Lord, beer me strength.
I'm taking a church class about acting because I REALLY wanted to be in a church class, and I REALLY like acting, and I REALLY didn't want an intense class that, well, involved more studying. It backfired on me this past week when we were assigned... homework?! We had to write a monologue about something personal/spiritual in our lives and stand in front of the class and say it. Needless to say, the week before the class was busy and stressful, so I didn't get to write my monologue until the day of. Which was yesterday. It was deeply personal to me and saying it out loud was actually a little difficult. But last night I stared at my monologue and thought about how much more there was to the story, and how I would have changed it to show more of this... and that... and before I knew it, I was on the computer, typing furiously.
And even though it turned up much different, much longer, and honestly much more personal than I expected... I think I needed to write it. Badly. I've heard it said that sometimes the only way to see God in the midst of a difficult time in life is through the perspective of years and experiences, and I find now that it is true. It's so true.
Forgive me for the long monologue below. I like to think that all of my writings are long so that I know who my real friends are by who read it to the end. ;) I hope you enjoy it, and even if you don't, writing everything down has been part of a healing experience.
You wouldn’t expect a Catholic school to be a place where
one would gain an impression on what beauty was, but I did. I went to a
Catholic school from the ages of six to almost thirteen. When I was about eight
or nine, I began to notice things. Girls I’d known for years suddenly began
showing up to school with new hairstyles they had worked on that morning. They
began showing more interest in boys than in me. On free dress days (since we
wore uniforms), they wore really cute clothes and short shorts that contrasted
with the dresses I wore that my mom had picked out that morning. They rolled up
the band of the skirts we wore as uniforms to show off their legs. I could
never figure out why they would do something so dysfunctional to impress boys.
I purposely kept my skirt long because I didn’t like my legs being cold and I
was so small that everything was big on me anyways.
And the girls began to be nastier. Not on the outside, which
they were shining up, but on the inside. I couldn’t understand why—most of them
had been so sweet before. They began spreading rumors about others and even a
few about me. They had nothing but hurtful, rude things to say when they
thought I was acting immature—which is painful to reflect on, over a decade
later. I mean, we were nine. And I was acting nine. I was being a kid, and
being myself, because being anything else didn’t make sense to me. Yet these
other nine-year-olds were straining so hard to grow up and not be children
anymore that they disdained that I had no interest in doing the same.
Nine-year-old adults were telling me I needed to grow up. My best friend in
school, the light of my life at the time, loyally defended me whenever
complaints about me came her way. “Ashley isn’t immature. She’s carefree,” she
told them on more than one occasion. Even though now this girl and I only
remain friends via the internet, I can’t describe how thankful I was and still
am for the fact that she stuck with me then. She didn’t ask questions or become
double-minded about it. She just stood there with me. Because of her, “growing
up” during the peak of childhood still wasn’t something I felt the need to do,
despite the animosity. I had one person who saw me be myself and who was okay
with it, liked it, and fought for it. As long as I had that, I had no doubts
that being myself was the right thing to do.
But one by one, all of my close friends, including my best
friend, left the school. One summer half of them left, the next summer, the rest
were gone. I was left alone with literally no friends in school, at the stage
when peer relationships play the most important role in a child’s development. The
classmates I had played with and been friends with years before now avoided me,
and I would even overhear comments about how weird I was and how they hated
sitting next to me. Everything I did was scrutinized and made fun of. Trying to
talk to others resulted in feeling awkward and shameful, so I began avoiding
conversations by burying myself in a book. And then my classmates would ask why
I wasn’t interacting with anyone and confirmed I was weird for doing so. One
classmate would occasionally make an attempt to reach out and be friendly, but
everyone was so busy trying to grow up that every attempt was short-lived. There
was minimal contact and kindness from anyone, even though completely surrounded
by people for the majority of my days for a year, maybe even as long as a year
and a half. I changed recognizably during that time. I began to not enjoy life
as much anymore and eventually refused to do just that. What was there to
enjoy? I didn’t smile as much because I had crooked teeth and I didn’t have the
braces and increasingly better smiles that everyone else was getting. There was
nothing to smile about, anyways. I didn’t laugh as much either, because
everyone had complained that I laughed too much and too loud. Plus, there was
no one there to laugh with anymore.
