Unlimited Boundaries

Boundaries. They're everywhere. Are they a beginning or an end? Are boundaries too confining to set? Coming up and meeting an established boundary can be challenging and even disappointing. Creating a boundary where none existed before is frightening.

We have been free to pass through, come and go as we please, back and forth, between our spaces. No fences have ever been put up, we have always welcomed one another into our space. We have encouraged visits into our space, and there have also been times when you or I have been unwelcome. But, there had been no boundary, no rules about when the land is off limits, so we were getting upset with one another for no reason. How could you have known what I didn't even know? I had no idea this would be a bad time for your arrival. I had never realized that there would be times you'd be unwelcome. The anxiety and frustration seems unnatural, so we try to let each other in. After all, there were no lines to cross, there were never any boundaries.

After years of crossing back and forth, the path has become rugged and beaten. Wildflowers still grow in the spring and thrive in the summer, but the wreckage from walking in and out of each other's land is there. The grass is matted down, it won't even grow in some spots anymore. Instead of initiating a boundary, we continue to go back and forth, and get increasingly frustrated that neither one of use is respecting space we never established. I realize that we need a boundary - maybe not a fence, but we need to create some rules. This is terrifying, because too often boundaries are synonymous with limits. I do not want to eliminate you from my life, I don't want there to be limits on our time together, but I think we can both acknowledge we need a boundary. The most difficult task, following creating the boundary, will be not to fall in to the same trap of letting one another cross the line.

Interestingly, I don't think we had the ability to create a boundary before this. Being so close, it's sometimes hard to realize that you are not me and I am not you. We have to stop treating each other's space as if it were our own. Permission needs to be asked and granted, but this is hard. As we build our boundaries together, let's remember that this will not limit our affection for one another.

Picture attribution: http://www.flickr.com/photos/skenmy/511088920/

Crittenden to the Rescue: Saving Our Sexuality, Youth, and Traditional Gender Roles

I have been working on my book review for What Our Mothers Didn't Tell Us/Why Happiness Eludes the Modern Woman by Danielle Crittenden. While doing so, I lost track of time and was unable to post my thoughts on each chapter. Below you will find my completed review.

Danielle Crittenden explores the dilemma faced by modern women in, What Our Mothers Didn’t Tell Us/Why Happiness Eludes the Modern Woman. In the epilogue the reader is bluntly told that what our mothers didn’t tell us and the only way to achieve happiness is to realize that, “It’s time to settle,” (182). It’s time to settle our sexual desires; it’s time to settle our professional desires and succumb to our innate duties as wife and mother; and for twentysomethings, it’s time to wrangle in a man and settle. Women are cautioned against pursuing their careers, postponing marriage and children.

Crittenden cites MTV, perfume ads, television shows like 90210, Ally McBeal and Jerry Seinfeld, women’s magazines, various books, an engagement announcement from the NY times, and the Gallop poll. Maybe she did this out of consideration for the uneducated reader who can easily refer to popular media and gain agreement. Maybe she just didn’t have the time to do some real research.

The first chapter , About Sex is when the reader receives their first warning against pursuing career interests instead of marital ones. Professionally successful women eventually have to take a hard look at their “thirty-five-year-old” reflection (because, according to Crittenden, thirty-five is old) and admit to themselves that they no longer “have the sexual power over men that they had at twenty-five,” (37-38).

As a final warning against sexual freedom, Crittenden even calls sexually active single women “cheap”, warning against the consequences of sexual freedom: “We might now be more free. But we enjoy less happiness, less fulfillment, less dignity, and, of all things, less romance,” (italics mine, 57). I suppose the women who were interviewed and wrote to Betty Friedan were lying and in fact found domesticity to bring them a wealth of happiness and fulfillment, felt dignified every time they had to change another dirty diaper, and found their lives overly romantic.

