Blatantly Honest

When I was a kid, I was quite a liar.  No one ever called me on it, so either I was a really good liar, or they were just willing to overlook it.  I was good at exaggerating the truth too, so that my stories sounded way more interesting than they were.  It took until I was in my late teens to decide I hated lying.  I made a conscious decision to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth.  But, even here, I hated confrontation, so I would choose to hide rather than have to admit to the truth that I felt.  Then, I read a book called Fierce Confrontations.  It talks about being honest and having direct, honest discussions with people even if (especially if) it is going to be a difficult conversation.  I loved that idea and so I proceeded to espouse the principles it taught. So I began to believe in being very honest in all things, especially emotion.

I love raw emotion.  I love hearing music that feels honest and slightly painful.  I love contemporary dance that hides nothing, where I can feel the love, pain, happiness, aching.  I love art that connects to my soul, that almost demands the attention of my senses.  I love reading soul-revealing literature.  I began to believe in being BLATANTLY honest.  I hated wondering if I was hearing the whole story.  I really wanted to hear everything.  If I'm bothering you, tell me.  If you are happy, tell me all about it.  If you are in pain, tell me.

What I realized - really only recently - is that blatant honesty can hurt.  Why is this new information for me?  I thought, if it is honest and real, then anyone should be able to say it, then talk about it.  Right?  I read a book by my friend's daughter.  It was an autobiography, and my friend's daughter was very open, VERY open, about how she felt about growing up and her relationship with her mother, my friend.  It wasn't always pretty.  In fact, sometimes, my friend didn't look so good.  I LOVED the book.  I loved the honesty, the openness.  For me, it said more about the daughter than it said about the mother.  I found myself wishing I could read memoirs about all of the people in my world so I could get to know them better.  What I was overlooking, was how hurt my friend was by the blatant honesty that was now published and public.  And, not only was it blatantly honest, but it was blatant honesty as seen through her DAUGHTER'S eyes.  All of us have slightly unflattering things to say about our childhoods and our mothers.  But, our moms don't have to read all about it in the neighborhood book store.  

About a year ago, a close friend let me read a very personal journal entry.  I had a reaction to it, and told him all about it.  I was being honest.  However, my response to his very personal, sacred, experience was hurtful to him.  I definitely felt bad about hurting him, but I still felt justified in not only feeling what I felt, but in telling him, in detail, my reaction to his experience.  I'm so saddened by my insensitivity.  I was thinking this morning on my long bike ride, that I think I like blatant honesty when it deals with someone else, or, if it has to do with me, I love honesty that makes me look or feel good.  Let me explain. "Can I be honest and tell you just how much I love you?"  My response?  "Why yes, of course, I love honesty."  "I have to tell you that I just don't like you today."   My response?  Ouch.  It's not that I don't want to hear it, but I do have to acknowledge the hurt that goes with it.

Luckily, I have good friends and a great husband that let me be as much myself as is socially acceptable. ;)  These amazing people know the good parts of me, as well as the bad, and love me just the same.  They also are willing to keep the bad parts of me a little quieter in their hearts and minds than the good.  I am learning how to be honest, but in the process, never stomping all over someone's feelings that I care so deeply about.  It's always the ones that are the closest to me that I hurt the most.  I honestly hate that.

Sad Songs

Dave always asks me why I always choose sad songs to sing.  That's a good question.  As I think about it, I have always chosen to sing the sad ones.  I guess it's not just sad songs, it's songs that express raw, usually painful, emotions.  That's not entirely true.  When I was in third grade, one of the first solos I sang was from Mary Poppins.  There's not very many sad songs in that show if I remember correctly.  ;)  However, one of the first soundtracks with which I fell in love (after Zanadu - whose songs I can still sing upon request) was Yentl.  Why would a nine or ten year old girl fall in love with the emotionally painful music of Yentl.  I used to crank up the sound on that turntable in my living room and sing with Barbra Streisand like my heart felt what she felt.  "Where is it written what it is I'm meant to be. . ." Yentl feels different.  She doesn't fit in with the culture around her.  She feels it in her bones that she doesn't relate to them.  She wants different things for herself.  But, and this is key, who is she then?  Where does she fit in?  What does she believe?  Can she live with the people around her and feel like such a stranger?  I felt those words and they meant something to me.  I felt different.  I felt like I didn't fit it somehow with everyone and everything around me.  It seemed like everyone accepted the cultural status quo without question.  I questioned EVERYTHING!  Why are the boys expected to do all of the outside jobs, while the girls are expected to clean up the table, especially when guests were present?  Why does my dad get to come home from work, sit at the table reading the paper, while my mom busies  herself getting dinner on the table even though she went to work herself that day?  Why do the young boys in our ward get to go boating, while the girls just go to wilderness camp?  Why are men treated differently than women?  Why does everyone believe everything about the gospel of our religion without question, when I have so many?  Those were distinct questions I had as a small girl.  Even now, with my youngest daughter comparable in age to me when I had those feelings and questions, I find it odd that I would have such questions at such a young age.  I have a friend with the gift to believe.  I guess I have the curse of questions.

Then, as I grew up, I continued to be different.  All teenagers are DIFFERENT.  They all feel like huge pimples on the nose of life.  So obviously different and awkward, they assume, everyone must be staring at me and everyone sees how odd I am.  But, I really was different.  Because of a series of events in my life, I felt like I was on another planet.  I remember looking at other kids my age and just knowing that we were existing in parallel universes, attending the same school, seeing the same people in the hallway, eating the same cafeteria food (those haystacks were delicious!), but I KNEW they had no idea who I was, and I KNEW we were so different.  Not just the everybody is different, but I was different.  I think those feelings are just feelings that became a part of who I was. 

