Stuff Sarah Says

I feel sick.

2 Comments

Every time the depression wells back up and takes me, I feel like a failure. This time it took me by surprise in a new way because it didn’t start with sadness, it started with success. Yes, I’ve been tremendously busy, but I’ve been on top of it all – managing my appointments, my schedule, showing up on time, in the places I’m meant to be, and feeling good. I’ve been feeling in control of myself, nigh invincible, as I have taken on more and more, chasing that glorious moment of triumph.

Something you should know about me: As long as I’ve had something that needs improvement, I have had something to prove.

This time, my descent started with an up-tick. It started with the slow, steady ascent of a wooden coaster, as the click, click, click ushers you ever onward and upward toward the peak before it surrenders you unto the nothingness, allowing you to fall.

"STOP THE RIDE, I WANNA GET OFF," she would have said, if she had better foresight.
“STOP THE RIDE, I WANNA GET OFF,” she would have said, if she had had better foresight.

But this time it would seem the problem is not really the depression, but the mania. The mania (and the anxiety and the paranoia), which previously only lasted for a few hours or perhaps a day at the most, has become recurring.

I can’t think. I can’t write. I am distracted by the tiniest of things. Glitter, stuck to my sweat-dampened skin. Moira, exploring my work area. The feel of the air in the room, how oppressively warm it is with the sliding glass door closed and the humidity inching upward each moment as the sun heats the moisture on the pavement outside. The creeping vines of anxiety as each of these press inward on my consciousness, the feeling starting in my ankles, moving inexorably upwards toward my chest, immobilizing me and robbing me of my words, setting a spark to my fight or flight response. It suddenly occurs to me that I can either sit here self-immolating, or I can get up and start pacing, picking, cleaning, starting with a lint-roller all over my body to get rid of that god-damned glitter because FUCK GLITTER. WHO LET THAT SHIT INTO MY HOUSE?!

Satan is a five year old girl with access to fairy dust.
Satan is a five year old girl with access to fairy dust.

The depression which has punctuated these last few stretches of anxious upheaval has been an almost welcome reprieve. As I have mentioned before, the contrast between the two states is, I imagine, like being catapulted from a tub of hot water into cold, and back and forth — not unlike what Inigo experienced when Fezzik forcibly removed him from his state of drunkenness in the Princess Bride.

drunkinigoBut rather than restore me to sanity, the effect has been completely destabilizing. I feel like I have nothing.

It’s in those awful moments I want to do truly terrible things to myself. Still. Even with all the treatment, the therapy, the medications, everything, all the improvements I’ve made, all the distance I’ve covered in the last few years, when I feel the control begin to slip away from me, the urge to harm myself screams back into focus with alarming alacrity. I just know, with deep, chilling certainty, that one simple act of self-harm would immediately, easily end the uneasy, frenetic scratching in my skull – the pain would calm me, my stomach would settle, and I would finally feel better.

My heart wouldn’t be fluttering any longer, and my thoughts wouldn’t be racing. My mind wouldn’t be festering with words and stories that refuse to coagulate into coherent stories worthy of telling. I could sit and enjoy my family’s company, my daughter’s play, my husband’s touch, or the simple miracle of a quiet house.

I don’t typically feel that my mental illness is particularly disabling, or that it makes me especially ill. In fact, as a colleague and I were discussing the other day, we take particular pains to obscure our mental “peculiarities” as much as possible, lest the rumor mill start a’ pumpin’. But this? I hate this. This makes me feel as though I suffer from true madness. I am provoked, then, to spit out the proverbial poison – to remove it from my person as if by force (thus, The Real Sarah C Project was born). Well, now that I think about it, it actually was by force! These 800 words took me two very painful weeks of writing, bitching to trusted friend about not being able to write, trying and failing to write other things, and then trying again.

