I have been a mechanic for a little over 5 months. There have been things that I have loved and hated in bright and severe extremes. I think my favorite thing has been earning the right to define myself. When I started studying to be an aircraft mechanic, I tried to distance myself from feminist labels and all other stereotypes regarding women in industry. I mean, who really wants to represent all of womankind as they are studying for exams and really have no idea if they have what it takes to succeed? No thanks. Womankind doesn't need to feel the weight of my failure.
Moreover, I have never really identified as particularly feminine. I didn't do girl scouts. I hate dressing up. I wasn't boy crazy at any point in my life. Neither was I the tom boy who did all of the sports and was super tough. I was... just me. Quiet. Artistic. Curious. Creative. Academic. Always watching the sky. Most of my life, the definitions of feminine that I have received have left me wondering how long I have until everyone figures out that I am not following the rules. Who am I to speak for womankind? I am pretty sure that if it came to a vote, I would not be elected as a representative.
I stopped trying to be 'girly' a long time ago. I decided, instead, to be the healthiest version of myself as a human being as I could. I wanted to see where that would take me. There is a lot more agreement about what it means to be a healthy person whereas being a man or woman is often colored by caricatured cartoon versions of humanity. I mean really? All women are emotionally unstable and all men are emotionless. Women must be up on all the latest fashion and men are hopelessly unfashionable. Women must travel in giggling groups everywhere and men must love to be alone. Women must be kind and gentle but men must be strong and in control. Right. All I know is that I know lots of people of both genders who fit any given one of those descriptors and some of those are healthy and some aren't. Some of those leave both men and women at opposite ends of a spectrum when the middle is the most healthy, but apparently men and women are not capable of being healthy people. It's not in their nature. Anyway, I digress.
My resistance towards representing women or feminism was fueled largely by a desire to just be myself as I defined and discovered myself to be. It is hard to do that with so many people telling you how to be a woman, how to not be a man, how to...etc. So I threw the lot out the window. I began ignoring every stereotype because they simply were not useful. No one I knew fit the stereotype perfectly, I even less than most. Stereotypes began to look more like unrealistic expectations which when exerted were wrong at best and cruel at worst. So, ironically, I ran from representing women and feminism as well as all of the unfeministic stereotypes so that I could have the freedom to be a woman my own way. In the end, that lead me straight back to the doorstep of feminism. My femaleness is subject to my humanity. And I think that is exactly how feminism started: with a desire to be human before there is any commentary on people's perceptions of what it means to be a woman (or a man).
I cannot be more woman than human. If I am not a healthy human first and foremost, I have failed to be a good woman. If I forget that men are also human like me, I commit the same sin that so many have committed against women. If I forget my own humanity, all I am left with to tell me how to succeed at being a woman is a lot of cartoon versions of women. There are many, but none of them fit quite right. I am not as demure or helpless as many people's good Christian woman. Neither am I as sexy or slinky as the media tells me I need to be. Nor am I glamorous or tough and perfectly independent like the women on the cover of so many magazines. ...I'm just me. And I hope that's enough.
I have been told for a large part of my life that I resist definitions and labels because it is my personality, my hippie upbringing, my over active independence etc. I have known this to be wrong but never had words for it. My reluctance to submit to definition stems from the fact that I have felt myself growing more and more into myself... the me that is there but not always expressed. To take on descriptors that people so readily hand out is to stop the discovering process and just assume that I don't need to keep growing. Labels and stereotypes make me uncomfortable because they are expectations that I am likely to fail to meet.
I think that many of us are disenchanted with the stereotyped options handed us. But the rub comes when we still perpetuate these expectations. I order rum, my boyfriend orders a pear brandy sidecar...the waitress hands me the girly sidecar and my boyfriend the rum without hesitation and I am reminded of just one more way that I don't belong in whatever club decided what it means to be a woman and what it means to be a man. I am lucky though in that I have plenty of friends who understand and a family who has never told me that I cannot be whoever I want to be. That and I have chosen an industry where people do not doubt me as much as they used to. I can say, "I'm going to build a rocking chair." or "I'm going to bake a cake" or that I'm going to do both of those things and people are not surprised. It still gets cumbersome though in that, occasionally I meet people who seem to actually believe in these stereotypes and then it is hard not to get defensive, not to feel like my whole way of life is threatened as if their belief is going to make these stereotypes more true and more real and more binding.