I became dulled and
silent and sullen and resentful. I was barely in my double-digits and still one
of the smallest kids in class, and while classmates rejected me for not growing
the way they were, I still ended up indeed growing up too fast because of the
very adult experience of the pain of forced isolation. Though I hadn’t originally
chosen isolation, eventually I accepted it as a way of life and pursued it. I saw
no other means of survival, and I possessed all the gravity of a crackling,
bitter person who has seen too much and wants to see nothing more of the world.
Those who did continue to reach out to me, I snapped at because I saw no reason
to trust them. Even after I moved to a different school and eventually a
different state, I knew how to make friends but not really make myself known. Sure, I would spend time with the
same people and I would smile and laugh, but I never really smiled, never really laughed. I had no joy in my life, and
that quality of being carefree was long dead. I never gave in to the desire to have the
freedom to actually share my heart with others and be myself again.
See, those other girls with their rolled-up skirts had
impacted me deeply. I had originally sworn that I would never roll up my skirt
to attract the boys, and that childish vow based on the lies of others snowballed
dramatically. It’s strange how a simple little thing can escalate into a tangle
of lies about the very depth of our being. It went from “I won’t roll up my
skirt” to “I just won’t dress to attract boys” to “I won’t look pretty because
it means bad things will happen” to “I can’t be pretty” to “Who I am is just not beautiful”. I’d been taught
that beauty was something that came from spending a lot of time on yourself and
looking really, really nice. After my vow to not roll up my skirt, I also began
to believe that since I didn’t like spending a lot of time on myself, I should
just give up on ever being beautiful. And the more I believed I was not beautiful,
the more depressed I became. Because I hated that idea of beauty. I hated
people who always looked nice and who actually seemed relaxed and confident
with who they were. And yet… I somehow wanted to be beautiful too. I wanted to
look nice sometimes, but didn’t know how. I was so afraid that if I tried,
people would look at me strangely and make snide comments. I believed other people
expected me to not be beautiful. I was so jealous of those who seemed to
possess the freedom to look pretty and be themselves. I wanted that which I
hated, and I felt I never could have it, which made me hate it more.
Living like this was eating me up alive, and it took a lot
of fighting and moving to a new state before I could feel a change in my life.
It seems to me that the healing process became startlingly evident when I was
fifteen. I had just completed my freshman year of high school and was regularly
attending the church and a youth group that I am still a part of today. I was
liked by a number of people. Not just by youth my age, but by kids who liked
when I played with them. And adults. Adults seemed to like me a lot. And though
I wasn’t sure why anyone would like me, it undeniably was a good feeling to be
accepted. That didn’t diminish the fact that I was still a piece of work,
though.
The summer after my freshman year, I went to my first youth
conference with the youth group. I don’t remember much of it, but I do remember
the female youth leaders writing notes to all the girls. We got one for each
morning we were there. I still keep mine in my dresser drawer next to my bed. The
last day we got a note, I opened it up to find a sweet little message, followed
by “I love you! You’re beautiful!”
I stared at that last sentence for a long time. I looked
over at the girl next to me who was reading her note. Casually, I leaned to the
side a little to sneak a peek.
Her note didn’t say the same thing as mine.
