Birthday List

Nearly a month ago, I noted that I needed a job before my birthday. Well (shuffle, shuffle) . . . ummmm . . . ahhhh . . . errr. Yeaaaaahhhhh.

In a week, it's. My. BIRTHDAY.

I've been joking around about this being the one week countdown to my midlife crisis (yes, yes, I know most people wait until their 40's to do this, but I figure a running start is warranted. I also think, as long as I'm freaking out, I should multi-task my anxiety and just package this in. And, a good friend pointed out to me today that Dante had his mid-life crisis at 35, so, there's precedent!) but I'll admit this is dfficult for me.

My birthday is also the anniversary of my becoming a Colorado resident, and, for anyone who has read this blog, you know that the story of how I came to live here isn't really a good one. I remember that first birthday here as a blur of unloading boxes and furniture after having been driving for close to a week (it feels like most of that week was spent in Nebraska. Ugh). Somewhere in there, there was a bad movie, and a broken promise. So, birthdays here in Colorado are always seem to come part and parcel with feeling a little tender and tentative.

And this year, my birthday also feels like it is bound up with other drama. My need to figure out my living situation. This arbitrary deadline I set for myself to get a job. The end of the month . . . yayyyyy, more bills due. And, well, 35 doesn't feel like a small number. I want to not have hang ups about that, and to be enlightened and to feel that age has made me better, but without a clear picture of where I'm headed, looking back and saying, "all of that got me here" doesn't work as well. Meh.

For many weeks, as this date approached, I had the ostrich reaction and my instinct was to stick my head in the sand and IGNORE. NEGLECT. And, if things got really bad, maybe uproot from the proverbial sand, RUN AWAY.

But the truth is, I will turn 35, and be unemployed, and wake up with these same unsettled questions whether or not I acknowledge this birthday. So, I'd better get on with it and acknowledge the impending arrival of my mid-life crisis. And as long as I'm acknowledging it, I should go ahead and celebrate. Sitting here, right at this moment, I'm not sure what there is to celebrate to be painfully honest. But I have always adored birthdays (yours, mine, birthdays are just great) so I'm trying to fall back on that.

Of course, what everyone has asked me is, What do you want for your birthday? I have some pretty phenomenal people in my life, both near and far. Some of them have settled this questions by telling me what they are doing to celebrate my day, and others have asked me. One of my smartest, funniest friends put it this way, "what do you want for your birthday aside from word peace and an awesome job?"

Actually, if those things could be gift wrapped, that would be just awesomesauce. Way to hit that nail on the head, RR!

I don't think Amazon has a category for those, so I've put some thought into what else I'd enjoy. My mom askes me to make two lists, each year. A Christmas list, and a Birthday list. I try really hard to make the first no longer than 10 items, and to ask for things that aren't things (Can you make lasagna? Can we go get pedicures?) and the later no longer than 5 things. This year, something about free-falling and not having my feet on any kind of solid ground means I feel free to ask for just EVERYTHING I want. Here goes:

• I would like to excise the parts of my head and heart that tell me, with searing repetition, that I have become "less than" in my weeks of unemployment.

• I want to be able to do the bound yoga poses without fear of losing my balance.
• I want someone to create head bands that don't slide off the back of my giant head

• I'd like for dresses that accommodate girls with GIRLS to be made more flattering.

• I want to put honey in my yogurt without the honey bottle getting all sticky.

• I want my friend to be released from prison and exonerated. I'm grateful that he still has a loving heart, and kindness, but I want him out sooner rather than later to keep it that way. 

• I want children to be wanted and planned. And loved beyond all belief. All of them. 

• I want all of my friends who love each other and are willing to risk everything to be allowed to get married and have those marriages be recognized by my government.
• I want for our country to stop thinking that separate but equal works. Because it never does.
• I want for the U.S. voters and leaders to remember that in a free society you need a reason to make something ILlegal, not a reason to make something legal. And, bee-tee-dub, "the bible" isn't a good thing to point to when it comes to our laws since we eat shrimp and don't sell our daughters.

• I want women to not feel so limited and judged that they treat life as a zero sum game, and learn, all too well, to tear each other down. 

