In My Own Words – Page 5

I Have Been Self Censoring

October 31, 2021October 31, 2021 RaeAnna

Right after college, I started writing a lot about my experiences as a rape survivor. After a while, I started being inundated with messages from people—strangers, friends, and family alike—asking questions or just letting me know how much my stories helped them through their own recovery. Once I was able to accept I had been in a sexually, domestically, psychologically, and financially abusive relationship, I started talking. I did a whole lot of reading, researching, and listening too. But I started talking. I talked to friends, I talked to strangers who had their own stories, I got up and spoke in front of groups, I lectured at a university, I performed slam poetry, and I wrote. It was a part of me, and a part I was not going to hide.

Except I have been doing just that. Hiding. Not necessarily on purpose. It’s been pretty inadvertent. A byproduct of my life, relationships, working, and the world at large. I’ve had a hard time writing. I can blame a lot of it on the pandemic, a lack of motivation, wanting a break from reliving those painful memories, and/or a surge in depression and anxiety. Although, that would only be a half truth.

I have been censoring myself.

Censorship is something I really do not like, but that opinion is a completely different piece. Yet, I have been taking part in censorship, and, in my opinion, the very worst form of censorship: self-censorship. Over the course of my blogging/content creating/writing journey, I have written and posted about depression, anxiety, being a rape servivor, PTSD, mental health, and all that jazz. Except, I’ve written and posted about the sunny side of those stories. There’s a way to write about trauma and pain with a sense of humor, a brief overview, a silver lining to make it palatable. A piece that makes people go, that’s a bummer and continue on their days without being weighed down by the story they’ve just read.

For the longest time, it remained a mystery. Why couldn’t I write? Why couldn’t I post anything I did write? Because I love the fact that my darkest pain can be a light for other survivors. To share the burden, help others heal, create a community, be seen was so meaningful.

The answer was simple: I didn’t want to hurt anyone.

I have always been bad at opening myself up to people. Showing emotions and vulnerability is not a strength. If anything, I’m realizing at 30, the people I thought knew me best really don’t know me well at all. It’s not their fault. Not even remotely. I am so private about everything, that I don’t let those closest see me. They have proven they care over and over again, but being open does not come naturally. Instead, I allow myself to exist in their lives as a fairly emotionally one-dimensional human. I’ve been censoring my existence to everyone my entire life. Censoring comes easy. It’s easier than being raw and open. It’s hard letting the entire world really see you. Especially when most of what there is to see is pain.

“To live is to suffer, to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering.” Friedrich Nietzsche

I don’t shy away from hard work, and I have always found it much easier to write than speak (my friends are used to getting letters expressing my emotions when I’m feeling anything other than Happy), so that’s really not the reason I have been silent on the topics that mean the most to me for the last five years.

Pain. My reality, my truth causes other people pain. Pain, not discomfort at the violent and abusive behavior they’re being brought into. My pain causes others pain because the experiences that I was forced to endure challenges their perception of me, themselves, and life. I deny my experiences to maintain peace, which denies a huge part of who I am, which only causes me more pain. I was taught to tip-toe and hush-hush, make myself small, and never hurt anyone’s feelings or create waves even if that means not speaking the truth or denying the truth completely. So I have been protecting feelings. Other people’s feelings. Feelings belonging to people who wouldn’t give a second thought to what it’s like to be in me.

I live a non-traditional life. I like it this way. It makes me happier. I watch people struggle to fit into a box that society has made for them. They find happiness or contentment. Sometimes they don’t. But I’m not convinced they’re all soaking up all the happiness and joy the world has to offer. I’m not happy when I’m conforming or doing what is expected of me. Though I’m good at it, I’m miserable chasing the traditional ideals. Those who have chosen to be in my non-traditional life support and love me no matter what. I don’t talk about so much of it anymore because it makes things difficult for some. I don’t even think about it anymore because I’ve spent so much time overthinking how a post or picture will upset the status quo.

People take my silence as shame or guilt. I’ve made some really hard choices. I’ve made out of the box choices. I’ve made dangerous choices. I’ve made stupid choices. I’ve made choices for love. I’ve made choices for money. I’ve made choices out of necessity. I’ve made choices with great repercussions. I’ve made choices of all kinds. I’ve mostly made them alone. I have been very alone yet surrounded by people my entire life. As an adult, I’m more comfortable alone than in partnership because I will be solely responsible for my choices no matter the outcome. The one thing I am not is guilty or ashamed. I am not ashamed of the life I live or the person I have become or the person I was or the things I did. In fact, I’m pretty fucking proud of every choice I made because so often I made desperate choices when there were very few options and none of them were good. But I have not lived with that pride because it causes pain.

At 30 with a lot of very serious health problems, I am goddamn tired. I am tired of always censoring what I say because it hurts people. I am tired of having to not talk about huge swaths of my life because it hurts people. I’m tired of not being able to be me all the time because it hurts people. I’m not going to continue to be small because it makes other people’s lives uncomfortable.