In About Love the reader learns that what our mother’s didn’t tell us is that our identity is truly formed once we have become a doting wife and a dutiful mother. Crittenden warns against the “price to be paid for postponing [marital] commitment” (62). The price is the possibility of never finding a man who will accept your professional ambitions. Crittenden summarizes an engagement story where a “lucky” twenty-eight year old woman who is “self-centered” in her decisions to put her career before love is fortunate to have found a “complacent” man who relocates to be with her.

The reader is reminded that if she hasn’t married by thirty, she will discover that “independence is not all it’s cracked up to be,” (64). Even worse, after thirty the lonely – but independent – woman will find herself “staring down the now mysterious tunnel,” and you can bet this is not the tunnel of love (65). By the end of the chapter Crittenden wants women to hurry up and experience the liberation of marriage, so that we may finally feel “relief” (75). Now that we will “know with whom we’ll be spending the rest of our years, who will be the father of our children,” we can rest our heads on our down feather mattress and rest peacefully. There is no such thing as divorce or infertility in Crittenden’s world. True love, romance, and equality between partners doesn’t fit in, and won’t matter once you are off the market – so long as it is before that dreadful age of thirty.

While in our twenties, according to Crittenden, we are not mature enough, “old
enough nor experienced enough” to pursue our professional lives (187). However we are just the right age, despite our immaturity and youthful naivety, to assume the demanding and responsible role of a mother. I personally believe that experience as a college student and in the workplace builds skills necessary to raise children: time management, organization, interpersonal communication, an ability to prioritize and so forth. The chapter concludes with the idea that the working mother is in fact “neglecting” her children (143).

By the end of this cautionary tale, Crittenden closes her argument by asserting that men and children for women are as important and life-sustaining as air and water (191). Crittenden spends 191 pages casting a life preserver out to the drowning and breathless modern woman, pulling them back onto her lifeboat. For it is only on Crittenden’s ship that the modern woman can truly sail into a life full of happiness and fulfillment.

Our Mothers Didn't Tell Us Love Wouldn't Wait

What I understood from this chapter is I am one lucky lady to have married four years short of my expiration date, according to Crittenden. I am even more fortunate that I was even able to find a willing mate, instead of a "Peter Pan" (66). Crittenden basically states that any woman over the age of thirty has expired and should give up her childhood dream of wearing a white dress next to a tuxedo-clad dream man. This thirtysomething is likely to spend the rest of her days dating recklessly, unsure of herself and her ability to love and find a lifelong partner. Further, she shouldn't complain as she was selfish in her choice to pursue her education and career dreams in lieu getting married and knocked up.

Crittenden seems to mock the idea that woman have the ability to create their identifies in the absence of a man and children (60-61). I personally feel our identities change and grow with our experiences, and it is possible to have an assumed understanding of oneself prior to engaging in monogamy. My own identity has changed as I assume various roles and through the stories of my past and how I reframe and tell them, and live with or without them today. Yes, it is true that since I have been married some people may identify me as a wife, however that is not all that I am and I am sure that is not all my husband would want me to be. Imagine if we really lived in a world where all men expected a blank slate of a wife, a woman devoid of personality, that he could just pick up and mold into the wife and mother he considered acceptable and efficient. Some people may consider this manipulation, narcissism, and possibly a form of abuse.

Crittenden offers us an example of what's wrong with modern courtship, which she came across as an engagement announcement in the New York Times. She seems disgusted by this twenty-eight year old woman who put her career and interests first, things she probably worked hard to achieve, even going so far as calling the bride-to-be "self-centered" (62). This particular woman is self-centered, according to Crittenden, because she and boyfriend made a decision to break up as she was planning on pursuing her career in a different location. After awhile, he offered to come to her, leaving his own job, and then eventually proposed. Crittenden makes it sound as if the woman left him with no choice, as if she were the only woman alive. Crittenden also states that this woman is lucky to have found such a complacent man, an imperative trait that his fiance seemingly refused to possess.