Reader, the thing that I really want you to know is that I feel like a terrible mess. And despite feeling like a terrible mess, in these last few weeks, I have still felt very much myself – on top of my game, good at my job, able, and confident. I’m not sure precisely what that means in the long run, but in the spirit of keepin’ it real, I just wanted you to know: you can still keep it together while you’re falling apart.

Stuff Sarah Says

Early Morning Irrational Anger

2 Comments

Early Morning Irrational Anger.

That’s what I’m going to call it. That’s what it is. Not being much of a “morning person”, I get sucked into a lot. But today dun did took the cake.

I just don’t think I’m going to listen to Hudson and Scotty B’s Bizarro Morning Show anymore. And here’s why:

Listen, I don’t know a lot about radio shows, or how they are produced, or what goes into making one, or how hosts are (or aren’t) held accountable for what is said on air, so all of this is just my own opinion, said for my benefit (otherwise, I’ll just be bottled up and pissy all day, and that is not a pretty picture) and hopefully for your entertainment (my friends tell me I’m funny – I’m certain they’re just being nice). If anything that follows pisses you off, go write your own blog.

That being said, I think that before an individual of a certain authority (and let’s face it, even radio hosts have some sway) deigns to present something to the general public as a bonafide – or even as a supposed – fact, there ought to be a little thought, a little research, or hell, failing any of that, a little bit of human compassion to deployed to modulate it. Call me a softy, but I don’t think you should just get up there on your soapbox and start barking at passer-by, preaching as if it were the Gospel, oblivious (or uncaring) of who you might injure with your message.

Besides, I think these guys have cornered that market.
Besides, I think these guys have cornered that market.

So, I hop into the car at seven this morning and I don’t quite catch the beginning of what they’re talking about, but I quickly get the gist: the iPhone 6 has just been officially announced and people are all in a tizzy. Hudson and Scotty B are actually discussing people’s tendency to go so over-the-top-apeshit over these new devices that they will willingly drive themselves into debt in order to possess one, and how ridiculous the “buy-more-get-more” mentality has become in our culture. I’m nodding along as I drive, because I agree – I don’t really see the point in having the new “IT” device as soon as it is debuted. Truth be known, I swore off the iPhone for years and years thinking it an over-priced, over-blown piece of fluff technology. Now that I finally have one, I like it quite a lot, though I expect that I’m going to keep it for at least another five years, considering how much I paid for it.

That aside, the more the radio hosts talked, it came around to the subject of welfare or food stamp abuse – they started to discuss those folks who show up to the welfare office in a Mercedes or whom you see in the line at the grocery store using food stamps, dressed to the nines, hair done, nails manicured, with the newest iPhone or Android device, and how it just ain’t right that these people, who are living on tax payer dollars mind you, possess any kind of luxury. They even had a caller, formerly from Virginia, whose wife had worked in a state office passing out the checks – and don’t know it? She saw at least ten or fifteen of these blatant welfare abusers everyday!

And that was when the (internal) fight started.

You see, that whole mentality just pisses me off. Who the fuck are you to judge these people? I said to my radio. You don’t know the first thing about who they are, where they have come from, or what they have lived through.

Tell me how your long-distance observations have justified the extent of your knowledge regarding what turn of event put them in a position to be in the welfare office collecting benefits? You don’t know if they were recently working for a very profitable and successful business that suddenly crashed and had to close its doors, and they lost their six-figure job. Now they, along with their five kids, are living in Grandma’s basement trying to make ends meet on just that one welfare check. Not only might they be adjusting to living on a quarter of the income, but consider this: if you lost your livelihood, how willing are you to immediately abandon your very way of life in that time of insecurity? Few people are going to go ahead and give up on the ways of life and the things that they did before immediately following such a disruption, and crippling, lose-your-home-your-savings-your-will-to-live debt can come upon a person very quickly.