I’m not censoring myself anymore. It’s all going to be out there. Because I’m not being real. I’m not being authentic. I’m not doing everything I can to make the world a better place.

In My Own Words, Lifestyle

Happy 168th Homecoming, Cornell College

October 10, 2021October 10, 2021 RaeAnna

It was Homecoming weekend for my alma mater, Cornell College, in Mt. Vernon, Iowa.

I’ve been to more homecomings than I haven’t since graduating—only missing this and last year, due to COVID. I loved Cornell while I was there, and love it still. Though, as does everything, it had it’s faults and shortcomings, it was the place I needed, as much for classes and maybe even more for the people it brought me. I still wear my Cornell clothes. I don’t follow the sports teams, but I didn’t do that while I was there either. I read the newsletters. I’ve donated money. I follow them on social media. I continue to sing its praises. I have a Cornell Alumni sticker on my car. I’m, what you may call, a die-hard alumna. Since I couldn’t be there, I celebrated in my own way.

High school was not my space. For a high school, my high school was amazing, but still, I couldn’t wait to leave and find my people in college. And find them, I did. But I also found myself.

I grew up in Iowa. I wanted nothing more than to leave. Be away from Iowa. Live in cities in new places with lots and lots of different people. I wanted to touch the world outside my bubble. I applied to big schools in big places. And Cornell College. College. Not to be confused with University. Twelve years older, located in Iowa, with 23,000 less students, and named for William Wesley Cornell, a cousin of Ezra’s, it’s easy to confuse the two. I applied to Cornell College because a) it was a good school b) I could create my own major c) if it had to be in Iowa, at least it looked like the East Coast. Long story short, I ended up at a small school, in a tiny town, in Iowa. Exactly what I didn’t want, yet everything I needed. Maybe not the Iowa part, but the other two were definitely what I needed.

Cornell is a strange place. A tiny liberal arts college in Iowa with a one-course at a time curriculum. It attracts the weirdies from all over. By weirdies, I really mean weirdies. From tech nerds to book nerds to gamers to LARPers. All inclusive weird. You name it, Cornell has it. For only 1,200 students, you can and will find your niche of nerd. We even had some token Republicans on campus.

I quickly learned that even smart people don’t talk about smart people things all the time or even half the time. I found out it was not only fine but good to not take myself seriously all the time… or ever. Being smart doesn’t mean being boring and intellectual every moment of every day. PEOPLE ACTUALLY DO DRUGS! Y’all, I truly thought a skunk lived outside my dorm my entire first semester. Not even a tiny bit ashamed over this level of naïveté. I also learned it’s good to think outside the box, to question authority, to push back when I knew something was wrong, to speak up with questions and answers, to fail, to ask for help, to be vulnerable, and so many more things. I also learned Russian and German and how to diagram a sentence and furthered my French and English and a lot of applicable knowledge that I use every day in my career, life, and relationships. Yes, it was worth the money Karen. Yes, I do use that expensive piece of paper in my career, Stewart. But college is more than classrooms and textbooks. It should be a safe space to explore, fail, learn, grow, and become the people we were then, are today, and will be someday.

Home is what I think of when I think of Cornell. It was the first place I felt whole. A space that gave me acceptance, love, family, friends, pain, recovery, poverty, plenty, adventure, respect, happiness, anger, truth, and peer review journals. That last one I put in there just because it was unexpected and funny.

I met my people.

I met my person, who has stayed my person despite moving cross country and living apart for seven out of our eight year personship. She’s doing amazing things, and I could not do life without her. She’s a special kind of human, and I’m so glad she’s mine. Homecoming my senior/her freshman year is really where we started bonding. It’s when I met her family, who would become my family. Cornell gave me a home for four years and led me to the family I chose for forever.

I found the love of my life at Cornell. My first semester freshman year, I fell for him. Actually, I fell on him. The happiest and saddest moments of my life were shared in our home by Cornell. It was and has always been the earth shifting, head soaring, heart fluttering, belly laughing, eyes shining kind of love that turns into soul shattering, heart wrenching, inside hallowing, eyes filling, life altering heart aches. Cornell is where I lost him. Whether it’s our liberal arts education teaching us to think outside the box, our love, history, respect, or a combination, I still call him my best friend, my partner, my most favorite human .

So many people came in and out of my life at Cornell. I made friends in the dorms, in classes, through walking across the Ped Mall. I spent time with my partner’s fraternity brothers. I became an honorary member of a sorority. I was president of the French club. I had friends all over. I learned stillness and solitude are equally as important for me. I felt a part of something even when I took time for myself.

I came into my own life at Cornell.