I think this is an irresponsible inclusion as we do not know the full back story. Maybe the woman was actually devastated to leave her boyfriend, terminating their relationship, yet was offered the chance of a lifetime? What if it was more rational for him to quit his job, for example, maybe he worked as a clerk in department store and she just landed a six-figure position using her hard-earned college degree? It's also possible that she left without taking a look back, and her boyfriend realized he simply must win her back.

Basically, the moral of this chapter was that: 1). Don't wait until you're thirty to settle down, because then you are S.O.L.; 2). You can't fully form your identity without a husband and children; 3). If you want a lasting relationship, forget about your own dreams and aspirations, what you need to focus on is being "complacent" so that you may appear attractive and marriageable.

What Our Mother's Didn't Tell Us

Currently I am writing a review for the book, What Our Mother's Didn't Tell Us, Why Happiness Eludes the Modern Woman by Danielle Crittenden (1999). Because I found the book so interesting, I thought I would blog on my reflections from each supposed "truth" our mother's didn't tell us, according to Crittenden.

Today I am going to start by discussing the introduction and chapter one. Crittenden cleverly titles each chapter beginning with the word "About...." Chapter one covers what our mothers didn't tell us about sex.

Crittenden begins her book with a vignette from a luncheon she has been invited to by editors from a magazine who, according to the author, seemingly believed she would enlighten them as to why the modern woman was still unhappy, despite living in an era where she enjoyed more freedoms than the women before her.

The editors wanted to know why the working woman felt oppressed by her employment. Throughout the book Crittenden asserts that women can't have it all, which basically sums up what our mothers didn't tell us when they encouraged us to prolong marriage and children and work towards obtaining college degrees and landing our dream jobs.

Crittenden believes that "the elders of the women's movement" think modern women are spoiled and unappreciative of their achievments. She writes that women today are privileged and get equal pay, next to their male coworkers; have endless opportunities in the math and science departments as we freely travel through our educational pursuits; and that we "take for granted that our husbands will treat us as equals," (17). I am not sure of the accuracy of this statement as many women, especially within the educational field, are not awarded equal pay for equal work. I have a peer in one of my courses who is a computer science major and is admittedly one of the very few girls enrolled in the program. Further, this same student says she has experienced discrimination when applying for and gaining positions within a male-dominated technical field. Lastly, why shouldn't we expected to be treated as equals alongside our partners? Isn't that what a partnership is based on - equality?

The introduction leads us to believe that women today "have made different mistakes. [We] are the women who postponed marriage and childbirth to pursue [our] careers only to find [ourselves] at thirty-five still single and baby crazy, with no husband in sight," (20). Basically, what our mothers didn't tell us is that we can go get 'em, but at the sacrifice of our youth, love life, and child bearing age. Oh, and further, we are "unwed mothers who now depend upon the state to provide." This statement really bothered me. As I reflect on the successful women I know, I believe I can count on one hand those who were unable to have children and I wouldn't conclude that it was because they put their career first and got married late. One woman in particular married at an appropriate age - according to Crittenden - before she was 25. Her husband and her tried for years to have a baby, and when for medical reasons realized it wasn't ever going to biologically happen, she devoted herself to her career. Does she want children? I am sure. I am sure she yearns for them every time she finds out a friend or family member is expecting, but instead of being "baby crazy" and loathing in self-pity, she drives her BMW to deliver newborn baby gifts and enjoy holding the baby-powder scented infants.

Another woman I know married late, when she was in her middle thirties. She chose this because she did want to finish her degree, and always promised her husband, who is younger than her, that they would start a family soon enough. Come to find out, she never planned on fulfilling that promise, and they ended up divorced, for many reasons. In this case I would argue that the man suffered from being "baby crazy," but Crittenden doesn't ever mention anything about men's role in the unhappy lives of the modern woman.

