Amy's Free Library of Rock!

Well, darnit, folks. I've got two potential posts bubbling (and a couple more sitting in pots waiting for an open burner), and somehow I can't sit down and write them. I have this much trouble with BLOG writing-- no wonder my career in fiction hasn't gone anywhere! I spend most evenings watching the Olympics, because if I skip that I'm haunted by MISSING them, even though I spend most of the time reading with the Olympics just ON in front of me. But tonight I just want LESS NOISE, so I'll write a post instead. Only I'm so good at avoiding it.

The amazing thing is that that paragraph there actually fits nicely with one of the things I wanted to post about. Here, first off, you may have seen this Tumblr post from Melissa Marr floating about the other day, even if you're not on Tumblr-- that there's actually a link to my response, which contains the link to the full original post (oh Tumblr, how I loath thy complications)-- anyway, it's about the unassertive habit of apologizing before you ask a question, before you speak, as if your voice is a horrible intrusion that has to be softened over with sorriness. You really have to read the post and my response because I'm not going to reiterate it all here, but I'm definitely jumping off from there.

Anyway, being that it's the story of my life, I clicked the Notes to see what other people may have been adding to this post. There really wasn't a whole lot added, but I caught one guy starting off with a "This is so true, but it isn't just women, I get lots of this from men, too," and, with the discussions of privilege in last week's entry/comments section still in my head, thought, "Oh poor dude, you are going to get your privileged male butt slammed for that argument"-- but actually, I DID see only one response to his long and helpful though a bit clueless-to-privilege post, (that links to both his post and the response), and it was quite polite. Which is nice, because even if it might come across as ignorant-of-the-ingrained-patriarchal-women-silencing-of-culture... I actually agree with him. Sure, the patriarchy may increase the problem, but the problem's BIGGER and DEEPER than that. And to be honest, the INSISTENCE that it's all just a matter of subtle sexism feels, to ME, like it's missing the point, trying to change the conversation, avoiding the real problem. Well, for me, at any rate.

I may be weird, but I've never felt much sexism, myself-- maybe because I've always leaned to Traditionally Female career paths; and I've always looked at anyone expressing any "girls can't"-such concepts as being Just Mindbogglingly Stupid, and not anything more dangerous. But I HAVE felt second-class. THIRD class. Worthless. Whatever. I just didn't attribute it to femininity. An adviser well-intentionally handed me Reviving Ophelia in college after I tried to explain my self-esteem struggles to him, but it really just frustrated me. It was missing the point. It wasn't my girliness or lack thereof that bothered me-- that had anything to do with my self-esteem problems. It was the bullying from other girls that I heard in my head whenever I tried to EXIST in a social situation. I always felt girls judging me (Curiously, there WAS another response to that Tumblr post that mentioned how other girls always felt more judgmental than guys. Not just me, then). Guys couldn't care less about me, and I only cared what THEY thought about me if they-- if HE-- happened to be that One Guy I happened to be madly in love with at that moment. But the girls had the power to make me feel Totally Shut Out.

Which is not to say that maybe there WEREN'T any subconscious patriarchal attitudes involved in any of this. Maybe I wouldn't have become QUITE so withdrawn if I WAS a privileged White Straight Middle Class Male. It's just that I had so many OTHER psychological issues that affected me much more directly. There was the whole twisted situation of my sister's death when I was six-- younger than my son is now-- which I've only recently started to figure out. For years all I thought to think about it was the typical Learning to Deal With Grief process everyone focused on, which was all I HEARD, and I was like, "Yeah, I'm fine. Obi-Wan Kenobi and I had a good talk. Why do we keep talking about this?" But I was totally messed up, just not with grief. With Survivor's Guilt, maybe? Annie was funny and outgoing and brave-- and only three, but clearly already she was the Cooler Daughter than I was, scaredy-cat crybaby that I was. And Only the Good Die Young, curse you Billy Joel. She got all sorts of special attention that last year, and losing her devastated everyone, so CLEARLY SHE was the Angel and I was alive because I WASN'T Good Enough to be an Angel. Surely everyone would have rather had HER around still instead of me. I was just a six-year-old kid. I had no abilities to see the logical fallacies here. But the impression stuck, the impression that I WASN'T the chosen one. The imagery I've always come back to is that I am the Dark Princess, always in the shadow of some vibrant, sparkling Disney Heroine whom everyone loves.* Maybe that Bright Princess started out as my sister, but I soon started projecting her onto EVERYONE, every girl who got the leads and solos in the school shows, every girl who wasn't picked last for sports, every girl who actually GOT whatever guy I happened to be madly in love with. I would always be second-best, always forgotten.

Okay, that's the TRAUMATIC CATACLYSM, but I was already set up to feel like an outcast, just because I'm FREAKING OVERSENSITIVE a Highly Sensitive Person. In the comments of my "Invisibility Cloak" post, E. Louise Bates recced this book, The Highly Sensitive Person, by Elaine N. Aron, which I promptly requested through the library, along with another book by her about parenting the Highly Sensitive Child. I had to laugh at how much the memories of being a reclusive child that I'd written about in that post seemed to be taken directly from this book (no wonder Louise made the connection!). Even the Dark Princess imagery is apparently common among Highly Sensitive types with self-esteem problems-- not so much the "princess" part, but the sense of being the one in the shadows to the shining other ones (it's REALLY BUGGING me, but I can't find the place in the book where I read this to cite it. I KNOW IT WAS THERE). Anyway, it's spelled out, how many things I mislearned about myself and my worth just because I spent so much of my childhood overwhelmed, on edge, and misunderstood. It's hard to shake the deep-down doubts, but I do understand and respect myself so much better from at least a mental, objective standpoint now than I used to. The scariest thing for me-- and the reason I grabbed the Highly Sensitive Child book as well-- is trying to figure out how to raise my SON to not learn these same fallacies about himself that I learned. I already feel like I messed up just because I was in such a deep depression for so much of his early childhood-- that I didn't respond to his needs properly then, and he's already got ISSUES-- with imperfection, with temper, with giving up. And his dad just DOESN'T GET IT, doesn't get that the boy's got a different way of experiencing the world than he does and so you've got to deal with him differently; and because I'M oversensitive and lacking-in-self-confidence, instead of taking a stand when the two of them clash, I just shut down and hide in my pill-buggy way.

Bringing us back to gender differences: Sam's a Highly Sensitive Boy in a society that expects him to "Be a MAN," and his own Dad is just as bad at insisting on language like that-- I really think that's hurting him more than helping him to cope. On the other hand, his sister is... well, if she's Highly Sensitive, it's only in a few particular (and very different) ways. She's extremely observant, has a freakishly good memory, and is pretty empathetic. On the other hand, she's LOUD. She has a constant stream of WHATEVER tumbling straight from her brain through her mouth without any sort of filter. For those of you who are My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic fans-- she's basically Pinky Pie. (During her QUIETER moments, she's basically Dot Warner. And she has Claudia Kishi's fashion sense, and there, I'm done comparing her to fictional characters). Which is hilarious and fun in small doses. But the girl's got a Highly Sensitive Mom, and sometimes-- or most of the time-- I feel like a tape loop going, "Maddie, hush, Maddie, quiet down, MADELEINE, you're INSIDE, PLEASE take it down a notch," and there are days I wonder if I should be wearing hearing protection. (They were both like that from birth, too. Sam's baby cry struck me as weirdly quiet even with no siblings to compare him to; Maddie had POWERFUL OPERA SINGER LUNGS). Then I hear about how You've got to be CAREFUL you aren't setting your children up to conform to unfair gender standards-- do you try to keep your daughters quiet but encourage your sons to speak up? WELL YES, BECAUSE MY DAUGHTER IS FREAKING LOUD AND INCAPABLE OF SHUTTING UP, AND MY SON IS TIMID AND THOUGHTFUL AND LIABLE TO MUMBLE.