Life was lived because it had to be suffered through. Then I went to college, where I met people who let me be whatever I was. Happy, sad, angry, passionate. Feelings were welcomed. I found a man who challenged me to love and be loved, demanded I allow myself to break in every way I needed to so I could recover. Cornell gave me permission to enter my own life authentically and with complexity.

The hardest years of my life played out on campus and in Mt. Vernon. When I think of Cornell, a shimmering sadness plays across my heart. A foundational four years filled me with as much sorrow as happiness. I think I’m still catching up on the sleep I never got back then. I also really wish I hadn’t recycled all the paper handouts and copies from my classes… I’d give a lot of things—not the dogs— for all of those now. I would not be who I am without Cornell. I would probably not be at all if it weren’t for my Cornell family. I miss it as much as I am happy to have moved on.

No matter the hardship, I am and always will be a die-hard alumna. I really didn’t like purple until I realized I had to embrace it at college. Purple and white are the school colors, and I’ve definitely acquired a collection of Cornell pride clothes over the years.

2021 is the 168th anniversary of Cornell’s existence. It’s old as shit, considering the state of Iowa is only seven years older than my beloved alma mater. Missing out on this year’s celebrations, although most were cancelled due to COVID, was sad. So I decided to fill my house with flowers in Cornell colors all week. I even did a photoshoot with a bouquet, hair comb, and corsage to celebrate. Flowers just make everything more fun, especially Homecoming. After the shoot, we went for coffee and sweets; I definitely felt like I was off to a school dance with my corsage.

I made the corsage in markedly not Cornell colors but still in honor of Cornell. Red and white. My partner belonged to a fraternity, Mu Lambda Sigma, better known on campus as the Milts. This year marks their 150th anniversary. As any and all Milts will tell you without provocation, they are indeed the oldest organization on campus. Starting out as the Miltonian Literary Society and founded by Dean H.H. Freer in 1871, it evolved into the fraternity I know and love. I had really hoped to spend the Milt’s 150th anniversary on campus, but alas, I did not.

Not only was my partner a Milt, he introduced me to actives and alum, many became close friends. The fraternity is and was important to me because these were men who created a space for me to exist with the knowledge that I was safe. They protected me and nurtured me. They taught me men could be good, kind, and gentle. I didn’t have to fear these men. I was able to reset my gut and learn to trust it for the first time in my life because of these men. Truly, I have been able to go out into the world and trust men directly because of my partner and the Milts. I am forever grateful to the goofiest group of dudes. So the corsage is as much in honor of my partner as it is in honor of each Milt who loved me at Cornell. Goodness, do I miss them. So much.

Happy Homecoming, Cornell. I miss the good times and am thankful for the bad.

bisous und обьятий,
RaeAnna

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In My Own Words, Lifestyle

Hey! I’m Queer. Happy Pride!

June 29, 2021June 29, 2021 RaeAnna

Does this outfit make me look gay? Good.

Hey, y’all. I’m queer. Pansexual to be specific. This isn’t my coming out. I’m fully out of the closet. If I’m being honest, I never had an I’m-not-straight talk with anyone. It’s just been something that has existed as a solid fact in my life for a decade now. My non-heterosexual identity has been talked about for awhile, but as I get older, I’m feeling the need to live more loudly in my queer identity. This story is a whole lot longer than a single blog post, and, honestly, I may turn it into a collection of essays at some point. Let’s be honest, I’m unpacking so many things about my sexuality that I have kept firmly in a box unto itself, which is very unfair to my identity and journey as a human.

I never felt the need to come out for a whole lot of reasons. Too many to count. The two biggest being my family and my college.

I grew up in a weird house. Conservative in as many ways as it was liberal. So much progress mired in an ideology founded in my parent’s small, Midwestern childhoods’ of the 60s and 70s. My parents were and are accepting, but they did not grasp the nuance, language, or broad rainbow spectrum. They were products of their generation, and it showed[s] in their language, phrasing, expression, and beliefs. Equally, I am a product of my own generation, education, family, and ultimately genetics.

Cornell College, my alma mater, is incredibly liberal. The epitomization of: college is for self-exploration. My friends embodied “Do the thing. Do all the things. Try them now before life crushes us with debt and responsibility.” Damn, I love those humans. There were labels, but if you were on a journey and didn’t label anything, well that was okay too. Label it or don’t, just be a good person.

I remember writing, “I think I’m gay.” at twelve. I quite literally burned that piece of paper. For so many reasons I couldn’t name back then. Shame (which was not instilled in me by my parents or church, just, you know, society and the patriarchy). Isolation. Mostly uncertainty. I knew I wasn’t gay in the binary that I was aware of. Bisexuality wasn’t even presented to me as an actual sexuality… I’m not even going to get into that here. The isolation came from knowing I wasn’t straight, but knowing I wasn’t gay either. In a progressive town that had… all but no gay people (that I knew of, especially at the time), I would have been very much alone in an identity I still had no name for. For the kids reading this, this is pre-high speed internet, and I would have had to know the term to look it up in a dictionary—it’s a large book containing all the words and their definitions. I remember hearing people say, “Oh, she’s gay.” But “she” had moved out of town years before. Had I known what I was and been out in high school, it would have changed nothing because there were only boys to date anyways.