Frankly, if I lost my job tomorrow, I would not sell my nice, reliable car nor my fancy smart phone in order to make ends meet. I would be using that car and that phone every day to try and land another job to support my family. I would also (since I’m a sign language professional) spend the money to get or perform on myself a damn good manicure, thank you very much. It’s called a professional persona, and that is how you differentiate yourself from hundreds of other qualified applicants in an overly saturated job market. I would then do my hair, put on whatever I had in my closet that looked the best, go down to the welfare office, pick up my check, and go back to job hunting, you stuck up, judgmental turd!

The presumption by laypersons that individuals who receive benefits are somehow taking advantage of the system is not only cynical, it is downright diabolical. Rather than making flash judgments and immediately putting each other down, shouldn’t we be empowering one another and lifting each other up? Here’s a thought: instead of, “Oh, I bet she uses her welfare money to buy booze and cigarettes…” change it up to a more compassionate, “Hm, I bet she came on real hard times real fast to end up here. She must be trying hard to get back.” A little bit of compassion will go a long way, and trust me, it will save your soul.

Because, honestly, how dare you? I don’t mean to say that there aren’t people that take advantage of the system – certainly, there are. But you know whose job it is to weed those folks out? The case workers and government employees that accept and approve applications for assistance. Period. End of discussion. It is not up to you or me or Joe Blow in the supermarket to pass judgment on another human being that we have never even spoken a passing word to. If you tend to look at a person who receives benefits and assume that they have an ulterior motive or are misusing tax payer money in someway, that says a great deal more about you than it does about the people in the system.

For me, this issue hits close to home. My family doesn’t receive any kind of assistance – though it would be helpful, I won’t lie. My husband and I work four jobs just to keep up with the cost of living in the state of Hawaii. I wasn’t raised on welfare either, but my four older siblings were (that’s them in the featured photo, I’m the shiny forehead with fringe). Our mother was only able to go back to school and get her nursing license because of the welfare program in the state of California – a program that, at the time, many people wanted to have limited to just one year, when the nursing program took two to complete. I probably would have had a very different life if things had turned out differently, and for that I’m grateful.

Anyway, I think I’ll start listening to a different morning radio station, to be perfectly honest. Hudson and Scotty B are cool, and most of the time, they really made me laugh. In this instance, they said that they weren’t trying to be “preachy”. But if that was the case, guys, (I hate to say it, but): Epic. Fail.

Next time on “Irrational Anger” see “Evening News Irrational Anger” when we talk about the “Homeless Problem” and how increasing numbers of metropolitan areas try to solve the “Homeless Problem” by making the condition of being homeless illegal.

Stuff Sarah Does, Stuff Sarah Says

Life is crazy.

2 Comments

Shit has been so blindingly real recently that I’ve been swept away on a current of this-must-be-done-now, this-needed-to-get-done-yesterday, and oh-shit-the-baby-has-poop-crawling-up-her-back. In addition to bouncing between tasks like a gormless rabbit with ADHD, my car was towed on Saturday morning, ultimately robbing me of the precious time I had set aside to sit down and write for my poor, neglected blog.

Poor, poor blog. I’m sowwy.

This guy was especially disappointed.
This guy was especially disappointed.

So, what have I been doing to keep myself so exorbitantly busy, aside from overtime, being a momma, and the usual run around? I’m SO GLAD YOU ASKED!

Well, I found this cross-stitch pattern online while searching for more Totoro-themed things to add to the munchkin’s nursery:

Yeah, he's cute, but does he look a little... I don't know... stoned, to you?
Yeah, he’s cute, but does he look a little… I don’t know… stoned, to you?

Now, I know how to cross-stitch, and I’m actually pretty good at it, if I do say-so myself. The problem, however, is that for cross-stitch to be a useful craft, if kind of requires that you also be handy with a sewing machine, too, or else you just end up with a lot of framed cross-stitched patterns on your walls and that’s not a decor theme that I’m willing to submit to.

No bueno.
Good for some, but it ain’t my style.