It is hard because sometimes my right to define myself collides with another person's right to define themselves and we generalize too much, ask too few questions, and defend and defend and defend because we are so very used to defending and being attacked and being told that we just aren't quite right or enough or good. It is hard to just believe that it really is ok for people to totally misunderstand you. I want so badly to be understood. Many people just want to be understood. But more often than not, people do not have the time and energy to make it through the misinformation, the clumsy knowing, and into the understanding. It hurts in some way when people you thought understood get it wrong. I always expect to get used to that feeling, expect to stop feeling the hurt. And yet, I am no better at knowing and understanding the people around me.
It is all very dangerous. This living in a world together with sharp corners and blood hidden beneath such fragile skin. But I am coming to terms with this. Slowly. As I become a mechanic. As I look to what I want to be after I am a mechanic. As I earn the right to define myself and the panic subsides and I get to just be. Then I get to turn back to the past and learn that apparently, I am some generation of a feminist and I am ok with that descriptor now. I have grown up and into it. It was heavy with all of these unspoken expectations that I felt. But now, I am just me. And now, I am a little more equipped to make room for people around me to be themselves because I know myself and do not have to defend and defend the fragile pieces which I did not previously understand.
Monday, October 28, 2013
Saturday, October 12, 2013
If it is encouraging, let him encourage.
Life has been hard lately. My life has never been without obstacles and challenges and I have not regretted it. I have often had to decide to be happy in the middle of the mess rather than just waiting for the mess to get cleaned up. And I have been happy. But these last few months have been a new kind of hard. That is, they have been some of the most ostensibly discouraging. I was neither the cool kid nor the awkward one who got bullied. Rather I was often if not always the quiet one no one really talked to until they had to. Lately, I have felt like I'm back on the school playground at recess again. I guess that's the working world? Or the industrial world? Or just my world?
The primary means of communication has turned out to be a solid mixture of sarcasm and complaints. When people stop complaining about you, they've stopped caring about you. When they've stopped caring about you, you are about to be fired. Therefore, if you find yourself barraged by unreachable demands and stinging sarcasm, take heart because you are probably doing well. They would not criticize you if you couldn't take it. It's a form of respect to be torn down daily.
I have never been so thirsty for kind words and encouragement in my entire life. I am trying to find the syllables to ask friends for what I need... but I am far away, physically, from everyone. I feel out of sight and out of mind. Moreover, it seems that the people I do find are also experiencing a drought of encouragement. We are brittle and hollow and trying so hard not to break. I keep finding more people who need encouragement.
This is not my gift. I am not known for my kindness and certainly not for my gentleness. The closest I come to being encouraging is praying for and with people and being really willing to share people's grief and believe long after faith seems vain. These attacks, however, require so little faith. They do not speak to grief. They do not in any way engage my strength. Rather, they speak to my false sense of humility that whispers variants of "you are not doing enough" and "you don't know what you are doing" over and over until I am deaf to anything else.
I am resilient and strong. ...but only to a point. At this point, I have to choose if I am going to keep feeling or if I am going to be strong long after I should have broken. And so, I break. A lot. Frequently. Again and again. It is not quite like bleeding. It is more like letting sand slip through your fingers--a sort of letting go of the quest to be stronger than rock. I crack open and I slip and pieces I cannot identify blow away.
They tell me that I wont make it in this industry if I am so sensitive. They tell me that this is what it is to work in a man's world. They tell me this is the way things are. They tell me I am wrong in at least a thousand ways. And then they laugh at any question of health and how things should be. We are all wiser than those dreams. No one is healthy here, only strong.
