The Benefit of the Doubt

#YesAllWomen

I have always had guy friends.  I have enjoyed the company of these boys and men over the years.  I love how guys are accepting in ways that women aren't, particularly about what you wear or what you eat or your desire to get messy.  But as an adult, I've realized that there are some things about guys that I really don't like, and it mostly centers on how you fellas treat women that you don't know. While the men who are my friends listen to me and speak to me respectfully, strangers definitely do not.  I have been called ugly names, had rude gestures directed at myself, and even been forced to endure unwanted touches.

Now guys, I love you, I really do.  I'm raising a couple of you at the moment.  I'm married to one of you.  So I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt.  Maybe you really don't know any better.  Maybe you think you're delivering a compliment as you hang out your car window and shout at that good-looking lady.  I certainly hope so, as the alternative is that you have little to no respect for the gender that makes up more than half of our population.  It means that you actually think that we are less than you: less human, less intelligent, and less complex in our emotions.  If that's true, then this guide is going to make no difference.  But if you are a caring man who desires to have positive interactions with women, please read on.

1. Compliments
I used to work in customer service, so I have had countless face to face interactions with people.  One that sticks out occurred at the bank where I was a teller.  A man who was a frequent customer came in one day and, as I counted out his money, he said, "That sweater looks really nice on you."  Now, this happened to be a very good-looking man, and even though I am a happily married woman, this compliment made me blush from head to toe.  The way he said it was so thoughtful.  It conveyed that he liked my appearance in a way that was respectful and didn't cross any boundaries of normal human conduct.  I thanked him and gave him his money and continued to have good feelings every time I saw him.

Counterpoint: But if I see a nicely dressed woman as I am driving by, I can't take the time to convey to her in a thoughtful and respectful manner that I like her appearance.  Is it okay in that instance to yell out "Hey sexy mama!" or something similar?

Good point.  This type of interaction requires face to face contact, and at least a full minute in order to convey the message and receive feedback.  Therefore, you should infer that it is never acceptable to holler at a stranger from a car or other moving vehicle.  This rule extends to any sort of one-sided shouting scenario.  Don't yell across the street.  Don't make a gesture to imply that you would be open to having sex with this person that you don't even know.  Don't whistle.  Just don't.

Try to imagine what it's like to be us.  We are constantly on alert for muggers and purse-snatchers and rapists and kidnappers.  We are given "gifts" like whistles and pepper spray when we go out into the world on our own.  Maybe we have already experienced trauma from a boyfriend or relative or stranger.  And now we are minding our own business, walking to work or school or a doctor's appointment, and some lunatic comes by yelling.  That alone can be jarring.  But then your words sink in.  You've reduced us to an object, stripped us of our humanity in this public place, possibly in the presence of our children (*Let me digress for a moment about this: most of my upsetting encounters have occurred in the presence of my boys.  SHAME ON YOU for exposing them to this disgusting behavior, and for violating their mother in their presence.  I want my boys to be better than this.).

My point: This is not a compliment.  See the bank scenario above and try to be more like that guy.

2. Physical Touch
While at another job working with the public, a man asked me out on a date.  We stood across a counter from each other, and he basically said, "Hey, would you like to go out sometime?"  As much as I liked his approach, I told him no, mostly because another guy had already used this tactic a few years before and that guy was my boyfriend and is currently my husband.  Since the relationship was good and getting serious, I obviously didn't want to mess that up by dating someone else.  I told him as much and he said, "Okay," and we continued to see each other at my work without too much awkwardness.

Counterpoint: That story has nothing to do with physical touch.

You're absolutely right!  I'm glad I gave you the benefit of the doubt; you are a smart guy.  This story doesn't include any physical touch because....just don't touch a woman you don't know!!  I can tell you plenty of unwanted touch stories, ranging from the rude and creepy to the (no joke) criminal.  I have been groped at clubs and wanted to slouch out from under arms that held me in place.  I have been spit on (yes really) and had things thrown at me.  None of these instances was pleasant.  None of these moments were the jumping off point to a consensual sexual encounter.  The common theme is that each of these guys avoided any personal vulnerability while forcing me into that position.  The guy who asked me out at my work at least put me in a position of power.  I could say yes or I could say no.  And if I'd been single and looking to mingle, I probably would have had a different answer.

