You thought all I had was bad blogging in me. I just wrote my first poem in over 20 years. I used to be good at it but am novice now at best and that is being generous. My head used to actually think in poetry so it just came out like a full on unclogged pipe in the old days. I went through journals so fast. In fact, I have kept them because they remind me of those desperate moments where I would be walking across campus and just have to stop and sit in the grass to write. I could always catch another bus. Granted, I was not on antidepressants of any kind back then so my unabridged mind was just a jumble of vocabulary making poetry of my life. I can’t really explain it very well. I just know it went away when I started taking medication. And with it, any self esteem I had around creativity.

I went corporate for 20 years and assumed I could never write again. No wonder my struggle all these years trying to be someone I am not just because I was able to pull it off. All that chaffing against establishment while being able to pass as about 75% establishment myself. And they hate me, they really hate me. This is why….because I am different like this. Because I know who I am and who they are. I know where we intersect and precisely where we don’t. And they hate me for it. I hate me for letting it get this far. But I didn’t know. When your brain was as bad as mine was in my early 20s, it can really scare the shit out of you and make you pack your journals far into the basement because they have evidence of your crazy …and your beauty. The price of mental illness was to stifle creativity, anything which stank of instability and, instead, figure out how to have a mortgage because that would prove my stability and comeback.

It’s time to integrate. I’m back. I’m on antidepressants. I’m drinking decaf. I’m dressed like a soccer mom. I’m not starving. I’m stable. I’m writing. I’m so freaking alive! I’m me. I love it.

The poetic thinking hasn’t exactly come back. But I do think it can be something I do with more deliberation. Last night, I told myself to pick an object and see what I could build around it. Being at the Cape, I thought of a fisherman’s sweater. In the spirit of bringing you through my journey, I will share my bad poetry because I am not looking for accolades. I just want to show I can do it. I can take an object and make something out of it. This revelation has blown the doors off my inspiration right now. What it tells me is given the right conditions (environment) I can be the girl I always wanted to be….even if it’s a couple decades later and I won’t have the “starving artist” credibility behind me. At least not yet….

Home is somewhere in the cable knit of

Your navy blue fisherman’s sweater

The roughness of the fabric against my face

Which does not repel

Before the labor of the day

After the secrets of the night before

Before the icy perils of a crisp winter sea

After the leak in the hull

And the pumping out

To make room for an extra passenger

My unmoisturized hand grabs at the elbow of your sweater

Chaffing

Against my home

As she nestles in

And you let her

I have been acquiring a list of things to be grateful for as I approach the new year. I also just read the memoir I started several months ago and have not gone back to. It seemed like a good idea to maybe try and get back into that today but I don’t know how really.

I am thinking my New Year’s canon will win out but the people next to me are talking about how she just got her license back after a DUI so I am eavesdropping. Yesterday I was listening to a woman with her friends talking about how her husband walked out recently because of her drinking after she woke up in a Boston hospital not knowing how she got there and she was at least 10 years older than me. Honestly, I think it’s awesome they are talking out loud, in public with their friends not at all judging them about this topic. If only I had those kind of balls to get back to my big memoir project.

This current conversation is amazing to listen to. She is talking about how hard it has been to find a new job because she now has a record. Amen, sister. Ask me why I am still in my current job. There’s a much bigger obstacle there than just trying to match my salary and benefits.

Anyway, totally rambling so bear with me on this forced writing project. The way it has been working is that ideas brew and brew until I have to stop everything I am doing to blog. Right now, I am in the blog not exactly having anything passionate to write about.

So maybe let’s talk women and booze. We have all heard so many stories about drunk men and all the mistakes they make. They get arrested, they fall down and get black eyes, they start fights, they pee in strange places. They sober up for a bit and do it all again. They lose licenses for a bit but nobody cares. Boys will be boys, I guess. A woman does any of those things and the crowd turns with a pitying eye, a judgmental tone, a branding of her. A Scarlet Letter, so to speak. People don’t realize that as women have taken on the positions of men, so have they taken on similar weights.