It would seem that I am being taught how to be an encourager in the strangest of schools. Everyone I work with is so thirsty for encouragement, but so untrusting too. Like they have been given poisoned water so many times that they are afraid to drink from even the most honest oasis in the middle of the desert. We are all strange creatures.
I have never built something so much out of my own need before and it is exhausting. I think I will like who I am when this is done and that gives me hope. But for now, I am so aware of my own fragility, my brittle edges, my own weapons that I use to cut down when I should build..it is hard to feel like giving when so much is being taken and stripped away. That reminds me of a professor as he spoke on the book of Romans. When he came to chapter 8 where Paul lists peoples gifts and tells people (redundantly) what to do with their gifts, he stopped to explain.
I was surprised, seeing that these verses seemed to me the easiest to interpret of the whole of Scripture. You know, leaders should lead and servers to serve and merciful people should show mercy. Teachers should teach and so on. But he stopped here and I will never forget what he said with genuine weakness in his voice and the beginnings of tears in his eyes. He said these were hard commands to keep because it would seem that we are to do these things regardless of our circumstances. Our gifts are given to us to use and therefore we are obligated to use them. He asked the class, "who encourages the encourager? If the encourager is discouraged, does he or she stop encouraging?" And with all of the pain of the many years of his tired but still encouraging body had, he said, "the encourager is still supposed to encourage even when he or she needs encouragement." In a perfect world, someone would encourage each encourager...but we will never find that world and we will never resemble that world if we wait for eternity's perfection.
I am afraid. If I am telling the truth, I do not want to encourage because I feel so empty inside some days. (It will be 5 months of verbal attacks next week.) I do not feel strong or equipped or ready. And I do not want to be. I want to be taken care of and healed. It is hard when the most encouraging people are hundreds and thousands of miles away...besides my boyfriend, but he is one man against a torrent (he never was supposed to be my only strength). But these are the walls of the room I live in. These are things that I do not know how to change. I do know how to be honest and hopefully I will learn how to encourage.
The primary means of communication has turned out to be a solid mixture of sarcasm and complaints. When people stop complaining about you, they've stopped caring about you. When they've stopped caring about you, you are about to be fired. Therefore, if you find yourself barraged by unreachable demands and stinging sarcasm, take heart because you are probably doing well. They would not criticize you if you couldn't take it. It's a form of respect to be torn down daily.
I have never been so thirsty for kind words and encouragement in my entire life. I am trying to find the syllables to ask friends for what I need... but I am far away, physically, from everyone. I feel out of sight and out of mind. Moreover, it seems that the people I do find are also experiencing a drought of encouragement. We are brittle and hollow and trying so hard not to break. I keep finding more people who need encouragement.
This is not my gift. I am not known for my kindness and certainly not for my gentleness. The closest I come to being encouraging is praying for and with people and being really willing to share people's grief and believe long after faith seems vain. These attacks, however, require so little faith. They do not speak to grief. They do not in any way engage my strength. Rather, they speak to my false sense of humility that whispers variants of "you are not doing enough" and "you don't know what you are doing" over and over until I am deaf to anything else.
I am resilient and strong. ...but only to a point. At this point, I have to choose if I am going to keep feeling or if I am going to be strong long after I should have broken. And so, I break. A lot. Frequently. Again and again. It is not quite like bleeding. It is more like letting sand slip through your fingers--a sort of letting go of the quest to be stronger than rock. I crack open and I slip and pieces I cannot identify blow away.
They tell me that I wont make it in this industry if I am so sensitive. They tell me that this is what it is to work in a man's world. They tell me this is the way things are. They tell me I am wrong in at least a thousand ways. And then they laugh at any question of health and how things should be. We are all wiser than those dreams. No one is healthy here, only strong.