So, right, my point is, there ARE a lot of factors involved in developing a Sorry-For-Intruding personality type, and saying "Hey you should stop that!" is easier said than done. MAYBE it's phony etiquette enforced by people who think women should be seen and not heard, or MAYBE it's a REALLY INGRAINED SELF-ESTEEM PROBLEM with quite complicated roots.

It's funny, while I was composing this post (over the course of about 28 hours), my dearest best-friend-from-high-school-and-college, the Illustrious Angie, posted this note on my Facebook wall-- Timeline-- whatever it's called: "Amy is awesome. Just feeling appreciative," and it was promptly Liked by seven of our mutual Friends. How funny is THAT? JUST as I'm writing about my life of feeling like a second-rate impostor person, 8 people are, for no particular reason, Acknowledging their Appreciation of my Awesomeness in another browser tab. It was like you could all see me writing this, and all had to pipe up, "YOU'RE not second-rate! You're our FRIEND! WE LOVE YOU!" all at once there in retaliation.

Which just shows how warped our little minds can be. It's still really hard to NOT feel like you're intruding just by existing, sometimes. Angie herself-- she's brilliant, but she has trouble seeing that, too. Much of our friendship has consisted of exchanges boiling down to "YOU ARE SO AWESOME." "I'M not Awesome, YOU'RE Awesome." "No, no, not me, YOU, YOU are Awesome!" Look at her comments to my most recent post, which, even as she acknowledges that she's "a composition teacher and someone whose academic specialization is quote-unquote minority literatures" and has to divide her thoughtful reflections into two separate comments just to make them fit, she still titles "Possibly Useless Ramblings" and concludes with "This probably came out sounding awful; I mean ABSOLUTELY NO criticism of YOU by ANY MINUTE PART of it -- I'm just expanding on some dialogues I've been having lately about this type of thing, and if it's utterly unhelpful then please delete it -- I promise I will not be offended." IN OTHER WORDS, this highly intelligent feminist with a whole lot of knowledge of the topic in question is doing the whole apologizing-for-the-intrusion thing in the comments of the blog of one of her best friends. Oh, us. Poor, confused people blind to our own worth.

I even do it in my own posts sometimes-- that whole opening paragraph here contains an air of "gee, sorry I'm writing, but I didn't feel like watching the Olympics tonight," and if I was writing something Proper, For Real Publication, I'd cut the whole thing. The funny thing about the Internet, though, is even though anything I post COULD be read by anybody with a connection, I feel like a drop of water in a particularly remote and uncharted part of the ocean. I feel so easily IGNORABLE... and so I don't usually feel like I'm intruding by posting anything. So I'm actually a whole lot more assertive here than I would be other places!

That said, I don't MIND knowing that what I post is being read. And there is never any need to apologize for commenting, whether you're my best friend or I have no idea who you are even online. Whoever you are, you have worth, and I like to hear from you.

Particularly because I'd like to have your permission to continue posting things. Just in case my posting is a bother.

---
*I just realized this is possibly a factor in my swooning over Faramir.

In celebration of the long-awaited U.S. return of THE JOHN WATSON SHOW I mean Sherlock, you knew I meant Sherlock-- I need to confess something to you. I, kind of... HATE?...Sherlock Fandom...?

*phew* okay, got that out there. You see, whenever you want to get something like that off your chest, you're inevitably aware that every one of your reasons is hypocritical or selfish or hypocritical or irrational or also maybe hypocritical. And yet SOMEHOW you need to get it out. To WORK it out. To work THROUGH the irrationality to figure out what your problem REALLY is.

Maybe my problem is my uneasy relationship with the entire idea of fandom. I grew up before the Internet. I grew up keeping my various obsessions, with Les Miz or Ducktales or Madeleine L'Engle or Gadget on Rescue Rangers or my crush on Fred Savage (who ME? Get a CRUSH? On a TV STAR? NO WAY) or whatever, a kind of shameful secret. I didn't KNOW anyone who loved these things the way I did (or even at all). Therefore IT WAS WEIRD OF ME. It was weird of me to FEEL so much about imaginary things (or real people I didn't know: because frankly I thought it was weird of the OTHER girls to be hanging up pages from Tiger Beat and sighing over any of the New Kids on the Block or the other Teen Supposed-Heartthrobs in there-- Fred Savage WAS in there, too, but that was part of why my own feelings freaked me out). I'd see a reference to one of my Favorite Things out in the world and I'd BLUSH. I was a closeted obsessive, hiding my intense feelings just because they DIDN'T MAKE SENSE to me.

So I see these kids online and realize they ARE just like me, but they've found an outlet that I never had. So maybe I'm... jealous?

I AM jealous of SOME Sherlock fans-- or some People In General-- of ANY age, I can say. Maybe the adults even more so. Because it's such a THING to love the show SO much that you CAN'T WAIT FOR IT TO AIR IN YOUR OWN COUNTRY and so you find a way to hack the BBC to watch it, or download it illegally ("while preordering the DVD, I PROMISE!" and I don't doubt it but...). I just can't imagine that watching it immediately is THAT IMPORTANT. It's coming. In fact, for U.S. fans, it's been less than THREE WEEKS this time. WAY better than last time's four months. Meanwhile, I've got so many other things on my plate that I just can't justify going though all that effort for a TV show that IS COMING EVENTUALLY. So while all the impatient fans of the world make me want to shout, "Oh come on, why can't you just WAIT?!? Don't you have ANYTHING ELSE to occupy your time?!?" what I'm really saying is "Gee, I wish I didn't have kids to work around all the time when it comes to free time. I miss those days of viewing-marathons and opening-night movie-goings and otherwise-seeking-out-things-I-like-as-soon-as-possible-on-whatever-schedule-I-like." Sour grapes. But then what most gets me is the assumption, after that (or even beforehand-- "Oh come on, PBS," go the comments, "You KNOW we're all going to see it before you show it"), that ALL TRUE FANS would have done everything in their power to see it immediately. Even the PRODUCERS made that assumption at the New York "premiere" of Season 2! And I feel insulted. Who are YOU to decide who a true fan is?

Although okay, maybe I'm NOT a True Fan. I love the show, but I'm an obsessive fan of, not the show, but one of the costars. And I'm a little weirdly protective of My Martin. And it bugs me how many people insist on seeing him only as John Watson. It bugs me how many people can't MENTION him in an unrelated setting (Hobbit discussions, mostly) without also throwing in something about Benedict-- not even just the Bilbo-and-Smaug thing, I mean discussions that aren't about Ben at ALL, and they're like "Ah, Martin's great, so is Ben," and I'm like WHO'S TALKING ABOUT BEN?! Though I thought the Bilbo-and-Smaug questions were getting old, too. (His answer at the DoS Premiere, starting at 45:08 here, about "Stevie Wonder and Paul McCartney in the 'Ebony and Ivory' video," just filled me with joy, though. MUSIC GEEKS FOREVER. Which speaking of which? THIS is the greatest thing Martin has done this year, dangit. DOES NO ONE ELSE APPRECIATE MARTIN'S UTTER MUSIC-GEEKINESS BUT ME? Is it just that I so rarely encounter anyone who IS a bigger music geek than me? See what I mean? This is extremely important and it has NOTHING TO DO WITH SHERLOCK!) But this is, of course, my most hypocritical argument of all. I get frustrated because some people are all, "That's a guy in my favorite show!" while meanwhile I'm all, "That's a show my favorite guy's in!"