This girl next to me is saying that the experience she went through was so hard because there was no one to turn to who may have had a similar experience. There was no one she could go to and ask about what their experience might have been so she wasn’t sure how to navigate the court system, lawyers, fees, etc. She was without any frame of reference. Scared. At least she had a reliable bus system or could ride her bike to work. She is grateful for that. But she was at the mercy of the system, acutely aware that she had a record and there wasn’t a far divide between her and how a person becomes homeless and part of the system other than that she had financial support from her parents.

Amen, sister. I know exactly what you went through. You sat in a courtroom full of criminals and you wondered what separated you from them…if you actually could separate yourself from them now. You got annoyed with them staring at you because you didn’t belong there until you had to admit to yourself, you were no better than them now. You realized the only difference was your economic circumstance. Me too. My bonus was the only thing that made me different. I could pay my lawyer. It meant I would have to scale back on vacations but my mortgage was precarious for awhile. I wouldn’t lose my job but I certainly wouldn’t be able to leave it anytime soon either. Your record is a stranglehold where you have to hope for the goodness in a hiring manager to see the decades you never did anything wrong. No speeding tickets. No accidents. Nothing. But the one thing you do have is the blemish people can turn away from if they want to. You have no legal protection from that.

I want to interrupt your conversation so badly to tell you it happened to me to. You are talking about the kick in the gut to your self esteem. I know that. It never goes away. But I am still too embarrassed and afraid of retaliation in my orbit. And yet, I have very valid circumstances leading up to mine. Even the FBI who screened my PTSD felt like I was allowed this indiscretion and that it was a symptom. That someone like me would never have been in trouble otherwise. And while that’s very true, it doesn’t change that I still have to live with it. I bet you, girl in the coffee shop, had good reasons too.

I want to tell you that I love your sense of humor about your story right now. I love your friend who is making you feel so normal about it. I love that you have a new job and the coffee shop owner came by to congratulate you. I guess down here, if you are local, everyone knows your business. I was able to keep my secret much better and I am still too much of a wimp to own it the way I do my bombing experience, my rape, my harassment experiences. I love that it got you way into biking over the summer. I love that you are honest about still struggling with your self esteem. I want to tell you it’s going to be ok. You are strong. You are awesome and bold. Your community is supportive and not “judgy.” And… if you were a man, no one would expect you to explain your whole story as a mea culpa with a story at the end about the lessons you learned.

I keep a list of writing ideas in Evernote so that I don’t lose them. They often pop into my head at inopportune times. While on Christmas vacation, the plan was to check my list and write every day. With the excitement of the holiday and family time, I have not sat down to write until today. Plenty of topics on my list but one item I found in my Evernote inventory was this song lyric I attributed to no one. I must have been driving and threw in a speaking note.

” I can’t change the day I found you.”

I can’t recall the song and actually think I botched the lyrics but I stick with the line above and it was the list item I stopped at today. I am haunted. I am haunted in my dreams quite frequently. Same person, same theme. We love each other and can’t be together but always end up together in these dreams. In dreams, we make different choices. We don’t undo any of the choices we have made but we make different ones going forward than what would be expected of either of us. It’s a lot of subconscious “what if” on my part.

In this latest dream, I was at a neighborhood party thrown by a guy we both knew since childhood days. There was someone at the party I had given the finger to earlier in the day because of his bad driving – not knowing he would be at this party later. MY chooser was there and chose to be with me. He was proud to be with me. He was ok with figuring out all the messy stuff later. The guy I had given the finger to earlier said something about me being fat and my chooser stuck up for me…in fact astounded because he thought I was at my most beautiful and couldn’t believe any guy there who wouldn’t have wanted to be with me. It’s a dream…I don’t control the narrative entirely.

I was then forced to watch as the bad driver guy beat up my chooser with a shovel and he had to be taken to the hospital. I had trouble finding the hospital. I had just got him back and I now had to worry he might die. I finally got to the hospital and found him. He whispered he loved me and was fighting to get back to me. There were snakes all over the room so I couldn’t actually get to his bed but we made some kind of hand gestures from afar. Then I woke up.