The central theme to Crittenden's book is the "modern problem with no name," which is that, "[w]hile we now recognize that women are human, we blind ourselves to the fact that we are also women," (22). This brings up a whole other conversation about women, I think. for example, is she eluding to penis envy? Are we so wrapped up in our three-piece suits that we forget we pee sitting down? Has she even considered that some biological women find themselves more comfortable communicating and asserting a masculine identity? This is a difficult debate as it is true, we are all human, and some of us are women, but what does that mean? I think Crittenden is insinuating that means we return back to our traditional roles, take our our grandmother's aprons, and were them fashionably all day every day.

Apparently, according to the author's research, almost all women will find happiness in a husband, children, home, and work. This means that most women don't want to explore a hobby or have time for themselves. Further, the women who prefer to live alone and find "companionship" with "their friends and cats...should not be confused with the average woman." Sorry you successful, driven, cat-crazy women. You aren't normal, according to Crittenden. Hmmmmmmmmmmmm.

Let's move on to What Our Mothers Didn't Tell Us About Sex. "Sexual liberty is not the same thing as sexual equality," (31). I agree with this, and also with her basic assertion that women who exercise sexual freedom without expectations, who engage in one-night stands, often (but in my opinion not always) face more severe stereotyping than their mail co-conspirators. BUT, I think the stereotyping and name calling comes more from other women than it does men. I lived with three men at one point and never heard one of them call a girl a "whore" or "slut" after she left the next morning. On the contrary, I admittedly was the one passing blame and judgement on behalf of the girl, and know that at least the women I hang around with have done the same. Is it jealousy? The fact that this woman held her head high as she paraded out from closed doors following a night of Jager Bombs and cheap white zinfandel, when I couldn't (because I was involved with someone)? Do we envy her sexual freedom?

I also never really heard the men I lived with scheme about their planned sexual conquests of the evening the way women often do. If you put a hidden camera in some of the apartments I have pre-gamed in prior to a night of going out, you would know what I mean. As we put our finishing touches of mascara and lipgloss on, slip on our sexy stiletto heels, and sip our beers and pinot grigio, we have all at one point or another declared that our goal for the evening was to at least make-out with so-and-so. When I explained this to one of my more prude friends, she gave me a weird look and snottingly asserted that none of her friends were ever like that. "Well," I said, "maybe my friends and I were a bunch of whores." I laughed, because I didn't mean it and actually felt bad that maybe she felt less enlightened than my friends and I did.

Throughout the chapter Crittenden goes back to her assertion that women who put off love will claim that there is a "shortage" of men (37). Her evidence is from a woman she knew in her early twenties who was dating three men simultaneously. The serial dater couldn't understand why some women were bitter about the shortage of men, until she realized all those women were just too old (thirty-something) to grab a man. I have friends between the ages of 27-50, and none of them seem to be encountering a shortage of men. Crittenden also states that to be single and sexless, you will undoubtedly envy women of the past, who withheld sex until marriage. Where does she get this fact from?

I think my favorite part, the part of the chapter that was most entertaining, came when she called on all women in their early-twenties to band together and get married young, to protect the sanction of marriage (42-43). Her personal opinion s that "a young woman's actions intimately affect the lives of other women." therefore, according to Crittenden, if you are young, sexy, and unmarried, you pose a threat to married women and are also depleting the male resources available to the thirtysomethings.

Crittenden's sources tend to be magazines which she believes are adding to women's frustrations, MTV, Beverly Hills 90210, and her personal opinion. I found that she often made gross overstatements about women, especially when she warns women against delaying marriage. According to her, anyone beyond her late twenties is unmarriageable and helpless. She ends the chapter telling the reader that women (the reader) is "less" happy, "less" fulfilled" has "less dignity" and "less romance."

I couldn't help but wonder at what age she got married and what her marriage was like. I look forward to researching that.

Stay Tuned!

Enough

Her car was pregnant with her belongings, the sidewalk next to her passenger side door occupied the remaining bags that wouldn't fit in. She had done enough shoving and pushing for one lifetime, spent enough time trying to calculate how to make things work and fit, but it was no use. She had packed the most important items.