It would seem that I am being taught how to be an encourager in the strangest of schools. Everyone I work with is so thirsty for encouragement, but so untrusting too. Like they have been given poisoned water so many times that they are afraid to drink from even the most honest oasis in the middle of the desert. We are all strange creatures.
I have never built something so much out of my own need before and it is exhausting. I think I will like who I am when this is done and that gives me hope. But for now, I am so aware of my own fragility, my brittle edges, my own weapons that I use to cut down when I should build..it is hard to feel like giving when so much is being taken and stripped away. That reminds me of a professor as he spoke on the book of Romans. When he came to chapter 8 where Paul lists peoples gifts and tells people (redundantly) what to do with their gifts, he stopped to explain.
I was surprised, seeing that these verses seemed to me the easiest to interpret of the whole of Scripture. You know, leaders should lead and servers to serve and merciful people should show mercy. Teachers should teach and so on. But he stopped here and I will never forget what he said with genuine weakness in his voice and the beginnings of tears in his eyes. He said these were hard commands to keep because it would seem that we are to do these things regardless of our circumstances. Our gifts are given to us to use and therefore we are obligated to use them. He asked the class, "who encourages the encourager? If the encourager is discouraged, does he or she stop encouraging?" And with all of the pain of the many years of his tired but still encouraging body had, he said, "the encourager is still supposed to encourage even when he or she needs encouragement." In a perfect world, someone would encourage each encourager...but we will never find that world and we will never resemble that world if we wait for eternity's perfection.
I am afraid. If I am telling the truth, I do not want to encourage because I feel so empty inside some days. (It will be 5 months of verbal attacks next week.) I do not feel strong or equipped or ready. And I do not want to be. I want to be taken care of and healed. It is hard when the most encouraging people are hundreds and thousands of miles away...besides my boyfriend, but he is one man against a torrent (he never was supposed to be my only strength). But these are the walls of the room I live in. These are things that I do not know how to change. I do know how to be honest and hopefully I will learn how to encourage.
Tuesday, October 1, 2013
I have been reminded as of late about how bad I am at loving people. When you move, people you once were close to grow and change at a different pace...that is, without you. And some of the change is good, some of it isn't, and some of it will turn out to be very different than you first thought. In my own life, I get justice and love confused. I want to right all of the wrongs...even when it turns out, I don't really know what I'm doing. I justify it saying that this is what the love of God looks like, justice and love in equal measure. The only difference is...God is love.
And I?
I am weakness and selfishness wrapped together realizing that sometimes I want to 'right wrongs' that aren't wrong. It comes from an imperfect sort of love that loves the person I remember and who used to be but who is not anymore. It comes from loving the memory more than the present reality. We have to learn to love the broken places and the foreign lands that are inside the people we know best. Sometimes, people don't want you to see those places...and that's their right. But sometimes, they are waiting for those places to be loved.
I am neither just nor kind.
But God has not asked me to carry the weight of justice into all of my relationships, which now I realize is grace. I can learn to love. If we all learn to love, we may be able to build something strong enough to take us home out of this shipwreck. But if we try to be justice, we will all drown. There is only one man whom God asked to be both love and justice...and that man died a horrible death on a cross trying to balance the two. He did it. And I should not pretend that I could easily do the same.
And I?
I am weakness and selfishness wrapped together realizing that sometimes I want to 'right wrongs' that aren't wrong. It comes from an imperfect sort of love that loves the person I remember and who used to be but who is not anymore. It comes from loving the memory more than the present reality. We have to learn to love the broken places and the foreign lands that are inside the people we know best. Sometimes, people don't want you to see those places...and that's their right. But sometimes, they are waiting for those places to be loved.
I am neither just nor kind.
But God has not asked me to carry the weight of justice into all of my relationships, which now I realize is grace. I can learn to love. If we all learn to love, we may be able to build something strong enough to take us home out of this shipwreck. But if we try to be justice, we will all drown. There is only one man whom God asked to be both love and justice...and that man died a horrible death on a cross trying to balance the two. He did it. And I should not pretend that I could easily do the same.
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