Maybe this all comes down to that FineLineBetweenLoveAndHate. PASSION is irrational. Maybe if I hadn't gotten so used to holding my passions in, I'd feel less conflicted about them existing in the first place-- for me or for other people. Maybe this is all part of me still needing to make peace with my hypersensitivity, as I discussed last week. I feel things LOUDLY. I not only cry easily, I fall in love easily. I'm Emotionally Pansexual (which is kind of an oxymoron. I'm ...panPHILIAL?). And part of me is still trying frantically to CONTAIN these emotions somehow, and ends up trying to contain the emotions of the rest of the world, too.

I often wonder what I would have thought of the Beatles if I'd been around in the '60s. Would I have stubbornly brushed them off as stupid pop stars all those stupid screaming girls were being stupid about? Or would I have fallen in love anyway, and tried to downplay it BECAUSE I didn't want to think of myself as one of those Stupid Screaming Girls Being Stupid? Or would I have been screaming? -- nah, THAT I can't see. I actually hope it's the middle option. Because that's what I'm doing right now, isn't it? Trying desperately to claim my fannishness and yet make clear that I'm not one of "THOSE" fans? And in that case, maybe I'd be hypocritical and irrational and stuck-up... but at least I'd still have the Beatles to love.

RIIIIGHT. So every morning in my social-media email (it used to be my junk email, but it got to the point that more people message me through social media [which I registered through that "junk" email address] than send me an actual email, so it is usually more entertaining than my "official" email), I get a Type 9 Thought for the Day like so from the Enneagram site. If you recall if you've been here long enough, I really liked this personality test because it was so dang ACCURATE for me (Actually, I've since managed to find a Myers-Briggs test that actually came up with a clear result for me--INFP, also, and there was this other test I took recently that labelled me, fairly obviously, as a "Dreamy Idealist." And if you read the descriptions of all three of those "types" here you'll see they're all virtually identical, naturally, so-- yeah, probably accurate). So a motivational reminder that's actually TAILORED to SOMEONE LIKE ME is a lot easier to catch my attention each morning than a general platitude. Easier to catch my attention, but naturally harder to do. If I got, say, a Type EIGHT thought that said something like "Try to be nice to people today," I'd be all like, "Oh SURE!" and I'd be really good at following that advice, but it would do neither me nor anyone else much good because I'd probably have done it anyway.

No, dangit, I need to GROW in life, and the only way to GROW is to stretch a bit in that direction. Stretching is challenging. Particularly for personality types known for their tendency toward sloth. Hence the notes in my inbox saying "HAPPY NEW YEAR! Why don't you make and keep some actual resolutions for once?!"

Maybe I should make a plan to figure out how to make a plan. This year I will figure out what it is I actually want in the first place! First step: figure out how to figure out what I actually want!

But it helps to know I'm not starting from scratch-- no couch-to-5K thing. Or it is, but I'm already OFF the couch, strolling leisurely and distractedly toward 5K. Maybe toward The Marathon of Self-Actualization in the long run. But I'm OFF THE COUCH. If you scroll to the bottom of that Type 9 description linked above, you see a chart describing the way a 9 behaves at various levels of psychological/spiritual/emotional health. Two years ago at this time I was bottoming out around Level 7. I was dragging myself through the very basics of making sure nobody died in my care, and only managing that because people WERE in my care. Eventually I found Zoloft. ZOLOFT MY TRUE LOVE! Now what many people struggling with clinical depression don't realize at first, and I didn't either (and people who AREN'T struggling with it certainly don't even THINK to realize), is a) you have to trial-and-error to find the RIGHT medication and right DOSAGE of that medication before it actually works right, so if you try something and it doesn't work that doesn't necessarily mean MEDICATION ITSELF doesn't work. I had three serious relationships with other medications-- was engaged to Prozac for a bit until it went all ANXIETY-ATTACK-INDUCING on me-- before I found my beloved Zoloft. Anyway, and most importantly b) medication is your life-raft. Medication is not the cure. Zoloft brought me up out of those "Unhealthy Levels." Dropped me at about a Level Six or a low Five. Hardly a model citizen. But I could WORK now. I could work at MYSELF without despairing and falling into an impenetrable Brain Fog.

Last year at this time, with the help of a lot of counseling and self-helpish reading and the Lycoris Letters project and the deep philosophising with the new and dear friend Cat I'd made through that project, I'd made it up to bouncing between Levels 5 and 4. Now, after over a year of semi-regular yoga and other enforced exercise (I mean, for ME. Not compared to the way my SISTER does exercise), as well as continued self-helpish reading and chats with Cat and-- well, actually, doing a lot of Real Life Stuff-- dare I say, I'm actually showing a whole lot more Level 3 (and 4. Average to bad days I'm definitely not pulling off the whole healthy assurance thing... but on good days, maybe I have!)!

I mentioned before this marvelous inspirational creativity book I'm reading/working through, The Soul Tells a Story by Vinita Hampton Wright. Right now I am thoroughly stuck on the Hard Questions (my words) at the end of only Chapter 3. "These two things nearly always happen when I create:" I'm supposed to explain. "When I create something, this is what the beginning is like:...the middle...the end. My creative gifts really kick in when:"

I HAVE NO IDEA! DO I create? Maybe I haven't created anything in YEARS. No, I just sewed like five fleece sweatshirts for Christmas, that probably counts as creating. Also my library programs. WHAT DO MY PROGRAMS AND MY SEWING STUFF HAVE IN COMMON?! Nothing? I don't think anything. What do I do when I create? Putter around doing everything but? No, when I was SEWING I actually tackled everything pretty straight on and all at once. It's only making stuff up from scratch that I putter around Not Doing. I think I'll go check Twitter again....

So as I said: my goal this year is to figure out how to make goals in the first place. Or to figure out what the heck I'm doing in general. Or... something.

But I DID make it past chapters one and two. I MANAGED to answer not just the first set of Really Hard Questions, but several MORE sets. "The activity that gives me greatest joy is…" "A lot of things make me happy," I wrote, "but JOY implies an ALIVE sort of happiness... I think it's 'making music,' for all I don't do it much... When I think of 'JOY,' raising ones voice in song is the first thing that comes to mind...."
"The good qualities that best describe my life are…""'Loving.' 'Relatively secure and comfortable'-- part of me is like 'BORING!' and the other part is like 'HUSH! Don't tempt fate! Secure and comfortable is GOOD!'..."
"The help that people often solicit from me is…" "...well, besides 'MOMMY GIVE ME FOOD! NOW!' INFORMATION. And book recommendations. I'm a librarian and the world knows it."
"The part of my personality that I would most hate to lose is…""imagination, the ability to see things in unique ways."
"The work that is most satisfying to me is…""I'd say it's a combination of 'making people smile' and 'getting results.' ...it's getting feedback, I think. Getting evidence that what I do actually makes a difference. Which is a problem when it comes to WORKING on writing...."
"The activity that I feel drawn to, even when it’s scary, is…" "okay I have no idea. Performance can be scary? Flying? Boating? Does 'EVEN when it's scary' HAVE to imply some level of fear? Or can 'sleeping' count? Or stalking Martin Freeman? I avoid being DRAWN to scary things. Even though I've always liked scary books...."

