My Husband is Wonderful: or, an explanation and introduction

The title really says it all. He is.

Here’s why it relates to this particular platform: My husband actively encourages me to pursue areas where I am naturally gifted. I know, that doesn’t seem very earth shattering because ideally in every relationship – platonic, familial, romantic, whatever – both parties are actively encouraging and challenging the other person to be the best version of themselves.

The problem is when your personhood is kind of directly in defiance to what society expects.

I will not actually show you a picture of my housekeeping skills because that would be mortifying, but….well…they don’t really exist. I am terrible at keeping up with the dishes. I am enormously displeased that the singing birds and small animals that facilitated cleaning for Cinderella don’t actually exist in real life.

 

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Which brings me to my husband…who I will repeat: actively encourages me to pursue areas where I am naturally gifted.

So. I’m working on my Master’s Degree. And working as a Graduate Assistant. And teaching Spanish a few hours a week. And loving our son – which, incidentally, means I spend an exorbitant amount of energy ensuring he doesn’t die by falling off a shelf, running toward the street, approaching strange dogs, and so many other methods he’s probably actively thinking about this very moment.

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But he’s getting nervous. I am expecting our second child in April. Pregnancy is not easy for me, and this is the first pregnancy he has experienced with me (long story….ask me later). He is slightly traumatized by….everything about it. He knows my natural inclination is to never give up. It’s a stubborn tenacious grip that refuses to let go of something I have determined important. And he gets worried when my back pain paralyzes me. He is worried about muscle spasms…and really worried Braxton Hicks might turn into premature labor.

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So. I’m scaling back. I have to finish this term of school (ending in February) and I need to continue my Graduate Assistanceship….for a while. My son shows absolutely no signs of slowing down…But the other things need to be placed on the back burner for a while.

It doesn’t seem that maintaining this blog is that much work…and in all honesty…it is and it isn’t. I write quickly. I edit quickly. I usually sit on my work for about 24 hours before publishing to make sure I wrote what I intended.

But it takes an emotional toll on me. It does. Whistle blowing always does. I don’t enjoy writing these stories – I don’t enjoy reading stories like them. Many of these posts have been published after a sort of “emotional wrestling match” where I wonder if the good will outweigh the bad…where I second guess my credibility as a communicator…where I wonder if it matters.

And my husband is generally the first person to say, “Yes, it matters. But your health matters more. SIT DOWN *****” (I married a sailor…but rest assured, the edited word isn’t a slur against women…more interjection expressing frustration)

To which I will typically say, “Yes…but…” and then do what I was going to do anyway….and then cry about the physical pain that results. It’s a vicious cycle, really.

So. That’s why I have been absent. However, my life is about to slow down. And so..I think I can re-invest energy in this (he’s not so confident….) at least for the time being.

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So. Trajectory. Where are we going?

I have yet another can of proverbial worms to open. But this one…is debated much more often on social media, on the regular media, and in living rooms everywhere. But I would like to point out that technically, I am not actually opening the can of worms; I am pointing out that it exists and that someone COULD talk about it since someone else already did.

When the President of SLCC wrote the letter about racial reconciliation (see my last post), I found it interesting that I didn’t read the perspective of a single person of color. The investigative mind of Natalie jumped into over-drive and began talking to people of color and asking them questions about their experiences on the SLCC campus. I asked for their permission to publish the information – and they agreed, provided everything would remain anonymous. And so, anonymous it will be.

Honestly, anonymity and racial issues in the United States have always kind of….existed. It’s something I didn’t think about until I started this project. Generations before I was born anonymity might have prevented someone from being lynched – the moment a face could be matched with a statement, that person’s life could be in jeopardy. It’s a jarring reality to understand that in disseminating these stories, I am continuing a tradition that I’m not condoning.

There will be people who want to discredit these stories before reading them because of their anonymous nature. To which I say….if you don’t like it now, we should have addressed this issue a LONG time ago. Moreover…it causes me to question if the real intent is to critique the speaker rather than the message. If a face is attached to the statement, it is much easier to discredit the face and nullify the content.

There will be people who want to discredit these stories because it makes White people look bad. To which…I say….it’s complicated, isn’t it? In the past year or two there have been so many terms thrown around that maybe weren’t a part of a collective vocabulary before – words like “privilege”, “white guilt” and “anti-racism”. It’s easy to feel like “your” way of life is being attacked. But I encourage you to look beyond your experience, beyond your comfort level, and beyond yourself….and to see that opening doors of opportunity – or offering a megaphone – to groups who have previously been excluded does not mean doors of opportunity are being slammed in your face. It just means that doors are opening for others who weren’t a part of your competitive pool previously.

As a personal aside, I also would like discourage “tokenism”. Tokenism occurs when you have one or two voices from a specific group and your goal is to make them the voice of all. It never works. One person cannot be representative of an entire culture or demographic or nationality or identity or…. You can get one person’s perspective by asking one person a question. You cannot make sweeping statements about a community based on the perspective of one person. Moreover, having one “token” Black person, woman, Latin@, whatever as a representative of your organization will still probably piss some people off because they’re not the “right” representative. I invite you to look at Carly Fiona and Hilary Clinton.

There will be people who want to discredit these stories because this isn’t a strictly journalistic series. These are people’s feelings and their perspectives. It’s subjective. It’s their narratives, their stories, their understandings. Many times I will be unable to provide too much information about these individuals because anonymity was part of the deal…and I could blow their identities with too much information. This I think is the most legitimate complaint. I don’t have an answer for you, except that these stories must be told and they must be understood as stories: someone’s experiences.

You don’t have to like them. I don’t have to like them. But we should still read them. Because there’s power in a single story.