So I looked at the pattern, and the general dimensions and I thought, “Well, I crochet. The pattern is in squares. Granny squares!” I opened up an Excel sheet and came up with this:

D'AWWW
D’AWWW

Next came planning the structure and build of the afghan. This pattern hadn’t been intended for crochet, so I needed to know how many squares in each color, how large the squares would measure, how large the afghan would measure once assembled, etc. etc. I really need to go back and make up with all of my various teachers from primary school through high school because this stuff was MATH.

So. Much. Math.
So. Much. Math.

In the end, I figured out that motif squares, measuring about 2 inches square, will give me a blanket of about 85″x97.5″ for a grand total of 1,155 squares, not including some decorative notions like stars in the night sky and flowers and leaves on the grass by Totoro’s feet. I’m super-stoked about this blanket, but it’s definitely the most ambitious thing I have ever attempted. Prayers and words of encouragement would be welcome.

By the by, if any of you would like to use this pattern, you are most welcome to do so. I’ll include the specifics in another post once it’s all done, but below is the pattern for the motif squares. Contact me if you want the Excel spreadsheet of the Totoro image.

Since I will likely continue to be on hiatus for long stretches of time this month, I invite you to come find me on Instagram, showing you #HawaiiIRL, or on Twitter and tumblr, where I share daily words of (mostly other people’s) wisdom, art, and advice. And fandom. Oooh, do I get into the fandoms…

Just keepin' it real, y'all.
Just keepin’ it real, y’all.

Crochet pattern for itty-bitty granny squares, otherwise known by the less-adorable name “motif” squares.

As far as I’m aware, these can be done with any size hook. I am currently working with a size H hook, which makes a square that is about 2 inches wide and across.

Round one: make a magic ring, chain two, work 11 dc into magic ring.

Round two: 1 dc into 1st stitch, 5 dc in 2nd stitch to make the first corner. Make 1 dc in the next two stitches, followed by 5 dc in the next stitch (2nd corner). Repeat twice more for corners 3 and 4.

Slip stitch into the top of the beginning of the chains to tie off.

Ta-da!
Ta-da!
Stuff Sarah Says

The curious case of the gaggle of geese

1 Comment

Language is a special thing to me. I’m a sign language professional and an interpreter, an avid book worm, and a writer (sort of). I love language, not only it’s nitty-gritty syntactical side, but also it’s ridiculous idiosyncratic irregularities. I love historical linguistics, I love cultural linguistics. I love phonology, morphology, and syntactical studies. And of all the quirks present in any given language, I have a special relationship with terms of venery, also known as collective nouns or nouns of assembly.

Terms of venery are entertaining quirks of language, historical hold-overs from a time when having collective nouns for groups of animals was a useful linguistic tool for hunters. In the 7th grade, my English teacher made a short lesson of collective nouns, asking for students to come up and write as many as possible on the board. There were your typical responses: a school of fish, a herd of cows, a pod of whales. When I gave my contribution — a gaggle of geese — my teacher stopped me. “That’s not a real word,” she said. “Really?” I asked. “I’m pretty sure it is.” But she had never heard of it, so it was wiped off the board. Years later, though, I ran into that same teacher who told me about a friend who had used the phrase “gaggle of geese” — thus, I was vindicated.

Since then, I’ve enjoyed learning more about collective nouns. I mean, who wouldn’t? With their often alliterative quality and poetic cadence, nouns of assembly are vivid literary tools to help the reader envision the collective which is being described. I mean, “an ostentation of peacocks” — can’t you just see that in your mind? It’s perfect!

In celebration of terms of venery, I’ve collected a few of my favorites to share with you. I urge you to take advantage of them at every available opportunity. After all, variety is the spice of life. Why say, “a bunch of spiders” when the phrase “a cluster of spiders” is available to you! (Sadly, despite what the Internet may have told you, “a nightmare of spiders” or “a nightmare of crabs” is not, strictly speaking, an accepted term of venery. Though by all accounts it should be.)