This was a weird dream but had stayed with me in detail because it was so incredibly real. All the dreams on this topic are incredibly real. They sometimes feel like we are communicating in another plane of life. I know I can be a little “pie in the sky” with some of my beliefs. I believe in astrology. I believe in acupuncture. I believe in chiropractors. I believe the dead come to visit in ways only we, as individuals can recognize. I believe in the healing power of the sea…the salt and it’s ability to change how a body functions. I believe in craniosacral therapy – it has actually fixed a serious back problem. I believe deja vu might be something. I believe some people can have psychic tendencies. I know dreams are the brain’s way of working things out we can’t seem to process when conscious. I have heard that when you are dreaming about someone, it’s because he/she is thinking of you. I know I probably shouldn’t believe in that but I am not sure I shouldn’t either.

Years ago when I was in Paris, I had one of these dreams where he came to me to tell me how much he loved me. He wanted me to know I wasn’t a second choice, that she didn’t mean more to him than me….just that she was there and at a more “right” time for his life than I had been. He knew I needed to wander, to have art, to have uncertainty in my life. He just didn’t know if he could be built for that the way I was. He grew up with a simple life and he knew he was supposed to continue it. Get married, live local to family, have kids and a job that paid bills. That’s what life was supposed to look like and that’s the life she was offering. I knew that was supposed to be my life too but there was a “pull” towards something very different that I struggled to ignore. At the Paris juncture, I probably still could have gone the married route. I spent that whole day just walking the streets trying to figure out who I was going to be and how I would finally let go of him.

I never let go of him but I did let go of us….just enough to be everything he said in that dream. A lot has happened in the 10 years since that dream. In fact, the art only just started coming back in the past year. I love the life I have built. He loves the life he has built. I bet we both love a little of each other’s lives a bit more than we should sometimes.

Last week I had my 7 year medical follow-up from my gastric bypass surgery.  7 years ago today, I was recovering in the hospital, taking small sips of water from a Dixie cup (my meal for a few days) and watching the snow fall outside my window.  I was in a panic about when they might discharge me because I didn’t want my father to have to drive 2 hours in the snow.  I was also experiencing the major hormonal upheaval that occurs after a major surgery and wondering if I had just ruined my life.

I have had weight issues my entire life but have been on a journey the past 7 years which I realize I haven’t shared very much of publicly.  It’s odd considering how open I am about life’s challenges in the spirit of supporting others through spoken word and letting people know they are not alone.  But with this, I think people can be a bit harsh when they don’t understand how it all works and what it’s like to spend your entire life dieting.  In fact, only days after surgery at Christmas Eve dinner with family and extended family, a family member asked how I feel & I gave an honest answer about being uncomfortable & needing to take a pain killer and she said “well this was your choice.”  I wasn’t complaining.  I was answering a question.  I have been through kidney stones, cancer scares and tons of gas through the years from this surgery – never once have I complained.  I wouldn’t change a thing about having done it.

Last week, going into my appointment, I had been super stressed about my weight gain over the years and terrified that I need some kind of drastic intervention right now to stop it from continuing.  I hadn’t been to the gym for 2 weeks because I had been really sick.  I had been shoveling Pepperidge Farm Milano cookies into my mouth before bed every night since October.  And whenever I wear my hair up and I see myself in a full length mirror, I see a body that is way too big for it’s head – like the shrunken head guy in Beetlejuice.  For real.  Losing my gym routine during the holiday season set off my body dysmorphia and that’s really what I see.  I am even convinced it’s what you see but are too polite to tell me.

Surprisingly, I actually weighed in 7 pounds less than this time last year.  Either Orange Theory Fitness is working to fight the Milano cookies better than I thought, or I lost that much in muscle mass in the time I couldn’t be at the gym.  Yes, I actually believe it is loss of muscle and not that I could have been doing anything “correct” throughout the year.

While I celebrated this news with a deep breath and slowed down my stream of thought speech with my nutritionist, I still told her I am too fat and it needs to go.  They think I am doing great 7 years out.  All I see is the obese girl on the horizon.  You see, even though I lost an Angelina Jolie from my body 7 years ago, I have put on 23 pounds over the years.  And even before the 23 pound gradual gain, I was still overweight at my lowest weight.  Now I am 23 pounds away from that which means I am going the wrong way.  I think about this every day, several times a day.

