Steubenville.

Some of you may have noticed that I've been posting a lot about the "Steubenville rape" trial. I've been following it semi-obsessively since I originally read about the story through both Huffington Post and Anonymous. What a lot of you may not know is the reason I've been following this story so closely...

When I was 22, I was sexually assaulted. Not very many people know that for a variety of reasons. I have often said I wear my scars with pride, that they make me who I am. This scar, however, is particularly deep and painful. Reading all the press this situation has gotten, and especially the most recent press about how terrible everyone is feeling for the rapists, has pushed me to "come out" so to speak.

Sexual assault is more prevalent than people think. I grew up with a cop as a second father and knew that I should report it as soon as it happened. And why didn't I? Society. Slut-shaming. Was my skirt too short? Did I ask for it somehow? Logically, duh... of course not. But reading and seeing all this commentary from educated people talking about all that wasted potential has once again reminded me why I was too scared to come forward in the first place.

And you know what? That is FUCKED UP. I should feel safe in my town, in my community. I should feel like this very awful thing that happened to me isn't a stigma... but it is. We should be talking about THE VICTIM... how this will effect her every day life. How every single facet of her life will be effected by the stupid decision that these boys made and then LAUGHED at.

Every part of my life has been somehow touched by my assault. The way I relate sexually is effected, I don't feel safe outside by myself, I had obsessive compulsive disorder about checking my doors for awhile... and the perpetrator was someone I knew. I look back now and can see his cocky attitude... his nice car and nice house and how he felt he somehow deserved everything... and I no longer see any fault of my own and entirely the fault of society/his parents/etc.

If we can't talk about how wrong this is, if we can't look at those young men and see them as RAPISTS (not as victims), we as a society need to take a serious step back. It doesn't matter how drunk you are, you never deserve to be taken advantage of. You never deserve to have pictures taken of you against your will. You never deserve for other women to call and threaten you. That is fucking sick and wrong and people should be ashamed of themselves.

But she shouldn't be ashamed. I shouldn't be ashamed. We deserve to hold our heads high, deal with the ramifications and move forwards. But, as Henry Rollins said, we're somehow the ones left with the life sentence.

My life.

I have spent most of my life as an extrovert.

I've always thrived on attention, even lying to get it when I was younger. I was sexually active far earlier than I should have been for that same reason. I've made a lot of mistakes in my life in that same quest for attention... many I'm unable to forget or take back.

Now, approaching my 32nd year of life at a faster speed than I would have liked, I am finding that I spend much more time sitting back and reflecting. Who am I? What do I want out of life? I debate everything in my life... if I'm a good parent, partner, daughter... and I tend to beat myself up to repent for any mistakes I've made.

My daughter will be entering junior high next year. I remember junior high so well... I felt so awkward and wanted so badly to fit in. I had a few close friends (Moxie, I'm looking at you!) but mainly I was a chameleon. I want so badly for my daughter to find her place, but I worry that I've handicapped her by giving her a family that society says she should hide.

Being one of only a handful of gay parents I know locally, it's tough. I don't know what to do or say to her... how to make it better, how to explain the bullying and teasing that may happen. To know it's a direct result of my life, even if it is a life that I am happy with and couldn't change even if I wanted to, makes it that much worse.

Springtime in my mind...

This winter has been a tough one for me and, although Punxsytawney Phil didn't see his shadow, I'm still heading outside in a few minutes to defrost and scrape ice off of my station wagon.

It's been a winter filled with self-revelation - my seasonal affective disorder can get worse than I ever thought it could. I've gained and lost and gained 10# again and I'm officially back up to my starting weight (which is the heaviest I've been since having my daughter eleven years ago). Some days, when I look in the mirror, I don't  recognize or much like the person looking back at me.

I just finished a fiction book on bullying and school shooting. After an entire education career being shoved into lockers, spit on and called names, one of the main protagonists walks into school and kills 10 kids. I've spent a lot of time recently worrying about my daughter going to middle school where bullying is more prevalent. Will she get picked on? Will she be the one picking on other kids? How did I survive?

It occurred to me some time after that bullying never really quits. Although I wasn't picked on much (in fact, I can't remember an instance of bullying - unless we're referring to myself as the bully), now that I'm older the bullying is all internal. I look in the mirror some mornings and pick myself apart. "Look how fat your face is." "Look at that stray hair where it doesn't belong." "How could you let yourself get this out of control?"

I don't know if I've ever learned to except anything less than perfection. My mother loved my sister and I very much, but I was definitely pushed to be the best version of myself. I know I disappointed her when I married and had my daughter young but, looking back, that is the same way I would feel if it were Caitlin in those same shoes.

I can't accept less than perfection from myself and I'm so tired of all the stress and disappointment that comes with that.

I just want it to be spring.

Growing up

There are some days I feel like I'm really bad at this whole "growing up" thing. I always thought, or was told, that having a baby when I did made me grow up quicker than I was supposed to. While I don't disagree with this statement as a general fact, with me I'm not sure it's entirely true.

