Feeling Inside Out

We took our kids to see Inside Out on Father's day.  It seemed like a great family activity, and a way to celebrate the Daddy who does so much for us.  We are all happiest, it seems, at the movie theater.  With popcorn and sugary drinks, with bags of Skittles passed down the row, with the lights dimmed and the magic of Tinseltown at work in front of us.  I was excited, of course, because Pixar movies never disappoint, with their tight stories, gorgeous animation, and that amazing ability to delight both children and their parents.  But I was also feeling nervous.  I had done a little research the week before, listening to the director, Pete Docter, on Fresh Air with Terri Gross.  It was fascinating to hear how the film's writers and animators had worked out the story, learned about the functions of the brain, and chosen the actors to voice the characters.  There was a key element to the movie that I knew would hit a little too close to home, though.  The movie shows the emotional life of Riley, an 11year old girl who has just moved across the country with her parents.  Pete Docter shared that this was chosen as the catalyst for the Emotions to get out of whack because his family had moved when he was 11.  But it's more than Riley's story and Pete Docter's story; it is also my story.

When I was 11, just finishing the fifth grade, my parents decided to move from my hometown of Dallas, Texas to Ohio.  In fact, I missed the last day of school to help load our Ryder moving truck, and we spent the night as a family at motel near the highway in order to get an early start in the morning and try to miss the Dallas rush hour.  I even lost my last baby tooth during our move.  In Texas, I was a basketball player, a native well-versed in the state's history, a Cowboys fan, occasionally too loud, occasionally too aggressive.  I loved school and my teachers, I knew every inch of my neighborhood, from the well-worn paths where my sister and I rode our bikes to the cavernous stormwater pipes that ran under our street.  I had friends and I was confident.  And then we moved, and much of that changed.

It wasn't until I watched Inside Out this past summer that I could finally articulate what that move was like for me.  There it was, playing out on the giant screen, the way everything around changes while everything inside is changing too.  For me, growing up felt like a severing of myself.  Childhood was in Texas and adolescence was in Ohio.  I imagine that people who don't move in the middle of their young lives probably have a stronger feeling of integration, that the places where you have your first kiss or your first job are the same places where you used to play with your friends or shop with your parents.  Just like Riley, I struggled to fit in at my new school, to be excited about the changes in my life.  And just like Riley, I lost pieces of myself along the way.  The friends I left behind disappeared like Bing Bong in the Memory Dump.  Basketball was different, and within a few years I switched from being an athlete to being a band geek.  I lost some of that confidence too, the feeling of belonging, of being home.  It took many years, and a few more moves, for me to find that again.

Then there is the final lesson of Inside Out, the realization that all of one's feelings have merit and purpose, and that Sadness is necessary to move forward.  It felt like I was sad for a full year, overwhelmed and confused and struggling.  I longed to go back, to return to the Lone Star state and my real life.  But that wasn't happening.  Yet it was in that sad state that a new self was born.  I became the sapling of the woman I am today, sarcastic and pensive and loyal and silly.  I made new friends, developed new hobbies, found new places to ride my bike and new ways to express myself.  It wasn't easy, but probably no one feels like it is easy to get older.  And it created something special inside me, a sense of compassion and tenderness towards girls entering 6th grade and experiencing all those changes.

It's amazing how it all works out, isn't it?  How the places where you feel the most pain and challenge become the places where you are most able to help others, how the worst times lead to the best times.    And how home turns out not to be the place you left, but the place where you arrive.

On Nicknames

I love a good nickname.  One that rolls off the tongue, that you can't help but remember.  I wanted a nickname for the longest time.  Something better than Rachel.  Something that would remind me of a great moment, a funny story for years to come.

Because children are cruel but not very creative, I (like many of you, I'm sure) was given a taunting name in elementary school.  My last name rhymed with rabies...sort of.  For a while, I was Rachel Rabies.  Or Rachel Has Rabies.  It did make me want to start biting people.  Fortunately, we moved, and the name didn't come with us.

What did come with me was my sister, who decided to make a play on my middle name; for years she called me "Elvis snores" and later shortened it to Elvis.  I wonder if she even remembers the origin of this name, which she occasionally still calls me to my face.  (When she actually talks to me, AHEM, Sister, you are IT in this one-sided game of phone tag!)

In high school, I tried to give myself my own nickname.  It came to me suddenly, something cool and unique.  I asked my friends to start calling me Ramacious.  I tried to make it work, but it didn't catch on.  You don't get to pick your own.

My college roommate jokingly gave me a "Black Girl Name", but since it was "Rach-a-Mange", I killed that one quickly.  It didn't sound so much like a nickname; more like a potentially life-threatening disease, and not much better than Rachel Rabies.

A lady I worked with in my early twenties always called me "Rach", and she insisted that this was a nickname.  I disagree.  It's just a shorter version of my name.  If a girl is named Jennifer, but we call her Jen, is it a nickname?  Or if a guy is named, oh I don't know, Andrew Tyler, and everyone calls him Tyler, does that count?  Not to me.

