To the girls I overheard making fun of me

Dear Ladies,

I understand the need to gossip, the pleasure of chatting with friends, and even people watching. I get it, I do, but I also know that words hurt. When I heard you around the corner commenting on my hair, it didn’t bother me. My hair is edgy and different. It’s also for me, a reflection of my personality and artistic side. I know that not everyone will like my hair, and that is fine. It didn’t bother me when you commented on my hair, but it did sting when you mentioned my weight.

When you said that I could lose a few pounds and that these pants don’t do me any favors, I was hurt. I looked down at myself and was flooded with every memory of insecurity. For years, like most women, I have had confidence issues and shamed myself for not looking like an airbrushed model. As a young dancer, I quietly compared my curving figure to those around me. Those girls that got all the good parts, those girls that were stick straight with shiny teeth and perfect hair. When you said that I could lose a few pounds I lapsed for a moment. I wanted to peek around the corner  and see some ugliness, but I couldn’t. The three of you were physical perfection. Long toned legs, synched waists, and thick blonde ponytails.  I decided to let you have the comment. To not let your critique of my curved hips get to me.  You are med students after all. It wouldn’t hurt for me to hit the gym. Your words would be motivation. They would, I promised myself that.

It was when I grabbed a drink of water from the fountain to gather myself and again tried to make my way down the hallway that three of you broke my heart. When you decided to open dialog on my stockings, it felt like I was being punched in the face. You giggled over the premise that I thought I was starting some sort of fashion trend. The truth is far from that. I hate these stockings. I despise them with every fiber of my being, but they are medical, necessary. Countless times I have had self-esteem issues having to wear these hideous things, but what is under them is worse. Legs that are purple, ugly, swollen. Part of my own body that has betrayed me. Do the three of you know what that is like? What it feels like to have to live everyday hating a part of your body—a part of your body that you can’t change? To lay down at night in pain because your own body has turned its back on you? I’m guessing you don’t. For the sake of your future patients, I hope you do. I hope you learn to have compassion for others, to not judge based on appearance.

I do not believe that the three of you are bad people. You are pursuing careers that will lead to you potentially saving lives, after all. The three of you chose careers that require you to do good. You are not bad people, but for a moment today you were ugly.

In this world, in this lifetime, we have so much to do and so little time. I guarantee that if you would spend that time spreading kindness instead of critiquing with negativity, you will be infinitely more satisfied. I do not blame you for gossiping about me today. I’m not cursing you for making my heart hurt. Instead, I’m wish the three of you success, happiness, and the ability to show compassion for others. 
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You never know when your words will be needed for good. 

That time you told

The sound produced in your larynx and uttered through the mouth. The range of pitch or tone with which you sing. Expression in words. An uttering with resonance of the vocal cords.

 Voice.

Your voice.

Use it, they said. Don’t be afraid. You are powerful and mighty, and this voice is your weapon. Tell all of your worries, your pain, your anger. Tell it. Use it. Don’t be silent.

Because even when it happened, you were not silent.

Even through the pain, through the confusion, through the tears, you whimpered. It was small and caught in your throat, but audible nonetheless.

The complete absence of sound. That is what silence is.

You were not silent.

You are not silent.

Think about what you want to say—what you need to say. What happened, and how that made you feel; how you feel about it now.

Say it, write it, tell it.

Twelve years. Today marks twelve years since that whimper passed through your lips.

Eleven years and eleven months since you found your voice, and uttered the story to someone you thought was a friend. It has been nine years and seven months since you first wrote your story down. Since you first penciled in courage, and questioned the burden of blame.

It took six years. Six years for you to write the story where the main character isn’t guilty, where she did nothing wrong.

Three years ago she saw something in herself. That character of yours, she found hope. Hope in the reflection of her eyes as she looked at herself in the mirror, half of a laugh squeaking out audibly into the empty room around her.

Then, eight months ago you wrote the word survive. You wrote it and you believed it. She is a survivor, that character of yours. Her story keeps changing, progressing, growing, and no matter how many times you send her to hell, she keeps coming back—fresh on the page, ready to live it again, survive it again, find hope again.

Today marks twelve years since that whimper passed through your lips.

Today you do not misplace blame. You do not carry guilt, or question if she deserved it—that character of yours, you. Twelve years you and her survived, found hope.

For twelve years you were not silent.

You were not silent.

You are not silent.

Today you have your voice.

Use it, they said. Don’t be afraid. You are powerful and mighty, and this voice is your weapon. Tell all of your worries, your pain, your anger. Tell it. Use it. Don’t be silent.

Today, and every day, I have a voice.

An application of setting

Set-ting /’sediNG/

Noun

            The place or type of surroundings where something is positioned or where an event takes place.

            A speed, height, or temperature at which a machine or device can be adjusted to operate.

 

Underneath a set of ripped up sheets, on top of a mattress that lay dying on the floor. The sheets were a formality, a small symbol of decency. The basement was dark and cold nothing but cement block walls, sloping concrete floors, a decrepit table with milk crate chairs, and that mattress. Age fifteen.

 

 

A small shed behind a trailer home. Clearly scoped out a few nights before. The door was blue with three black two by fours angled across it. Chicken wire covered a long slender window on the side of the shed, like prison bars. Inside was tight, dark, moist. Everything inside felt displaced. Two stacks of mismatched landscaping stones, one half bag of mulch, three shovels and a garden hoe—handles worn down and broken. The contents all leftovers, long forgotten in darkness behind the closed door. Age sixteen.

 

 

The sister’s room. Lime green walls and Hello Kitty on the bed. Pictures of girls from middle school to high school—smiling, dancing, living. A tube tv on the dresser droning an obnoxious laugh track. The sound muffling the explanation that had to be repeated following the ‘no’.  A full length mirror reflected the advances as no was not accepted. Hello Kitty watched. Laugh track chimed in on cue. Age eighteen.

 

 

Underneath footsteps that creaked from above. Stomps between breaths that made a rhythm out of it all. Another basement. Surrounded by plastic rubber containers, shelves stacked with the contents of someone else’s life. A comforter hung from the ceiling dividing the corner into a makeshift room. Steps down the stairs. A stock freezer humming, its lid creaking as someone forages through frozen meats and processed meals. Naked lightbulbs stare back, their exposed wires mimicking the scene below. Age nineteen.

 

 

Smooth linoleum countertops and a small porcelain sink. The faucet ran, splashing warm drops everywhere. Cranberry exfoliating soap in a dispenser with a pump, a grey bath towel on the floor, a yellow one hanging from a steal bar by the shower. The shower curtain begged to be closed as it wilted from a handful of clear plastic rings. Age twenty.

 

 

A forest green sectional couch in the living room of a third floor apartment. Occupants were tucked behind closed doors that spread down a narrow hallway. Glass beer bottles and crumpled aluminum cans lost life on the coffee table near by. Garbled singing of drunken souls rattle through the unhinged screens of the large bay window behind the couch. Melting cheese and whiskey coated the air. a ping pong paddle formed a hard spot between the cushions that sag and swallow those who use them. Age 21.

 

 

A borrowed blanket and suitcase fresh from a 2000 mile ride. Blinds twisted half open and snores pierced paper-thin walls. A twin bed with a simple frame and matching wooden desk squeezed the rectangle room. Soft lips and whispered compliments snuck into the darkness. A cell phone charging on the bedpost fell to the floor. Socks keep feet warm.  Age 24.