While I am in meetings, when I am surfing the web, sometimes coaching others, doing errands…I am thinking about my food for the day and then my food for the week.  I am thinking about where to fit my workouts in with my schedule all week.  I am thinking about what I wore a few days ago which didn’t fit right or make me feel good about myself.  I want to buy updated clothes but refuse to do so at this weight.  I am seeing the shrunken head periodically each day.  I can’t even think of a time in my life when I wasn’t thinking about what I didn’t like about my weight.  It’s been front and center since at least Junior high school.  It has never taken a break.

Going into the New Year, I have all my healthy habits planned.  I am going to work with a medical team to deal with food addictions.  Because, let’s just get it out there…the only reason I am not a drug addict is because that is one place where I have been too much of a pansy and refused to do anything outside pot (which I also haven’t done in 20 years because it makes you eat more.)  I have had sugar addiction my entire life.  Overall food addiction to soothe myself.  Cigarettes, booze, online obsessiveness….you name it, I shift it around but it’s addiction all the way.

So I am going to start sharing more about my day to day with body issues – my good days – my wins and my Beetlejuice days too.  And trust me, don’t ever interpret any of it as a complaint.  I am alive.  I am active.  I can partake in any activity I want to.  My legs are strong.  My arms can hurt you.  I don’t have diabetes – not even close to pre-diabetes.  I don’t have sleep apnea and any tachycardia I have is more genetic than anything weight related.  It’s just something the Dolan boys have and gets passed down.  The heart gets lonely but it’s not sick.  I hate the “pockets” under my eyes from when I lost a lot of fat.  If I could afford plastic surgery – that would be the first job.  But, holistically, I’m good.  It’s a journey.

Earlier this week I received the following message in one of my dating sites:

“I had a feeling while reading your profile that you would mention no Trump supporters. Sure enough, there it was! I did have a Trump sticker on my vehicle but it was defaced. What exactly do you mean about looking for feminist leaning men. I thought liberals were tolerant and want equality for all.”

I know. Isn’t this the dumbest thing you can imagine? Only a Trump voter would think it shouldn’t be that polarizing to the genitals of non Trump voters. It’s a level of ignorance not abundantly seen so prominently except for back in Hitler’s Germany.

Trump voters have all sorts of theories about people receiving public assistance except they don’t actually know anyone who does. They have plenty of opinions about what women’s bodies should or shouldn’t do because they only see a woman’s body as a receptacle for their penis. They think Trump is going to make jobs magically appear out of thin air not realizing it’s jobs they wouldn’t want. They want to build a wall to keep people out but those are the people willing to do the work the Trump supporters don’t want to do. I could go on.

There is a world of dumb in that simple dating message. It’s hilarious and offensive at the same time. Re-reading it makes me so angry again.

On the other hand, it’s like watching this defenseless little man go up against a very strong, intelligent woman who could chew him into little pieces within 5 minutes….except he probably owns a gun and would shoot me because that’s the only fight he has. If he has to ask what feminism is he isn’t even a good Trump supporter because the ones that would be in my social circle know enough about what it is to rally so ferociously against it.

Is it guilt? Insecurity? The “Oh, no. What have I done? Women really won’t date me because of this?” What makes someone like him try to make a plea to me on a dating website? Is he looking for me to say ” I was only kidding about the Trump thing. If a guy is great enough, it won’t matter.” But it does. Your “p” isn’t getting anywhere near my “v” because I have general disgust and coldness towards anyone who thinks my reproductive system is their agenda. Just like sleeping with a guy who’s only move is the jackhammer and women have been faking orgasms around forever just to get it to stop. Same mentality.

It also gets me thinking about the vitriol I was receiving from a friend and Trump supporter every time I made a feminist comment on Facebook. I think there is a deep, subconscious insecurity happening where some of these guys really felt like they were only voting for infrastructure and tax reform and are surprised by the response of nearly everyone they know that they should feel shame in ignoring basic human rights. Because, that’s what it comes down to. Even the “innocence” of the vote, when it had nothing to do with wanting to take away women’s rights or cause white supremacists to come out of their closets…or sheds or barns or churches….whatever they hide in, isn’t innocent at all. The desire to only want some things from Trump and not others was a choice against those who would suffer under him…virtually anyone who isn’t an old white evangelical male and their wives. There can be no absolution of that but I think they are looking for it.

One person wants to fight over the constitutional right to bear arms even though that was originally intended for colonial America during Revolutionary times when there was no other way to defend one’s home and family. Another wants me to say I will suck his dick if he’s cool enough even though he voted for Trump.