For so many reasons, the unknown of what I was didn’t affect my adolescence in any way. Truly, there is zero trauma stemming from my pansexual existence; loads and loads of trauma from other things in my life, though!

I don’t have that trauma because of a seminal moment in my adolescence.

But first, back story. I was an incredibly late bloomer. I didn’t get my first period until I was sixteen. I was not interested in sex until I met the love of my life at almost twenty. (I did get raped repeatedly by my high school “boyfriend” from 17 to 19. Oh hey there, trauma. Sup?) My sexuality wasn’t a crisis because it didn’t really exist for twenty years. I did not go through the boy/girl/sex crazy phase. Ever. I might be entering it now at thirty. Like I said, late bloomer. I became a sexual human at 19.5 when I fell in love and entered my first serious relationship with a human, who happened to be male. I fell in love with the human because he was and is incredible.

More back story. As a kid, I was pretty intensely into ballet. I was also a cheerleader, had a huge affinity for dresses, played the flute, was working on being a classical pianist, had straight As for most of middle school and high school (getting raped affected that a bit), obsessed with wearing heels. In so many ways, all arrows pointed to girly-girl, on the surface. (I still present super femme.) Dig deeper into my psyche and for those who knew/know me, the gender expression and sexuality waters get a lot murkier, but I won’t get into that right now.

On to the seminal moment.

At fifteen, I was walking through the kitchen, having just gotten home from cheerleading practice. My mother was in the kitchen stirring spaghetti sauce. One hand controlling the wooden spoon. One hand holding the pan. One foot grounded and the other on a stool, a bit Captain Morgan-ish now that I think about it. As I walk past, she says, “RaeAnna, I have a question for you.” My mother is never this formal. The Type A personality in me froze. What had I done wrong??? “Okay?” Without missing a beat or looking at me, still very much focused on her task, “Are you a lesbian?” Not the question I was expecting at all. It was so far off my radar, I really never ever thought I would hear that question. I had always known that if I was gay that it would be no big deal. My parents would be able to accept that without a problem (probably one of the few things about the authentic me that have been easily accepted). I hadn’t really thought about it since writing “I think I’m gay” three years prior. Like I said, not a sexual human at that point in time. “Um… Not that I know of.” Again, without missing a beat, “Okay. Just asking. If that ever changes, let me know.” One of the most nonchalant conversations I have ever had with the woman. She has given me a lifetime’s worth of writing material, but this is one of the moments I look back on and respect the hell out of her for.

If you don’t know me, if you don’t follow me, if you’re just meeting me for the first time, I present as ultra feminine, conservative, Christian, Suzy Homemaker, Type A, straight woman. I can be femme, but I also have some serious masc energy. I am absolutely not conservative; I get why people think that, but yikes no. I live my life pretty conservatively because that’s my comfort zone. Haha, trauma. But I am not conservative in any way at all. I am quite the flaming liberal, progressive, intersectional feminist. I’m not Christian; I’m atheist, but I was raised Methodist. I am definitely a Suzy Homemaker. Call me grandma; I love cooking, baking, sewing, cross stitching, knitting, crocheting, taking care of people, and keeping a clean house. I hate cleaning, but I AM Type A with a touch of OCD. Hey there, I’m neurotic, fun neurotic, still neurotic, though. I am NOT straight. I have only been in relationships with men. For a lot of reasons, none of which have anything to do with preferring men to women.

There was never an announcement of my queerness. No discussion. No party. I never officially came out. I never felt the need. It started with an “I’m attracted to women.” progressed to “I would definitely date women.” before turning into “I would have sex with women.” and eventually became “I’m attracted to people. I could spend my life with any gender.” It was slowly and steadily established as a fact about me. It’s been the last six years that I started using the term pansexual to describe myself. It’s been in the last year that I’ve started claiming queer. It’s a journey, and I’m on it.

bisous und обьятий,
RaeAnna

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In My Own Words, Lifestyle

In Seven Days, I Turn 30 Years Old

May 16, 2021May 16, 2021 RaeAnna

This past year has been quite the year. So long!

I turned twenty-nine.

I rescued a dog, who had thirteen puppies.

I raised those puppies and that dog in the midst of a global pandemic while depending on the kindness of family and friends as we bought a house as we dealt with rare puppy disorders as we coped with Dylan losing his job as my work slowed down to a near halt as we criss-crossed the country.

For the first three months of the pandemic, I was stuck inside with fifteen dogs, of which thirteen were completely dependent upon their mama and me. I was run ragged to the point of complete exhaustion. My body was even starting to give out under the physical strain of toting around thirteen large puppies.