• I want men to not feel so pigeon-holed and pressured that they feel competition and destructiveness are expected. Required even.
• I want a cure for cancer.
• I want to hear my dad read Brer Rabbit stories, with the killer accents and voices, one more time.
• I want more people to go to therapy prophylactically.
• I want more people to hold themselves accountable for their own issues, wounds, and baggage. I need people to be accountable for how their actions affect others.
• I need for us to realize how broken our education system is. How wrong it is that we will spend money to incarcerate, but not to educate. How forced into lock-step my teacher friends feel. How unhappy parents and students are. How wrong our curriculum is and how sticking with it is throwing good money after bad. And, why, oh why, do we think it is ok for us to require college in order to aim higher than Walmart in the job market, but then expect to pay them with no regard to the cost of that education . . .which keeps going up.
• I want people to be kind to each other. And if that's too much to ask, can we at least not be engaged in (and horrendously thrilled by)  being cruel to one another?
• I want things to stop being at this constant fever-pitch of black/white, right/wrong, good/evil where somehow we picket funerals, call women "sluts" on national broadcasts, and say that we wish certain groups of people would die out. (Can you believe it was a pastor who said this?! It actually made me physically ill.)
• I want a way to have all of my closest people at one dinner party - my Colorado people, my Florida, Maine, OK, Illinois, NY, Boston, and Jersey people. And my brother in New Haven for good measure. Then I want, as I once did with Heather, to come up with a curriculum so that people understand each other better, as David and Rob and I have, talked about how to actually do good for people in the world. Then, I'd put Wil in charge of implementation. The rest of us would be his minions. I'm sure I'd be hired on as a personal masseuse. (And if that comes with health insurance, that solves my job problem. La!)
• For just ONE day (it would have to be limited for reasons of will power) I want Dunkin Donuts to be down the street from me so I can spend $3 or less on really good coffee and a donut.
• I want more choices available for streaming on Netflix. Don't you?
• I want popcorn to be magically carb free. Especially when I eat it at 11pm

Barring all of that, because, really, I think it will be hard to get Dunkin Donuts to set up shop here on time, and because none of us know what to do about the crazy people who take it so lightly to propose concentration camps for gay people, I'll take some beer, a burger, and a nice quiet birthday with a few of the people who I think of as teachers and friends and loved ones. But, you know, if you happen on some carb-free popcorn that tastes as good as the stuff I make at home . . . send it on over.

loyalty

I should call this post "to the bitter end," because that is too often the consequence of my brand of loyatly.

I have mentioned before that I am loyal to a fault, and sometimes to my own detriment. When I think about it, I'm not exactly sure where the kind of fierce loyalty I practice comes from. I don't have memories of some childhood lesson learned, or of this being presented as a value in the home I grew up in in words or deeds. If anything, I saw some pretty strong examples of reasons why sticking to someone or something can be more difficult than it's worth. Nevertheless, here I sit as one of the most determinedly steadfast people I know. I stick by people even when it makes no sense. I stick by people who have hurt me, or done things I don't condone. I have stuck by people and my caring for them even as they go to jail or make horrible mistakes they cannot take back. I have stuck by friends, boyfriends, girlfriends, and family when they have not earned it I have stuck by jobs even when I am frustrated or not making enough. I do this, and meanwhile do a killer job at whatever it is even when I think I deserve better. On a near daily basis I support policies that I disagree with out of loyalty and professionalism. I stuck it out in school even when my adviser abused me and stole from me, and when I realized that she had treated other students just as badly if not worse. Moreover, I finished my master's in her lab and thus ran her lab and advised her students for her.

Once I'm in, I'm all in.

I was talking with a good friend recently and he said, "I'm totally committed. You'd think it was a good thing but it's not." And I know just exactly how that feels.

I gain so much from this. I have gained the ability to forgive and move on (though it takes me awhile). I have kept friends I would have lost if I was faster to close the door. I have the ability to not give up on someone where other people would walk out and not look back.I assume my children will one day benefit from the deep value I have to commit.

If I had to guess, I would say this latching on and not giving up is about a few things. First, I am bad at giving up. I don't quit. I don't give in. I had a client a few years ago who made it her mission to make things very hard on the company, and since I was the representative of the company, her evil quest was directed at me. I remember saying to my bosses boss when she had made her most recent war volley that, "She picked the wrong person if she thinks this means I will give up. Because I will just dig my heels in harder." It took me forever to leave grad school, even though I had every reason to.  (and I didn't exactly quit so much as I left at an appropriate juncture) It took me an extra year to get my black belt, and I just kept at it. I grew up with the message in my ear that math wasn't my thing. So, of course, after picking the one college where taking a math class wasn't required (no grades, tests, pre-set majors or required courses at Hampshire College) I "minored" in math. I don't give up.

