Old Shoes for New Feet

Let me get one thing clear: The problem starts long before a young girl’s decision to drink. It starts before a young boy’s decision to drink. It starts before they get to a party. It starts before they graduate middle school.

It starts with what they aren’t taught in school, which is that sex is a beautiful and powerful tool that we need to know how and when to use, and what exactly it means. Sex is control over your own body. It isn’t the end all; it isn’t your worth. It doesn’t have to mean anything more than an act of self-possession.

That being said, it doesn’t mean maturity. It doesn’t mean worldliness. It doesn’t mean promiscuity. It doesn’t mean power over others. It doesn’t mean shame. These are all connotations we impose on a physical act. When we are taught as children that virginity is sacred, the first mistake is made.

Self-worth is sacred.

Self-possession is sacred. 

We should treat ourselves exactly as we feel worthy. If that means, to you, that you want to have sex with the first person you fall in love with, do it because you are worth it. If that means, to you, that you want to wait until you’re married, do it because you are worth it. If that means, to you, that you just want to experience physical pleasure with another person, do it because you are worth it.

When we are told just to say “no,” that is just as offensive as being told to say “yes.” It is dangerous and it is misguiding, because if all we are told to say is “no,” we are not deciding for ourselves why we are saying it. There is no reason behind it, and “no” becomes a flimsy word, meaning a multitude of other things. And as soon as that definition gets hazy, everything falls to pieces.

The Maryville case has sparked all sorts of debate about women’s drinking behaviors, men’s drinking behaviors, victim-blaming, court corruption, and female disempowerment. But we are turning away from a bigger conversation about what it all means.

If we tell our children that sex is their worth, we are dooming them. Some institutions will tell them they are worthless if they have sex, while others will tell them they are worthless if they don’t. The media will tell them to be sexy, while simultaneously telling them to stay pure.

No one is telling them the truth: It means exactly what you ascribe to it.

Think about it critically and seriously, and define it for yourself. Talk about it without judgment. It’s difficult; I get embarrassed. I was hesitant to talk about it when I was twelve years old, and even now, I’m hardly any better. But if we don’t talk about it, we’ll never realize the power we give to it and the consequences it can hold. This how you respect others. This is how you respect yourself.

Related articles: http://www.kansascity.com/2013/10/12/4549775/nightmare-in-maryville-teens-sexual.html http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2013/10/sexual_assault_and_drinking_teach_women_the_connection.html

When I don’t do things well enough, I usually stop doing them.

That’s why I was so surprised when Big Sis told me that if there were one person he’d be excited to see in the future, it’d be me. Because he thinks I’ll do things. But my track record isn’t very good.

I don’t excel. I’m not asking to be the best. I know I won’t be. Who ever is? There are only arbitrary standards, so anyone can be called better than you. But you can excel; you can be better than most.

Most of what I do now is make lists, compartmentalize. I visit social media again and again, tracking changes without really marking any trends. Trendless data. Useless.

And someday, I know, I’ll have to get off my ass and do something. Because it always gets to that point: You fight and fight to get the “right” to do nothing, and then you wake up one morning and you realize, you don’t want to spend another day in sweatpants, scrolling through Facebook again. You don’t want to make cat memes time and time again. You want to do something. And that’s when it’ll hit you.

Education is not something you pay for. You pay for the opportunity to educate yourself among others. You pay for the opportunity to reach out to the best educators. But you educate yourself, ultimately. No one can do it for you.

And when you realize you’re not good at it, you have to ask others. You can’t just stop doing it because you’re not good enough.

You have to try. And you have to fail. And you have to let someone tell you that you’ve tried and failed so that you can try again another way.

But you have to do it.

I begin to wonder about the significance of having dropped my copy of Mrs. Dalloway in the snow as I read it -- leaving it there until my aunt, disapproving, found it and brought it inside.

I wonder, too, about having a blonde-haired, blue-eyed doll named Clarissa, and my simultaneous dislike for her and playing, dressing, caressing of her.

A brief reassessment of my life:

  As my heels pound the pavement, I feel

this is damaging

  because they’re the wrong heels

they are inappropriate

they shouldn’t be here

and nor should I.

But what makes me feel that I shouldn’t be there,

in that foggy city

the glinting lights on a chandelier

of people huddled on the sidewalk

asking for two paper dollars

in exchange for eight quarters?

What I’m doing is damaging

    as I tiptoe around sewage grates.

these heels should feel like skin on concrete

these hands should be blistering to help

and here I am prancing around the City

trying to find a cup of coffee

while my pride drips through the grates

and this city is better than me

or at least painfully indifferent

self–in·dul·gence

There seems to be something fundamentally wrong with making a color-coded spreadsheet no one will admire.

There seems to be something fundamentally wrong with how irrationally and suddenly my anger spikes when I hear the phrase “grudge, much?”

There seems to be something fundamentally upsetting about the mosquito repellant that takes me back to Spanish camp in the woods, which seemed at the time less lame than it does in retelling. Takes me back to the flickering lights on the bus ride and our giggles about the two fumbling teenagers in front of us, whose messy hair and sheepish grins surfacing when the lights came on again only made us laugh harder through the Goldfish crackers which were so prized, that weekend we had “in town,” gorging ourselves on illicit American snacks—

Which brings me back to thinking how much I should have treasured that time in the woods, bereft of cell phones, brushing our teeth on the wooden porch and spitting into the green fronds below. Instead, I’m standing in the pool table green sea of a dorm room, worrying whether mosquito repellant can ensure that I don’t get fleas from that cat that I was compelled to snatch up in my arms; worrying whether I should make another list for a new compilation of worries—rearranging my concerns to be more than the sum of their parts.

What am I doing?

I wonder. But before I know it, I’m off to the next color-coded spreadsheet, only interrupting its bacterial proliferation to flicker my eyelids at the sound of “grudge, much?” and hunch over my slow-advancing screen—using cheap literary tricks like I did just now, to tie things off.

To make things come full circle, as they say. To turn a phrase. To drop in the bucket.

Drip. Drip.