She sat in the driver's seat, cellphone to her ear. Did she have a place to stay for at least tonight, but even better, long enough to get it together? To find a place she could claim as hers? Could she at the very least find someone to help her get the rest of her things that littered the sidewalk, and offer to host her belongings - if not her - for the time being?

She wondered where she would take her next shower as the phone rang dead to each number she dialed. It was an early Friday afternoon, and she consoled her lonely soul by telling herself everyone was still at work. Or, just as possible was the fact they were sick of the bullshit. She promised each time it was the last time, yet she hadn't had enough when she made those empty promises and threats. This time she was sure, but feared she used up her sympathy cards.

She caught her bloodshot eye in the rear view mirror. She hoped he wouldn't pull up right now, worse yet, she hope none of the neighbors would come over and offer their assistance. She didn't need emotional support, she didn't need a referral to an organization to help her. She needed a semi-permanent place to stay while her scars healed and her bruises faded. A place she use to transition from her old life to her new life.

Defeated, she opened her car door and tried one last time to stuff the remaining bags in, desperately rearranging the items in her car that already had a place to make the soon-to-be abandoned items fit. Although they were just things, she felt for these inanimate objects. She knew what it was like to be left on the outside, to feel neglected and like a piece of garbage waiting for the Saturday morning pick up.

Her watch told her she didn't have much time. Like a child, she said goodbye to the things she had to leave behind, opened her car door, and drove. She just drove. She'd promised herself this time she had enough. That's why she packed more than she ever did all those times before. She wouldn't have a reason to come back. There was nothing left to claim in that god damned house, and she certainly wasn't going to ever reclaim her dignity in that god damned relationship.

Her phone rang, it was her mother. Tears stream down her face, her black and blue eyes hurt as the tears squeezed through.

"Mama?"

Everyday is Dress-Up Day

With Halloween just around the corner, and no idea what I will dress up as, I began searching for some ideas. Many people use Halloween to express their inner selves, a chance to really "do" themselves up. It's quite interesting concept to see what someone will select for a costume. They carefully select an identity to possess for one evening.

I think what or who a person chooses to be on Halloween can say a lot about their real identity. The guy who wears the Breathalyzer has an obvious statement about his ambitions for the evening, and will get a lot of high-fives from the guys. The couple dressed as the ball and chain could me making a funny statement about the actual state of their relationship. The dog dressed up as the lion possibly wants to feel fierce for one night. What really intrigues me is the person who goes all out in their ghoulish attire, so much so you can barely recognize them. What is their costume saying about them? That for one night they want to be feared and unknown? It's so fascinating to me, possibly the best part about seeing everyone.

Halloween is not the only day we put on a costume, however. Every morning most of us, unless residing in a nudist colony, wake up and select a costume from our wardrobe for the day. Some of us visit the make-up dapartment next, carefully concealing our imperfections and enhancing our best attributes, sometimes even creating the illusion that something is natural, like false eyelashes, high arched eyebrows, or drawing a mini Cindy Crawford mole (yes, I actually read in a magazine once about women who do this).

I think it is important to recognize that we play dress up everyday, depending on the show we are starring or costarring in. A different costume is worn for work and play, for night and day.

I still am at a loss of how I will dress up for Halloween.... I'm thinking a witch, so I finally have an excuse for my recent bad behavior!

I am not advertising for any of the costume distributors I linked to. I simply did a Google search and selected the first one that came up!

Stuck on One Perception

Today I feel defeated. I have lost to the perceptions another holds which collide with the way I see things. For a moment we can all see something one way despite there being one way to interpret. Eventually, sometimes sooner than later, our cognition combined with our emotions and experience form the onlyway to see and perceive something.

Take the optical illusion for example. I am told there are two women in the picture, and at first glance I see the young woman immediately, without a doubt. Then, once prompted to look harder and find the old woman, I see her face and there is no longer a trace of the young woman. I try and try and try, but for a long time I can't see what I originally was able to. Even when I finally force myself to shift back to the original perception, the second one remains prominent, and I am only able to find the young woman for a moment before she transforms into my new perception.