My point: When is it okay to initiate physical contact with a woman?  When you know her.  I love hugs and high fives and even the presence of my guy friends and relatives.  With these men, I can shrug off an accidental boob graze.  Because I know it wasn't on purpose.

Like I said, guys, I like you!  I know it can seem difficult to figure out how to make contact with the opposite sex, how to go from strangers to friends or even lovers.  There has been so much bad blood between our genders, and no one really bothers to explain why its not okay to rub up against a beautiful woman on the subway.  It feels good to you, I know!  But it really, really doesn't feel good to her.  In fact, it feels violating and dehumanizing.  And that brief thrill is all you're going to get from her.  But if you approached her, made yourself vulnerable instead, asked her about the book she's reading or told her how beautiful she looks, you might get an even better thrill: actual human interaction.  Maybe she'll smile at you, accept your invitation to get coffee, kiss you, and maybe someday she'll even let you rub up against her.  Set your sights higher than the momentary thrill, and give some dignity to your fellow human beings.

If you have the time and inclination, read through the #YesAllWomen posts on twitter.  I am not alone.  This kind of behavior needs to stop NOW, and you have the power to change it.

Sweetly Broken

I've been spending time revisiting the past.  It was my choice to go back to those places that I had walled off and tried to forget, but it hasn't been easy.  It isn't easy to be a child in this world, to be vulnerable in every sense of the word, because we live in a harsh world.  We break our children through cruelty and abandonment, through our words and our touch.  All it takes is one adult to violate a child's sense of safety, her sense of self.  One moment of selfishness, one moment of anger, and WHACK!  Life breaks her with force, with no concern for what comes next, and she clutches desperately at the pieces, tries to put herself back together before anybody sees.  She tries to go through life pretending that she doesn't limp, that her jagged exterior doesn't reveal what is inside.  But her attempts to fix herself don't really work.  She has been mangled, like a broken limb that isn't correctly reset.

And we can continue in this way.  We can finish school and get jobs and maybe even start a family.  We can buy a house in the suburbs and join the PTA and fill our days with Pinterest projects.  But just like the broken arm that didn't set right, the human heart won't do everything it is capable of without an intervention, without REAL healing.  How do we fix something that happened years ago, decades ago?  How do we repair not only the damage, but the way she's been carrying herself ever since to hide her weakness?  She has to be broken again.  Not with the baseball bat.  Not blindsided and bewildered.  No, this time it will be her choice.  This time she will be a willing participant.  This time she won't break in the dark, in secret, but in the light.  And she won't break alone.  He will be there with her this time.  He will make sure the broken pieces fit back together, that the fractures will heal completely.

Courtesy of FreeFoto.com

As the song goes: "At the cross you beckon me.  You draw me gently to my knees.  And I am lost for words, so lost in love.  I'm sweetly broken, wholly surrendered." (emphasis mine)  Not every break is bad.  Sometimes we need to break, to repair, to build again, because in the process we are refined and made new.  And this is where I find myself, sweetly breaking, becoming vulnerable once again, allowing the cleansing waters to penetrate and flush out all the bitterness and shame, letting go of all the ways I tried to cope, and allowing myself to be bandaged, and waiting nervously for the final result.  It's all new for me, and I ask that you all be tender with me in the process.

"The Lord your God is with you, the Mighty Warrior who saves.  He will take great delight in you; in his love he will no longer rebuke you, but will rejoice over you with singing." Zephaniah 3:17

On Temptation

So the hubs and I got a date night this past weekend.  It was glorious to get in the car without having to buckle anyone in, to drive to the movie theater and order popcorn to share, to sit and laugh and talk through the previews without being interrupted.  We watched a (live-action!) movie.  We went out to dinner.  And with a tummy full of good food and giddy with all the freedom of the night, I whipped out my phone and started researching diet cleanses.  Because...well, I'm not really sure why, actually. It was something that we talked about back in July, with the hubs expressing some interest in the idea, which also kind of sounded interesting to me.  We both suck at the whole "healthy eating" thing.  We are both content to drink pop and eat grilled cheese sandwiches with chips, then follow this delicious meal with ice cream.  But lately we've seen the necessity of curbing our excesses in the food department.  It's been tough, let me tell you.  Replacing delicious, sugary treats with say, carrot sticks, is no fun.  Drinking that daily allotment of water (64 oz!) leaves little room for lattes or Cherry Coke.