Yes, I think it's fair to say that any number of arthopods in a group is a fucking nightmare.
Yes, I think it’s fair to say that any number of arthopods coming together in a group is a fucking nightmare.

Collective Nouns to use for Winning at Life:

A watch of nightingales

A smack of jellyfish

A herd of sea urchins (This seems somewhat misrepresentative to me, given the relative immobility of sea urchins, but whatever.)

A bloat of hippos

An unkindness of ravens

A stud of mares (Is this something of a contradiction in terms?)

A labor of moles

A float of crocodiles

A hover of trout

A shrewdness of apes

shrewdface
Seriously, just look at this fella. He is absolutely the embodiment of shrewdness.

A destruction of (wild) cats

A skulk of foxes

An intrusion of cockroaches (Yes, I think it’s fair to say that five or more cockroaches are intrusive.)

A boil of hawks

A kindle of kittens (This one is just fun to say. I might go to the Humane Society and adopt a few kittens, just so I can tell someone, “I have a kindle of kittens at home.”)

A murder of crows (A murder. Of hyper-intelligent black terror birds. Coming your way!)

A parliament of owls

A wisdom of wombats (Seems like this one and the one above ought to be switched, yeah? Wombats don’t strike me as being especially “wise”. But I can definitely see wombats in government.)

A business of ferrets (The first time this term was seen, in The Boke of Saint Albans, a treatise on hunting terms and other interests of gentlemen, it was a “busyness” of ferrets, as reference to their frenetic style of hunting prey. Over time, the form was corrupted to a “business” of ferrets.)

A cackle of hyenas

A mob of emus

A cluster of cats

A troubling of goldfish (Troubling, why? I’m not sure.)

A barrel of monkeys (No, really!)

A bank of swans (Swans, actually, have the longest list of collectives associated with them, including “bevy”, “drift”, “eyrar”, “flight”, “game”, “herd”, “sownder”, “team”, “wedge”, “whiting”, and my personal favorite — “lamentation”.

It’s also fun to note that collective nouns were also expanded to humorously encompass groups of humans and professions, such as “a doctrine of doctors”, “a sentence of judges”, and delightfully: “a press gaggle” to refer to an informal meeting of the press with the White House press secretary.

I think "swarm" would also be appropriate.
I think “swarm” would also be appropriate.
Stuff Sarah Says

A perfect storm

2 Comments

Actor Robin Williams took his own life today. By all accounts an extremely funny, extremely intelligent person, he lost a battle with depression. I’m probably more upset by this than I have any right to be — Mr. Williams being an actor and a public figure whom I enjoyed does not mean that he belongs to me in any sense. It doesn’t seem right to eulogize someone I have never, and now will never, meet, despite his featuring prominently in the entertainment landscape of my childhood. Maybe it’s just that his humor resonated with me, because I see similarities to my own sense of humor… and maybe because his actions today resonate with me, also.

Seems to me that it goes something like this: A good sense of humor is an indication of intelligence. Intelligence is a predisposing factor to depression and mental illness. People who are depressed are also more likely to be humorous, probably as a result of their higher intelligence and perhaps as a result of coping mechanisms developed to mitigate their depression.

Smart people are also marginalized in our society. Those who suffer with depression and other mental illnesses are likewise stigmatized. We use humor to deflect and cover up our wounds, and then we suffer quietly. Alone. As we spend more time alone, we are observed to be introverted. People who are introverted, on the whole, seem to be less desirable companions and are therefore sought out less by their peers. In the end, you get a bunch of smart, suffering, funny people with no close friends.

And then we kill ourselves because human beings aren’t meant to be islands (Bon Jovi had that right) but what choice does a person have when their territory is being colonized by naysayers and doubters and people who, in general, just want to make you feel bad for being who you are and enjoying what you like.

Seriously. Fuck those people.