We are all like this. Most of the time everything is an illusion. Conversations we have had with someone just moments ago are repeated by one another to different people in completely different ways, based on our new perception. Sometimes I am horrifically astonished by this, by how I can remember an event that just happened so differntly from the only other person involved. What's worse is when the other person and I share a common history, a close emotional bond. I feel cheated. Maybe they do too.

Memory work begins with perception of an event. As I am in conversation, I am encoding the memory, as is the other person. Current emotions, context, and surroundings, will determine how each person will successfully - or unsuccessfully - encode the memory.

Today I have been defeated, although I don't know how or why this specific person in my life would chose to challenge our bond. I am deeply hurt, and apparently so is she. I find myself replaying our conversation over and over, but come up with the same memory. Just yesterday, moments after, she accepted this perception. Today, I suppose, the original interpretation does not serve her needs and my recollection, feelings and author-ity are sacrificed for it.

Erasers and the Schoolyard

"I think we all wish we could erase some dark times in our lives. But all of life's experiences, bad and good, make you who you are. Erasing any of life's experiences would be a great mistake." -
Luis Miguel, is a Mexican singer, producer and songwriter. He was won 5 Grammy's.

Often we try to erase something from our past, but then there are all those shavings. We try to brush them off our slates with bare hands, only to find they stick to our sweaty palms. We try to blow them away with the strongest breath we have in our lungs, but somehow they always wind up on our clothes. Those shavings stick to us because they belong to us and we can never rid of them.

Erasers are only rubber, and what happens with rubber, per the old schoolyard taunt? It's bouncy and anything you try to put on it will undoubtedly come back to you. You can try to furiously erase until your palms are pink with blisters and you are scratching metal against your slate, but there are always those shavings, always finding a way to stick to you.

Instead of trying to erase something, I have learned to put it back on the shelf for a later date, a day when I feel strong and ready enough to work on it. That day may not come for a long time, but at least I know it is there for me to return to when I decide I am ready to face it.

I am Privileged

"With narrative ethics, we must consider who is able to tell a story and who has the ability to listen," warns Tony E. Adams in his journal piece, A Review of Narrative Ethics. I have been researching ethical responsibilities and guidelines for writing an autoethnography - a narrative piece. In my opinion, the question of who has narrative privilege is at the core of ethical practices when telling our own stories.

We own our stories, and at the same time those stories are owned by someone else. We are all actors in each other's stories, and it is important that the privilege of telling about someone who plays a role in our story - in essence, creating them for our audience - is a privilege we practice responsibly as narrative writers. Even in everyday conversation we ought to be aware of our narrative privilege when having conversations. Essentially, when telling a story whether verbally or written, we are constructing it based on our experiences and our acceptance or denial of cultural ethics, morals, and beliefs. Our stories are constructed based on our current identity, based on current circumstances, and motivated by our future desires and pursuits. Not only is there a story behind everything and every person, there is a reason and motivation behind every story.

I have narrative privilege. Although I don't have the luxury of writing full time or even being paid (yet) for my work, I am privileged. I have the ability to read, to write, to compose grammatically and well enough for others to understand, absorb, enjoy. I have skills as a scholarly writer as well as a writer for personal pursuits. Because I attend college, know how to use a computer, I have the privilege of reaching others and gaining feedback for my writing.

Although I am privileged, my stories may not be told the way the other actors in them would have remembered them and told them. This is why I carefully meditate on each story, and spend more time thinking about the events I want to record before I actually commit them to paper. Paradoxically, I try not to over think them because I don't want to alter them, as I believe a story changes each time it is remembered or revealed.

Tonight, as I write the personal narrative pieces for my autoethnography and put aside the scholarly research component, I consider my narrative privilege and realize that it's my prerogative to recollect and tell to the best of my ability.

The Truth of My Purpose when My Purpose is Truth

As I think about the project I am currently creating, I realize I need to answer the question: Why am I telling this story?, to even begin, continue, and complete it. The project is a narrative piece and when and through writing my narrative I am making meaning out of the story and of myself. I am recreating history based on the past, present, and future. What function does this particular story serve to me at this particular moment?