Looking for validation? Think you have an argument strong enough you will change my mind about how important my body is to me? That you can convince me I don’t really know what rape means? That you can bang me so good I won’t care that you voted for a guy who pisses on prostitutes and grabs women by the pussy?

I really am offended by these men sniffing around to see how bad it really is and seeking some kind of validation from me of all people. The election of this man is what made me cross into the liberal territory and declare myself a feminist. Before this election, I was an “Independent.” I could sleep with a Bush voter. I could sleep with an Obama voter. Trump voter, no. I will never tell you it’s ok. You did do a really bad thing. It is a big deal. It does severely limit your dating pool and you don’t get to fight about that. At least not with me.

As I was swiping disappointedly through dating websites today, it occurred to me that a lot of these guys are only asking for the things they want and not even dropping hints of what they might have to offer. I found myself asking in my head “so why exactly would I want to date you?”

It further occurred to me that we gals have been getting raised so much stronger in recent decades. We provide for ourselves much more often. We have strong educations. We can manage mortgages and even single parenting. We have access to our own retirement savings. Granted, we still make less than the mediocre male, but we get by on it. We would love for some things to be easier. We would love to be loved for who we are. But we don’t need a whole lot. In fact, marriage was never once mentioned by my mother as something I should be working towards. So it changes the male offering. A guy with a job and a car and maybe a house doesn’t really impress me much. I have all that too. I want something I don’t have. And that’s a hard, small list to come up with.

This guy wants to go skiing. Cool. That doesn’t interest me. This guy wants to spend time hiking, running and rowing. I enjoy that stuff on occasion and can do it when I want to. Don’t need him. This other one has kids “who come first, ladies.” 1) Duh, that should go without saying. 2) Kids are baggage. Not saying I wouldn’t incorporate them into my life for the right person but 43 years without them and a job which pays well for adoption and health insurance/IVF….let’s just say I’d have them if I wanted them, even without a man. This other one “works hard to fulfill my dreams.” That’s nice. So do I. Next….

“Must be ready to go bowling, movies and snowboarding.” Ok, will you be ready for the beach, Cape weekends, concerts and travel….anything I might be interested in? This other one calls out that he is 5’5 in a way that indicates it’s important to girls and shouldn’t be. Yep, just like Weight is important to you boys. You are short and I am fat. Life isn’t fair, is it? Then this other guy says health and fitness are important to him as are achieving his goals and he wants a woman who wants that. Ok, do I get to want anything?

This one’s got 3 teenagers and wants someone with no drama. That’s funny. Not one of my friends with kids of any range will tell you their lives are drama free. Still laughing at that requirement. “Recently single, first time dating in 20 years”…so you are looking for a tutor and are likely very, very, very bad at sex. No, thank you. Bad sex I can get anywhere. Really great sex and not having to teach someone how to date appeal a little more to me. You should look for a recently single woman who has also been out of the dating scene for 2 decades….unless she has been stuck having really bad sex all that time…then you don’t have a chance with her either.

My profile certainly isn’t perfect but I talk a little more conceptually in terms of having grit, truth, humor, creativity, passion….all of which tell you directionally what someone can expect to get from me and what I respect in others. It leaves a lot of activities wide open. It leaves various body types and activity levels open. And if you want to be found sexy by me, a little feminism will go a long way.

I can take or leave your skiing addiction. Skiing isn’t for me so you can still go with your friends. Or, I am happy to go along and read a book by a fire until you are ready to pound some beers. Or I can meet you at the bottom of the mountain for a high 5. There are possibilities. I love the beach. If you don’t want to sit on it all weekend with me, go fishing or go golfing. I will pound beers with you later. You want to hike. I can be down with that but can we throw in a museum stroll on occasion? If not, you hike and I will museum. We can pound beers after. I love guacamole. We can eat that at a restaurant. We can eat it at home. You don’t even have to eat it all and I will still like you. Beer belly? Me too. Want to get rid of it? Me too. How we do it? So many possibilities.