Singing was the one thing I felt like I could do fairly well for my age.  I received  attention and compliments when I would sing, so I went where the accolades were.  It's also something that is so ingrained in my bones that I don't think I could help but sing.  My brothers would beg me to stop singing!  Yeah, BEG!! "Hey Kerstin, do you know why they sing on the radio?  So YOU don't have to!"  It didn't work. I don't think I could have stopped if I tried.  My middle daughter is much the same way.  We had to resurrect the rule of my childhood of no singing at the dinner table.  Now, I understand why we had that ridiculous rule! 

So, for the first almost 21 years of my life, I felt different, misunderstood, alone, odd, yet strangely somewhat confident in a very shallow, don't look too deep, way.  I met Dave and miracle of miracles he fell in love with me with all of my baggage and all.  He even said he loved me all the more.  Now it has been almost 20 more years since then, and I am happy, and empowered, and confident (ok, most of the time).  Yet, there are still parts of me that will always feel the pain and discomfort that I felt so acutely as I grew up.  And, there are still parts of me that feel odd, different, questioning, at odds with my culture. 

I  have so many happy parts of me to share, but I feel like people get to share that part of me all the time.  I feel like that's where I live on a daily basis.  When I sing, I dig deep because that's where my music lives, in the very recesses of my soul.  When I get lost in my music, it's because I have dug as deep as I can.  I guess deep down in those recesses, my soul longs to express those feelings that are still there even though I processed all of the hurt (I think anyway) years and years ago.  But, I am still finding ways in which those feelings still live.

So, through this music, I can share someone else's story and still express the feelings that I have, but I get to keep my story in my head, but still express those same feelings in my heart.  That's a long, kind of answer to Dave's question - I guess. :)

Memoirs of a Geisha

Dave and I just watched Memoirs a week or so ago and it struck me very powerfully.  I had read it years ago, but seeing the movie reminded me.  It was just so clear that we can't judge people for the "choices" they make, because everyone's choices have a back story.  As I watched Chiyo try to survive each impossible circumstance, I asked myself if I felt she could have made any other decision.  The answer seemed to me to be no  As a child she and her sister were sold because of her mother's illness and her father's inability to take care of them.  Chiyo's sister, Satsu, was sold to a brothel, and Chiyo was sold to a Geisha house.  Satsu was able to run away, but Chiyo was never able to escape. The main Geisha in the house, Hotsumomo, was very jealous of Chiyo and her potential, so she abused her terribly.  As a young girl, Chiyo catches the eye of the Chairman.  Unbeknownst to Chiyo, he has Mameha, an even more powerful Geisha from another house, take her under her wing and try to help her.  Eventually, Chiyo becomes the most famous, sought after Geisha.  This fame seemed to solidify her future, as a Geisha.  This means a comfortable living per se, but forever dependent on men for her survival.  WWII forever changes her trajectory, but it ends up well, I guess, for Chiyo.  Happy and Sad.  Each decision made by Chiyo was only made for current and future survival.

Isn't that what we all do?  Don't we all make decisions that seem like the best decision at the time.  We base our choices on the information we have at the time and weigh it slowly and carefully, or sometimes instantly.  But, our overall goal is just to ease our pain, or help us get something we need.  Those decisions are also based on our experiences and past successes or failures.  When I think about choices I have made in my life, the big ones especially, they all have a back story.  If ever I would share a past choice I made, especially one that was particularly painful, I would want to share the back story so the listener would hopefully understand my choice and judge me less harshly.  When I see other people now, friends or strangers, I recognize that I only see them in a snapshot of time in their lives.  I always wonder what I would see if I could somehow see their back story and understand how and why they are the way they are, would I see their choices in a new light?  Would I be more loving and accepting?  The answer has to be a whole-hearted yes.  So, perhaps as I catch further momentary glimpses into the lives of others, I can be more understanding and kind just knowing that they do have a history and a reason for their choices.  We all do.

Josh Weed

http://www.joshweed.com/2012/06/club-unicorn-in-which-i-come-out-of.html

This is a blog post about Josh Weed, who is an active member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, who happens to be gay.  I loved this post.  I read it in tears with so much emotion swelling up as I read.  I was so proud of him and his beautiful wife for their brave honesty.  They are the kind of people I would love to meet and have as my great friends.  To have the courage to be so honest about such a difficult, perhaps unique, perhaps not so unique, situation, is very inspiring to me.  He is very happily married with three beautiful daughters.  I wonder how many other people are breathing a sigh of relief to know that they are not alone. 

I have such hope for our society, most especially the broad Mormon community to which I belong, to embrace and love all people without harsh judgments and criticisms.  What a gift we could give to each other if we could be open with our struggles and know that we will receive nothing but love and understanding in return.

Why am I starting a blog?

A blog?  Why start a blog?  I have no idea.  I just know that I have had this thought that won't go away about writing on my own blog.  Ever since I started thinking about it, different topics just keep a constant dialogue in my head.  I prefer discussions with people to just throwing up my own ideas and viewpoints without any feedback or additional comments from someone else, but since I can't stop thinking about this idea, I guess I will at least try.  I don't even know if I will link it anywhere.  I thought about doing a personal journal just for me as a way to put down on paper what I have been thinking, but that thought didn't seem compelling at all.  So, I thought about having a private blog where just a few people would be invited inside my head, but that didn't feel right either.  So, I will just leave it open for now and see what happens.  I welcome comments and discussion, but be nice.  If you want to be mean, go somewhere else.  There are a million and one blogs out there that will fit your bill perfectly.  Here, I would love to have open discussions where everyone gets to have an opinion.