Is the story I am currently narrating the one I want to live in? Not only is there a responsibility to an audience when writing a narrative, there is also a tremendous responsibility to oneself. Am I being responsible with my identity, with the way I want to tell and live within this particular story? Or, do I have a choice: Is there a chance that I can tell the story one way, but chose to live another once the story is out of my system? Once I have purged myself of the story - the old me - will I be able to recreate the narrative because of the practice of purging the most recent version?

I do know that one of the reasons I want to tell my story is for others to hear, learn, and possibly relate to it. I want to make a connection with others, to prevent them from living my story and for those who have lived a similar story, to offer hope and companionship.

I suppose as I continue writing what matters most is that I am currently telling my story in the most honest and truthful way I know how at the very moment my fingers move feverishly over the keys. If a stroke doesn't feel right, I can erase it and rewrite it. If I come back three weeks from now, read the narrative, and realize the story, the beliefs within the story, no longer parallel and express the purpose of sharing my story, I have author-ity to recreate it. But, first, I need to clearly identify my purpose, my reasons,for writing this story.

Policing the Road

"Stand up to your obstacles and do something about them. You will find that they haven't half the strength you think they have."

- Norman Vincent Peale, was a Protestant preacher and author (most notably of The Power of Positive Thinking) and a progenitor of the theory of "positive thinking".

Identifying what the obstacles are can be overwhelming. Often I find myself blaming everyone and anyone and everything and anything for something I don't do that I really want to accomplish. There's not enough time in the day. I have too much homework. There is this family function I have to go to. I work too many hours at a job I don't feel proud of. Traffic held me up. I spent the last hour and half on the phone consoling a friend in need. I have to go grocery shopping. I could go on....

I am trying to remove the "but" from my vocabulary: I would begin writing my memoir, but I have all this homework to do. I would go spend the day with my mom and sister, but I have to clean my house. I would go visit my family across the country, but I don't get paid time off from my job (and am afraid to fly!). That "but" is a very big obstacle.... Or so I thought.

I am beginning to think it isn't the "but." It is the fear behind the "but." Could I be letting fear debilitate my dreams? Even sometimes when I attempt to sit, mediate, and visualize my life exactly as I want it to be, those "buts" find their way in. I know, I am supposed to let them float through and then cleanse myself of them, but they are unwelcome, over-staying guests.

There are all these obstacles I may have created for myself - and even blamed on others. I keep picturing "Road Closed" signs and forgetting that I am the officer on detail. I get to choose and direct my own detour and alternative route. I need to accept my author-ity and create my path. I may not be able to plow through the "Road Closed" sign, but I also don't have to make a u-turn and head back the way I came.

Rewriting

I remember a picture of my mother, standing in the woods wearing a leather jacket. She was about twenty years old, and the crisp fall air fingered her blue-black hair that stood out against the orange, red, and yellow leaves. The man behind the camera was my father, and she had ridden behind him on his motorcycle that day. I looked at the image of my young mother, a young woman on the cusp of motherhood, and thought my father and her were the two most romantic people in the world: Riding a motorcycle through winding roads, finding secret treasures of red, orange, and yellow in the wind; stealing kisses and photographic images of one another.

In past life, about nine years ago, I began to attempt this novelty of romance with a man I was with. Although we had some wonderful pictures to take home, our trip to the crayola forest wasn't traveled by motorcycle. Sure, we travelled the same winding roads, got off at the same exits. We thought we were in love. Many of those trips began with an aspirin in the morning, after a night of being drunk on cheap beer, love, and hate. I always thought the trip up north to see the gifts of the fall season would unite us once again. And, for a moment, they did.