I guess what I am saying is that girls have been raised for centuries to figure out how to please men and get married. When will boys get raised on how to please women and make them want to marry them? It’s kind of like the wage gap. It’s starting to get noticed but it will take about 150 years to settle it up. It feels like we are 150 years away from men worrying that they might not be marriage material and need to change it up. Hence, why I will probably be forever single. #Forever80cents

I have become recently obsessed with relationship podcasts and columns. Most recently, I am listening to Dear Sugars and am addicted (no pun intended.). I have pretty much halted channel surfing the radio in search of one decent song and just grab a Dear Sugars episode because I have 2 years to catch up on. It makes me actually look forward to all my commuting. I have also slipped a few others in there on occasion….Modern Love, Esther Perel therapy stuff, even Guys We Fucked can be amusing.

I also have noticed on dating websites that it’s more common to see guys calling themselves polyamorous, ethically non-monogamous and all sorts of other things that imply they have a main relationship but are down to have other relationships as long as everyone understands the wife/girlfriend is the number one.

Being unmarried and having lots of terror around the idea of what marriage could mean in my life…loss of independence, more financial instability, being cheated on or finding out 10 years in he wants to get plugged, I am 100% dialed in to hearing about all the nooks and crannies of relationships. It’s almost like I am studying for a test while also a little excited at the idea I can kind of build my own contract when the time comes. I am not bought into traditional gender roles and by no means think a strong woman is one who has come to terms with a life of doubled laundry and unsaid resentments. Nor do I think staying married to someone who devalues me is a sign of conquering the ultimate goal in life. Citing old Facebook commentary…..my friends’ marriages have been more celebrated than my graduate degree.

Lots of talk today of what cheating really is. It used to be when your friend said she was cheated on, it meant her husband slept with someone else. Divorce!!! But it’s far more nuanced now. With technology, you can actually have emotional affairs without ever touching someone or seeing them physically. It used to be the argument was about watching porn and going to strip clubs. Now, women do those things too. It’s rare that I hear about a woman taking issue with that stuff. Kissing someone else…totally not real cheating, right? Wrong, think about all the randoms we have had sex with. I can get by without kissing a one night stand too much because the kiss might actually mean more than the fuck depending on who you are and where your boundaries are.

Frankly, after spending time in Amsterdam marinating in sex shops, peep shows and legalized prostitution, I am excited for the day I get to negotiate boundaries and start contracting what I am ok with and what I am not ok with. It’s surprisingly liberal and yet very personal.

What I am confused by and a bit resentful of is all the stuff couples might need to do outside their relationships in order to make their relationships grow. Some women need to be able to go out and flirt with other men to get turned on and feel valued. Then they go home to their husbands in a more satisfied state of mind which excites their sex life. Some folks do the open marriage thing too. They love their spouses and children but need something another person can give them or else the marriage starts to suffer. I kind of get it when I listen to all the scenarios.

Where I get resentful is that I am in the single crowd which means I am susceptible to having to fulfill some of these needs unwittingly with no return on my own goals. Married guys love to flirt with me. So does that mean they feel better when they go home and are suddenly more invested in sex with their wives? Don’t get me wrong, glad I can help. But what about me? Who do I go home to? Or some guy is ethically non monogamous and wants to date me. That’s nice. So basically, it’s ok because I will know up front he is always fucking someone else when he’s not with me and he doesn’t have to be bound to family dinners or attending wakes with me. How does that actually benefit me in any way?

So these dysfunctional or evolving relationships…depending on how you see them….get to widen their net in order to preserve the cake they eat at home while going out and shopping for other cakes. These couples sure do seem entitled to a shitload of bakery items. Why? Why do they get to move one plate aside to try another one when I don’t get anything at all? Because I am not coupled off, does that now make me a pawn in making their marriage work when I have no marriage to begin with?

I have no opinion on what’s right or wrong here. I know divorce rates are high. People are holding off on marriage. Married people seem to feel a death of something personal to themselves, even if they are happy more often than not. Evolution seems to be outpacing traditional ideas on the purpose of marriage. Technically, we aren’t built for monogamy and yet, force it upon ourselves. Some people assume marriage is for procreating and some don’t. Women are putting their bodies through the hell of infertility treatments and feeling inadequate when it doesn’t work. Marriages fall apart during that process.

Through all of this, some marrieds slither through a crack and seek out people like me to give them back whatever they perceive their wife took away. That’s nice. But, what’s in it for me?

