I Have No Friends, and Other Heartbreaking Things You Never Want To Hear Your Child Say

I had a heart wrenching talk with my daughter, she was afraid to go back to school because she didn't think she had any friends there (insert that horrible feeling of not being able to save your kids from heart ache). She gathered this because the year books had a place to write down the names of your friends and no one wrote her name (not everyone filled it out). I'm also fuzzy on how she saw everyone's year books, but I digress.  She was in tears and ashamed.  She has been excluded by a bullying girl, there's no denying that.  However, she can also be terribly shy.

 I acknowledged that feeling of being left out is awful, and that it's hard to make new friends when everyone else already knows each other. I told her about my experience moving schools.
I'm a stop worrying about it and start fixing it kind of person, so together we went over the names of the girls she has talked about doing stuff with at school.
"What about so and so?  Don't you draw pictures together?"
"Yes."
"She's not your friend?" I asked.
My daughter shrugged. "She likes my art, she showed me how to draw a fox."
"That's her way of trying to find things in common to share with you, that's how friendships start."
"Oh." Honestly sounding surprised.
"That's how my friendship with Kyle, Kelden, and Beth started, but we weren't close right away. We shared music together and then found out we had other things in common and it built from there.  It took just over a year and we all put in effort. So enjoy art with her, ask her about other things she likes.  Some friendships take awhile to build, but that's okay because they usually end up being good ones."
She nodded and snuggled more into me, I could tell more reassurance was needed:
"What about that other girl, the one you email?"
"Oh, we lost touch this Summer."
"So why don't you email her tomorrow and ask how her Summer was?"
"Yeah, I guess I could do that." Her voice sounding a bit lighter.
"Do you have guys you hang out with at school?"
"Yeah, ______ and _______." She laughed. "They are trouble makers."
"Are they mean?"
"No, they just sometimes cause trouble for the teachers."
"Well as long as you don't join in, in the classroom, you could make friends with them. Sounds to me like there are people who want to be your friends, but maybe you aren't letting them in because you
are shy."
"Yeah, maybe."
(I have seen several kids approach my daughter on the street and say "Hi." My daughter quietly says it back then steps away.) I could tell that it wasn't from a lack of interest that she wasn't making close connections. She has a hard time interacting at first, she needs to ease into it.
"Truth be told," I started. "I've been the popular girl in a big group of friends, but many of us weren't really friends, we weren't always nice to one another and I kinda wished that I was in that smaller group of friends, because they seemed to care about and support one another.  Find people or who want to put time and energy into you, the ones who care about your feelings, and do the same for them. Those are the good friendships."
"Okay." She smiled.
"You think you can sleep now?"
"Yep."
"Good night, sweetie."

The kids in the homeschool community were always so inclusive. They were taught to be by their parents.  My daughter could be her shy self at first and still be invited to play in a game, sit in a group etc. Public school is such a culture shock, where many of the kids are guarded and clique. However, this will teach her how to make friends in new cities and workplaces.  I hope she will come talk to me some more about it, friendship is so important.  Luckily, she still has a really good friend from the homeschooling community that lives up the street. So she won't miss out on having girl talk.

Now, I've written that.  I need to compartmentalize and not take my daughter's feelings to bed with me.  Which is hard.  However, if I take on her feelings, she won't come to me anymore because she doesn't want to make me feel bad.  She is a very compassionate little girl, perhaps even empathetic to a fault.  She has such a kind, sensitive, heart, I'd like her to be able to keep it that way.

Wonder Woman

I watched Wonder Woman and something crumbled in me.  I realized that I couldn't love the people closest to me.  My children the exception. However, to people who are physically close and people who are blood related, anyone I feel there is any obligation to love them,  I have become so cold, so hard.  I only saw them for the emotional energy they would need, I saw them as points for potential conflict and heartache.

See, I wasn't broken by my last love, I was built.  I am so built, that the more scared I am, the calmer I look on the outside.  I can look a friend in the eye and say to him calmly:

I'm totally triggered right now, I need to know that we are cool.

Then as my chest feels like it is imploding, I can stride to the washroom, take 3 deep breaths, tell myself I'm safe and carry on.

I literally lose the use of my legs and the ability to speak while out at a pub and I smile, and write notes about it with emoji faces.

It's so easy to hold it together, when you are too scared to fall apart.
Show no negative emotion.
You are safer when you look calm.
Don't relax and don't feel loved.
Love is the illusion that keeps you where you get hurt
Don't let your guard down.
Love the people who are too far away to hurt you.
Love the people you owe nothing to.

I can very calmly describe horrific things that have happened to me.  My vocabulary increases exponentially,  my posture pristine.  I cross my legs, fold my hands in my lap and use proper terminology:

trauma, triggers, adrenalin, fight or flight,

disassociation.