For six years I have wanted to go back to those magical woods, wanted to see the leaves change in the northern part of my state. For six years I have asked my current partner to go, and for six years we never found the time. Secretly, I don't think I was ready. Aside from a few childhood visits, he was the only one I walked those paths with. Paths that my partner and I have never traveled together, paths that I never wanted to travel with him. What my love and I have is true, and I didn't want the memories of the past to linger in the cool, crisp air, surrounding us. Extreme, I know, but when you have allowed something so beautiful to be ruined by someone else or another situation, bringing something you cherish so much to "it" seems careless.

Today my love and I decided to embark on our own journey. He, a little reluctant, having never experienced "leaf peeping"; me, sounding hopeful, encouraging the trip with the idea that we were able to spend the whole day together and get some fresh air. The sun was shining, the wind was blazing, the colors were vibrant.

I had been to each stop we made in my past life, but encouraged my love to initiate the hunt for the perfect trail, the perfect photo. He gained a true appreciation for the colors, the smells of dried leaves, the calm breeze. Watching him discover the treasures, the magic of fall in the mountains, was refreshing.

By the time we stopped for lunch, I silently decided that the leaves changing and mountain air were reserved just for the two of us. Each stop, each picture, each hand holding moment, replaced one from the past until we started writing new chapters and making the experience our own, one we created.

The day was beautiful. We all have the author-ity to rewrite our stories.

Author-ity

Over time our stories change based on reflections of past experiences and newly lived experiences. They change when people move in and out of our lives; when we meet new people and they begin to weave themselves into our stories. They change when people in our stories no longer play the roles they always had, the roles that kept the story secure and unchanging. They change when people in our stories die.

Our stories also change when new information is presented to us, when a new piece of a chapter is created by someone within our story. Do we lose our narrative author-ity when this happens? Who has the right to change our stories but the author? Who has the control to change the story? Of course, when someone tries their hand at our ink we can chose to not accept their revision, but it is difficult not to acknowledge that our perception of our story has been challenged.

Do we owe a responsibility to the unwanted collaborator to acknowledge their edits? If the story is ours, possibly not. They can live in their version and we can live in our own. Whose story holds validity? The revision may not change the events of the story but may alter the theme or feeling, and what if the original author does not accept the new them or feeling?

When we write about people - specifically intimate others who have long been a part of stories - we take the risk of starting fires. The trick is to see what is left behind, what survived, when the smoke clears.

Allow Me to (re)Introduce Myself

I created this blog sometime during my first or second semester of college. Five years after I graduated from high school, the opportunity to attend college - a dream of mine - was seized. I was in a healthy relationship with the most supportive, loving, caring, and understanding person I know, who encouraged me to fulfill my dreams. Fortunately, I am still with him and he still supports my every move.

I remember sitting in the computer lab listening to my Media Writing instructor discuss social media and blogging. At the time, I really did not know much about either, and was very apprehensive about posting anything too personal for others to read. I still had too much to hide. The instructor loved the name of my blog, and I felt that my content would never live up to the name, as I knew I would never have the ability to freely write on something so public.

Fast forward to my final semester at college: I am currently enrolled in an Independent Study in which I am further investigating narrative theory, autoethnography, and a story that I began ten years ago and one that keeps evolving every time my fingers touch the keyboard or my pen leaks secrets in my notebook.

Through my own autoethnography I have began a healing process that I denied myself for so long. Through the story and this blog, my intentions are to spread the healing of story telling, the importance of autoethnography, and the power of the stories we live and tell. Equally important to me is that through my story, which I hope to have published by the end of the semester (December), I can raise awareness and help others. People learn not only from their stories but from the stories told by others. We find somewhere to turn to when we hear a similar story to our own; we learn we are not alone. We disrobe ourselves and feel freer to live in a nudist colony of story and life sharing. Many times I have read someone else's story or listened to someone else recount a memory, and felt a connection despite never having met that person. The feeling that you are not alone, that although your story is unique to you, you can find comfort in the shared experience of others, is not only enlightening, it feels revolutionary.

So, join me and others as I share my stories, my progress, and that of others through our natural, human instinct: storytelling.