Live Now and Zen

Because even when it seems like a gag gift, the present is still a gift

Tag: secrets

Shame: The Best Secret Keeper Of All

by 6 Comments

“We desperately don’t want to experience shame, and we’re not willing to talk about it. Yet the only way to resolve shame is to talk about it.” ~Brené Brown

Me in sixth grade, 11 years old

Most of my childhood memories are vague and hazy, more of a feeling or a sense about an event than something I remember vividly. They are sad, anxiety inducing, and filled with shame, though, so it’s probably better I don’t remember them distinctly. I’ve spent my life unsure whether the limited number of fuzzy memories I have, reminiscent of a show that keeps bouncing to static on a 1960’s television without an antenna, even occurred. There have been many times when I would mention one of these memories to my mother only to be told it never happened or it happened differently or told it to another family member or friend who would tell me it couldn’t have been as bad as what I was recalling. So I stopped trusting my mind. This might explain why my memories are so few and so unclear I’m only about 50% certain they actually happened, despite there being no reason for me to have invented them.

This morning, I’m assuming because it’s Girl Scout cookie season, a memory popped back into my head. I have spent my life ashamed of this particular memory. I’m not sure I’ve spoken of it to anyone other than my therapists and my husband. But I’ve been thinking a lot about Brené Brown’s work on shame, and how important she says it is to bring shame into the open to neutralize its sting.

“If we can share our story with someone who responds with empathy and understanding, shame can’t survive.” ~Brene Brown

So, I’m hoping my readers will be empathetic here and try to avoid shaming me for not being able to do better for myself that day.

I was around 11 or 12 at the time. I went to bed on a hot, still, summer night, and must not have been able to sleep because we didn’t have air conditioning and the night was not cooling off as they usually did. I am unable to sleep without covers, and it was too hot in my pajamas. So I had undressed and slept naked under the covers, something I rarely did because I didn’t want to risk getting called out by my strict, Catholic parents for doing it. In the morning, my mom burst into my room to wake me up. A troop of older Girl Scouts were kidnapping our troop for a come-as-you-are breakfast. Hiding under the covers, I told my mom I didn’t want to go. She insisted that the girls were downstairs waiting for me and she had told them I would be right down. Risking a berating, I told her I wasn’t wearing pajamas. She handed me a robe. I asked her if I could put my pajamas on instead. She told me to put the robe on and get downstairs because it wasn’t fair to keep the other girls waiting. Dutifully, like the good girl I so wanted to be, I slipped into the robe wearing nothing underneath, put a pair of slippers on my feet, and went downstairs to go to a breakfast I did not want to attend.

I remember nothing about that breakfast. Not one single detail. I don’t know what we ate or who was there. I don’t remember talking to anyone. I don’t remember where I was or whose car I got into or what was said. I don’t know if we played games or if we simply ate and were driven home. I am certain I did not have fun. My only souvenirs from that morning are memories of the fear I had of my robe accidentally opening and revealing no nightgown or even underwear underneath, the horrific awkwardness I felt sitting around in a stranger’s house wearing nothing but my birthday suit and a flimsy shell, and the shame I continue to associate with that event.

I’ve pondered why I have kept this anecdote to myself and why it still holds power for me. There is a lot of shame for me to unpack here. I’m ashamed to admit my mother put me in that position. I’m ashamed to admit as a young girl I went to a party with friends very nearly naked. I’m ashamed to admit I wasn’t brave enough or smart enough to figure out a way to put on some damn pajamas despite my mother’s protests. I’m ashamed to admit this memory still brings me to tears. I’m ashamed I can’t laugh about it yet. Mostly, I’m ashamed I’ve doubted myself that this event was real. And I can’t decide if I feel worse that my mother would put me through what she must have known would be an excruciating, shame-inducing event or that at around eleven years of age I had already learned what I wanted and felt was right didn’t matter. Perhaps now that I’ve exposed my dirty little secret, I can be at peace with it or at least forgive myself for the crime of being human on a hot summer’s night and choosing to sleep au naturel.

I decided to tell this story today to cement for myself that it did happen, that my memory (blurred though it may be) is real and I didn’t make it up to hurt someone else or live with it this long in shame because I am a person who not only invents misery but prefers to wallow in it alone for decades. My memories, sparse though they are, matter to me. My stories matter to me, and I’m finished permitting others (including shame) to control my narrative.

“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside of you.” ~Maya Angelou

The One Where You Realize Your Mom Is Darth Sidious

by Leave a comment

My son texted me from college today and told me he had gotten a couple oddly specific text messages from numbers he didn’t recognize. The messages both made reference to his location at college, as well as his first and last name. He was a little weirded out by them, which is understandable because this had never happened to him before. I told him they were likely from someone he knows who is messing with him. He doubted my assessment. I asked for both numbers and told him I would do some sleuthing.

I didn’t fall off the turnip truck yesterday. My plan after I earned my bachelor’s degree was to become a research librarian. And I might have gotten away with it too, if it hadn’t been for those meddling kids. Okay. Okay. You’re right, Scooby Doo. It wasn’t meddling kids that kept me from my research dream; it was the exorbitant cost of graduate school for a young woman who was already in debt after putting herself through college. But while my husband was in graduate school a few years later, I got a job at his school putting together information packets about the companies recruiting on campus. I knew my way around a library and around the burgeoning Internet. I love gathering information. I have all the necessary skills. With a BA in English Literature and an MS in Writing, I have spent an overabundance of time doing research for academic papers. Beyond that, I am deeply curious about all manner of subjects. And I am determined and undaunted like a border collie going after sheep. Just get out of my way and let me go to work.

So, I did. With the numbers he gave me, my first stop was a reverse phone look up on beenverified.com. The first number came right up. I took a screen shot and sent it to my son. It was someone he had traveled with in high school. The second number did not have immediate results, so it was likely unlisted. Knowing the result of the first search, however, I consulted the directory for his high school to see if there were any numbers listed from that area code. There weren’t. So, I did what I had to. I blocked my number and called the second number. A kid answered my blocked call, said “Hey, baby,” and then promptly hung up. Nothing to see here. Case closed. I told my son he should reply to the first message with the kid’s name and his home address (which I had gotten from the directory). He said I was evil. I sent him a GIF of Darth Sidious from Star Wars because, well, Sidious and I have some things in common beyond our wrinkles. He mentioned again that I’m terrifying and that he really doesn’t trust the Internet. I told him he shouldn’t, but the thing is it works both ways. Someone can dig around and find information about you, and you can often do the same about them. Everyone leaves a trail, some are just easier to follow.

My son has referred to me as a “stalker” because of my gift for unearthing information. He came to this conclusion earlier this summer. He had stayed with a friend outside of Seattle and wanted to send her a gift as a thank you, but didn’t know her address. She does not have the same last name as her mother or step father, so he couldn’t just look it up in a phone book. He also didn’t want to ask her for it because he was hoping to surprise her. I told him I could help him out if he told me what info he was starting with. He knew the street her mother lived on but not the house number. After a quick Facebook search, a Google Map view of the street for reference, and then an online phone book search later, I handed him the address. It put the fear of god into him. He knows he has no secret I could not unearth if I felt so compelled. Luckily for him, I respect his privacy. And, while I am a good detective, as a die-hard introvert, I am not nosey. I don’t care about most people enough for that.

Still, it’s important your children know your powers. You don’t want to mess with your mother when you know she and Darth Sidious share an evil genius and a penchant for getting what they want.