When I got married, I tried to take on my husband's nickname.  He played baseball in high school with several boys named Chris, so they each got nicknames to tell them apart.  His was Lippy.  So I thought, Great!  I'll be Mrs. Lippy.  It's cute, it rolls off the tongue, his-and-her nicknames!  But again, it didn't stick, because, again, you don't get to pick your own nickname.
 
The worst part of this whole thing is I am a terrific giver of nicknames.  I have successfully marked several people for life with unforgettable names, many of which are too cruel to post here.  (For those who have only known the adult me, I have to admit, yes, I was one of the cruel children we lament about.  I should probably try to find some of those people and apologize.  You never know who has your name on a list a la Billy Madison, am I right?)

What I'm saying, what I'm BEGGING, is for someone to give me a good nickname.  Please?  Make my lifelong wish come true!

Camp

Eight years ago, I hopped in a van full of middle school kids and drove to a camp in Pennsylvania for a week of adventure.  I'm trying to remember now why exactly I agreed to go; I had spent the previous year leading a group of 6th grade girls in a Wednesday night small group/service experience, constantly wondering what actually qualified me to be in charge.  I loved them, don't get me wrong.  We had fun talking about Polly Pocket and High School Musical and why boys are gross (except sometimes not...?) while we visited sick people at the hospital and organized clothes at the Salvation Army.  We even had some deep, meaningful talks about baptism and prayer and what it means to follow Jesus.  Maybe the girls talked me into it, telling me about all the fun stuff we would do.  Maybe the youth pastor really needed another woman to chaperone.  Maybe I thought I would have fun, remembering my own time at summer camp on the cusp of adolescence.  We arrived, settled into our dorms, met the camp staff, and had a meal together.  It wasn't until the next morning that I realized what the week would really be.  It was way more than campfire discussions and silly games, trust falls and hiking in the woods.  It was an Adventure Camp with a thousand foot zip line and high ropes course and mountain biking and white water rafting, each morning and afternoon a different extreme activity planned.  And I was supposed to lead.  And participate.  And I am deathly afraid of heights.

  

Do you see those two young girls working their way up the rock wall?  Do you understand how high it was?  As I stood on the ground, I knew I couldn't just be a spectator.  If I was going to lead, I needed to strap into a harness and give it my best shot.

 

This is Bob (the other adult leader of our group, and father of half of the girls we brought) and myself making our way up the wall.  I included this photo partly because of how fabulous my backside looks...I like to pretend it still looks that way, that the past almost-decade and children haven't changed it one bit, and since its my back, I can believe this pretty easily.  I climbed that wall, and constantly looked down.  I saw how far away the ground became; it was hot and the stress and exertion were making me sweat.  I wanted to give up, I didn't care about reaching the top.  And then I heard from below, sweet little Allison (pictured above in purple) yell out, "Keep going Rachel!  You're almost there!"  And I finally looked up, ahead, and realized she was right.  I only had to make my way up a few more feet and I could say I DID IT.  I could go to dinner with bragging rights and maybe even the respect of my girls, many of whom did not reach the top that day.  And so I kept at it, and I made it.  And that night I told Allison how her voice carried up to me, how her encouragement was the push I needed to finish.

 

 

 Here is another of our "fun-tivities".  Bob is standing at the base of a tree with the dude who hooked us into our harnesses and led us around in the woods.  I can't remember his name, probably because I spent the whole week trying to get the girls to nickname him "Hanson" because he resembled Taylor Hanson.  They just got confused, thinking I was saying "handsome", and I realized they didn't know who Hanson was.  I'm old.  Anyway, if you look up, and I mean UP above Bob, you can see a little perch in the tree.  This time, we climbed the tree, using hooks that were attached to the trunk, and jumped off the perch in an attempt to grab a trapeze bar that is suspended like five feet away. 

This is me, pretending not to be terrified.  Seeing the faces of 8 girls looking up at me, some cheering, some laughing, and that trapeze bar seeming a million miles away.  In the end, I just jumped off rather than turn into Gregory Peck in Vertigo; how could I not, when the girls each took their turn, completely trusting that harness to ease their return to earth.

Here I am again, swinging through the trees, the girls and Bob on the other end of the rope that kept me in the air.

 See that platform?  Yeah, the next day, we each climbed up the tree, strapped into a harness, and went down the thousand foot zip line.  That was the hardest activity for me, even though I had seen many of our group climb, jump, and zip to the bottom of the hill safely.  I just couldn't make my brain believe that I wouldn't come crashing down and break every limb of my body.  I don't know if it was a good experience for the girls to see a 24 year old woman crying

Before white water rafting

I still remember each day of camp, nearly 8 years later.  The girls are high school graduates, off at college and working, falling in love and so very different from the people they were during that week.  In many ways, I'm different too.  The week after I got back, I peed on a stick and found out I would become a mom.  Now there are four little people who call me that.  I no longer lead a group of teenage girls.  Recently, my husband and I have been given the task of leading other adults at our church.  It feels a lot like that zip line.  I don't see how we won't crash and make a mess of things.  But when I think back to that week, I realize that was when I first became a leader.  That was when I spoke and people listened.  I climbed and young girls followed.  I was aware that I was only a few steps ahead of them on the journey of life.  When I look at other adults, I think probably I am a few steps behind everyone else.  And yet, they call me a leader.