My body tells one story while my insides scream another.
I desperately need to break down in front of someone who loves me.
I need to crumble into their arms and
I need for them to not get angry at me for it.

I know some people who think that I am invincible,

I used to want to be invincible,

Now I want to be strong instead.

Dear daughter,

I always want you to feel like, in general, the human race is good and our drive is to become better. However, I would be doing you a great disservice if I did not point out where we need improvement. At this time in your life, when your body is in metamorphosis you are vulnerable to the persuasion of companies who profit off  your insecurities about your body.  They do it  by creating a feeling that you are not good enough and more recently, by using advertising campaigns whose purpose is to give some of the empowerment you will crave after believing you are not good enough.

You are my beautiful, smart, joyful girl, who is capable of amazing things, but unfortunately,
to corporations you are not a multidimensional human being with feelings, you are a consumer. Essentially, you are someone they can target and make money from. I give to you the commercial that had a very young me pinching my sides and being dissatisfied with my appearance, wishing I could just cut into my hips take out inches of skin and sew the sides back together.  This is Kellogg's "Can't pinch an inch" marketing scheme:

Now 30 years later, after profiting off of the idea that women should be slim, effectively teaching young women that their "inches" were undesirable, Kellogg's has decided to jump on the positive body image band wagon.

Kellogg's literally contributed to the very body issues that they are describing in this video. They made money putting women down, now they are making money building us back up.  At least they are bringing us back up right?  This is where social responsibility comes in.  Has Kellogg's formally taken responsibility for it's contribution to body image issues? I went to investigate their website myself. Though they discussed accountability and integrity under the heading of "Our Values", I searched the website and did not see an official statement, apologetic or otherwise about their "Can't Pinch an Inch" campaign.  If the company can't admit to their responsibility for harm done, they lack both integrity and accountability and really are just in it for your money.

Dove's Real Beauty campaign:

 Did you notice the women burning their bras?  This was a demonstration done by feminists, is has actually become iconic of feminism. In fact a slang term for the word feminist is "bra burner."Dove literally used feminism to sell their product and market themselves to feminists. However, the advertisement calling for models for this campaign had unrealistic expectations for women in their
commercials and photo shoots.  Flawless skin was just one of the perfections the models were
expected to have, nymag.com reported during the peak of the campaign in 2010. http://nymag.com/thecut/2010/06/dove_seeks_women_with_flawless.html   

So how can you be sure that you are purchasing from companies who aren't trying to profit from your insecurities?  You could buy as local as possible from small companies who don't run large advertising campaigns...  But more importantly, before you buy these products you could ask yourself: Am I buying this because I feel like I am not good enough with out it? Or am I buying it because it helps me celebrate the things I love about myself?  If your answer is the first one, you don't need it, take time before buying it to realize that you are whole and beautiful without it. If it's the second answer, then go ahead, but ask yourself first: is there an amazing experience I'd rather be spending this money on?

If you ever do find yourself in front of a mirror critiquing your body, please remember, that these negative voices in your head telling you that you are not good enough, were put there by thousands of images made by companies that need you to buy your beauty. I give you full permission to tell  those voices and the companies responsible for them to go f$ck themselves.

Love,
Mom

Porcelain

It's 4:30 am.  I have awoken from a dream.  My eyes opened with a sinking sadness. A feeling of deep loss.  In my dream, I was packing my little girl's dolls into a bin and thinking about which one's she would like to keep to rediscover when she was an adult.  Would it be the flashy porcelain ones, or the ones she played with til they were worn?  All the while, the room around me morphed into my childhood bedroom.

This day of packing away dolls is not so far away.  The knowledge that I have been taking our time together for granted is sharp in the pre-dawn darkness.  I have a little girl who writes me emails telling me that she misses me, thanking me for hanging out with her and trying to make plans.  Here I am spending hours talking online with people, who I don't doubt love me, but will never love me like she does.  They don't need me like she does.

I'm not one to sit in these discoveries of sadness and guilt.  I am not one who believes that feeling bad about something is a good for motivation. I used to, but then I spent too much time feeling guilty and not enough time fixing things to move on.

As mentioned, we email eachother, I will set aside time to do that more often. The warm weather is coming and I'd like to go hiking with her again.  I used to read to them... But now I wonder is she too old for this?  Has something else slipped through my fingers without me noticing?

Perhaps I should just ask her what she would like to do (what a novel idea).

The 4am wake up call of despair, ugh.  It happens to the most resilient of us.

It's times like this that I am tempted to take her from her bed and lie her down next to me and hold her little hand (now almost the same size as mine) as she dozes off.  Perhaps I will.