This is what being a Stigma Fighter is about. Standing up to the unenlightened masses who would prefer to see a greatly homogenized culture instead of embracing and celebrating our differences, mental illness included. I wonder if Mr. Williams, had he known about our mission, would have joined us. Something tells me he might have done just that.

Stuff Sarah Says

An embrace

Leave a comment

When I was in high school, I was not massively popular. In fact, being what I affectionately term as “prematurely middle aged”, I was often teased and mocked for my word choice (what writers and other linguaphiles would call “voice”), in addition to my overall manner. With a few notable exceptions, high school was not a happy time.

Reflecting on that now, though, it is difficult to say if the observations of my philistine classmates, cruel as they were meant to be, were entirely inaccurate. After all, I do use “big words” when more average vocabulary would suffice (see the above use of the word “philistine” in place of “childish ass-hats”). I’m not a partier, I’m not especially adventurous, and I’m typically only extroverted when I am in my element. One classmate of mine, whose face and name have faded into obscurity leaving only his words behind, said that my demeanor reminded him of an old lady sitting down for tea. He added to the overall picture of this meaning by pantomiming sipping from a teacup and holding a saucer, both pinkies out, pursing his lips prudishly.

At the time, it bothered me. He had pressed upon a long-standing insecurity of mine: I am not normal. And how I desperately longed to be normal. I wanted so badly to be accepted by my peers and by my family, I often hid or transformed my interests to be more palatable to the people I wished to impress. When it came to my peers, “fitting in” meant abandoning healthy, productive interests in favor of lukewarm baddassery: smoking, skipping school, majoring in Boyfriendology, and finally landing myself on probation. I would drive my life into the ground to prove to these people that I was as young and carefree as they were, if not more so. (Being a latch-key child sure helped, in this instance.)

But I suppose this young man wasn’t all wrong. Now as an adult, I belong to a group of women who gather regularly to sip tea from old china teacups (though few would accuse us of being prudish, as our conversations can quickly devolve from bawdy humor to downright dick jokes). Sometimes we even wear funny Sunday hats while we do it. I have found I’m happiest and most confident when I’m done up to look like I walked out of a 50’s hair salon. I’m embracing and making peace with my inner old lady, complete with a personal collection of antique teacups.

image

Rather than being normal, I’d like only to be embraced for my differences, as I will seek to embrace others. After all, who am I trying to impress anymore? And what, pray tell, is “normal”? As another brilliant and insecure woman once said, normal is a curse word. It is a social construct that we hold over our heads and those of the creative, off-beat souls who frighten us with their bravery to be different. Despite the time and energy I have spent over my lifetime hiding or obscuring it, I am different. And even though I have wasted wishes on aspirations of sameness — same as my family, same as my peers, same as my heroes — I’m coming to be quite pleased with our differences.

Stuff Sarah Does, Stuff Sarah Says

Baby Daddy

Leave a comment

Last night I live-tweeted the 1987 film Three Men and a Baby starring Tom Selleck, Ted Danson, and Steve Guttenburg. Why I decided to spam my delightful Twitter followers and Facebook friends with my irreverent commentary on this TNT Classic Movie favorite is up for debate. Wine may or may not have been involved. I admit nothing.

Honestly, who needs wine to get them to spend 90 minutes with that face? The baby is pretty cute, too.
Honestly, who needs wine to get them to spend 90 minutes with that face? The baby is pretty cute, too.

Something that occurred to me about this movie (other than it was directed by Leonard Nimoy — No way!!) is that it actually represented a fairly progressive view of child rearing for the time. Twice in the film, female characters close to the main men — the girlfriend of one, the mother of another — are called upon to take care of the child, due to the apparent ineptitude of the father and his roommates. Tom Selleck’s character’s sometimes-girlfriend shows up at his apartment, takes a look at the kid, and when he begs for her help, she says, “What, just because I’m a woman, I’m supposed to know what to do with a baby?”

“Well, yeah!” says Tom Selleck’s mustache, grumpily. At which point, she pats him kindly on the arm, reminds him that she is not obligated to help him in anyway, tells him to man-up, and then GTFOs. Good for her.