Got the answers out. All over the place, but out. Next came some questions about my most joyful memories from various times, and what I'm doing when I get so carried away that I lose track of time ("first I thought, 'Oh, that's hard, I can't remember when I last got so involved,' then I realized, WAIT, DUH. This is me ALL THE TIME! I have NO sense of time, apparently, I'm ALWAYS losing track of it or having it disappear on me... I think the problem is my attention wanders ANYWAY, it just never wanders to 'WHAT TIME IS IT') and what it means to me to say Yes or No to my gifts.

Then we came to: "If you asked the people who know you best, what would they say your gifts are?" You may think this is strange, but at that moment, I hadn't a CLUE. I honestly didn't know. So I turned to Facebook, which is a debatable mix of people who know me best, but to be honest I'm not sure I could even tell you who on this earth knows me best to begin with, and I posted this:

Note the responses, which I have cleverly grayed out and numbered for easier reference. Gah, that person they're describing... that sure SOUNDS like somebody who DOES have something unique to say, doesn't it? Like somebody who really is called to write after all? And yet it still surprised me a little. It's OBVIOUS, and yet all my doubts have been working so hard to not let me see it.

Finally we come to Friend #7 there, and her somewhat frightening clarification request. Her actual answer, just below where this image cuts off, is long and quite revealing, so I'm copying it here in full so you don't have to squint at a screen capture:

In person: You are sweet and understanding, and accepting of everyone from the start. Even if you aren't really, you appear trusting and have a calming influence on me (and I suspect others around you.) You also, once one can get you to open up, have a wealth of information on a broad range of topics, which makes you a fascinating conversationalist, provided you remember to speak up. But you are usually not the one to introduce a topic. However, you are clever enough to try to get there tangentally, if you so choose.

Online: I think your online personality is similar in some ways, but online, you are wittier, more brazen. You're willing to put yourself out there a good bit more. Online, you aren't afraid to be the one to initiate conversation on any multitude of topics. You share more of your likes and dislikes, obsessions and pet peeves. You are brave, online. You're more provocative, and I don't mean that in a sexual connotation, but never mean or troll-like.

WOW. THAT'S some insight. It actually sounds a bit like she's WRITTEN some of the Personality Type descriptions linked above just by looking at me. But the sentence that stuck out the most for me?

"You are brave, online."

Why am I so scared to write, guys? Why am I so scared to BE? I AM brave, online. Here I am. And I'm using my writing voice (it's actually my WRITTEN personality rather than exclusively an ONLINE one. This is the same person you'll find in the journals I kept when I was fourteen. Though hopefully I'm a bit less naive and cringe-inducing now). What will it take for me to be brave OFF-line? To write "seriously," actually crafting stories again? To speak up at home or at work or wherever when I'm not comfortable with something? To speak up when I WANT something? To ADMIT to myself that I want something (something attainable. Not Martin Freeman)? To TAKE CHANCES? To GO PLACES? To TRY NEW THINGS?

So, maybe that's my goal for the year. Learn to be brave.

Step one: figure out what I want to be brave about.

Which really isn't all that different a resolution from what I said at the beginning of the post. I just stuck the word "brave" in there. It looks more determined of me.

Well, time is tight, and I have so much to write about, but I don't want to let today (my favorite day of the year! Yes, Christmas Eve is actually more my favorite than Christmas Day, that's just the way it works) pass without wishing you, my Internet friends, my friends and family I WON'T be seeing this week, and my lovely random strangers who happen to be reading this, a very Merry Christmas. I'm going to get back to that by the end of this post, by way of a lot of other stuff that's been on my mind the past few days, so... be patient? Or get your internal scanners ready?

About this past weekend

So, eleven years ago tonight I got the only piece of jewelry I ever (let alone always) wear, from my then-boyfriend, who was actually stunned when I accepted it. Ten years ago this coming Friday we got married. It seems like a good opportunity to do MORE than JUST dinner-and-a-movie, although we did do the dinner-and-a-movie (though in two parts) too, but this actual anniversary weekend is a little busy, so this PAST weekend my parents took the kids and booked us a night at a fancy little bed-and-breakfast in Ligonier. We DID have Friday evening and Saturday morning at home, where we finished up Christmas Stuff; but then off we headed, to a fancy and probably-most-expensive-we-ever-actually-paid-for-and-WE-DID-IT-ON-PURPOSE dinner at my cousin's restaurant. That's where we took my new Facebook profile picture:
...which stunned at least 29 people with its beauty. "HOW are those two complete dorks looking so CUTE?!" everyone on Facebook thought. I don't know. Expensive food. That must be it.

Then we RELAXED in our fancy little B&B, run by a woman who ordered us to Be Romantic or Else. She seemed to think we ought to be listening to quiet instrumental music over breakfast instead of watching Marvel Universe movies on FX. But this is what she served us for breakfast: baked pears in rum sauce with pecans; a sort-of-stuffed-French-toast-thing-made-with-cinnamon-and-stuffed-with-mascarpone-and-apricot-jam-I-think-I-got-that-right; very good seasoned homefried potatoes; sausage and maple syrup. There were also snacks in the room, and we had hot chocolate in the morning too. So we were very well-fed this weekend.

Then we ran off to see Desolation of Smaug, because it wouldn't be a proper anniversary without me dragging my Real Husband to watch my Imaginary Husband on the big screen. So here's where I do a quick movie review!:

A Quick Response to The Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug:

Desolation of Smaug is very much the middle movie of a trilogy: it drops you right into the middle of the action and ends so suddenly that, in our theater, the silence was broken by the guy beside us exclaiming, "You have GOT to be KIDDING me!"

Beyond that, I cannot possibly give you an objective, mainstream review. I will admit it: I'm an utter Pete-Jackson's-Middle-Earth fangirl. I fail as a book purist-- I honestly didn't care WHAT happened-- even Jason, who has only read the book once, questioned aloud at one point "The ring didn't AFFECT him this much in the book, did it?" (and I refrained from responding "ShutupmyOtherHusbandisACTING!")-- although towards the very end I did wonder how long the action at Erebor would drag out-- but otherwise I let it go (also I figure if people would just refer to the movies by their subtitles only-- ie Desolation of Smaug-- the need to feel at all book-pure decreases significantly). I fail as a critic of fine cinema-- I don't even KNOW this time around what the faults and strengths of this movie as a visual storytelling device are. I was just THERE, immersed, and smiling constantly. Dear lord it's possible I'm even more of a Middle-Earth fanatic than I am a Martin Freeman fanatic! ANYTHING else he's in I get totally antsy when he's off-screen, no matter how good the overall production is (DARN YOU LAST-JOHN-WATSONLESS-THIRD-OF-SCANDAL-IN-BELGRAVIA!)-- THIS time, even though there was a disproportionate LACK of titular Hobbit in this Hobbit movie, I BARELY noticed: I was like "MIDDLE-EARTH!-happy-happy-happy-smiling-happy-ohlookmyfavoriteactorBONUS!-happy-happy-happy...." A LEETLE bored by wizards and necromancers, but that was my only "but why can't we get back to the OTHER scene?!" moment. So yeah, I loved it, but I can't speak for anyone else. My geekitude, which even I wasn't entirely sure about before, has become fully exposed.