And somehow, in the heady final moments of our kid-free time, we agreed to try a three day cleanse.  I found some recipes on a women's running website for an 1,800 calorie a day meal plan.  This seemed smarter than a liquid cleanse, since we have grown up responsibilities that require us to not get completely loopy (besides which, we all learned from growing up watching Oprah that weight loss from liquid diets won't stay off).  This plan promised to remove five pounds in the three day time frame, which would be awesome for me and a nice bump for the hubs, who has been steadily losing weight for the past year.  We went to the store and stocked up on veggies and seeds and nuts, which totaled less than our usual weekly trip. Nice!  On Sunday, I began cooking so the hubs could pack his lunch the next morning.  The first problem was when I went to make the Carrot Ginger soup.  I HATE cooked carrots.  They have made me gag every single time I've eaten them, which was quite a few times in childhood, since my mom couldn't take a hint that they were making me barf.  I thought, maybe the other veggies and spices will mask the taste.  Maybe it won't be so bad.  But when lunchtime rolled around on Monday, and I was so hungry after the pitiful breakfast of flaxseeds and almond milk (didn't get the fruit that day, my son swiped it while I was packing lunches), the cooked carrot taste was overwhelming.  Not to mention that what actually gives food FLAVOR, you know, like taste good, that comes from stuff like meat, salt, and sugar.  This diet is lacking those umami elements, if you will allow me to be pretentious and use my limited knowledge from Food Network.

The salad part of the meals was pretty good, especially when I added avocado.  Mmm, I'm a Texas girl deep down, and I love me some avocado!  We are also in the good apple season here, so I enjoyed my afternoon snack of King David apples from our local orchard.  But mostly, I didn't really enjoy the food.  It didn't taste good, it didn't fill me up, and then my caffeine-deprivation headache set in.  All I could think about were meaty, melted cheese sandwiches, thick frosting on yummy cupcakes, salty chips, fizzy pop.  All the food I was going without danced a conga line through my mind non-stop, and my mouth was on perpetual salivation mode.  Which finally brings me to the topic at hand: Temptation.  Oh boy, have I been tempted this week.  I've been tempted to quit the cleanse.  I've been tempted to sneak something while my husband is at work, thinking about going out with the cash in my wallet so he doesn't see a charge to Wendy's pop up in the bank account, the Pringles in the cupboard, even a freaking peanut butter and jelly sandwich when the kids have their afternoon snack.  I have wanted so badly to forego the deprivation and sacrifice, because it's hard, and besides, this whole thing was voluntary (and my idea, says the hubs).

How often in my life have I really resisted temptation?  How often have these mental images flooded my mind and I've powered through and persisted?  I'm thinking not very much.  Because, see, I think of something like drug use, this terrible thing that sinks its claws so deeply into a person's life, this constant temptation, and I say, well I've never done drugs.  But I leave out the part where I've never been tempted to do drugs.  It really doesn't sound very appealing to me.  And it's not like I've spent much time around them or people doing them.  Those are just the facts of my life.  So does that make me some amazing person?  Because I never did something that it never crossed my mind to do?  NO! You know who is amazing?  My son's first mom, who spent her adult life in the throes of one addiction or another, and in just a few weeks she will be celebrating one year of sobriety.  She has fought these urges, these temptations, she has forged new pathways for her brain and her life and how she sees herself and she has become a new person.  That's amazing.  And that's not me.

My vices are more socially acceptable, sure.  People just kind of shrug and don't look too closely when food is your addiction, when emotional upsets send you to the cupboard or the fast-food drive thru, when your weight balloons and your clothes no longer fit (especially if we can offer up the excuse "I've just had a baby!").  But why not?  I mean, food problems can be equally destructive to our health as drug or alcohol abuse.  Food can take control of our lives, our finances, can become a master that we must serve.  And I've been thinking lately about all of this, the food and the temptations and the struggle, and I asked myself, Have I ever had a passing thought about french fries and not immediately driven to Wendy's?  Have I ever been thirsty and reached past the Cherry Coke for a nice, cold water?  I couldn't think of a single time when I've made the good choice, the healthy choice, in the face of temptation.