The other issue is that I see what is good in almost everyone I meet, even people who really friggen annoy me. I see the good in the person who bags my groceries with tomatoes on the bottom of the bag. And I have a nice conversation with him. I see the good in the cop who pulls me over out of boredom (and says, "you were almost going over the speed limit."). I see the good in the family member who abandons me and my affection. I look for the better side hiding underneath the good in the friend who gave me a hard time. I see the good in the boyfriend who was pathologically not there for me and expected me to give, and give, and give. (When he left me in the town I had moved to for his benefit days after my father had died claiming somehow that that loss was more about his unresolved family feelings than mine, I stopped seeing the good . . . six months later. We don't refer to him by his given name anymore.)

It's hard for me to close the door on anything I have invested in - a job, a friendship, a degree, a person I love. For me, I call this the "used car problem." See, I've only ever owned used cars. and some of them were more used than others. When you get a great deal on a used car, you have to also plan that some of the money you saved will go into keeping the car alive. I'm also pretty on top of regular maintenance. So, at some point, I would look at each car and think, "How much more money will I put into you?" On my last car before this one, I replaced the battery, hoses, two tires, brakes and two drums,  an important component of the electrical system, and water pump. That added up to more than I had paid for it in the first place. Of course, it didn't happen all at once. I invested a little bit at a time over 5 years. Somewhere in the third year I had the thought, "Do I really want to put this work into the car?" But then thought, "well, I've invested tires and brakes already, so I might as well pay the $300 for this repair."

It happens a little at a time, and it totally is the good money-after-bad issue. Only, with people, it's hard to see when the money turns bad. Well, for me anyways. If I don't give up on things, it seems just plain wrong to walk away from people.

The problem, of course, comes when people like my friend and I throw our lot in for the long haul and then get taken for everything we're worth. It's easy for someone who doesn't intend to be manipulative to take advantage of the capacity for commitment, and the large amount of loyalty. For someone who is needy, demanding, or a "taker" it's even easier. And let's just say that I have had my arm twisted professionally in the past.

When I allow this to happen, sometimes I get to keep someone or something in my life that deserves my investment, and sometimes I end up having to file a restraining order (true story). I am getting better at finding better used cars to begin with. My standards are going up. But my investments go up too.

I am working really hard these days to examine all my loyalties and see which ones best serve me. I am investigating deep, deep down to think if the people, places, jobs, and activities I put so much of myself into to see if I get enough out of it. I have found myself recently saying at work, "well, there's only one of me so I had to _____." I need to think this way more often.

There's only one of me. And I only get one today. One life. One heart. I need to . . . if not protect it,  at least be very choosey. Otherwise I could give too much of myself to things that don't work for me. I feel really sad when I think about the time I gave away in my 20's to things that didn't get me where I want to be. I know where I want to be now, so I am looking very carefully.

1 down, 3 to go

This has been coming for a few weeks, but I've put it off. I was hoping to procrastinate it further. But, today my time had come. Yes, today I could no longer elude this difficult chore.

Shopping.

I typically go in to a shopping trip with a lot of hope and expectation and come out sweaty, defeated, and feeling as bad as if I had just been beaten with a truckload of underwire bras. Shopping is WORK. Literally, shopping takes walking, contorting, and carrying a significant amount of stuff. Shopping is that much work for everyone, sure. But shopping for someone like me is also emotional work. When you don't look like the pictures a funny thing happens . . . no matter how many cool clothes you put on, you still don't look like the pictures! More to the point, in my case, I am short. My legs are short even for a short person (which means, yes, my torso is long), my feet are flat, my arms and thighs are muscular, my hips are so wide that it's kind of unbelievable that I haven't had kids, my chest is large and I'm flat out just not built for clothes. Yet, of course, I cannot go around without clothes. So, shopping usually makes me feel like I must be a deformed person. I try on pants and think, it's great that they're 25% off because I'll have to pay to get them hemmed. I try on dresses and feel like I'd be better off wearing a sheet. I try on shorts and want to laugh and point at the girl in the mirror even though I know that she is I.