For real, let’s start a dialogue. If we are going to see more of this marriage evolution, what does it mean to the game pawns….the single people who are still looking for our own bad marriages to try? When did we fall off our journey and become part of theirs? What might be the benefits? Are there any? Or should these people be counseled to divorce and made to play it out as a pawn with the rest of us?

Last week was a bit of a reckoning for my body as I got sick after being run down from extreme stress.  Seems all this #metoo has caught up with me and put my own story front and center of my mind when I have worked diligently to forget it.  Between being sick and caught up in memories, I kind of refer to my body just not being my own right now.   Remember Eleven from Stranger Things?  First I was comparing myself to Will getting bodily invaded by the upside down world.  This week, I am channeling Eleven level strength and needing to recuperate in-between battles.  I even ate Eggos this weekend.  Read on….

Between my last blog and today, I saw the man who hurt me on an online dating website in my feed.  Horrifying.  And how’s that for timing?  If I could see him, could he see me?  As my body froze in fear and my grip on my iPhone became super human, was he filled with rage at seeing me?  I mean, he used to want me dead.  He has access to weapons.  I had forgotten that.  I had a restraining order back in the day too.  Don’t have that now.

I made a choice when posting this tidbit on Facebook.  I didn’t share his name or location (and won’t.)  I did my part 20 years ago and the state is who failed women the second time around.  It’s on the conscience of those jurors.  But I did use the word “rape” when everyone seems to have replaced it with something kinder, more amorphous such as sexual assault.  I didn’t use the word “rapist” for shock value but I used it because that’s what he was.  I deliberated about it but the old English major in me just couldn’t get to “sexual assaulter.”  It didn’t sound right.  And assailant just sounds like someone who could have knocked me over trying to steal a purse; a crime I would have much preferred to cope with at the time.

I received some lovely responses from friends on my Facebook page and via text.  I also received the following excerpts from 2 posts from a male friend.

• “Perhaps Facebook isn’t the appropriate forum.”
• “Be VERY, VERY careful with that word.  I’ve seen 2 men’s lives ruined because of this….they are felons with their lives ruined.”
• “Christine, I know you so I believe you.”
• “Ok, so there’s crazy chicks out there too.”
• “Christine, I would not publically use that word, think of something else.  A white lie instead of writing that is justifiable.”
• “Don’t get sued or defame a person unless a court has a ruling.”
• “Tell your women’s lib friend there to stay silent a little longer” (in response to one of my friend’s speaking out against his post.) “Jessica – ssshhh.  Be a good girl now.”  (another response to my victim’s advocate friend)

As I just typed these all out, I am still in a bit of shock reading these words.  The post also talked about caring about me and giving me tips to hide better on social media and how I should know who my real friends are.  But that’s not good enough.  Everything else is just shocking and it’s the very building blocks of rape culture.  And yes, he really said these things.  People still talk this way, even now.  Even with a new, emerging history completely against them.  People with children.

I don’t need to be patronized about which forum to use to share my stories.  I am a grown adult who makes my own decisions about my methods of communication.  Not all my decisions are great but I own them.  They do not come from any type of ignorance.  I have a Masters of Science in Communication.  I know the exact power social media carries and my messages are spread across more than one – whether it be for plain old funny stuff like dating horrors or for social movement stuff like oh, I don’t know…civil rights, women’s rights… you know – the cause “du jour.”

I am so sorry a word carries such offense to the male species (insert sarcasm.)  Probably because to so many of them (not all) it is just a word; one they know is harsh.  One they’ve been told to avoid even if they haven’t been taught not to disrespect or assault women – basically, don’t get caught – don’t let anyone accuse you of that word.  But for other men, women and transgenders, it’s a word to describe an experience we have actually had.   There is no word or connotation of a word vivid enough to capture having it actually happen to you.

As far as men’s lives being ruined.  I don’t think it is statistically possible for this man to have 2 innocent friends accused of rape and convicted felons. 1 or both of them is lying.  Spoiler Alert:  Santa Claus isn’t real either.

