Getting chosen.

Via FOODISM

Well-oiled legs and a dress worn just-so when I came out from my bedroom would get praise, of a sort. “Oh, you tryna get chose” Dad would say, and I smiled like I was meant to, and denied seeking attention like I was meant to, and went on feeling approved. Good enough to be chosen.

The value is in the chooser, of course. Whoever or wherever he might be. A lot was unclear but the chooser was a he, for sure. And I took this in. That value was added by association, if I presented just right, if I added on to who I was in the right way, on the outside. (No one said I was trying to get chose if I was writing or studying or playing outside with wild hair). And I had a tendency to seek attention from boys who had something I wanted or were what I wanted to be. Popular and light-skinned, or settled in themselves and full of what looked like integrity, or artistic and adventurous. And then there were those boys who were worth chasing just because they were. And by being anybody at all, they could validate me. Seal of approval secured, I could go out and face the world as Someone. Someone I couldn’t be a moment prior.

 

I am getting to the emptiness, the places inside me that say, for various reasons, I am not part of the human family. The various coping methods I've devised for covering over that feeling are coming up and being exposed for what they are, so that I can address the core beliefs.

Bit by bit, in glimpses, I come to feel and see that even my "weakest," saddest self is worthwhile and included in the human family. I feel a lot of shame around the low, sad parts, as if I should know better. The shame doesn’t help anything so I’m learning to let that go. I am practicing laughing at the things I've felt ashamed about, in rooms with other people who laugh in recognition at our shared misunderstanding of who we are and could be.