So now I'm trying.  I am actively engaged in the battle against my food demons.  Some days I want so badly to slip back into the old way, the unconscious, stuff my face way.  But it's not possible once you've woken up to fall so quickly back to sleep.  I think about how many grams of sugar are in my drink.  I remember the healthy foods waiting for me at home as I drive past the restaurants.  I think about what a struggle it is to run when my body is full of saturated fats and salty foods.  Among all the terrible elements of this cleanse, I've actually felt fine energy wise.  I was pretty sleepy the first day and got a long night's sleep without any caffeine or sugar to keep me awake.  But my body feels good.  I finally drank a Pepsi today to get rid of the headache from my withdrawal, and I ate some toast around 1 am so I could fall asleep instead of laying in bed listening to my tummy growl.  Tonight we are allowed to eat meat, and I am so excited.  I'm looking forward to feeling full, and I'm glad the cleanse will be over.  But the hubs and I both agree this has given us some ideas for ways we can integrate more healthy foods into our regular eating habits.  ("The salad is actually pretty good, just leave out the kale," he told me today.  No argument here.)  And tomorrow morning, when the wide world of food is once again open to me, I think I'll have some oatmeal and fruit.  It's a long way from the Snickers and SnoBalls that used to start my day.

Five Minute Friday: NEW

A comfy, well-worn shoe

Well that's a scary word.  NEW?  I am someone who likes old.  I like worn-in.  No change.  New makes me think of tight shoes on the first day of school.

Or, speaking of the first day of school, how about who will I sit by?  Who is in my class?  Will I be able to get from my locker to class on time?  Who are my teachers?  Will they like me?  Will I understand what they are teaching?

Or new jobs.  How do I do this?  How will I know if I'm doing it right, or getting it all horribly, horribly wrong?  What are the guidelines?

New is like uncharted territory.  New is taking a machete to a jungle wall of trees and vines and making a path.  New is unknown obstacles and never-before-faced foes.

New is uncomfortable.  New is saying NO to how it's always been done.  New is potentially life-changing.  But it's scary.  How do we ever come up with the courage to try new?  Is it like that saying, we only try something new when it becomes unbearable to remain the same?  Who's with me?

My brave son on the first day of school (in his new shoes!)

Apples

Ohio does fall really well.  I think it's what this state does best, actually.  We don't have the best sports teams, we don't have the best economy, we don't have the best health, but man, October 1st rolls around and we have leaves turning every color, bright blue skies and lush green grass.  We have warm days and chilly nights.  We have bonfires and tailgating and trips to the pumpkin patch.  And we have apples.  Oh baby, do we have apples.

When I was a kid in Dallas, Texas, we had two kinds of apples: red and green. (There were also those mealy gross yellow apples, but did anybody ever actually eat them?)  Then we moved to Ohio, and I remember during our first autumn going with my dad to the orchard.  We pulled up and a sign boasted way more than two kinds of apples for sale.  I had no idea what I'd been missing.  Even better than a tart Granny Smith, there were Empires, Jonagolds, Pink Ladies.  These apples were juicy, crisp, sweet and tart at the same time.  Oh, fall became my favorite season.

It was fortunate that I was once again living in Ohio when I became pregnant for the first time, and fortunate that fall marked the onset of a voracious craving for apples.  I went to the same orchard my dad had taken me to all those years ago at least once a week, grabbing the biggest bag of apples for sale.  I ate 3-5 apples a day.  I can still remember the pleasure my hormonally-charged body got from each bite, the juicy apples thrilling my taste buds.  It was no surprise the next fall when that sweet baby boy eagerly grabbed an apple to munch with his four tiny teeth.  And so my love of tasty apples has passed to the next generation, with each of my boys LOVING our trips to the orchard and the bounty of delicious apples we bring home.  It's become my favorite as well, because once I distribute an apple to each of them, our boisterous car becomes gloriously silent.  All I can hear are the quiet crunchings of teeth and apples.  And I usually eat one too.  I love fall!!