Falling Below

This personal space of mine has gone further than I ever imagined it would go and, in some ways, it’s gone in a direction I didn’t quite expect. At first, it was diary-like and chronicled daily events and conversations with my family as well as my love of coffee. I’ve been honored by the amazing people who have offered to send me their favorite coffees as well as books and other gifts that touch me because it awes me that anyone feels as if they know me as well as they do anyone in their life. Later if turned into a community of varied members with strong opinions and the ability to respond thoughtfully to the brain dump I offer.

As much as I can, I try to read others’ work and often it inspires. Sometimes, it frustrates. Others, it resonates. Recently, my friend Chris responded to an angry, hateful diatribe against Elizabeth Edwards that was itself a response to a newspaper article. As recently as last Spring I felt the sting of sitting down with a newspaper reporter to discuss the writing scores of my school that improved so dramatically that it brought the attention of our district office and then the media. I realized, firsthand, that no matter how kind and benevolent a reporter seems they do, indeed, have an agenda.

Women, too, are notorious for having agendas that fit their purposes and are designed to make themselves feel better about a myriad of things. We are funny creatures, women. We tell on ourselves. You have a lovely smile. Oh, really? Because this tooth all the way back here? It’s totally dead. We dress to impress other women, not men. I can’t remember the last time someone of the male species commented that he liked my jewelry or my shoes or my clothes. Other women comment on it. Perhaps that’s what gives women the righteous power and wherewithal to opine about any and everything.

There are ugly sides to this online writing. There are acrimonious, cold pronouncements that roll right off me and are filed in the garbage bin of my brain because my life is too full. My children are too needy during this season of their life. My family is too important to me. And that is why I held true to my promise to manage this site by deleting hateful comments. To leave trolls in the hell they’ve created for themselves. Make no mistake about it: I will respond how I want. Sanctimonious dictatorship? Damn straight. Oddly enough, they’ll be back to read and find those things they love to hate.

When there was a season where things weren’t as rosy as I’d like them to be it struck me as odd that the only people who were relieved to hear that I didn’t have “all the balls juggled in the air” were women, but now I realize they had two other things in common: one, they were regular readers invested in me and two, they were assuaged that I wasn’t successful in every part of my life. Once I realized that, I was ok with it. But human nature decrees that we learn from everything in order to move on and I, for one, hate being stuck.

Criticism, whether it’s of a public figure or family member or complete stranger, does have consequences. Defending your critique, after a public evisceration of said critique is the lowest form of rationalization. Say what you mean and take what comes. It’s not as if readers didn’t understand. They did. Explaining and responding in that way is that floor a writer can’t fall below. No amount of justification is tolerable or even noble.

I can only recall one time when the writing of something wouldn’t do justice because I knew the words had to come from me. It was a disparagement of my parenting of my daughter from (follow me here, folks) the sperm donor’s wife’s mother. A woman I’ve never met. A woman who wrote a three page single spaced letter to me a day before we celebrated a family Christmas to tell me that she hoped my daughter wasn’t forging a relationship with her son-in-law just so she could take his money. Money that we’d never asked for in all of her life and money that I would never willingly take from someone “playing” parent. She was misinformed and out of line to send that letter. It’s the type of thing one writes and never sends. One writes and gets out everything they feel, but one should never, never send it. In her case, it was a letter she should have never closed with, “I do really well on the phone so you are free to call me.” because, to her regret, I did.

This writing is what it is. I present who I am as I want to present it and, no matter what lies within, readers will take what they want to take. If they suppose I am a regular woman, then perhaps I haven’t done myself justice. If readers imagine that I think I’m better looking than I actually am, then my mascara and lip gloss and hair gel products are probably doing their job. If I appear to try to be smarter than I am, well, that’s just absolutely true. There’s no way that in Real Life I am this intelligent. I spend far too many brain cells in determining which shade of brown I’m going to wear today and wondering if I should try a new maxi-pad and hoping that no one in my family will notice that I haven’t quite fixed a meal with vegetables this year.

But regular woman I am not. I have no problem with pointing out slights that occur to people of color, but I do find it interesting that that is when I’m taken to task. Not when I advocate for children of poverty. Not when I allow my feminist sensibilities to show through my writing. But when I write about race as if I’m the only one who’s noticing. And that, in many ways, is the whole point.

This personal space of mine will continue to grow, to change, to expand. Opinions on women and men and race and education will continue to be offered. Sharing and creating and insulating this community has become far more important to me than once imagined. But personally attacking my character will not be tolerated. Going there is going to that place, the floor you can’t fall below.

Only regular women do that.