Shut up. I had been told “I love you” in my other notes and
by family and the people at church who seemed to like me. I was getting to a
point where I was actually beginning to believe it a little bit. But for
someone to specifically point me out and say “you’re beautiful”? Who, me? ME? I
thought about that note all day long during the conference. I wrestled in my
mind with it. Being loved and being beautiful were different in my mind. I
could believe I was loved, somehow. To be loved was to be accepted the way I
was. I had yet to realize that the thing about love is that it inspires people
to show you why you are so loved, why they accept you, and why they find beauty
in you. Being beautiful had nothing to do with being loved, I thought. But
being beautiful meant that being myself wasn’t alright and that I had to work
hard at it. So to be told I was beautiful when I wasn’t even trying… that I
could be accepted for myself AND beautiful at the same time was staggering. I
literally had never considered the notion before. Everything I had believed about myself for years was challenged
that day.
By that evening, I was ready. I didn’t know what for, but I
was ready. We had an evening session of worship, a teaching, and a really long
ministry time. There was an alter call (there was no alter, but you get what I
mean). I don’t remember what it was for, but I was so hungry for something—ANYTHING—that
I stood and walked to the front of the room. The conference was in a college
auditorium, and I pulled myself onto the stage and waited. I looked out across
the darkened room where prayers were being spoken, kids were weeping, followers
of Christ were worshipping. I swung my legs like a little girl and watched.
Soon one of my youth leaders, a young man, approached me. He
looked at me and I looked at him. He visibly teared up and the first thing out
of his mouth was “You’re going to make me cry!” Alarmed, I reassured him that I
certainly wasn’t trying to do so. I don’t think I even told him anything that
was going on with me. I just sat as he wiped his eyes and prepared to pray.
To my recollection, it was the first time anyone had spoken
tongues over me. And it was the first time anyone had gotten a vision from God
for me. It was the craziest gift God had even given me that I KNEW was from
God. The young man paused for a long time before he said he could see a yellow
flower alone in a big field. It was the center of attention, it was worth
making a hard journey to go and see, it was admired, it was adored, it was
cherished, it was loved, it was beautiful.
It was me.
And then I teared
up because for the first time I understood in my soul that that was the way God
saw me. That was the way He made me. I sat there with the same unloveliness that
the world had turned away from, and wept as God told me that I was beautiful. He
didn’t bother yet explaining why. That came later. All I needed right there was
to know I was beautiful and acceptable right at that moment.
I carried myself much differently after that night. I still
made no efforts to look pretty, but I carried in my heart the knowledge that I
was absolutely beautiful on the inside. It took a few years before I realized
that beauty on the outside wasn’t this horrible thing, either. In fact, at the
same youth conference two years later when I was seventeen, my friends from
youth sat me down in the hotel we were staying at and forced makeup on me. They said I was gorgeous and it was a shame
that I always hid how pretty I was. They didn’t put much makeup on me because I
fought too hard, but I was still self-conscious of the stares I got when I
walked out of that room. It took me a while before I realized they weren’t rude
stares. In fact, a few people told me I looked really pretty. I couldn’t help
but preen a little bit. It’s funny how something little like that could be so
healing.
It’s almost four years after that now, and God has been so
faithful to continue walking this journey with me. I would almost have a hard
time believing He would want to be with me, except I’m so comfortable with
myself now that I can’t help BUT believe it. Of course He wants to be with me.
I’m freakin’ awesome. Not on my own power, though. There’s nothing I can do to
be beautiful and lovable. But God made me that way, and since He keeps
insisting on loving what He made… I may as well let Him do it.
I’ve changed recognizably. People who knew me back then can
attest to the differences between then and now. They can tell you that I smile
a lot more now and that I laugh often. I hope they can tell you I’m carefree.
Maybe people would even say I’m immature. That doesn’t bother me anymore. I don’t
care as much what people think of me anymore because a lot of times their
perspectives are skewed from hurts in their own lives. I mean, I care what
others think because I value their opinions… but I don’t CARE when it crosses
the lines of not being accepting. I think people try to grow up too fast and
that they lose their joy of life along the way. Growing up doesn’t mean life
isn’t to be enjoyed anymore. A lot of people seem to think that.
I’ve grown up a lot. But will I grow up in a way that can’t
accept and love and enjoy life?
Never.