Knowing me shouldn’t be the requirement to believe my story.  And I don’t need it to be believed.  I know what happened.  What others see or don’t doesn’t change fact.  I am not sharing it to draw attention to myself.  I am sharing it to advocate for others.  I am sharing it because I am bold and I can write.  I consider those my strengths and with strength comes responsibility.  For the one story I have to tell, there are thousands of others which remain in silence.  I am their voice, not a center of attention.  I am not trying to pull in, I am trying to shout out and change the conversation, change the world we live in.   Trust me, it would be easier on me to say nothing but bumpy rides are often the ones I take.   Scroll through the faces of my friends on Facebook.  You may not know how many of them are victims; I don’t even know exactly – but I do it for them.

Don’t get me started on the crazy chicks in the dating pool.  There is hardly a comparison to a woman who may prematurely bring her toothbrush to your house for a potential overnight or who would like to know if you are seeing other people before she sleeps with you and the experience of being forced to have sex when you don’t want it.  I would even argue slashed tires pale in comparison so this argument just doesn’t make sense.

What is the alternate word or white lie I should use?

• I was sexually inconvenienced.
• This one time, at band camp, my pants came off all by themselves.
• I woke up feeling sexually assaulted one morning but it must have just been gas.

“Unless the court has a ruling…”  Because we all know the court system is fool proof.  A guilty person would never be found innocent and an innocent person could never be found guilty.  Email Bryan Stevenson who wrote “Just Mercy” and ask him if the court system doesn’t make mistakes.  Or look at a police report filed on me once where there were actual lies printed in it.  I am not going to defame anyone.  But I will tell you this – regardless of fallible & occasionally biased people on a jury, a rape is a rape is a rape.  A court doesn’t need to be the edict in what makes that true or not.  In my case, one jury convicted him and another one did not.  What does that make him?

The last part was him speaking directly to my friend like an actual child molester…which, unfortunately, she has had experience dealing with.  How disgustingly offensive to speak to anyone but, most of all, her.  That was my last straw.

So many people viewed this post.  I have been receiving messages for days from supportive friends who are thanking me for sharing a story they cannot, who are offering support while I get re-traumatized, and those trying to understand how someone like me has a friend like him.  Because of their respect for me, they are actually trying to be polite in asking how the dynamic of this friendship works because they believe I have a good reason for it.  I am afraid I really don’t think I do.

I built this village.  I have been building this village my whole life.  There are wonderful men in my village.  This man has been in the village for at least 25 years.  He likes to butt in to my relationship issues and have secret conversations with my ex behind my back to protect me which I kindly pretend to not know about.  But I never needed that.  I am not beholden to this chest-beating male behavior.  I don’t need it.  What I need is a safe space for me, my friends and family where we can rely on the fact everyone in my village is reasonable, raises their children differently from how we grew up, where we fight misogyny, prejudice and rape culture.  In my village, we are excited that everyone is talking about rape or sexual assault or harassment or whatever “softer” word people need to find for it.  We actually feel hopeful we can fight back and influence real change.

25 years ago, I probably heard these types of phrases from this male friend and other friends – probably male and female, teachers and parents – saying what words not to use, what accusations never to make, what lives never to ruin, what white lies I must always tell and believed them.

• Irony – I went to Catholic School and received guidance from clergy

After all, when I was attacked, I didn’t tell anyone.  I was afraid to say the word.  I was afraid to ruin a life and send someone to jail (to this day, that he did time in jail has been very traumatic for me even though he is guilty.)  I didn’t need a white lie because I wasn’t talking.  The only reason I spoke up is because he hurt someone after me and nobody ever covered that scenario when I was growing up.  After all our silence and white lies, what do we do when someone else gets hurt?  It’s real then, isn’t it?  Or were we supposed to keep covering it up?  I mean, a man’s life got ruined, right?  Nothing about our lives and what we have had to do to get by all these years.  Only the men matter, right?

Not in my village.  Not now.  No one speaks to me that way.  No one speaks to my friends that way.  I will admit, I loved watching my “women’s lib” friend (as if that characterization should be seen as an insult.  Umm, can we say Hero? )go right back at him.  That was fun because she is hilarious and smart.  But she should never have had to do it in the first place, nor should I.  In fact, I remember being told how much I was cared about when I was being hurt.  So how was this post any different from that really, really, really bad word I shouldn’t put in writing on social media?