Hold on, folks, we’re going on a ride.
When a friend had gastric bypass surgery, long time ago, they lost a lot of weight in a short time. It was dramatic. Quite a few of their family, friends, and acquaintances commented on the change. Encouraging, supportive, exclamations of surprise and delight.
One day they approached me, serious, upset. Why didn’t I ever say anything about the weight loss? My silence hurt - they couldn’t understand how I, a bestie, didn’t remark on this drastic change. Hadn’t I noticed? Didn’t I care? They were deeply hurt.
I hadn’t meant to be hurtful. Hadn’t realized. So I told them the truth: I don’t see your weight, your clothing, your makeup or hair. I see you, my beautiful friend. No matter what you look like, you are my beautiful friend, and that’s the you I will always see.
That’s the you I love, just as you are.
Funny thing, that inability to see the surface. It’s a survival mechanism from childhood, when I had to learn to see beyond the public face to what lay beneath. Who could be trusted? Who would use me against myself? Who would be kind? Who was cruel? Who hid inner rot with a beautiful face? Who hid the poverty of their soul wbehind a veneer of wealth and social standing?
Another funny thing: For quite a long time I didn’t like Mr. Rogers. Not one bit. Didn’t trust him. He gave me the creeps.
I was an adult, in my twenties, when I figured out why. See, I know I adored his show when I was wee little. So what happened?
He was kind.
And I had learned to distrust kindness.
Because I was surrounded by people who acted kind only to become cruel - always for my own good, of course.
He was a good person.
And I had learned to distrust goodness.
Because I was surrounded by people who acted good when they were seen but horrid when they thought no one who mattered was watching.
He was sincere.
And I had learned to distrust sincerity.
Because I was surrounded by people for whom sincerity was performative.
He was honest.
And I had learned to distrust honesty.
Because I was surrounded by people for whom honesty was either a bludgeon or an outright lie.
He said he like me just as I was.
And I waited for the “…but…”
Because I was surrounded by people from whom I had come to expect qualifiers.
How could he love me just as I was when the people who should have loved me unconditionally? Didn’t.
I was loved, but why couldn’t I be better? More. Less. Not myself. Why couldn’t I be more like my cousin, the child of this friend or that, the neighbor’s child? Why couldn’t I be thinner, more fashionable, smarter, quieter, more graceful, prettier?
When I was six (I’ve related this before and will again because it is so very telling) I was snuggled up against my grandmother as we watched the evening news. She was petting my head and said “I love you, Kiki lime (her little name for me).” I turned to look at her and asked “What do you want?”
Six years old, and I knew that love had a price. Those words from that woman always meant something else. Usually they ere followed by the enumeration of my many faults and a plaintive “You could be so pretty (or other adjective) if only you would…”
As I grew older, she stopped prefacing her barbs with kindness, and usually made sure there were no witnesses to the cruelty she couched in “…for your own good…”, or if there were witnesses, they were people to afraid of the power she wielded over them, or they agreed with her casual, petty meanness.
She was a direct influence in my life until my middling teens, and indirectly for long after. I still hear her, dead these many years, inside my head.
Hers is the voice telling me to be quiet, no one cares, I’m fat, ugly, stupid, no one wants me, they’re just being nice or polite, I can’t do anything right, I am useless and worthless and…
She never said those things so plainly, but she said them. In so many ways, she said them.
I was nothing but a disappointment to her and she made sure I knew it.
And there was Mr. Rogers, being himself, and I had learned not to trust, not to believe, what people showed me. I had become so adept at hiding myself, at being malleable, at pretending to be whatever the powerful people in my life wanted me to be. I couldn’t even be sure of who I was. The more himself he was, the more I looked for what he was hiding.
Meanwhile, I was quietly rebelling. I was learning that power is an illusion and I didn’t have to buy into it. I was learning how to hear that internal voice without listening to it. I was learning to be comfortable in my own skin. I was learning to find beauty in everything, and to rejoice in it. I was learning that I was strong in so many ways because of all that other shit, that I am sturdy, that my basket of rocks is full and often heavy but I will make it up the mountain, and what’s more? I’ll carry everyone else with me if needs must.
I learned to be ornery. I learned to stand strong and to push back.
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