In ascending order from awful to horrifying torture, the things I least like to shop for are:

• Shorts - I despise the pairs of underwear that girls are wearing these days and calling "shorts" and anything longer comes down way past my knees because I have disproportionately short legs
• Gloves - I have midget fingers too
• Exercise pants - I need something that will not ride up, but will also not drop off my hips when I'm doing squats and I need those pants to magically also not be too long on my legs.
• Tank tops. These are a crucial layer to have in the wardrobe of a Coloradan. A nice way to add some warmth without making something bulky, and also, help make something that shows "too much" more professional. I crave to have tanks and camisoles in every hue in the rainbow. But ones with shelf-bras - no. And the ones that are build to lie long and flat on girls with Barbie's measurements, also no.
• Jeans and business pants - will they fit my hips and thighs? Will they drag on the ground? Will I spend the same amount I paid to buy them to have them altered? Will they make my midsection look massive? Nobody knows. It's like spinning the wheel of chance every time. And sizes are not consistent so that so doesn't help.
• Anything with buttons - I've been trying to figure out if there is a nice way to say this; if there is I don't know it. I have some special gifts and endowments. The kind that sometimes mean random strangers ask me out before they know my name. Anything with buttons is a major ordeal
• Dresses. Ugh. Who came up with this plan of one piece of fabric that is somehow supposed to flatter all different parts of my body? And if they have buttons, see above. I actually love dresses, but hate trying to find them
• Bras. I would buy stock in the company that realizes that for someone with "gifts" having a bra that is a color other than white, beige, or black and is also a good fit, support and comfortable is worth its weight in gold.
• Bathing suits. This is not even a pure body image issue in terms of seeing more of myself. Bathing suits are sized for a whole body. This does not always take into account my "gifts" or the fact that my torso is longer than average. It's the worst.

This means that the only kind of shopping I really enjoy is shopping for socks, shoes, new glasses, makeup, and jewelery. And the stuff I REALLY like in those categories requires some serious bank! I have champagne tastes. Yes, even in socks. I like really nice ones made out of bamboo, or awesome athletic-esque fibers.

The last time I shopped for real it was to buy as many skirts as I could find that would meet my corporate dress code and also cover up my knee braces. And let me tell you, THAT fashion statement was worth forgetting.

But today, my time had come. Two weeks ago I pulled the belt in tighter. Last weekend, I discovered that my "good" pair of jeans could come up and down my bod without unbuttoning. This morning, I had to try on 4 pairs of pants before settling on a pair I used to wear two years ago. And so today, as I drove past the outlet mall, it had to be done.

I walked in with dread. I walked out with an awesome sweatshirt-jacket, a tank top, two shirt-type things, and . . . drumroll . . . a pair of jeans. Not just a pair of jeans. A pair of jeans one size down.

Excuse me for a minute:

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOT!

I kept on trying on jeans in the last size. all different styles, cuts, and colors and thinking, "God, these look awful!." And then the light bulb went off. Christie, if your old jeans that are too big are from this store then maybe new jeans need to be in a new size.

I won't lie, my first instinct was to jump up and down and yell out in glee. But since I didn't want to scare the nice people in Eddie Bauer, I held off. My second instinct was to buy three new pairs of jeans in various styles in color, in order to celebrate the new size. I didn't follow this impulse either.

I  had to realize that this is what I hope is the first of many changes. I'm thrilled to have achieved this milestone, but this is the beginning, not the end. I'm psyched to be one size down and get some positive feedback. I'd feel accomplished to be down two sizes, and happy to be down three. But my target is really to be down four sizes. One down, three more to go. So I held off on splurging and bought one pair. But that one pair feels like . . . it feels better than the fanciest dress I've ever worn. It made me really excited to go running tonight and get up and go walking tomorrow.

It makes me aim for heading back to the outlet store in a couple of months for the next size down. These jeans are the emblem of having a moment today where I said, "this might actually be doable." It's the first time in almost two years that I have felt this is something I have the power to do something about. Two years ago, I was feeling thinner and active, but progressing so slowly that it was hard to stick with it. Then, I busted both my knees in quick succession and the wheels really came off the cart. I will never take for granted the ability to work out  and use my whole body again. I did a full year of PT, brace wearing, procedures, more PT, and being so, so limited in what I could do, that I should really be grateful every time I can now run, swim, walk, or do way too many squats to get a good sweat going, instead of complaining. I need to remember that there are too many people out there who would happily sweat and go through significant pain just to take a few steps. I need to remember how hard it was to join their club for even one year. And I need to savor each time I put on these jeans as a reminder that I do have the ability to choose how this struggle will go. The time will pass either way, so it can go by and I can gain weight, or it can go by and I can lose it. That's up to me.