About Kindness

Now to get serious for a moment. Last week YA author Ned Vizzini killed himself. Considering that I've never actually READ any of his books, and considering how little I tend to react to most other deaths and atrocities in the world, it's surprising exactly how much this shook me up. Or not. I've already written about how sensitive I am to suicide. There's something about being destroyed from the inside out, it's scarier than external enemies. Demons are absolutely the most frightening of monsters, because they attack from the inside, too. Dementors are by far the scariest monsters in Harry Potter, because they're basically a metaphor for this whole thing-- MENTAL ILLNESS, eating you up from the inside.

Anyway, somebody wrote a perfect comment on the obituary at The A.V. Club-- so perfect I printed it out! It summed up my own feelings, though perhaps more crassly than I would. So if you don't feel like clicking through, I just want to highlight his* last paragraph for you: "So let this be my New Year's resolution, my goal. For every artist like Ned Vizzini who loses their battle in the end, I vow to work twice as hard at making my craft better, out of respect for what they've managed to do despite their challenges and to in some small way keep them alive, by working on their behalf to create something new that otherwise might not be."

That is EXACTLY the way I felt when Diana Wynne Jones died, though she wasn't a suicide, just a sucky lifestyle choice (HAVE I EVER MENTIONED HOW MUCH I HATE CIGARETTES, TOO?!). But this time, maybe because I hadn't read his books, it wasn't the carrying-on-the-ART vow I wanted to make. I vowed, with all my heart, to work THAT MUCH HARDER to counter negativity in the world. To counter negativity-- and this is the important part-- not with MORE negativity, but with KINDNESS. To devote my life to spreading Kindness (as opposed to my usual, ineffective Niceness). To embrace everyone, with all their faults, and hold them up, out of the darkness.

So Now for my Christmas Wish

Which brings me back to my Christmas Wish for you, and for the world. Every year I post this song. Many of you have it memorized. Many of you have listened to it once before. Many of you weren't following me last Christmas, or you just never bothered to listen. But this time I'm serious. I want each and every one of you to spare three and a half minutes to let this Christmas Wish seep into your consciousness:

Wishing you the most genuine of Peace and Love from me to you. Merry Christmas

*(the commenter struck me as male, but I could be wrong. He's a he in my head. If she's not, and she/you are offended, you can set me straight.)

I knew there was something significant about today's date, and now I remember: it's the 95th anniversary of the birth of the woman who wrote my favorite book and the 12th anniversary of the death of the man who wrote my favorite song. That's a lot of significance for one day. (Just listened to the latter sing the words "All the world is birthday cake" which could be for the former. IT ALL TIES TOGETHER).

Nowhere I have to be for a few hours at least, nothing I have to do except get the kids in the shower once they're done with breakfast (they got into my cousin's cologne yesterday. This will require a serious soaking), and I have a horrible cold, so don't really WANT to do much. Don't really want to SIT here, even, except mentally I'm in a place where I just feel like talking to you today. It's been two months. (Have you missed me? If you missed me, tell me so, it will make me feel useful. Then again if nobody missed me then I'll be more depressed than if I hadn't bothered to ask, so maybe not. But now I won't know whether you didn't miss me or DID miss me and are just trying not to enable my neediness).

Yesterday was Thanksgiving, so of course it's proper to start out by being thankful for Madeleine L'Engle and George Harrison. And for once I feel like telling about personal events, as if this was a journal again more than a blog. My aunt had hosted Thanksgiving, and, well, pretty much everything, for many years because she had a house for it, but this spring she moved to a place more suitable for Just Her and a Cat or Two. But her son manages/lives above a restaurant/bar/thing, so he offered the run of the place for all of us for Thanksgiving this year, instead (I'm sure he didn't intend to offer the run of his cologne in this package, but what's a holiday with small children without the makings of a holiday with small children?). It was a maze of rooms, so quite easy to lose yourself/ small children in (they had themselves a surprisingly difficult game of hide and seek. Don't think they'd ever played in a place with so many good hiding spots before). But everywhere you went, you ran into someone else, so you never were COMPLETELY lost. And they certainly had the facilities for feast-preparation, although in our family no one is ever in charge of ALL the cooking. I brought bar cookies that I overboiled the ingredients for, making them ROCK HARD (I actually broke one of my best knives trying to cut them!), but luckily there were enough other desserts. We had pumpkin pie, pumpkin cake, a REALLY DELICIOUS pumpkin trifle made by a woman we just found out is the fiancee of one of my cousins so YES MA'AM WELCOME TO OUR FAMILY YOU MAY ALWAYS BRING DESSERT, pumpkin cookies, pumpkin dip, and pumpkin ice cream. Also a few other things that weren't pumpkin.

I simultaneously love holidays and get infinitely frustrated by the way other people react to holidays, too. Every so often this week there's been someone on the "Thanksgiving is offensive because that whole Pilgrims-and-Indians-happy-feast-myth is so PROBLEMATIC" train. Which is not a fault of Thanksgiving at all. It's the fault of people who insist on having preschoolers make feathered headdresses for a Thanksgiving craft. CANADIANS have Thanksgiving-- in October-- and it has NOTHING TO DO with Puritans at Plymouth. It's what it IS-- a harvest feast to give thanks for being able to eat and all. And I'm pretty sure that's how most people celebrate Thanksgiving, anyway.

Then there's the "Thanksgiving is early Christmas" thing, which was even more tricky this year since Thanksgiving WAS also Hanukkah, and "Hanukkah is Jewish Christmas." Look, I love Christmas more than ANYBODY.* ANYBODY I KNOW, at any rate. But I'm not ready to get in the mood for the holiday season until NOW. People always laugh about how early Christmas stuff comes out in STORES, but this year I saw SO many Christmas lights out on PRIVATE HOMES TWO WEEKS AGO. Of course, maybe they celebrate Hanukkah and were only prepping for THIS week. I guess we don't really know. I just hope they KEEP those lights up until at LEAST January 7th. Come on.

But on the complete opposite hand, a couple weeks ago my coworker who "shares" social media duties with me (okay, anymore SHE does most of it, and I just pop on whenever I have an idea) posted a picture of the decorated tree we have up in the library with the message "Our holiday tree is up and decorated in Dr. Seuss characters thanks to our local girl scout troop." And on our Facebook page, someone commented, "Don't you mean Christmas tree?" Since our Facebook page is linked to my personal Facebook account, I got a notification as soon as this comment was posted, so I responded, "Well, it's a little early for Christmas-- Thanksgiving and Hanukkah aren't even for another two weeks! We have a lot of other holidays to celebrate before Christmas!" This turned out to be the Exact Right Answer, earning both an in-person thumbs-up from my coworker for handling the comment so well, and a Facebook thumbs-up from the commenter for an explanation she could live with: her response was "I was really just hoping you guys weren't going the way of (what seems to be) everyone else, by not acknowledging Christmas at all...glad to hear you're just trying to extend the joy. ;)" And I'm like, really? That's the whole POINT of using the term "holiday season," not to cut OUT Christmas, but to extend the joy to ALL the OTHER holidays and traditions of this darkest-time-of-year. Christmas is December 25! But Dewey Decimal Day is December 10, and that's an important holiday, too! Okay, maybe not important, but worth celebrating (the last thing I did at work before leaving on Wednesday-- we were closed yesterday and today-- was making a "December" sign for our monthly holiday books display. There's a LOT of holidays this time of year! And it so happens Dewey Decimal Day is one of them). Worrying that there's a War on Christmas because it's acknowledged not to be the only holiday in December is like worrying making gay marriage legal will destroy straight marriage. Wait, that's usually the same people doing the worrying.