As a constant struggler of anxiety, depression, PTSD, and in a perpetual nihilistic crisis, it was not an ideal time to be trapped inside with me, myself, and my multiple internal narratives of doom for company.

Now, I work from home under normal circumstances, so I am very used to my own company. I used to joke about never leaving the house, but that’s not nearly true. I was always on the go. Having lunch with friends, traveling, going to dog parks, attending events, exploring fun Houston things, creating content, and so much more. My calendar and life were filled with talented people who inspire me.

Everything changed. The puppies gave me a brief respite. They’ve helped alleviate the catastrophic train wreck that would have been my mental health with their pure existence in my life. But during the pandemic, I’ve felt like I’m watching my impending quarter-life crisis trundling right at me for all of the reasons: imagined and real.

I turn thirty in one week. I am not one of those women who are scared of turning thirty. In fact, I quite embrace it. The vast majority of me is so ready to be out of my twenties. Those really sucked a big D. I’ve gone so far as to preemptively tell people I’m thirty for the last few months because why the fuck not. At the same time, thirty does come with its fair share of burdens.

As a woman, this is an age where culture, society, the media are persistently confronting me with an alarm clock ticking down the time left on my worth to and in this world.

I feel like time is running out. I’m almost thirty. Society is a barrage that, as a woman, life ends at thirty. I know it doesn’t. So far all the women I know over thirty have not ceased to exist when their 10,957 day arrived. But, no matter how hard I’ve tried, I can’t help internalizing all the cues telling me life as I know it is over for me and, in a week, I’ll be shipped off to the glue factor with last month’s Kentucky Derby winner—who even remembers that horse anyways. I think if we took the part where I had to age in society out of the equation, I wouldn’t care at all. If I could hermit á la Michel de Montaigne circa 1571, I don’t think I would give a rats ass about aging and this post wouldn’t exist at all. Unfortunately, I must be of this world.

Me wearing the bikini and being all but thirty in this world because I can and will and won’t stop.

I would be 100% lying to you if I said, “I have not ended up covered in snot crying on the kitchen floor being held by my partner as the dogs try to figure out what’s wrong with their seemingly resilient mama because I’m getting older and the world will stop looking at me and stop caring because I have a gray hair (I haven’t found one yet; that’s not a lie) and the hints of forehead wrinkles so none of my big dreams will come true because they haven’t come to fruition yet and all this work has been for naught and fucking life is hard.” That would be a lie. It would be a lie if I said it didn’t happen at regular intervals over the last two years. I’m not scared of getting older, but I’m scared of how the world will treat me as I get older. The world hasn’t been kind to me for the first thirty years when I was apparently worth something, so how the hell is it going to be for the next seventy years? Society tells me: not great.

Life is terrifying. There is so much to process, handle, solve, enjoy, escape, see, do, taste, smell, and avoid all the time; honestly, I love each and every one of those pieces of living life. But being an aging woman is just terrifying. I know it’s different for me than it was for my mother and grandmothers, but things haven’t changed so much that wrinkles and grays and numbers don’t matter in the world. They do. And I don’t really care for anyone to tell me otherwise because my entire life all I’ve ever been validated for is my looks and what that means for my place in the world. The marriage I could make, the doors that will open, the way life will be “easier” because I was tall, thin, fair. So for me and my life experience, the moment my boobs start to droop, my waistline starts to expand, my hair starts to thin, my skin starts to slacken, what will I be? Who will care? It doesn’t matter and has never mattered that I’m intelligent, well-spoken, a linguist, possess a wicked wit, kind, giving, accepting, an activist, a writer, a creative, a critic, a dog mom, a friend, and all the other things that actually make me me and interesting and complex. My existence has always and almost solely been validated and made worthy by the way I look.

Who I am has always just been a positive addendum to the way I look.

I have never liked close up portraits. My teeth are funny. My nose is weird. I’m hyper critical of everything. As I get older, I see the lines, the pores, the acne that had never been there, everything. But if I don’t take them now, I never will, and I’ll look back and say, “damnit, I should have.” And I don’t do regret.

So… I love getting older. I’m wiser, funnier, smarter, humbler, more experienced, a better listener, a better talker, a deeper thinker than I was at twenty. I think I’m cuter, but that’s probably because I know how to do my makeup better. I truly and completely love getting older. Life is so much better than it was twenty years ago, ten years ago, a year ago. I know myself more completely. I am happier at a week away from thirty than I was at a week away from twenty.

But… I’m scared of getting older. I don’t know how the world will treat me. I know how the world has treated women. I know how I want the world to treat women. And goddamnit, I have the audacity to age like the women who’ve come before me.

