For a few reasons. My mom had passed on 1.5 years before and she would have most likely helped me (or so I think). My dad was not really involved in my life at that time. I also did not have the money to send away to a bunch of colleges and universities in the form of an application fee. I had no idea what I wanted to do after college, or what type of school I wanted to go to. So what did I do? I applied to a few local colleges that had no application fee, and I applied to a university affiliated with my high school (again no application fee) to see if I would get in and potentially they could help me with financial aid. Did I really look at my options? No. Did anyone really help me? No. It was in my high school’s best interest for me to get into the affiliated college. They did next to nothing to help me find a school based on my interests. I am not sure the career office even checked in with us to see if we had applied anywhere.

What happened to me? I went to the college affiliated with my high school. I was actually fortunate to receive a large financial aid package based on my family situation. Do I regret it? Yes, and no. I received a good education, but half way through college I wondered what direction my life would have taken if someone had helped me to select a college that was just right for me. Even if it was in the middle of Montana. I worked hard, got good grades, learned a lot, but I often wonder what might life could have looked like with just a bit of guidance.

Oh and in case you are wondering. The Corbett School District indicates that this new requirement would mean that students have to get into a secondary school, however, just because they are accepted, does not mean that they actually have to go. The school will also help to pay for any application fees incurred. So students would learn about themselves along the way, and who knows maybe there are millions of individuals out there that never went to college because there was no one to help them navigate the landscape. Maybe this requirement will set expectations for students to work hard and try to get into college, and maybe their life will be changed because of it. Oh, and by the way, this high school was ranked the fifth best in the nation by Newsweek in 2010, so maybe they are on the right path.

Further reading: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/12/corbett-graduation-requirement_n_4088775.html