People Pleasing Self

This year I have battled many alter egos of myself. My favorite one to chase down and womp with a rubber bat is my People Pleasing Self.

She has never, not ever, built me up. She makes me crazy with giving me 10,000 scenarious about what people will think and how to work around that. She is ultimately trying to be a good girl but she makes me dizzy and then tired and then grumpy and then mean. And then she blames me for the cycle.

She is fired.

She makes me justify being a stay-at-home mother. When I'm talking with working moms, I play down anything which sounds good as a SAHM. And when I'm with stay-at-homies,  I commiserate about laundry. The truth is that my family has done some health and budget and career calculations and we have determined that this job is where I need to be. It is also one of the more tedious jobs I have ever had and so I am pursuing work with my boutique design company. Point is: I'm neither and both. I can't justify that.

When someone gives me a compliment, she likes me to justify more things:
- how I had the money for something
- why my hair looks good
- how I have artistic talent
- why I am a woman.
I'm learning instead to say a simple "thank you."

She is ridiculously inclusive. She makes me work a room more than I want to at a party. If I'm in a deep, beautiful conversation with someone, she wants me to stop and equally talk to everybody. Additionally, if I disagree with someone, she wants me to smile.
Instead, this: 
- There are no report cards at parties. There are people. Enjoy the people. 
- If you don't agree with someone, there are polite ways to disagree. Learn those ways.
- You don't have to engage every conversation.

She wants constant affirmation.
*Tiring*

She lets people say mean things. She doesn't know how to be kind and true.
Fail.

And most importantly of all: 
She is not love. 

She is about appearances and the wrong kind of acceptance. She is frail and finicky. She is perfect on the outside and miserable on the inside.

But love is not. Love is strong and forgiving and washes away imperfections, keeping the personality of a person and overlooking their prickles. Love keeps people warm and offers protection. Love sands the edges, but keeps the shape of a person. Love owns.

Recently, when I was redoing my kitchen, People Pleasing Self popped her head in to say that half my friends would be jealous and the other half would think it was a crappy job. She said I should invite them all over to see my kitchen. I got stomach cramps just thinking of it. And after the bulk of the work was done, she told me that it wasn't perfect. But I didn't listen to her.

So this is what I want to say to her:
You have never improved me. You have never loved me. You have never let me be me. You made me become as neutral as possible so I wouldn't offend. You didn't let me speak truth. You always knocked on my door after a big performance and reminded me of the mistakes.

And after that, I want to say:
I love my human-ness. I love my quirks and the places from where I have come. And I love the way my friends have improved me with their quirks and the places which they have called home. I don't want perfection– not the way you offer it. I want life to have texture and meaning and you strip all of that away.

You are a magazine to which I will not subscribe.

So go knock on another door. But please know that I have told everyone your secrets and they won't listen to you either.

Love will lead the way. I will follow Love.

The Fuss about Female Friendships

Friendships with females is weird.

If you want to get to the heart of any woman– I don't care how powerful she is or how important a role she plays in world politics– bring up the tea party she had with her best friend when she was 8 years old. Or the fact that she still wanted to play with Cabbage Patch Dolls when she was 10 while her best friend was experimenting with how high she could make her hair with Aqua Net. The joy and pain in female friendships is strong and deep and unforgettable.

My husband, Dan, says that this doesn't exist with men. He seems to think that men are less sensitive and that when they do get upset, they simply pound one another in a flurry of men-tosterone until they are exhausted. And then they help each other up and get burgers.

Weird.

This year I went to a conference and participated in a brief, 5-minute meditation. During this meditation we had to go into an imagined house and talk to people from our life. One of the rooms was filled with people we had hurt. I was surprised that the host of our meditation decided to fill the room with people we had hurt rather than people who had hurt us. It was shocking to me. I didn't want to go in. It's so much easier to want to go in the room where people hurt us; I feel stronger and more superior there. Being a victim has a false way of making one feel mighty. I went in the room anyway but I didn't look at anyone in the eyes.

When I was in seventh grade, I had a best friend whose name started with "D." I'll call her "Darlene." I had at least one or two best friends since third grade. Darlene lasted a year.

Darlene and I spent a lot of time together. We laughed at each other's houses and read "Teen" magazine and kept notebooks which we exchanged between math class which had glued pictures of Kirk Cameron in it. This was before email. It was the way to be close with someone: glueing pictures of culture in a notebook and writing in it. Best friends did that. At the end of the school year, we signed yearbooks. A really popular girl asked Darlene to sign hers and so I watched my best friend go into a bathroom stall and spend a ridiculous amount of time writing about how much fun they had (standing in lunch line?) in big bubble letters. I don't know how Darlene would have any time for this girl because she was spending all her time with me.

Later, she signed my yearbook and she wrote something like this: "I don't really know you that well, but you're a really nice person." And then she probably added something like, "Keep Cool Cuz Keeping Cool Counts."

Decades later, a close friend of mine forgot to tell me that she became rich overnight. We were at the park with a bunch of friends and all snuggling our big-fat babies. She told me that she was looking at a house that was easily four times the price of our current homes. (We both had small homes.) And I said to her, "Whoa! Isn't that (price here)?" hoping to remind her that we were in the same middle class. We were both talking loudly so everyone could hear. It was a perfect setup. She smiled and said, "Is that all? I thought it was (ginormous price.)" And at that moment I knew that we would no longer be going to yard sales together anymore. I also knew that our friendship was over.

Every chick I know has these stories. How someone hurt them or shamed them or made them think they were insignificant. Heck, most of these stories helped form the kind of people we wanted to be or the careers we chose.

I also know that the women in my life who have shown tremendous vulnerability and strength and forgiveness to me are important; I'm not going to give up on friendships. Being a friend takes work but it is worth it.

When I had to go into the hospital to see if my in-utero baby had a heartbeat anymore, my friend Steph came with me. I tried to joke around because the pain was too heavy for me, but my friend wept so loudly that I broke down, too. We hugged. We both cried ugly and I stood in a hospital gown, feeling very exposed. It was good. I will never forget the bravery it took for her to accompany me.

I have another friend who is ten years older than me who I absolutely adore who has given me gobs of praise. One time, however, she needed to tell me something I did where I messed up and the funny is: I felt MORE loved by her. It pained her to tell me. I will never forget her grace and candor. We're closer as a result, I swear.

I need my friends.
One friend says "yes" to every event in life; she's unstoppable. I need that.
Another is resilient and kind. I need her laughter.
My neighbor friend is allergic to gossip. What a great person to know.
I need these women to shake up my view on being a woman, or being a "good girl" (gag), or being full of life. I need them to share music and food and books and grace. Oh, the grace. Yes.

If I don't have these friends, I will become small and generic and chalky. I need them.

I'm at an interesting intersection of life right now where I have changed so much in the past year that I'm not sure what my friendships hold. I'm afraid I might scare people; I think I already have scared a few.

I want to try new things and become an illustrator. I don't really care about recipes right now. I'm definitely *yawn* about women who tease stay-at-home moms. And talking about parenthood ONLY is very boring and kind of safe. I very much want people to tell success stories. I want to hear good things. Stories of bravery and silliness. I love when women say great things about their kids or their husbands or boyfriends or sisters.

So let's make a deal, people: Keep trying.
Do the forgiving and the moving past. Or draw boundaries... healthy ones. Or realize that you made a mistake and just keep moving forward. Develop the friendships right in front of you. Invest in them. Send your friends texts and cards. Invite them to monster truck rallies. If they're important to you, show it: Make time for them.

Be true and maybe, just maybe, it will come back to you.