Kathleen McCall:
Occasional�� Muse�

2001-07-31 - 2:03 p.m.

Insides and Outsides

Three little unrelated bits came together for me this week in an interesting way.

In conversation, a friend commented that she had not been allowed to be shy as a child; that shy behavior had been chastised, recognized as a form of self-centeredness, and as a consequence she grew up with very little shyness - a blessing.

Another very close friend reminded me, in a separate conversation, that when she first met me I scared the heck out of her; that I had put out "scary" vibes. Me, she's talking about here. Me, the woman with the huge flappy shoes and the big red nose. There is NO ONE less intimidating than me. But she's not the first person to have told me that.

The third bit was a movie I saw, "Secrets and Lies", and a comment I made to a friend afterward: that one of the main characters, although beautifully dignified and very reserved, had all her emotions shining on her face where you could see them. And that I loved that about her.

So - insides and outsides. I have allowed my children to behave shyly when they felt it, in the hope that as they grow up, their insides will match their outsides. That they won't project scary when what's inside is really "hopeful, but shy." That they will learn THAT, instead of all the other available lessons about hiding your feelings, controlling your public face, stuffing stuffing stuffing.

I don't think a public face is a bad thing to have; I suppose we all need one. But I think I heard too much of it when I was growing. "Don't ever let them see that they hurt you," my mother told me. Implied was, "If they know they can hurt you, they will do it over and over again." "There's nothing to be afraid of, " my father said. I WAS afraid, though. But I learned it was more admirable to pretend I wasn't. "Don't get gay," was one of my mother's sayings. Don't be too happy, don't be out of control. Don't show your joy - because it may be taken away from you, if anyone sees it. Her pain - where did it all come from?

So we don't get gay. And we don't look frightened, and we don't look hurt. How do we look? Scary, I think. Impassive. Inscrutable. Impenetrable. And after we've slapped enough cement on that over the years - do we remember what these things even feel like? Or have we stuffed them down so far under the filter that we no longer know what we feel? Has the filter, so long a safe conduit between our insides and our outsides, clogged completely and become a wall?

The man I chose to marry was good at helping me figure out what I should feel. In fact, he flat-out told me, on most issues. So I felt the way he told me to. I wanted to, I needed to, so I did. I thought. In the end, I had no idea what it was to feel at all. "What does she WANT?" my husband snapped at the marriage therapist - who replied calmly, "It would not surprise me that if by now she has no idea."

This man, now my ex, still tells my children, "You're not cold," when they say they are, or "You're not hungry." Perhaps I try too hard to counterbalance for them. Sometimes they feel shy. Sometimes they're cold, or scared, or angry. Sometimes they're even gay. I want to see it shine in their eyes. I never want my children to believe that what they feel is wrong or dangerous. Because to me, that is what is scary.

I don't like all my feelings. Some of them are no fun at all. But I don't want to hide them all behind a stone facade. I don't want to lie anymore and say I'm not when I am. I want to trust that my fears will be treated with understanding, my hurts with compassion, and my joys met and shared. I want my children to trust this too, from the very beginning. I don't want them to have to find their faith again as adults.

Hug a scary person today.

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