Now… I can only do one thing. Wake up tomorrow and keep on living my life. I’m going to moisturize and exercise—sometimes, infrequently, it will become a habit—to fight off aging physically, emotionally, but most of all mentally. More than anything, I’m going to keep working on my dreams. I’m going to keep creating new dreams. I’m going to strive for happiness. I’m going to live my life fully and enthusiastically surrounded by weirdos who love life and me. I’m going to support women and be everyone’s cheerleader. I’m going to be kind and find beauty in my body as it changes with the days and years I have ahead of me. I’m going to write. I’m going to lift up women’s voices of all ages because the world needs to remember that we women continue to evolve not stagnate. I’m going to tell my stories because I have seventy more years of stories, and I’ve hardly started on telling the first thirty years. My life isn’t over. I’m not done living. I will age with audacity.

bisous und обьятий,
RaeAnna

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Blog + Dog, In My Own Words, Lifestyle

On Anxiety: Getting Lost in the Woods

May 12, 2021May 11, 2021 RaeAnna

If this isn’t your first time here, you’ve probably noticed I have anxiety. That would be because I talk about it A LOT. It’s a huge part of my life and dictates a good portion of how I live and my internal musings. Lately, anxiety has been dousing me with an extra helping or twelve, and it has really been affecting everything from sleep to productivity to mostly sleep.

Beau looking back at me… Neither of us knew where we were or where we were going.

I’ve never been a big sleeper. Part of that comes from my natural circadian rhythm: I just don’t need tons of sleep to feel peppy, focused, and productive. The other part is my eternal FOMO. I have had a fear of missing out since I was an infant, which is long before that term entered the patois. My parents will be the first to say that I would not sleep if there was even an inkling of something happening. I remember being about three years old, hopping out of bed during my nap to have a listen at the door because I wanted to know what was happening: Mom was watching a soap opera, but damnit I was not going to miss out on what was going on in Susan’s third husband’s love child’s second marriage (I just made that up, but I’m sure that’s come up at least thrice). The longer I sleep the more I miss out on: time to work, time to play, time to be awake and do nothing but at least I won’t miss anything while I’m awake doing nothing.

As much as I don’t want to sleep, I do, in fact, need it. Anxiety keeps me up more than anything else. This isn’t new. I remember being eight and having a borderline anxiety attack (although I did not have the words for it then) about growing up and having to file taxes and also decide what my major in college would be. I ONLY HAD ELEVEN YEARS TO FIGURE IT OUT. Yeah, I was a weirdo then. Nothing has changed. As an adult, my anxieties are a bit more grounded in reality, but in eight year old me’s defense, those are real things to worry about… Just maybe not at eight years old.

Three weeks ago, I was in the midst of an anxiety spiral over some very real problems. Some of which have since been solved, yay! I couldn’t stop. It started on Sunday and reached its zenith Tuesday night. I hadn’t slept much, which was fine. I was nowhere near a psychotic episode, although anxiety said differently. Tuesday night, I did not sleep a wink. Not one bit. I laid in bed, staring at the ceiling, stewing. I eventually did a bunch of reading, writing, working, and then in a desperate attempt to dumb my mind, hopped on TikTok. Beau was snuggled between my legs, content with the consistent inconsistency of her mother at nighttime.

Beau’s got this. She led the way. The way to nowhere helpful.

By 5:30 am, I had sufficiently given sleep my every effort and failed. The only failure I have been able to accept with out personal devastation. With the energy of a sleep deprived human—it’s actually quite a lot; after years of sleep deprivation, I am one of the most energetic and positive exhausted people in the history of the world—I literally skipped into my closet, put on running clothes, dressed Beau in her running gear (aka harness), woke up Dylan, let the puppies out/fed them, and ran out the door.

Exercise is one of my least favorite activities. I loathe it, but it is something I do with regularity because it is incredibly good for our bodies, brains, emotions, and overall health. COVID halted that, but I’m trying to slowly work myself back into life.

Running is at the tippy top of exercise I hate, which is exactly the reason I turn to it when I’m dealing with inordinate amounts of stress and anxiety. It takes equal parts determination and pain to start and keep going, making it the perfect mental distraction. Beau has come to look forward to times of high anxiety because she gets lots of walkies.

My neighborhood has tons of walking trails and parks. Beau isn’t the easiest dog in the world to walk. She wants to sniff all the things, chase any bird/leaf/squirrel, and zig zap like it’s an Olympic sport, but I like getting the alone time with my OG (Original Girl). She knows the drill, we head out the door straight for the walking track just down the road. We did one lap before a walk on the woodsy trail.

I decided to confuse Beau and do something different: Head onto the dirt trails deeper into the woods. The Iowa girl in me loves exploring nature. Living in Houston, there is a stark lack of hills and woods, though we have amazing parks and walking trails. My neighborhood has some unexplored woods, and this was the day to dive in.

Beau lead the way. She loves getting to zig zag without Mommy holding her back. Every fork in the path, Beau chose the direction. I was doing a good job tracking each turn… at first. For, maybe, the first two or three forks. A gazillion forks in… I was starting to think there was a potential of being lost. An hour and ten minutes into our walk-run, I decided it was time to turn around. As we made our way home, after several turns… I realized we were lost. For realsies lost. I knew where I was adjacent to my house, but getting there via trail or off trail was a completely different story.

