How to Be

How to Be

“Stop crying.”
“Or I’ll give you something to cry about,” I know you didn’t say that part but my brain fills it in automatically after hearing it so many times growing up. Even now as an adult and I know you are not speaking to me, I can feel my stomach doing somersaults.

You are speaking to a child with hair so blond it’s almost white, just like mine was at her age. She looks to be about four and I can tell she’s got big feelings as any four year old should.

I’m not sure what happened but only moments ago, her face, which was bright and pink turned as white as her hair. Her bottom lip has jutted out and and started to quiver which seems to be causing her whole body to shake. The noise that follows is so laced with pain and sadness, I start to wonder if I might also cry.

I can tell your words are more of a plea than a command but it does the opposite of what you intend. The cries become louder. She hears you yell and thinks you are mad at her. She doesn’t understand that you are feeling embarrassed and imagine that we are all judging you.

You grab her hand in an attempt to escape but as you move towards the exit, she trips and falls, which only makes her crying louder.

“You’re okay,” you say, more to the rest of us, than her. I want to tell you that it’s more important to soothe your daughter than a random group of strangers, that it doesn’t matter what we think.

I want you to tell her that it’s okay to have big feelings. That it’s okay to cry. I want you to sit with her in her sadness, and teach her how to feel her feelings rather than be ashamed of them. I want you to teach her how to be sad and not worry because it won’t last forever if you don’t run from it.

I want to tell you that it’s okay for you to feel your feelings too. It’s okay to be scared and worried and frustrated. It’s okay to talk about these feelings with your daughter because that’s how you’ll help her understand her own feelings.

I want to tell you both that life is better when you have feelings, no matter what feelings they are.

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“Pay attention!”

I snap back to reality and quickly check my surroundings. I can feel that familiar pit in my stomach forming as I struggle to determine who I have let down and what I have done wrong. These words always precede more chastising so I’m always on guard, waiting for the next attack.

I guess I’m so used to hearing these words, I can’t even tell when they are not directed at me.

I look up and see that these words were meant for a girl who looks about eight years old who seems to be paying a lot of attention. It’s just focused on the boxes that line the cereal aisle and not on you.

“I asked you which one you want.” You are still trying to get her attention. You stare at her, back to the shelf and then with a huff, grab a box at random and throw it in the cart. Shaking your head, you start walking down the aisle. After three loud steps you realize it didn’t get her attention and you whip back around, tugging at her arm to pull her along.

The girl looks back towards the cereal one more time, disappointed to be pulled from her thoughts. She looks confused, as though she doesn’t understand what just happened.

“I feel you,” I want to say to her, and by extension, to me at that age. “I know you were paying attention. I know you were paying so much attention that you couldn’t pay attention to what she thought you should be paying attention to. You weren’t ignoring her, she just didn’t exist in your world.”

I wish I could tell her it would get better but I can’t. Over time, she’ll learn how to be more vigilant, to constantly monitor her surroundings but it will never be enough and it will be exhausting. She’ll learn how to make people believe she has been listening, with a nod of the head or a planned set of responses that work no matter what they were talking about.

She will learn how to be more like you but will always feel disconnected from the rest of the world.

I want to tell you that you could help her, not by trying to snap her to attention, but by trying to understand that she’s not wired like you. I want to tell you how you can help her understand more about who she is and be comfortable being herself.

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“No one likes a bragger.”

Is that really what you heard? I heard a daughter excited to tell you that she not only passed her test, but that she got the best mark in the class. I heard her bursting with pride as she recounted what her teacher said.

But you heard bragging and you told her not to celebrate her successes while at the same time telling her that it was more important to be liked than to be proud of herself.

Did you notice how quickly her expression changed as soon as the words came out of your mouth? Did you notice that she hasn’t said a word since your comment when the words were previously tumbling out of her as though she couldn’t restrain them? That she seemed so eager to tell you the story, she could barely catch her breath but now each breath seems laboured and deeper than the last, like it’s all she can do not to cry.

I noticed because I felt it too. Like how the scent of fresh bread can take me back to kneading dough with my grandmother so many years ago. But unlike that memory that fills me with comfort and safety, it feels more like I’m being pushed into a box that’s too small for me but you hope that I can shrink enough to fit it.

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“Don’t get your hopes up.”

It feels like a wet towel has been thrown over my shoulders. The phrase is enough to take me away from the present and put me back into my teenage body and mind as I’m being told to manage my expectations and prepare for disappointment.

But today this wasn’t meant for me. Today, I am quietly grabbing lunch in the food court, overhearing your conversation happening at the next table. It’s not like I’m trying to eavesdrop, it’s that phrase that brings me into your conversation.

“I’m just excited, mom. Nothing like this has happened to me before.”

“You don’t know what’s going to happen or that it will even be all that you are hoping for.”

I don’t even know what you are talking about but it’s all I can do to focus on my sandwich and not turn to your mother and tell her to let you be excited. To tell her to encourage you to have hopes and something to look forward to.

Things may not turn out how you expect and there may be disappointment around the corner but I don’t want you to learn to fear excitement and enthusiasm. I don’t want you to temper your feelings and believe that the world is set to bring you pain. I want you to keep imagining great things will happen to you.

I want to tell her that I know she says this with good intentions, that she is trying to protect you from disappointment. I want to tell her that instead, she is teaching you how to be disappointed with life. She is teaching you how to be muted and cautious, and to quit looking for excitement.

I want to tell you to be excited. To get your hopes up and keep them up.

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“Why can’t you just be happy?”

I wish I could answer that question in a way that you will understand. In a way that will break through your defensiveness and realize that although you didn’t set out to teach me how to be like this, it is what your words taught me.

Your words taught me how to be stoic, to not show any emotion. I learned to avoid or ignore my emotions. That if I didn’t, I was just looking for attention, and there was no reason why I should get any more attention than the next person. Crying was an attempt to grab the spotlight when it wasn’t deserved.

Your words had me trying to remain vigilant, constantly on edge for fear of disappointing you by not sharing your interests. I learned that my shortcomings would keep me from every really feeling like I belonged and that if I couldn’t learn how to be like everyone else, I would always on the outside looking in.

Your words taught me how to be embarrassed by my success, to be ashamed when pride crept in. I learned that celebrating meant that I thought I was better than everyone else. I learned that true success was being liked, no matter that took and I would only be liked if my achievements went unrecognized.

Your words taught me how to be ready for disappointment because if I expected it, it would be able to hurt me. But you never told me it would hurt more to live each day without hope, waiting for pain to arrive at any moment.

Like you, I thought this would protect me, but we were both wrong. And now I’m afraid I’ll never learn how to be happy.

I’m trying. I’m trying to quiet your voice inside my head. I am trying to be comfortable in my own skin, to pursue my own interests without worrying about whether other people agreed. I’m trying to only seek my own permission and approval, that it’s the only one that matters.

I’m trying to be proud of myself without feeling dirty or ashamed. That my success is not commentary about anyone but me.

I’m now realizing that a true sense of belonging will only come when I don’t have to make myself small and beg for you to accept me. I am trying to worry more about whether I like you than if you like me.

I want to find out what I want to look forward to. I want to know what would make me get my hopes up.

I want to learn how to be me. The me I could have been if I hadn’t heard you at all.