In the meantime, these are awesome dark-wash boot cut jeans that are clearly intended to be worn with my boots or red shoes. So, I obviously need some awesome black or red shirts to wear with them but red is not the "in" color this year. So, if anyone knows where I should look for that, I'm open to suggestions.

walking in the mornings

Remember this post where I talked about all the walking I did in Seattle? Well, it wasn't something I was ready to give up, so I have been fighting to find time to walk a few mornings a week. Last week, on my one day in Colorado between Seattle and Utah, this meant getting up at 5:30am in the rain. On Thursday, I got to the airport early so that in addition to walking through security and to my gate, I had time to walk the entire terminal (with all my shit on my back! Sherpa!) so that I was walking continuously for 30 minutes before my flight. On Saturday it meant hopping into some sneakers and walking for a quick 30 minutes before my hair appointment, and then being OK with not washing my hair and wearing a baseball cap. This morning, I had this awesome plan. Since I have to pick up a rental car today (company policy about mileage vs. rentals given driving a certain distance in one day), and since I have learned that the only way to have good rental selection is to be there between 7:15 and 8:15am I had to be up early anyways (which is always super awesome, because rental car days are the days I drive longer distances and work even later. Sigh) I thought I'd get 30-45 minutes of walking in first thing.and the rental place is near the creek path I used to live on, so I parked in a visitor spot and then . . . realized that there's been tons of construction going on over there and I kind of had to off-road it and hoof it up a hill to GET to the path. So worth it though.

I am trying really hard to walk for 30-45 minutes three times a week as well as going to at least one Bar Method class a week in addition to my assigned cardio and resistance workouts and my 1-2 hours of swimming each week. For most of my friends, they can lose or maintain weight and gain muscle by working out three days a week for an hour or an hour and a half, maybe actually sweating 4-5 hours a week.If I do my assigned 5 hours a week (which is not assigned as time as much as it is assigned as tasks. "Do this resistance workout," or "your cardio is to run X amount"), it's not enough

What I'm finding out is that if I do just what my trainer gives me, it adds up to 5-6 hours a week, and then with the swimming, I'm up around 7-8 hours. But my body is different. I take steroids as part of my "maintenance" program for asthma (year round, 365 days . . . not when I'm sick), and this conspires with my hypoglycemia and other endocrine issues and the damaging effects of stress and cortisol on weight and before you know it, I'm killing myself to lose .5 pounds each week. It's just not satisfying to give up everything, and fight back the food cravings and addictive tendencies, and work out 5-6 hours a week with the best possible result being half a pound loss. And then, of course, it starts eating away at me on the inside and I don't want to try so hard. I want to say, "Screw it! Why shouldn't I have pizza?"

My sister and I were talking at some point in the last year about how hard I have to work to be this fat (my word, not hers!) but not get fatter and I said, "If I wasn't willing to work this hard, I would be the 400 pound woman that has to be cut out of her house." It sounds like an exaggeration, but I think there's real truth to it. I work really hard to be one of the heaviest people I know, and that gets emotionally hard to maintain. So, I'm tacking some extras on.

Now, of course I also know people who train waaaaa-hhaaay harder than me. I have one brother who completes triathalons and does yoga like a pro, and another who runs 15-30 miles a week, goes to jujitsu 2-5 times a week, as well as lifting. They do hours and hours of training each day. They also have like 4% body fat, and that is not my goal. Not only would that be unrealistic for me, it's not what I want. I want to feel I can build a lifestyle of "eating right" (which of course means discovering what that is for me, since it is different for everyone) and enjoying exercise, maintain a healthy weight to within 5 pounds of that goal point, and still be able to be social when friends are going out. I want to shop more easily. I want to look good in jeans. I want to like myself more, not be model-skinny.

So, I got up and walked. Everyone else, I'm sure, wonders why I didn't just get up and run, and get that out of the way. Well, for one, then I would run this morning, think, "Oh good, that's done," and then not do extra. It would then be my cardio assignment from my trainer, not my challenge to myself to do more. The bigger issue is that I can wake up early drink some water, eat a yogurt and go walking. I cannnot do the same with running. Running burns more calories than walking does and as a hypoglycemic, I wake up "in the hole" with my blood sugar. If I eat, and then run within the hour, I'm often not only deeper in hypoglycemic debt, I'm sick from it, making it take longer for me to eat, drink, and rest enough to feel like a human being again.

