Sadly, All Women...

There has been a lot in the media lately about the #YesAllWomen campaign, where women are coming out about the fact that not all men may take advantage of women, but all women have at some time in their life, been taken advantage of in some way.

I wasn't really paying much attention to it before until a friend of mine posted an article on Facebook about the campaign. The author of the article talked about defense mechanisms that women sometimes use to get out of sticky situations with men. And one of them was hugging. Men take it as affection, and women use it as a way to keep track of where the man’s hands are and to buy time. It’s a way to gain a little bit of control over the situation.

Well, you have no idea how much better this made me feel.

When I was twenty, I had a friend who held Bible studies at his house, filled in for the pastor at church on Sundays sometimes, and would hang out with me at school. I trusted him and esteemed him as a really great guy with noble intentions.

Well, one night he asked me to come to a baseball game. We had always just been friends, so I didn't see it as a date. The Orioles were playing in their home stadium and he had free box seat tickets that his boss had given him. It was wonderful. He was a perfect gentleman all throughout the evening as we mingled with famous retired players, ate shrimp from the catered spread before us, and watched the game from the balcony, or the 8 big screen TVs that were in the box.

Needless to say, I had a blast. Well, we went home and that was when the trouble started. During the drive, it was all I could do to keep his hand out of my skirt. By the end of the drive, I was sitting against the truck door, hoping that I was out of his reach. I wasn't.

When we got back to his place where I had left my car, I opened the door, put my things inside and turned around to say goodnight. He promptly moved me out of the way of the door, closed it, and then leaned against it. That was when I knew I was in trouble. He was forcibly standing between me and my way of escape. And of course, his house would be in the woods in the middle of nowhere, down an empty street where no one would hear me scream.

Well, before I knew it, his 2 hands had turned into what seemed like 8, and I was being “caressed” and frisked like he was searching for weapons. I didn't know what to do. I had never been in such a situation before. I knew that there was no one around to help me, and he was, or at least I had thought he was, my friend. Plus, he was bigger than me, stronger, and already I could feel that he was forcible, from the way he was holding me down when he touched me all over.

I was scared.

So, I then did the only thing that I could think to do. I hugged him. Suddenly his 8 hands turned back into 2 and they were on my back, where I could keep track of them, and for a moment, I had a little bit of control of the situation.

Eventually my car actually saved the day, when he leaned up against the keypad on my door, pressing all the buttons at once, causing my car to make a loud noise that scared him away from the door. I took the opportunity and got inside, and the night was over.

I was violated. I knew that night that I had escaped rape, and I was so thankful. But I was also so scared. He had been someone I had trusted, someone I had gotten to know for a long time, yet there I was, only moments from being fully taken advantage of.

But do you know what the predominant feeling was that I left with? Guilt. Why guilt, you ask? Because I felt bad that I hadn't done more to take control of the situation. And I felt really bad that I had hugged him. I told people about the experience later, and no one really thought much of it, because let’s face it: pretty much every woman has had a similar situation at one point in their life. Because I hadn't been raped, my story wasn't really worth listening to.

I did tell another close guy friend about it, and he was sympathetic, but said, “Beware of expensive dates. Guys will expect stuff after.” And that’s when it hit me. Despite the fact that this guy hadn't paid a dime for that night, he had taken me out to an event that if he had paid, would have been a very pricey affair. At the end of the night, he felt like I owed him something.

Well I didn't. And needless to say, I never saw him again. But the guilt that I hadn't done more to defend myself in that situation has always stuck with me, until today. I’m really glad that this new campaign has come up, because I now know that what I did to defend myself is actually something that a lot of scared women use to placate men until they can safely get away. And at the end of the day, I know that I did the very best that I could. I saved myself, and that’s all that matters.

So, I’m not saying that all men are like this. I know MANY incredible guys who would be disgusted with men like my “friend.” But, nearly every woman has a story like mine. 

Home Is Where the Heart(break) Is

“You said, ‘love wrecks everything

And none of us survive,’

So I got over you last night,

And I am still alive.”

Those are lyrics from a Josh Groban song called, “My Heart Was Home Again.” It’s a song about loneliness, the feeling of watching taxis go by, seeing faces at a distance, empty window panes, and the memories of things that used to be. And then the song ends with the words,

“Then I saw your face across the street,

And my heart was home again.”

It wasn't until my adulthood that I realized that home is more than a building where you sleep at night. Sometimes home can be a person, or a state of mind. My heart came home once, and it’s been looking for a place to call home ever since.

After a while, your heart gets tired of wandering. It wants a safe place to land. Have you ever felt that way?

The older I get, the more I find myself wanting a companion, someone who’s close by, who shares in all my joys and sorrows, and stupid little things—someone who will get excited with me when I get excited over how far I rode my skateboard today, or that I buckled and finally bought that set of Tangled figurines from the Disney store. In recent years, I've found myself wanting someone to depend on. It’s not that I need someone to look out for me. I do a perfectly fine job of that myself. But, I want someone around to just…well…be there for me.

But how do you find that? How do you know who to trust, who will stay, who will be there for long term? And when you do think that you've found the right person, how can you place your trust, your heart, in their hands? My heart wants a safe place to call home, someone to call home. Yet, at the same time, running away and putting up walls seems like a much safer plan.

Who knows, maybe those walls I put up are just my heart’s way of trying to build a home for itself.