Later, Ted Danson tries to convince his mother to take the child into her care, preying on her grandmotherly instincts. She acquiesces that she would love to take the baby (Can I also mention here that never is his mother shown to be bent out of shape over her son producing a child out of wedlock, or knowing nothing of that child until she is left on his doorstep. Progressive!) but she’s not going to, because sometimes all it takes to make a good man out of a screw-up is a dose of baby-daddy: “You were a screw-up. Now you’re a father. And you will be a fine father.” I think that’s a message that more new dads need to hear.

Is it just me, or are the themes in this film (excluding the slap-stick “hide the heroin” routine) grossly underrepresented in recent family comedies? I don’t recall seeing any “unlikely father figure toughs it out on his own with a baby and becomes a good father” stories recently. There are always mothers — the baby’s or the father’s own — coming to the rescue. And that’s the best case scenario. Worse case, the father’s potentially harmful blunders are played for laughs until the child’s care is relinquished to someone with greater expertise (I’m looking at you, Daddy Day Care).

Dads just don’t get enough credit. Maybe he was a screw-up, maybe he does make mistakes, but he’s still a good dad. Let’s put his story on screen.

Stuff Sarah Says

Legacy

Leave a comment
I am trapped in a room with the woman who is both my tormentor and my hero. I so admire her, but am also intimidated by her. I want so badly to please her that I have fallen all over myself in successive, bumbling attempts to prove my worthiness, my aptitude. I feel now, from her sideways glances, her tacit nonchalance, that my attempts have failed — failed to such a degree that I have in fact proven myself of increasingly little merit in a cruel reversal of intent. I am trapped in a room with a woman who is aggressively, coldly assessing me, and she is finding me wanting. I cannot leave this room. I am trapped.
The room is my mind. The woman is me.

One time, my mother (over)shared with me about some of her indiscretions and mistakes. She had made some poor decisions and betrayed our family (though she didn’t frame it that way at the time), leaving quite a wake. She told me the truth and I was hurt. Defensively, she asked me if her actions had “hurt me special”. Had she done something to really harm me in particular, when it was her husband she had cuckolded? When it was him she had lied to? Call me crazy, but even then, I thought that was a mighty big question to ask of a 10-year-old.

When the actual betrayal happened, I was far too young to realize what had actually occurred. It was just another knock-down, drag-out fight. It was just another few nights of listening to my mother and father scream at each other. Just another visit to our house from the police.

Growing up in an environment where bi-yearly visits to our home from the cops were considered normal took its own toll, but the legacy of diminished self-worth is much harder to let go of. Now that I, as a grown woman, can see why my mother did the things she did, I can definitively say yes, Mom — every time you illustrated for me that a woman’s worth was intrinsically tied to a man’s desire for her, you hurt me especially, because I lived by your example.

Now, there are a lot of reasons that marriages fail, and I’m no relationship guru. However, I see these underlying machinations at work: a damaged soul, one that never considers itself whole, never considers itself enough on its own, seeks to fill the void with an attachment to another soul. And another. And another. Because that which you are unable to furnish within yourself cannot be found within the heart of another being, but that doesn’t stop you from trying.

Granted, I’ve never committed adultery — I’ve been blessed with a much better marriage than my mother had — but I see how easy it must have been, how soothing, to have slipped from one man’s arms into those of another because the second gave you the time of day. Made you feel pretty. Wanted. I can see how, while drowning in the depths of self-loathing, any positive attention must seem like a life raft. I understand it, without condoning it.

The bigger question now is how to stop the cycle. It’s too late for me, in a sense — the demons are already in my head. Every time I watched my mother grasp her thighs and sigh in disappointment, every time she called herself fat, every time she went on another binge diet — I learned from her example and expanded my mental arsenal. I have waged war on myself for years, tending (self-inflicted) wounds and wearing the battle scars like badges: if I cannot make myself good enough, then I will be my own judge and jailer. I consumed my own flesh in recompense for my multiple failures. My descent aided by the voices of criticism around me: “You need to dress better.” “You really shouldn’t eat that.” “I expected more from you.”