I can do it, but it takes an enormous amount of planning, and getting up even earlier. I did it in Utah, in fact, on Friday. I knew we had a day of meetings and travel planned, and that if I was going to get one of my assigned runs or resistance workouts in, I'd have to do it before I met my supervisor for breakfast. But this meant that I had to have a breakfast before that breakfast with him (protein shake, lots of water, apple, 4 crackers) and time to digest it so that there was enough raw goods for my body to work with. I got up at 4:30. It was appalling.

The other issue with getting my "real" cardio out of the way in the mornings is that the normal foot cramps I get at any time I'm running are intensified in the mornings to the point of make me want to lay down and die. I think this may be because I'm not as well hydrated in the morning after a night of sleep than I am in the evening after a day of drinking 100 oz of water. Whatever the case, I was limping for the rest of the morning on Friday, and I know I was that crazy person talking to herself on the treadmill. I was mumbling something like, "You don't have to like it, just have to do it. Finish strong. Doesn't have to be fast, just don't be last. Picture the zombie. Run from the zombie. " It was not a pretty sight, and honestly, not one of my better runs. (Not that any of them are awesome, but some are better than others.) I get those foot cramps walking in the morning too, but not nearly as badly!

Finally, I hates running. I hates it, precious! I like walking. I like seeing how beautiful Colorado is at sunrise. I like de-stressing and getting my head on straight before I have to interact with people, do my job, or make any hard decisions. So, for now, I'm trying for 60-90 minutes of walking in addition to my "assignments" plus swimming, and one class a week if I can swing it.

Pros, so far:

• I've been feeling more motivated about exercise, in general. Like almost to a "exercise is fun!" kinda place. I'm going to try really hard not to become too much like an aerobics, "Ok, everyone, let's turn it up!" kinda girl.
• Being able to take home some of the good-Christie feelings from Seattle has worked so far
• There isn't less stress in my life, certainly. This is my busiest month at work, I'm starting up with my incredibly scary-but-in-a-good-way singing class again, and obviously dealing with some relationship sadness and quandries. But I feel less strung out
• When I woke up this morning, I had this glimpse of myself in the mirror and thought, sleepily, "Thin." Full disclosure, it was 5:50 am, I had no glasses on, and surely it was some kind of visual illusion born of tiredness and the flattering exercise pants I wear but having that thought about myself, even for a sleepy moment, was pretty cool.

Cons, so far

• I suck at getting up early and doing things with that time. I know I will mess up this schedule at some point and have to fight not to turn that into a slippery slope
• I am missing sleep - about 60-90 minutes of it every time I work a walk or a Bar Method class in. Right now I'm not more tired though, I'm actually more energetic. So, right now I'm just missing the comfort and cozy of sleep. I love to sleep.
• I am getting fidgety when sitting at work. I was having a hard time at all of the sit-down meetings and lunches I was in in Utah. Sitting still for too long has become un-fun for me. In the long run, wanting to be more active and less sedentary is a good thing, but right now it's a little annoying and distracting for me when I'm trying to focus.
  

 So, it's not a case of which one is better for me; walking or running? They are both good for me in different ways and for now, at least, this is the best way to work them both in.

In other news, I think I am going to try an start posting milestones such as changes in measurements, clothes in different sizes, resolve to walk away from cravings, weight lost, and other good changes in my life. Just have to figure out how to format the blog to do that.

sisters

I grew up feeling surrounded by men. I wanted to play soccer, and there weren't enough girls for an all girls team so I played with the boys. Most of my friends, the really good ones, were boys throughout my life. Not to mention that in my house it was me and two brothers and a dad who really geared things towards male-ness. It was a land of Legos, Star Wars, and football. The best way to keep up with the pack was to find out what was interesting about football, be up for a hike, and genuinely want to watch Harrison Ford movies. It was important to my father that I be involved in a sport (though once my brothers started playing football, no other sporting event compared), be analytical, and bond with him by watching sci fi and action movies.