Then there's people who get stressed out about holidays. I just want to say "WE DON'T CARE! Let us people who DON'T get stressed out about holidays handle everything! We'll ALL be happy!" I was angry with my husband yesterday because HE'S one of the grinchy types, and he said, "Are you okay? Is this just your usual holiday depression?" "MY holiday depression? I wouldn't be depressed a bit if YOU weren't so grumpy." Luckily he mellowed out by the time we reached my family's party and he had a couple superb German dark beers. But anyhoo, I really think that. Holidays would be so much more pleasant for everyone if the people who got stressed out over holidays would just sit back and let the holiday-lovers take care of stuff.

So, I hope tomorrow we can do the Thorough Once-a-Year (or close to that) Housecleaning that must take place before the Christmas decorations (and Advent, and New Years, and St. Nicholas' Day, and Dewey Decimal Day, and Jane Austen's Birthday... you know, the HOLIDAY decorations) can come out, but I do have this awful crappy cold and want to go to sleep. And now it is much later at night than when I started this, so going to sleep would be a pretty good idea.

I'll get back to you again SOMETIME before Christmas (I refer here to December 25): I've been meaning to tell you about the book I'm reading/working through. For one thing. Also, who wants to go see Catching Fire with me? Jason says he'll go to the theaters with me for Desolation of Smaug (even if that IS the one with my Imaginary Husband in it), but he doesn't care to see Catching Fire in the theaters... which is just a shame that he didn't care for the first movie, because I KNOW if he read all the books he'd REALLY appreciate the worldbuilding of Panem. But ah well. Girl date! Or boy date! I don't know of any boys who read this who actually live near me though, so never mind them. Whatever-gender-you-identify-with non-spousal date!

---
*That links to a post that links to almost every OTHER post I've ever written about Christmas, so it seems most convenient. Except for the post I wrote last year, since it hadn't happened yet.

I've been meaning to write this for awhile, because every time I see the phrase "If everyone is special, then no one is special," I want to slap whomever it is said it over the head. Possibly with a thesaurus. Yesterday someone linked to someone else rolling their metaphorical eyes at the old Fox News stance that Mister Rogers' "You are Special" refrain insidiously created a generation of entitled slackers, so I thought of this post again. What's interesting about the above link is that someone in the comments (yes, I read the comments! They actually weren't bad!) then linked to a response one such apparent Mister Rogers blamer wrote to clarify what he actually meant.

Unfortunately, the guy's still missing the point.

Which is why I still have to WRITE THIS POST TO EXPLAIN WHY.

He-- and most of the people with something to say about this story-- is hung up on thinking the Terrible part about this story is the slandering of Mister Rogers, who IS, certainly, one of the greatest (and more importantly, uh, GOODest. "Best" doesn't have the right connotation, sue me) men of the 20th century, or at least in the history of television, and therefore yes people who slander him suck. But the real travesty of this guy's thought process is his complete inability to understand what Mister Rogers MEANT by "You are Special."

Maybe it's some kind of all-American hangup about competition. There HAS to be winners and losers. Somebody HAS to be The Best. Some people are entitled to good things because they EARNED them and that makes them "special." You have to WIN Specialness.

I don't think it means what he think it means.

Fred Rogers was an ordained minister who literally saw his television show as his ministry, the audience as his congregation. Of course it wasn't a religious show, no mention of God or Jesus or any other Bible character, but in this secular format he was able to express one of the most important tenets of Christianity: YOU ARE LOVED, JUST THE WAY YOU ARE. Even when you mess up, God doesn't stop loving you-- no matter WHAT horrible thing you might have done, God may be SAD about it, but YOU ARE STILL LOVED. And this isn't just true for Christians, or any other one Chosen People-- it's EVERYONE, whether they love God back or not. All of humanity is Redeemed, even if not everyone ACCEPTS their redemption. NO ONE IS BETTER OR WORSE IN THE EYES OF GOD. ...can you tell the fact that so many people who call themselves "Christian" align themselves with the other sort of Politics (and in fact believe it to BE the Christian "side") bugs me? Seriously, we liberal Christians really need to start speaking up more. *ahem* anyway...

It's like a counselor explained to me once: your USEFULNESS may fluctuate, but your self-worth is a CONSTANT. Is a baby worth less than someone at their physical peak? Are you worth less when you've got the flu or a broken leg? Should we round up apparently useless people and shoot them? I came out of this session honestly wondering how people who didn't believe in God-- or God's Love-- came to grips with this concept. Surely if you took away the presence of unconditional love, then logic says a more Useful* person IS more worthy of existing. But God's Ways are not Man's Ways, and it clearly says GOD LOVES EVERYBODY.

The other day my friend linked to a site about National Suicide Prevention Week, which explained that this year's theme is "You Cannot Be Replaced." You cannot be replaced.

THAT'S what "You are Special" means. And yes, EVERYONE is special, because WHOEVER you are, you can't be replaced. THERE IS JUST ONE OF YOU.

Depression is this disease where you can't help believing the lies the Devil whispers in your ear-- even when you KNOW IN YOUR HEAD these things are lies, and not only lies but EVIL lies, it's still so hard to fight it. To be honest I'm not comfortable with the phrase "the Devil," I prefer "The Lone Power," thank you Diane Duane-- the inventor of Entropy, the opposite of Creation. These lies are "You're worthless. You can't do anything. Give up. No one needs you. You MEAN NOTHING."

Madeleine L'Engle called it "X-ing yourself" in A Wind in the Door-- this believing evil's lies that you are Worthless. Snuffing out the Light, the Worth, that really IS there. Just today I flipped my journal open to something I'd written while reading The Diviners, how scary, how EASY it is to give into the sins of apathy and sloth and hopelessness-- how easy it is to GIVE UP. "Terrible things can happen if I believe [the lies of depression]. It's, in a way, kind of encouraging-- what CAN I do, what IS my great potential, if the Devil is so determined to keep me from it? ... I don't like to think that I could be a tool for Evil, but I allow myself to be just by DISbelieving that I can be a FORCE for GOOD. ...Negativity keeps trying to NEGATE me. WHICH MEANS I'M SOMEBODY WORTH TRYING TO NEGATE. Gotta remember that."

It's funny, you really HAVE to be speaking from a place of Privilege if you think "Everyone is Special" means "Everyone should get everything handed to them." There are far too many people in the world who need to hear "You Are Special" just to believe they have a right to exist at all.

And hey. You. YOU. You DO have a right to exist. You have a POINT. YOU ARE SPECIAL, because you are the only You there is. You cannot be replaced.

---
*This is the thing that bugs me most about my son's beloved Thomas and Friends, beyond the annoying songs. I hate the emphasis on everyone trying to be a Really Useful Engine. I mean, obviously they're trains, they HAVE to be useful, but they're ANTHROPOMORPHIC trains, which thoroughly muddies the issue.