At one point, I found a nice little, green sign nailed to a tree at one of many, many forks, denoting the paths: Rabbitt Pun and Creekside. I let Beau choose Creekside because I truly had no idea which one to take… or if we’d even seen that on our adventure in. We followed the path choosing another fork. Next thing I knew, I was back at the intersection of Rabbitt Pun and Creekside. Frustrated, I took Rabbit Pun. Obviously Beau’s career as a Sherpa in Nepal is looking quite grim. After choosing another two forks, we were ONCE AGAIN facing Rabbitt Pun and Creekside. I looked at Beau, who looked at me, who looked at the sign. My future as a Sherpa in Nepal is just as grim.

My anxiety had found a new and far more tangible outlet. We were officially lost in the woods.

In a desperate attempt to navigate homeward, I pulled up Google maps. Not helpful. It gave me directions from the nearest road. From the nearest road, it was a two and a half mile walk… According to Google we were about a mile, as the crow flies, from that road. My blue dot showed me standing in the middle of green space.

Luckily, there were beautiful scenes to see.

Off we went, once more on Rabbitt Pun. It felt like the right choice. About twenty minutes later, with no familiar physical indicator, we ran into a man and his two dogs. Beau was excited for company, and I was excited for directions.

We managed to find our way out of the woods… Nowhere near where we entered them, but out we were. What was going to be an hour walk turned into a two hour and forty-five minute walk, nine mile walk. Not at all a fast pace, but there was a lot of confused twirling in the woods.

Beau was thoroughly exhausted and over the moon with joy. I was tired and running late to work at Amanda’s shop, luckily, she didn’t care. My anxiety had found a realistic outlet. Between the utter lack of sleep and long walk, I was able to sleep later that night.

Anxiety’s a bitch. I’ve found my ways of coping with it.

bisous und обьятий,
RaeAnna

Close up of The Awakening on Galveston Beach.

Books, Fiction, In My Own Words, Lifestyle

Remembering and Rereading Kate Chopin’s The Awakening

April 27, 2021April 27, 2021 RaeAnna

I read Kate Chopin’s The Awakening twice in high school, but I haven’t touched it since.

Normally, I write book reviews, but this is more of a book forward, a book impression, a book remembrance. I read it for the first time and fell deeply in love with this classic, feminist triumph of a novel, but I’ve been scared to return. As a young woman, it came to me while I was in the midst of my own battle against the patriarchy, man, and family for freedom of self. My uncertainty to open its cover once again is out of fear. Fear of what I will find it would do or maybe what it wouldn’t do. Would it mean the same thing it did to sixteen year old me as it does to twenty-nine year old me? Not only am I stronger and more broken, I have been of this world longer with its misogyny, laws, patriarchy, double standards, abuse, and more. I’m also a more experienced reader. So of course The Awakening won’t mean the same to me today as it did a decade ago, but I was scared it would mean less.

Woman in a white dress standing on the beach with The Awakening by Kate Chopin. — Standing on Galveston Beach with Kate Chopin’s The Awakening. | White Dress

Literature with a capital ‘L’ arrived on my bookshelf when I was eight. I was an overachieving priss of a child; children’s literature did not speak to me. I love Literature because I didn’t get it right away. It demanded an understanding of the vocabulary, history, culture, and more in which it was written and set. I yearned for knowledge. Literature made me do the research; in a time before Google and the internet, it was an interactive experience as I read one book surrounded by a dictionary and encyclopedia. As much as I loved Literature, I craved more. I craved seeing myself on the page. Even as I kid, I knew I was not being represented in the pages I so loved. There is very little written by women. More exists than meets the eye, but even as an educated reader and researcher, finding older works by women takes effort outside of Dickenson, the Brontës, Alcott, and Austen. It was years before I found Woolf, Morrison, Eliot, Shelley, Wollstonecraft, Duras, Wharton, Cather, Plath, Lee, Stein, Beauvoir, Angelou, Gaskell, Lennox, Stowe, Hurston, and of course Kate Chopin. All of whom have shaped me as a reader, writer, and most importantly as a woman. Chopin was my gateway into a world of writers writing about me, my plight, my pain, my existence in a world not meant for me. Even a hundred years later or more, the words these women wrote represented my place in the world. Chopin wrote in the late nineteenth century, and she rocked society with her daring works about the internal and external lives of ordinary women daring to live.