Now, to be clear, there are some women who genuinely like those things. I am not sexist (and I now have genuine affection for those activities for other reasons). I do think that while men and women should have equal opportunities, equal does not mean same. Let me offer a simple example to help illustrate what I am saying. We all have probably noticed that when there are lines for the bathroom, the line for the men's room is shorter. Men and women pee differently for obvious reasons, allowing more men to efficiently get in and out of the bathroom. Most facilities offer the same number of receptacles (in the men's room this is the number of urinals plus toilets, in the women's room just the number of toilets/stalls) in the two different gendered bathrooms. This is a case where equality was measured as absolute value, as in giving men and women the same number of something. another way to measure it would be to give women MORE toilets since it takes us more time to get in and out.

Beyond "equipment" and logistics (it was so much easier for my brothers to pee when we hiked!), I think it's safe to say that while men and women need to be valued equally, and not pigeon-holed, we are not the same. Statistically speaking we don't live the same number of years, we benefit from activities unequally (e.g. statistically speaking, men benefit more from heterosexual marriage than women do - and I have more sources than I have space for links. So, Rick Santorum notwithstanding, marriage which is TRADITIONALLY considered to be the place where men and women come together for common purposes doesn't result in common good, necessarily) and in the end, what convinces me most is that our psyches are measurably different. Our development is different, and even in cases of abnormal psychology, two people may have the same diagnosis but if one is male and the other female, the processes of their disease or disturbance are statistically likely to be different from one another.So, I grew up feeling a bit of being an outsider, and with good reason. Boys and girls, men and women, aren't the same.

Yes, I had a mother, but in terms of my closest friends and enemies (otherwise known as siblings) I was the only girl. It seemed simple enough, but as my family history is complicated, that was only the surface. As it happens, I had a half-sister out in the world, 7 years older than me. She had her sister that she grew up with (and they had no idea of the daddy-drama behind the scenes so in their minds they were and are just sisters). As families got shuffled and remarried there was also a half brother, and two step sisters and a step brother as well - the family bonding being of much greater importance than the labels. And through all of this, they may have even more cousins than I do (and as my mom was one of six I have a LOT of cousins). So, by extension through my sister (after we both helped our parent to die, and helped each other through that, halfness became very uninteresting to us; I simply refer to her as my sister now) I have a sister-once-removed (my half-sister's half sister) whom I adore, and have recently met their other sisters (step sisters).

My sister is enamored with planning sister weekends, once a year if she can. The first was when she brought her sister to Colorado to meet me. Then last year, and I couldn't go because it was shortly after my knee surgery. Now this year was planned with sisters of all varieties and cousins and friends too in Seattle. It has been a weekend filled with sisterly love. And here is what I have learned:

• Purse, shoe, and hat envy are real
• There can never be enough conversations about who is wearing what for the day's fun activity and why they chose it
  
• Talk about sex, men, dates, and husbands can happen at any time
• Pedicures are common 
• Once the talk about breasts and bras starts, who knows where it ends
  
• Woe betide those who don't travel with hairspray, curling irons, and/or a blowdryer (I get out of the shower and shake my curls out and that's it so the combined hair-effort was STUNNING)
• Sisters really do walk around in towels, robes, and underwear! Not just in the movies!
• Personal space is expressed by letting you take a shower with the door closed and without someone else coming in (and even this was a respect accorded to me more than others since I was still a "newbie"). Sharing is for things as personal as plates of food and hairbrushes. Affection is expressed by piling 5 women on one bed.

I'm sure this comes off as me picking only the stereotypical elements of female bonding. But for me, these were some of the standouts. I grew up where I had to fight for personal grooming time in a bathroom that I shared with gross boys (I kept my towel in my room for many years because the prospect of them mistaking my towel for theirs was so disgusting). I shared gel with my brothers. Roughhousing and wrestling were more common than hugs and compliments on clothes. Still today, one of my brothers greets me by slinging my arm across his shoulders and picking me up - fully, bodily, lifting all of me off of the ground and then lightly tossing me up and down a couple of times. Nobody cared what kind of purse I had, and even today I don't own a curling or straightening iron! And because I was a "young lady" as my southern father put it, modestly was important. There wasn't a lot of wandering around in undies.

To say that I felt like I had entered a strange new land is an understatement.