Hey, all, I'm a BLOGGING FREAK this week, aren't I? Remember this during my dry spells.

The thing that's made me start writing TODAY is the conversation that ensued when my video blog* friends discovered this Buzzfeed post: 12 Reasons Why Hufflepuff House Is Actually Badass,** and everyone cheered for their not-so-closet Hufflepuffness, and we naturally got onto the topic of Self-Sorting and/or Letting-Pottermore-Do-It-For-You, and once more I found myself getting TOO DEEP AND VERBOSE FOR TWITTER, so here you are.

Thing is, I was always clearly a Ravenclaw. A Capital-N Nerd. My life WAS my brain, and learning, and even showing off what a huge-know-it-all I was (though, unlike Hermione Granger, I LACKED the bravery and crusading, SPEW-creating spirit that would have put me in Gryffindor. And Slytherin? Pah, it has nothing to do with not wanting to associate with dark wizards, and more to do with COMPLETE LACK OF AMBITION TO A FAULT). Also, though this was established only in 2003, if I've had ANY ambition in my life it has been to Be Luna Lovegood, so there is that.

But reading this article, I had a gut "It's true, we ARE!" reaction. And then I had to think. WAIT. Ravenclaw. I've always been Ravenclaw. But suddenly I wasn't feeling it any more.***

When I look back, I'm pretty sure I would have still immediately put myself in Ravenclaw as recently as maybe a year ago. But I might have been a little bitter-proud about it. "Yep, I'm the brainiac. Completely useless at anything else, but a brainiac."

But I really HAVE changed in the past year. You know I've been working through my self-esteem/depression issues for years, but it's this past year that I feel like I've been making REAL PROGRESS. And yes, that's why nearly everything I post anymore is all philosophical, because I've been spending so much time and energy Working These Things Out. It's still a work in progress, mind you, but... but that's what I'm getting to. Let's start from the beginning.

At Hogwarts at the age of 11, I certainly would have been a Ravenclaw-- as long as they didn't hold that HOMEWORK thing against me. I clung to the fact that I was smart. Only a year or two before one of the books I was always writing contained a scene that went something like this:
Mary Sue Version of Me: "Hmm, maybe [incredibly obvious deduction]!"
Classmate: "Wow, Amy, you're such a genius, you should be in the ADVANCED ADVANCED Gifted Education Program!"
Mary Sue Amy, without trace of reaction: "Well, they don't have that, so I guess the REGULAR Gifted Education Program will have to do."

I swear I actually wrote that. Unironically.

At the end of 8th grade we had an awards assembly, and among the awards were medals given to the student who scored the highest on each separate subject of the standardized tests we'd taken. I got all but one. I think it was the math. Anyway, that was the first I'd ever felt a little embarrassed about it. But at least it was something I could feel CONFIDENT about.

Sure, I was a crybaby whose "best friends" pretended we WEREN'T actually friends around other kids. Sure, I had over-sized glasses and crooked teeth and the physical coordination of a chess piece. But DANGIT, I WAS SMART.

It probably was in about 8th grade, too, because that was the height of my paperback-horror phase, that I read a book (shout out in the comments if you remember this one-- I don't remember the name or author) about a cursed prom/formal dress that left each unwitting girl who wore it without the one thing they were most proud about. And there was a brainiac girl who ended up brain damaged. And it squigged me out. THAT CAN'T HAPPEN TO ME, I thought. MY LIFE WOULD TOTALLY BE OVER.

Fact is, I was a snob. For an unpopular kid with no fashion sense who claimed to hate snobs, I was an INTELLIGENCE snob. I didn't have the patience for people who THOUGHT SLOWER than me.

In high school I read an article about EQ-- how emotional intelligence was more important than traditional IQ in predicting future success. I was offended. So I KNOW they're trying to make people who aren't so smart feel better about themselves, but are they trying to say people who DO have high IQs aren't so great? PAH.

But as I got older, I started to figure out that the article was right. For one thing, a positive thing, I met several people who taught me to appreciate that even people who WEREN'T SMART-- who even had LOW IQs-- had OTHER valuable qualities-- sometimes even MORE valuable. "I know I'm not very good at some things," one such woman, who I'd (take that, snobby-younger-self) come to know as a friend, told me once, "but there are OTHER things I AM good at, so I focus on those!" I've never forgotten that. The world would say I was blessed with so much more natural talent than she was-- and yet here she was, teaching ME something very important that I still haven't quite mastered.

For a not-so-positive thing? Yeah, real life has no use for brainiacs. Who gets paid to take standardized tests?

So for most of adulthood, I haven't taken much pride in my brains. But I still defined myself by them. Now I was just bitter, and resigned that the school system had failed me and I was a failure.

But they say, when real change happens, the old self dies and makes way for the new. And it's possible that my OLD self was the Ravenclaw. And right, I'm still a nerd. I still love learning and memorizing weird trivia facts and doing pencil puzzles in GAMES Magazine, but I don't DEFINE myself by it any more. There are other things I value more. There are other things I want to BE. I'm not STUCK in my old ways of thinking. And it's possible this New Me would fit in better in another Hogwarts house. Right now I AM leaning particularly toward Hufflepuff's open, loving, supportive, and need I add food-appreciating nature.

But as I continue to grow, I could even find myself latching on to a big boost of Gryffindor courage. Who knows, really. But I'll be open to it, whatever it is. I'll still try to be the Best ME I can be.

-----
*which I am on hiatus from for a bit by reason of TimeSuck, but here's three blog posts in one week if that helps any!
**why yes I DID realize there's a lovely GIF of Martin right there two down, but I swear that's not why I'm linking you to the article! ...You have to admit it's a nice bonus, though.
***and no, it had NOTHING to do with the lovely GIF of Martin, which was only being used to illustrate that Hufflepuff House is like a Hobbit Hole. Obviously, Bilbo Baggins would be (the only hobbit ever to be) in Gryffindor, so that wouldn't have been a draw to it. (OKAY, Tolkien nerds, ease off, he's not the ONLY hobbit ever, some of his Tookish ancestors might have gone that way, too, and MAYBE one or two of the Fellowship, BUT IT STILL WOULD HAVE BEEN RARE).

You guys. The debate is over. Centuries of philosophical arguments are settled. I have figured out the definitive answer to the question "What is love?" One that applies to "I love ice cream" and to "God is Love" and EVERYTHING IN BETWEEN.

Love is "I value your vibrant, healthy existence. I celebrate your very Being." Everything else is just extra stuff. Anything to which you can say "You ARE, and I'M GLAD," you love it! (Note examples above: "I HAVE ICE CREAM YUM!" and "God saw all that he had made, and it was very good.") Can anyone really think of any exceptions?

I'm just trying to figure out where the "42" fits in.*

Seriously, though, I've always been kind of confused when people say "It's hard to say I love you," or "How do I know that I REALLY LOVE him?" Why is this hard? Why is love such a Super Rare thing?