The Awakening was the first book I ever felt a deep connection with. I was a young reader beginning to understand the importance of Literature, representation, feminism, activism, and more. I was starting to come into my own as a thinker with a vagina. I was beginning to grasp at what it meant to walk this earth as a woman. A lover of Literature and history, I was probably more aware than most fifteen year old girls of women’s historical lack of autonomy. Historical being the key word. I did not feel equal, and I wanted equality, but I knew it wasn’t mine. Even with my fundamentally better understanding of history, I had yet to grasp the whys or the hows or the history or the culture or any of it. I just had a feeling. This book came into my life when my life was changing from bad to worse to what I would eventually title “Hell”. As I read The Awakening, I was struck by the realization that I knew very little had changed for women. I could wear pants like the boys, but I would never be like the boys. I was a girl. America had never been the land of the free.*

Four months after I experienced my first sexual assault in the lunch room by a school administrator. Four months after I told my mother. Four months after she told me to keep quiet and see if it would happen again. Three months after my first kiss at the Winter Formal because my mother told me I had to or I wouldn’t have a boyfriend anymore. Three months after I realized no one would protect me. Two months after I realized I was only worth something connected to a man. I was a freshman in high school. I was experiencing my first tastes of being a woman.

I picked up The Awakening.

It was the summer I turned sixteen. I had new boyfriend because that’s what sixteen year old girls do. But I had no faith in men. No faith in women. No faith in family. No faith in people. I felt utterly alone. With no one to protect me, to understand, to hold my hand, I was accepting that to be a woman was to be alone.

What I had read in history was not at all in the past. Nothing had changed really. Being a woman meant being an object for male consumption. Some took gently. Some did not. It would be another year before I learned how much they could and would take without permission, without waiting, without caring I was human. And if I turned to women, they would not protect me if they believed me at all. My mother taught me that.

At sixteen, the next seventy years looked like a lonely, losing battle. What was the point? Did all women feel this way? Why weren’t they do anything about it? I was years away from understanding the nuance of internalized misogyny and all the culture shit we are taught to swallow, believe, conform to, and uphold as women. But I already knew existing like that in this world was not for me, and so I already had a few suicide attempts under my belt. I had very little desire to live even before the first of many men took what he thought was his right.

And then Edna walked along a Grand Isle’s beach and dared to yearn for more than motherhood and wifedom. We were separated by a century. We were separated by experience. We were separated by so many things, but I understood her. She didn’t save my life, but I felt seen. I felt validated.

I reached out to my fellow bibliophiles asking for their opinions on The Awakening, on Edna. The few who had read the book hated Edna. They found her shallow and selfish. The ending was completely unrealistic. What woman with a life of leisure would walk into the ocean? What wife would leave her husband? What mother would choose death over her children? To me, it was the perfect ending to her story. I was frustrated by the vitriol. How could they not understand? She was alone and desperate, leading a meaningless life.

The Awakening was the first time I saw a female character with any emotions or internal life I could comprehend and identify with; probably because she was the first woman written by I woman I had read. Edna was the first, but many have come after her.

My concept of womanhood has evolved over the last thirteen years. I am no longer the optimistic sixeen year old, but I’m no longer the devastated sixteen year old. All is not completely lost, though I have a dismal view of the present and near future. My world view is complex, and I know I am on a lifelong search for my place and role in society. Not all share my view of womanhood, nor should they. But I will continue to fight for every woman. As a twenty-nine year old, I know my life has seen challenges many have never and will never seen, but it has also been blessed in many ways. Pain is not a competition. I acknowledge my many privileges and disadvantages. Pain is not the only thing I have known, but pain is still central to my experiences as a human and as a woman.

Kate Chopin, The Awakening, and Edna gave me validation. Someone understood. 122 years ago, a woman knew the pain I knew and dared to want more.

I am not going to review The Awakening. For so many reasons, one of which being: I don’t want to. Another being: It would be a very long review. My fears ended up being unfounded. The book means more to me as a grown ass woman than it did as a teenager. I found the nuances, narrative, and storytelling far more enthralling than I had thirteen years ago. Not only did I fall more in love with Edna, I fell out of love with her husband, paramour, and female companions. What had seemed like a love story years ago is anything but today. It isn’t romantic but deeply depressing. I could identify the tragedies with the eye of an analyst and the heart of a woman and the mind of a partner. I saw the craft in Chopin’s work and the soul in her story. The Awakening spoke to me in new and more powerful levels.

Edna is very much alive.

bisous et обьятий,
RaeAnna

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*This is being written from the perspective of a white woman as I look back at the views I had as a teenager exploring my own place in this world as a woman through the knowledge, resources, and books I had at my disposal. It would be several more years before I learned the term “intersectionality” and began applying it to my own life, views, feminism, and activism. Up until that point, feminism and racism were uniquely separate issues because that is all I knew. Black women suffered racism. Black women suffered feminism. I wanted equality for everyone: men and women, Black and white and Asian and Hispanic and everyone in between. I was more apt to identify as a humanist than a feminist. My fundamental beliefs have remained the same, but my terminology has expanded to better encompass and express my desires for intersectionality, equity, and advocacy.