But there are other things to say too. Like, it is nice to be cooking in the kitchen and have your sisters actively come to you and say, "What can I do to help?" or even better to have one be open and self-aware enough to say, "I need some time to relax for a few minutes but then I AM coming to help." Also, the freedom of being able to share openly and discuss things like our families' tangled pasts, or the differences in our upbringings was a welcome and astounding contrast for me, compared to discussions of working out and jobs with my brothers. I like both conversations for different reasons but talking about who we are and why feels . . . more personal. Finally, my brothers love me, and I them. Deeply and unquestionably. (Don't mess with my brothers!) But the relationship is one of good-natured teasing and competition. The relationships of these women was one where they could say, "I'm so proud of you," or "I think your kids are amazing. " The way love and support and encouragement were given freely and authentically was eye-opening for me. There were lots of hugs and kisses, and yes, some teasing, but lots of understanding and acceptance as well.

Luckily, I've had some prototpyical sisters along the way. Early in my life, my Aunt and cousin lived with us for a short while. I was pretty sure my own personal role model had moved in. I just had to grow up and be exactly like my extremely smart, funny, interesting, and quircky cousin. Even after they moved out, she was the cousin I saw the most and looked up to. Then fast forward through high-school and college (where again the vast majority of my friends were men) until I met my friend, and for two years, roomate in grad school. She was an oldest sister and had a sister. Living with her was my first opportunity to to practice being a little sister. I was a couple of years behind her in the grad program and she knew her way around the department, the town, and life better than I. It was nice to not have to know what to do at all times. Her music was cooler than mine and she cooked (and still does) like a goddess. I believe you've already heard about the wonders of waking up to fresh coffee each day while I lived with her. I think back to this now as being the practice run of learning how to be a little sister. Once my own sister was in the picture, we had to not only learn about each other, but negotiate our position in the family, since we both had grown up as the oldest child.

For the past 4 days being in a house with all of the other sisters has taught me, really, what I missed as a child. I didn't just miss knowing my sister as I grew up, but knowing her family too. I missed having a gaggle of young women who became young adults and now thirty-somethings to learn from. When I was called upon to help with curling the back of the hair of my sister-once-removed I punted and had to hand off the curling iron to my sister because I don't know how to use it! I wonder what else I don't know?


I also missed some essential understandings between women, because I was surrounded by athletic men and was the oddball who wanted to swim, but wanted to sing, read, and direct plays more. My sister, and her sister, and all of their sisters are fit, trim, healthy looking women. They are wonderful people on the inside, and beautiful people on the outside. They all tell each other how pretty they are, how nice they look, and compliment each others' best features. Of course my parents did this for me, of course they did. (Though, how that happened in my house may be the subject of another post some time) But most of us, I think, have some difference of hearing when it comes from our parents. Even as an adult, there's an internal editor that seems to re-arrange the words coming out of my mother's mouth. Growing up, surrounded by brothers and friends-who-were-boys well . . . the competition for positive feedback was fierce. I couldn't run very fast, lift more weights, make a tackle or a touchdown that won the game. I think most of us listen to our peers more purely because we believe that they meet us where we are at and know what matters to us since they are closer to our own situation in life. Who is a closer peer than your siblings - not only closer in age but possessed of special knowledge of your family and household? And the feedback from my brothers had nothing to do with how I looked (unless I was going through a phase where I tried particularly hard to look weird - and there were a few). I heard praise and support when I . . . did something they wanted me to do or won a swim meet.

I wonder how I would feel about myself and understand myself differently if the sibling teasing me and irritating me and borrowing my things without asking had also been telling me I was pretty? I wonder if my insides would know better how to receive that compliment now? I'm not sorry I had brothers, and love mine with serious fierceness but women are different.

I will tell you that despite the fact that my sisters are gorgeous, as are their sisters, they all are prone to saying what they don't like about themselves. Their skin, hair, how their butt looks in a specific pair of shorts, the size of their chest, etc. Maybe what I would have learned is that these feelings of insecurity about who I am are normal. Maybe I would have learned different ways to process and move through those feelings. Maybe I would have learned the feeling of being healed by being loved by someone who is like me even in the hardest moments of not loving myself.

Whatever the case, I am glad to have had a long weekend to spend with them, as well as some time to spend with my prototypical big-sister-cousin now. Another day in Seattle - impossible to know how much coffee and walking await!

p.s. no sisters, men, or marriages were harmed in the making of this post. Furthermore, while marriage has traditionally been defined as being between a man and woman, even the most cursory view of my Facebook page will tell you that one of the only topics that will get me frothing at the mouth politically is the questions of whether or not my friends can get married. I want to be at all of their weddings - all of 'em!