Is it because our society is so apt to conflate the word "love" with "being in romantic love with?" As if that was the only, or at least the strongest, type of love that exists? Well guess what. It's not. I was thinking a while back that, hey, I've finally figured out my sexuality: I'm physically heterosexual, emotionally pansexual. I fall in love easily, with anything and anyone. And you know what? The person on this earth I am MOST OVERWHELMINGLY IN LOVE WITH at this moment is a) female, b) a very young minor, and c) closely related to me. At the moment. Sometimes her brother wins me over more. OKAY, THEY'RE TIED. I DON'T HAVE FAVORITES. MY POINT IS, no one has ever taken my breath away more by the miracle of their very existence than my children. Romance, PAH, you've got nothing on maternal feels.

But if you want to narrow your definition, make Love something EXCLUSIVE, then you're talking about something else. Are you faithful? Are you devoted? Are you physically attracted? Those are different questions. Do you LOVE me? That means Are you glad I AM? Do you want what's best for me, which isn't necessarily the same as What I think I want?

Maybe the emphasis is on the wrong word. Instead of "Do you LOVE me?" maybe what people really mean to ask is "Do you love ME?" -- ME, not some Ideal-you-have-of-me-who-isn't-actually-me? Not what-you-think-you-can-get-out-of-me? ME.

Love, though-- why question love? Love is the energy that endues things with MEANING. We need MORE of it. It doesn't need to be exclusive! It needs to SPREAD. We need more of us to look at each other and at our works and at the universe and say, "I am GLAD YOU EXIST."

Where love gets tricky is in Loving Your Enemies. Even in Loving Your Neighbor as Yourself. Even in Loving Yourself. CAN you look at a truly reprehensible person and say "I'm glad you exist, too?" You might have to say, "I'm glad you exist because your mother is glad you exist," to make it palatable, but you're feeling in the right direction now. So that when you see someone who seems like a jerk, you remember that they may have family or friends who love them despite their faults. That's loving your neighbor-- the one who double-parked on a busy day, the one going OH SO SLOWLY in front of you in the shopping line or WAY TOO QUICKLY around you on the highway, the one who smells funny, the one who thinks he's Casanova, the one who won't stop telling you all her problems even though you don't even know her, the one... well, fill in the blank. They've got a place in their lives. Maybe they're not at their healthiest and most vibrant right now, but they still have INHERENT WORTH. And I'm glad.

And Loving Yourself-- can you look at YOURSELF and say, "I AM, and I'm GLAD?" Sometimes it's hard. But it's vital. BASE that energy of gratitude toward all of Creation IN YOURSELF. Then let it spread.

By the way, I love you. YES, YOU. PERSON READING THIS. Even if I don't know who you are, I am so GLAD you're reading this and I DO hope it's brought a bit of positivity into your life because YOUR LIFE IS WORTH IT.

I love you, my Internet friends I've never met and maybe you're really aliases for completely different people and I've been deceived but DANG, I love the You I THINK I know. You ARE at least in my HEAD, and I'm GLAD.

I love you, my real friends and family, even if I'm socially awkward and forget all the niceties and seem like a lazy ineffectual sloth, because I CAN be, but I'm HERE for you nonetheless, call on me, because I want what's best for you!

I love you, strawberry ice cream. Wherever you are.
---

*If I am Fenchurch, that means I get to hook up with Arthur Dent, right? Just one particular one. I'm picky that way.

This morning I've been singing "This Little Light of Mine" over and over in my head like a mantra... I say "like" a mantra, but whatever, it IS a mantra.

It's like I've said before about children's books: just because they're written "for children" doesn't mean-- the good ones, anyway-- people OLDER than the target age group can't get anything out of it. Harold and the Purple Crayon is profound. Period.

Who could think a simple little Sunday School song could be what a 35 year old most needs in her life? Who could think the message of this repetitive little tune of about four notes would be so easily forgotten by the grown-ups of the world who think they're so wise and disillusioned and world-weary? Who could think the very people who've been hearing the song all their lives now spend so much of their time hiding and even snuffing out lights, other people's lights or their own?

It's basic. A basic message. A basic truth. And the most basic of truths shine so well in the art supposedly intended for children. And inside every adult is a child who still needs to hear it. Even adults can grow.

This morning I posted this on Facebook:
"Hey, guess what! I officially have mono!* I have an excuse! STOP MAKING ME DO STUFF, WORLD!

*Or JASON officially has mono, as he was the only one actually diagnosed, but it's pretty obvious he's not the only one"

The tongue-in-cheekness of it seemed to confuse some people, so I clarified: "but it's always nice to have an official REASON to feel crappy. It's like you're given permission to feel bad. Otherwise you wonder if it's all in your head or if you're just being lazy. This way you have something to chalk it up to."

But then I thought about this. I thought about how I've been making myself go to work and feed the family and play with the kids for the past couple weeks even though I was quite ill. And, now that I know I have a disease whose only cure is plenty of bedrest, yes, I DO now have an excuse to spend most of the day lying down. But before I knew that, I just thought I had to plug. I originally told the doctor I thought my antidepressant might have crapped out on me, until I did the depression screening survey and clearly saw that, aside from wishing I was dead disconcertingly often*, all my actual problems were physical rather than mood-or-thought related. And then we went off on a side journey of seeing if I had a thyroid problem, which didn't really go anywhere, and so my husband actually got diagnosed positively FIRST, even though I got sick first, but anyway, my point is, I'D FELT THIS WAY BEFORE. Not the swollen sore throat, but the lethargy, the headache, the I-don't-want-to-do-anything-ness. I dragged myself through my life each day I was in the depths of depression, and it was HARD to do life. It was as hard to do life then as it is now that I have a virus famous for knocking people out for months. Harder, actually.

But you can't call work and go, "I can't come in today because life is futile and I'm worthless." Nobody accepts that sort of excuse! Now granted, the cure for depression is definitely NOT plenty of bedrest-- at least in my case-- even if that IS all you FEEL like doing. But it still made me think: why is it so much more acceptable to feel bad if you have a clear physical cause? Why aren't you allowed to feel bad WHENEVER you feel bad, whatever the cause? Why do I feel I need PERMISSION to feel bad?

Why is chronic depression still not viewed, by so many well-meaning people, even including many of the people SUFFERING from it, as a real illness, something that can't just be simply willed away? Why are people whose illnesses are mental or emotional instead of physical (well, it IS physical, it's just Brain Science so it confuses people) so often accused of just NOT TRYING HARD ENOUGH? Goes for other sorts of disabilities, too. Learning disabilities and hypersensitivities and all sorts of other things that don't show on the outside. Just because it doesn't show, doesn't mean the problem isn't REAL. It doesn't mean the person isn't struggling from a completely different place than you are.

So this is me speaking out for everyone dealing with an Invisible illness or disability right now.

Don't assume. Understand that they're working hard just to stay above water, let alone swim anywhere. Understand that if someone's depressed they feel like they have mono all the time, and are sadder on top of it.

If it's YOU dealing with this, stop kicking yourself. Your problem exists. You're not just not trying. You are ALLOWED to ask for help. Just because it's all in your head doesn't mean it's not real. You DO have an excuse. And you have the right to proper care, just as much as someone with a physical illness.

So ends my public service announcement.

And yes, I do feel surprisingly chipper for feeling like I'm about to faint. I'M HAPPY, DANGIT.

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*Don't worry, not in an ACTIVE way, in an I-just-want-to-go-to-sleep-and-not-wake-up-so-I-don't-have-to-deal-anymore way. Which isn't really that unusual if you're fighting a disease whose only cure is plenty of bedrest. You're SUPPOSED to go to sleep and not deal!