When I got married at 18, I thought I was grown up. I had been out of the house for a year, living in a dorm at NIU. My ex-husband asked me to marry him and my mother's first reaction was shock. She told me under no circumstances should I be getting married, that I was throwing my life away, etc. As a teenager, I heard blah blah blah "no" blah blah so I immediately got married. Looking back on it, it was more a simple act of rebellion than really being in love and my mother was, at least partly, right.

However, I live my life with no regrets. If it wasn't for him, I wouldn't have Caitlin. And, although I spent a lot of her childhood also trying to finish out my own, she really has changed my outlook on things. Being just 20 years apart, I feel like I can understand her better when she actually lets me in. It's a relationship that means so much to me.

Most days, though, I feel like that grown up thing is juuuuust out of my reach. I would really like to buy a house, but the truth is I'm not entirely sure I know where I want to settle down at or that I'm necessarily ready to make that big of a commitment. Honestly, it feels weird to even think about buying a house. No house could possibly be the house I grew up in, no neighborhood could have the feeling of my old neighborhood (even though kids don't even really go outside anymore!). It feels like failing before I even get started.

This year, a lot of the stupid debt I got myself into in college will finally roll off my credit report. My car will be paid for. I'll be married. I'm transitioning, at 31 years old, into adulthood... but I don't even know where to begin. I have a job that I truly love and look forward to going to every morning, but the idea of working in one place for the rest of my life still terrifies me. Am I doing what I should be doing? Is this my life? Is it my turn to sit back and watch my daughter grow up and cross "being a kid" off my life list? It's all new and scary.

E.E. Cummings once said "It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are." Maybe my problem is that, through all my brashness, I truly lack courage. But I guess until I've truly leaped without looking I won't know that I have that courage. Or maybe true courage is knowing where you're going to land without having to look.

SAD and shit...

I suffer, and some days that term is more literal than others, with seasonal affective disorder (aptly SAD in acronym form).

It's kind of an embarrassing thing to admit, like a failure in my chemical composition. The truth is, even with fairly massive amounts of vitamin D in my system, my mind in the winter is a barren wasteland of snow and land mines.

I can't imagine I am too easy to deal with. Usually, I come home from with (in the dark), flop down unceremoniously on the couch and proceed to move as little as possible until it's time for bed. Repeat cycle x 3 - 4 months.

This year, however, it seems to have hit me with a vengeance. I've been plowing through the vitamin D like candy, but it's not making a dent. It's affecting my love life, my work life, my personal life... I've gained weight and lost a lot of desire to do anything about it.

I say these things not to be "poor me'" that's not my style. I want to raise awareness for a very real health condition. There is nothing wrong with getting the winter blues and I, personally, spent far too much of my life feeling like there was.

It's a simple fact of life. That said, I'm still waiting impatiently for spring. Bring on the sunshine!

Past lives...

I often tell stories from my childhood, stories about running away from home, nearly scaring the babysitter to death by covering my little sister in ketchup... generally designed to make the listener laugh and shake their heads at the terror I was when I was younger.

Looking back, though, it often feels like telling a story about someone else. I often describe it as the feeling of past lives, all intersecting in one body. When I talk about being 16, I can't remember what it felt like to have that much anger and rebellion in my body. When I talk about having my daughter, I don't recall the pain or the feelings involved. It happened, it changed me... and it is in the past.

People often say that the past comes back to bite us when we least expect it. I find it odd that we are judged by our past failures and choices, as though people can never change or grow or adapt. I think that is an awfully grim assessment. I know that I, personally, have made mistakes. I've hurt people, I've hurt myself, I've refused to change even in the face of pain.

But that doesn't mean I'm that same person. My failures have taught me lessons, made me grow. If I met myself back when I made those choices, I wouldn't like myself much. I have no regrets, but I'm also not proud of those decisions either. 

So, my question to you is... do people truly change? Are we all just better, 2.0 versions of who we used to be and/or prototype versions of who we will be? Or do we remain stuck in the purgatory of our youth?

2012.

Thinking back on the past year, I believe it was incredibly apt that 2012 was supposed to be the year that the world ended. Although taken quite literally and out of context (but you better believe I was looking out my window for those zombies!), in a lot of ways the world as I knew it did end in 2012. I am very much entering 2013 a new person, leaving behind who I was in 2012 and before as a person I don't recognize much.

Entering into 2012, I was a woman who thought she knew who she was and what she wanted. I had the "right" girlfriend, the "right" job, the "right" outlook on life... and leaving 2012 I realize just how wrong I was.

I've cheated, I've lied, I've had all the wrong priorities... and, even worse, I thought that they were all the right ones.

Sitting here at the computer, eating one of my sister's amazing cheesecake brownies and drinking some chai tea (from the new Hawks mug Britt got me!) while the snow falls, I am so much more at peace than I ever have been. Sure, I still worry about money, being a good enough parent, etc., but I am happy knowing that my life is once again moving forward.

Instead of making resolutions, we made a bucket list of things we'd like to do, see, achieve and ways we'd like to grow in 2013. It's gonna be a great year, I can feel it...