sour grapes to wine.

It seems like everyone is getting their heart broken. 

A friend laying across from me in bed, tears slipping into my pillow, asking why he made her wait for so long just to lie to her. She's one of many struggling with a pull she can't quite seem to control, the desire to possess what poisons her. She's strong but not impermeable. Things hurt. She has never been defined by who she puts into her arms but it's hard not to be shattered to let someone in so deep who then seems so intent on destruction as they leave. He did not break her in a clean line. Her ribcage is jagged.

She's not the last nor the first to tell me things like this. This past month has been mired by women treated terribly. I've been tempted to pass them off as adventures in miscommunication but that would be a lie; most of the agony is a result of deliberate actions. 

We're not made for this, I think as I field texts and tears. This is not how people should become entangled and then extricated. We jump heartfirst, we offer it all to have it vomited back to us. We are taught to be a slave to our hormones. It happens constantly.

We're not made for this, I whisper into the dark of my room.

We're not made for this, I cry in the front pew at my church.

We're not made for this, my head and heart finally agree.

You're not made for this, a voice says from deep within, and yet it happens anyway.

There have been quite a few times this year when I angrily asked God why. It seemed as though everything short of death had something to stab in my back. My health, mental and physical, kept spiraling downward until it plateaued in not one but three new diagnosis and a dependence on daily medication. My emotional life was wracked by worry over my sister's custody battles, the threat of my parents separating, the devastation of losing the house and my car, and the grand finale of my impending divorce by infidelity that was not mine. 

I did not turn to God at first. I turned everywhere else. I went out and drank. I turned to sex with an albeit wonderful man who had no idea what he was getting into, and then threw myself into that relationship. I spent not entirely wise amounts of money on clothes. I carved regret into my left arm. I said terrible things to hosts of people. I curled up on the shower floor after slicing from palm to wrist after I couldn't take it anymore.

The voice was still there, though, reminding me I was not made for this.

Then why, I called out. 

"I have no idea how you f*cking did it." My roommate said at the kitchen table, red-rimmed eyes and one hand on the vodka. Her own relationship had been ended by her volition but not necessarily her choice. More heartbreak. "How did you stay in this apartment, in that room?"

She hugged her cat to her chest. "I can't do it. I have to leave." She continued. "All I want to do is talk to him."

It was with complete sincerity that I rested my elbows on the table and met her gaze. "I have been there." I whispered. "I understand every feeling. I know what it's like to break an attachment to somebody. It's like an addiction. You can't give in." 

I let a tear go. It was the second time I had ever cried in front of these particular roommates but suddenly I had not a care in the world. She needed support. "You are a wonderful person and I can't watch you suffer. Protect yourself. It hurts now, but in the long run it's better." 

Thank you for being my friend, and being relatable, and empathetic. She wrote later.

I looked into my coworker's face later that week and told her the same thing, that in the moment there was no pain like hearing words of rejection but it would get better, that she could not fix someone who did not want her. 

My friend cried into my pillow two days later and I held her, repeating the words I had told myself so many times, that his behavior was not something she needed to judge or take responsibility for, that she was not devalued or defective from this. 

I cradled a screaming toddler as their parent walked out of my classroom and soothed them, whispering into the top of their head, "I know, I know. I know how you feel. It's alright. I won't leave you." 

I held my sister's hand as she prepared for court and shared her fear of being stripped bare by someone she once trusted, and I meant when I said I understood.

I ascended the steps to the Sanctuary and told myself no one would stare when I walked in to sit with my parents. The acoustic guitar of the worship leader strummed and I stood with everyone, grateful that I could melt into many voices, and mumbled my way through some hymns. The maroon carpet proved to be more interesting than most of the faces and I trained my eyes on it. "Good morning, church." The Pastor began as I was acclimating myself with the thread count. "Today's sermon will be about trusting God when you don't understand."

I bawled openly. 

I realized this aching in my heart was not an accident. The walls I had built allowed me to pass terrible judgement and see people in black and white instead of shades of human. I told myself that no one had helped me so no one else needed help. Empathy is a muscle and every time I neglected to use it the fibers calcified. I became a tower; proud, strong, my foundation a mixture of indignation and concrete. 

When it was smashed the heart inside was raw and reality hit me with all the tact of a hurricane. I fought my feelings at first, but try as I might I couldn't retreat into my shell. The gate had come down, the castle was swarmed, and there was nowhere for me to hide. No, I struggled, screaming, I'll never love again.

Yes you will. 

No.

You will. And it will be frightening but glorious and full of promise and devoid of pride. You will care. You will empathize so deeply it will cut you but when you bleed tears you will heal. You will grow and gain. This pain is powerful and beautiful and cleansing. Let love burn you, and let it scar you twice because it is better to have felt the heat than to live in the chill.

I'm not done with you yet.

You are becoming something beautiful.

How could I have supported my friends without knowing the shape of the dagger in their back, or how could I have held the child who felt she was being abandoned and pour myself into her tears that I understood, without first suffering? I had muttered to myself that I never wanted to be vulnerable, to lean into someone so strongly, to put such faith in things that were mutable. I had promised solitude. And then I failed. I empathized, I cried, I bled, I broke, and I rose again.

Romans 8:28: “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”

My purpose is to love again. 

devotedly yours,

A. 

"He's only dating you because he's secretly gay and you look like a man"; when our bodies become ammunition.