The Monster Who Wanted a Fight

The idea of unconditional love freaks me out. I mean, think about it. Someone out there loves you for exactly who you are. You don’t have to do anything to earn that love. There are no tasks to complete, no hoops to jump through. No matter what you do, you cannot change that love.

My inner perfectionist has a problem with this, because I always feel like anything I get, I have to earn. And if something is freely given to me, I feel bad because I know I don't deserve it. And that’s where the problem is.

I have a bad habit of arguing with the people I love the most. Having someone get close is scary enough, because you open yourself up to getting hurt, and anyone who has ever been rejected knows what kind of searing pain that is. But my argument habit goes deeper than that. It goes to this idea of unconditional love.

As a child, I fought a lot with my mother. I think most of times I was testing the boundaries of our relationship. I didn't feel like I deserved her love, so I fought it. There were times where I felt like I had gone too far, only to find out once again that her love for me goes so much deeper than anything I could do to make her angry or upset.

And sometimes I think I have even done that with God. I've rebelled against Him, because I think I was testing His unconditional love—not a test I recommend, by the way. But time and time again, He has proven His faithfulness to me.

When I met my best girlfriend, I remember feeling this same way. Early in our friendship, we were going to take a trip to DC to see the art museums. I decided to stay home to work on the mountains of homework that I had, but I freaked out because I was afraid that letting her down this one time was going to hurt my friendship with her. But do you know what she told me? Even though she and I hadn't been friends for very long yet, she said that nothing could change our friendship or the bond between us. And that was the last time I ever worried about that.

In recent years, it’s been with guys I've started to fall for. Each time a guy gets too close, I freak out. I start picking fights over the stupidest things. Seriously. If I told you what I get mad at, you would not believe it. Even an hour or so after the fight, I look back at what we were fighting over, and I feel bad, because I know I’m in the wrong.

But why do I do that?

I think the answer lies in my self-worth. I don’t hate myself exactly, but when it comes to relationships, there is a sense of self-loathing inside. Let’s face it. I’m a perfectionist, and I don’t measure up to my own standards. I never will, and in a way, I hate that about myself. And because I don’t have that unconditional love for myself, and I only feel good about myself when I’m doing everything right (which is next to never), I don’t feel like anyone else should love me unconditionally either.

So I throw fits; I pick fights. I do anything I can to push people away, because if they don’t get too close, then I won’t have to wonder how anyone could love me in spite of my faults. I can just stay in the shadows and keep my friends at arm’s length, because you know, from there, they can’t tell just how messed up I am. And that’s easier.

But do you know what? I don't want to be like this. Down deep, all I really want is for someone to stay, to not be scared off by my fights—to see beyond that and move past my defenses.

But how do I tame this monster who just wants to fight?

Cuz You Gotta Have the Faith, the Faith, the Faith...

I struggle with faith. I’m not necessarily talking about my faith in God, because I trust that God exists. But my faith in other areas of my life is weak and wavering.

Last year my mantra was “Just have faith.” I wrote it everywhere. There was even a time when I discovered the words “have faith,” written on a tiny slip of paper that had gotten jammed up inside of my phone’s charging socket. There was absolutely no way that I or anyone else that I knew could have put it there. I honestly have no idea where it came from, but it definitely helped to bolster my faith, even in tiny miracles.

And for Christmas, my mother bought me a tiny silver ring that simply has the word “FAITH” written across the band. I wore it so often that the letters wore away and I had to buy a new one. These days, I refuse to stop wearing it, because I need that daily reminder to have faith. I need to look down at my finger each day and see the word and be reminded to just trust God and His plan for my life.

Some days I have so little faith that my life will work out in a good way. I talked last night with one of my best friends, and we talked about relationships, love, and where our lives are headed. We were both alarmed by how cynical life had made us in later years, and scared because we don’t want to go through life alone. I even told her that I no-longer believe in soul mates. I feel like a little girl who grew up to realize that happily ever afters aren't like they’re portrayed in Disney films.

I’m scared, which is a lack of faith. I’m not scared for my well-being. Oddly enough I've never really been scared of that. God takes care of me, physically. I always feel His beautiful presence watching over me. Yet, I’m scared for my heart. And that’s the kicker. I trust God with my bodily safety, yet, I don’t with my heart. What’s up with that?

Recently, I've started to let my guard down a bit, and let’s just say that I fell into a mess of feelings. And do you know what? It scares the hell out of me. I’m terrified of letting anyone get too close, because in my experience, anytime you let anyone inside and learn to love again (in any sort of relationship), you give that person a chance to hurt you. Usually they do so unintentionally, but it still hurts just the same.

A dear friend recently told me that “faith is a muscle. You have to exercise it, use it, in order to strengthen it.” But sometimes I don’t want to strengthen it! It’s so much easier to just curl up into my shell and use my favorite defense mechanism to just deny that I even have feelings of any sort. Believe it or not, but that’s been the main way I've gotten through life thus far. I like denial! Denial is my friend!

But even I know that it doesn't last forever…and sooner or later I’m forced to tell the truth to myself. So this time around, I’m going to try faith. I’m going to keep trying faith. I’m attending the Faith Gym, and I’m working those faith muscles. And I’m going to keep telling myself that it’s going to be alright. And I’m going to keep putting my life in God’s hands.

And maybe someday I won’t need to wear my faith on my hand.