Every step begins with now.

Single or Satisfied?

I like being single.  I don't even really think about the fact I'm single anymore, despite what my Facebook  #reasonsImsingle diatribe may have given the impression of.  Though it was really just a celebration of my oddness, but I digress.

Here are the things that I am thinking about instead: What do I want to do in life and how am I going to get there?  I'm taking online courses, going back to school and planning for full-time college in the Fall. My health has become a priority as well so daily exercise is taking up at least 30 minutes a day.  Creating healthy meals also fills my mind, so I'm focussing on the nutritional value of foods. I want to be able to handle the stress of school, so I'm meditating every night.
My kids are getting older, taking time to play cards games and go on walks with them is a priority. I enjoy creating, so I purchased a ukulele and I "jam" along to my tunes with it.  I jump on my son's mini drum set and practise basic rock beats to rebuild my motor skills after years of poor neuro function. I get together with good friends; we talk, we joke, we have deep philosophical discussions, we listen, we support, sometimes we play music. I believe in every voice counting, on social media and otherwise, so I read, post and comment on social justice issues.

Every two weeks or so, I go out and do something fun with someone I find attractive that I don't know very well.  Not dates per se, just enjoying their presence, getting to know them. These are potentially good friends and I don't mind riding that line until they (or I) decide otherwise.

I'm not really looking for a relationship.

I know, pretty cliche. I'm sure some singles are sick of hearing it.  However, in order for me to be willing to commit a specific amount of time and emotional energy, it has to feel GOOD.
I think it can be described in this way:
When I see them I genuinely feel a rush of happiness and warmth. Then as we are hanging out I feel a level of comfort comparable to when I take my bra off at the end of the day. When they touch me... Well this isn't my sex blog so I'll leave that part out.

This GOOD feeling doesn't happen overnight and I don't have large amounts of time/energy to build that with someone at the moment.  I do, however, enjoy a different types of relationships (when I say relationships, I'm referring to the way two people relate to one another, not the traditional romantic perspective).  The ones from afar, where the person is just as unable to commit as you are.  There's getting to know them, no pressure, no expectations, no intentions other than communicating to share because you both honestly enjoy it.  These are becoming my favourite.  When your visions of the future don't currently include a serious romantic partnership, it's nice to have others around you who are on the same wavelength.

When I was 13, someone asked me how I saw my future.  I told them I would be living in a small cabin on a lake, writing everyday. There was no husband or wife in that vision.  I see now that this was a unique mindset for an adolescent girl and I am happy for it, it means that I saw myself as completely content as a single adult.  Here I am, just that.

It's Just a Dance

My daughter came to me the other day and told me she was excited because she asked one of her crushes (that's right, she's keeping her options open) to the Valentine's dance and he said "Sure, why not."

Granted the acceptance was a little lacklustre for my taste, but here's the thing: she approached him. My 11 year old, usually very shy, daughter mustered up the confidence to ask out a boy she liked.

Today, after discussing her outfit options for the dance, she mentioned she was going with her friend, not her crush.  "Oh, why aren't you going with him anymore." I enquired.
"He told me he wanted to go with someone he had a crush on." She said with a non chalant shrug.  I was like, "Oh, honey, I'm sorry." And I felt that familiar adolescent heart ache of the unrequited (not that that feeling is reserved for adolescents, but I digress).  Though watching her body language I could tell this was not a big deal to her.  She was perfectly fine and didn't seem to take it personally at all.
"It's okay, I'm going with so and so, she's my friend and she was going to be the third wheel, and now she's not."

I have succeeded in raising an adolescent girl who doesn't place her self-worth on wether or not a boy likes her back.  Holy shit.  That's the parenting mother-load right fucking there.

Sometimes it's important to pat yourself on the back.

Now, to help her maintain that self confidence and independence over the next 7 years.  I got this.

So Good

I want to write about the marches, but everything has been said in the best possible way they could be by the many speakers and posters at the rallies.  I'll share with you that I broke into tears several times  looking at overhead shots of the crowds.  I shared these images with my children and explained as best I could, why the marches took place and why I too, participated in our small town's sister march. We happened to be watching Bed Knobs and Broomsticks which took place during WW2 and so a timely discussion evolved.  We reviewed Hitler's political tactics and how Trump's tactics are very similar.  I told them these marches gave me hope.  Later tonight as we spent the last half hour before bed together, I wanted them to sleep easy, to not carry the weight of world issues on their shoulders. I pulled them close.

"Last time there was a world leader like this, their wasn't much of an uprising until it was too late.  This time, look at all the people standing up, saying "this isn't right".  We are learning from our past, we're going to be okay."

We are going to be okay.