**Disclaimer: I am writing this essay from the POV of a cisgender woman. Trans* women and genderqueer/non-binary femme-presenting humans have equally important appearance issues that I cannot do justice to write about, as I have not experienced them. This collection of thoughts is based on my life personally.**

To be fair, the illustrious scholar who spoke the title of this post was the same person who, after reading an old blog post of mine where I came out as an asexual at the time, told me that I was making up my sexuality to hide the truth from my husband and that I should just admit I was having an affair already. His opinion mattered as much as a dog who shits on my lawn; I grumbled, but I went to clean it up because what are you gonna do? Can't teach an old dog how to not be an asshole, or something to that effect.

Unfortunately it was something that bothered me at the time, given that I was in high school and a mire of self-loathing wrapped up in bad poetry, and it would be a nail in the coffin I had spent so much energy crafting for myself. From that day forward I never went out without makeup and if I wasn't looking hot enough to receive stares out in public then I simply wasn't good enough. I'm not looking to blame my turbulent inner voices on the dazzling opinion of a clearly superior philosopher (who also gave me such gems as, "if we accept homosexuality than pedophilia will be next!" and "You really need more negative people in your life to take you down a notch") but the fact of the matter is that his opinion was a trigger. The thing about words is that you never know what someone needs to hear in order to be pushed over the edge.

I distinctly remember an encounter over the internet a few months ago (I know, I know, it's never helpful to fight over the internet) where my husband had rightfully called out a boy who said it was "discrimination" to say that rape jokes aren't funny. While J tried to explain the definition of the word discrimination and how it didn't apply at all to that situation, the boy suddenly brought our then-religion into question and made some seriously inappropriate remarks about our sex life, dragging me into a conversation I was previously not a part of and calling me a liar. I messaged the boy privately, saying that the next time he wanted to discuss something that was not his business he should probably ask my opinion instead of talking about me like I wasn't there. He responded by saying that my passive-aggressive message was about as sexy as my "thousands of open-mouthed selfies".

The question is, how were my looks pertinent to the conversation?

The answer is, as a woman, I am treated as an object and, like an armchair or potted plant, I am expected to apologize for the space I take up and my price is being attractive.

Was the jab at my selfies a calculated, sexist move intended to put me in my place? Unlikely. It was most likely a knee-jerk response. I went back and checked all our messages, making sure I hadn't brought his appearance into the conversation, ready to apologize to him if I had instigated his insult. I hadn't. But, see, I haven't been socially conditioned to see other genders as the sum of their outside parts, to think that how my features aligned was somehow pertinent to the validity of  my experience and feelings.

The twisted relationship between women and their physical appearance is hot-button issue that the world simultaneously creates and then scolds us for being worried about. We are expected to look exceptional at all times but when we acknowledge that all our hard work has paid off we are attacked for the crime of self-esteem.  Our right to personal expression is required to come at the expense of being pleasant to look at and god forbid if you want to decorate the skin you're in, because as everyone knows your own journey of identity is secondary to looking pretty. As of right now I have green hair and I can't tell you how many times I've heard from other women that they would LOVE to put an unnatural color in their hair, but they are not sure if they can pull it off; the constant barrage of YOU-ARE-REQUIRED-TO-BE-PLEASANT-TO-LOOK-AT has taken a toll on the fundamental right to express yourself. After all, it's just hair, right?

The message goes far deeper than how we style our tresses.

Whether or not you believe in the idea of The Patriarchy, you cannot deny that women are expected to alter their appearance more than men and keep up the facade until the day they die. Our brains, our careers, and our wallets are at the mercy of how our weight folds against our bones and how gleaming our teeth seem to be, or even if our skin is the right shade to be considered up to par with the current standard of beauty. We pluck and cover, dye and trim, sweat and squeeze, spanx and diet and even when we do these things for ourselves it is taken away from us and immediately placed back in the hands of the onlooker to judge.

The message is clear: You are only as good as your body and we own you. 

When women engage in society, when we dare to make it about something other than our looks, the masses react accordingly with what they have been shown. I truly don't believe that anyone brings up a woman's looks thinking they want to reaffirm centuries of low-level hatred. Normally, people are vomiting preconceived notions they have been spoon-fed; they have digested the subtle social cues for years. In the back of their brain they know that women are bred to equate beauty with worth and it's a vulnerable part, hiding somewhere between the heart and head, usually unreachable by both.

Predators always strike the soft spot first.

And it's in this mindset that our bodies have become ammunition. Every inch serves a duality as a bullet or a target, because they can be shot for pain and hit for pain. The quickest way to dismiss a woman is to bring it back to body; draw the attention away from her voice, her ideas, her rights, and bring it back to if her nose is big, if her skin has spots, if her body dares to take up space with curves or bones.

Make no mistake that this vessel has been as a child soldier, pulled into a war it did not sign up for. Like a prisoner it has developed stockholm syndrome-dependance on products and compliments from our captors.

It's time to take your body back.

So no, you misogynist who was uncomfortable with me daring to have a voice, this conversation will not be derailed by your attempts to put me in my place. You will not assert control by trying to demote me to a decoration. My body is made of up many parts and many flaws that have nothing to do with you. My body is an empire and I am the dictator; this is not a democracy. You are not a revolutionary. I am the emperor. I am the monarch. And I say the war is over.

love,
a