The apathy, the low expectations, the understanding shared by all — including myself — that I was different. Other. These are perfect conditions to create a monster of self-hatred. So how do I stop it from killing me the same way that it killed her? How do I protect my daughter from this legacy?

Stuff Sarah Does, Stuff Sarah Says

D.I.Y. Redhead

Leave a comment

Tips for completing an at-home, do-it-yourself, dye job.

You will need: A box of Blue Light Special, discount hair dye in Red #44, a comb, rubber gloves, and a towel that you don’t mind staining.

Upon successful completion of this project you will:

– look as if you are bleeding from a massive blunt force trauma to the skull and/or lacerations to your upper extremities.

– have imbued your home with the intoxicating aroma of cheap chemicals.

– have an unexpected, wholly new color scheme in your bathroom.

– have an uncontrollable urge to take absurd selfies.

Ready? Let’s begin!

Step One: Make sure your children are either in bed or out of the house. This may cost you either sleep and/or the favor of your spouse.

Step Two: Assemble your tools. Clothing optional (saves on the amount of clean up afterwards and eliminates the possibility of introducing stray globs of hair dye into your next batch of laundry). Put in your contacts — ain’t no way you’re getting this done in glasses.

Step Three: Adjourn to the bathroom. Follow the instructions on the box. Carefully.

Step Four: Realize that you mixed Tube # 1 into Bottle #3 instead of Bottle #2. Quickly transfer the contents of Bottle #3 into Bottle #2. Clean up the ensuing spill and scrape the excess off the counter and into Bottle #2. Realize you forgot to put on rubber gloves.

Step Five: Wash hands vigorously before they are permanently stained orange. Finish mixing the contents of Tube #1 and Bottle #3 into Bottle #2. Apply gloves.

Step Six: Apply mixture to the roots of your hair, evenly distributing the mixture from root to tip. Avoid contact with the skin and eyes.

Step Seven: Fail to avoid contact with your skin and/or eyes.

Step Eight: Immediately develop an itch in the corner of your right eye. Locate the gloved finger that appears to have not yet come in contact with dye and scratch. Realize you were wrong about the dye.

Step Nine: Finish applying the dye to your remaining hair with one eye shut.

Step Ten: Pass a comb through your hair to ensure the dye is evenly distributed. Pile your hair on top of your head and set a timer for 30 minutes.

Begin the frantic race against time to remove errant dye from your ears, neck, forehead, cheeks, arms, wrists, shoulders and various bathroom fixtures.

Step Eleven: Fail.

Remember the dye-encrusted comb that you left beside the sink. Retrieve and give a rinse. Give up, and dispose of comb.

Step Twelve: As you begin to accept the new color scheme of your bathroom, prepare to hop in the shower to rinse out the dye.

Pro-tip:  “shampoo” your hair with the dye as you hold your head beneath the running water, ensuring that the dye is thoroughly incorporated through out your roots as well as beneath your fingernails. Make sure you have color-safe conditioner at the ready.

Step Thirteen: Realize you don’t own any color-safe conditioner. Realize also that the hot water is off. Run downstairs to wash your hair in the kitchen sink until the water runs clear.

Step Fourteen: Develop a terrible crick in your neck from having your head bent over into the sink. Realize the water will never run clear.

Step Fifteen: Towel dry, then blow dry and style as desired. Or, if in the case you are tackling this project at 11pm at night, go to bed with wet hair to avoid waking your slumbering child. Sleep on old towels to avoid staining your bedding.

Step Sixteen: (optional) Take a bunch of selfies.

Go ahead, play around in photoshop. You've earned it!
Go ahead, play around in photoshop. You’ve earned it!