shower

“Life is easy to chronicle, but bewildering to practice.”
― E.M. Forster, A Room With A View

Photo by Simon Kuznetsov on Unsplash

I stood in a room full of light and beauty. The frozen expanse of the lake beyond the picture windows, shades of grey and blue on this wet, dreary day, served as both a spectacular backdrop and a cooling contrast to the overly warm interior. I had done it. Not alone, certainly; but heading up a big event—an important, landmark event in the life of someone I dearly love—is far from being within my comfort zone. Weeks of work, hours of coordinating, a hectic drive through an ice storm (my husband drove while I knitted compulsively to keep myself from white-knuckling the armrest), and a frenzied hour of setup…and here we were. Fifty people gathered to celebrate my sister and her fiancé, everyone seated and quiet while my mother and co-host stepped out of her comfort zone and into the spotlight to address the crowd. I took the opportunity to step back and savor the moment. Even last year I never would have seen myself pulling this off. But it all came together; the decor, the food, the coffee and desserts and all the people who had pitched in to make it happen, like something out of a dream. Absently, I tuned back in to what my mother was saying, caught the look on my sister’s face…and promptly shut down.

Honestly, I can’t remember most of it, that’s how thoroughly my Inner Child was triggered. I remember leaving, drifting into the other room with my brother and studying the vials of sand on a shelf. One of them was from a beach in Scotland, I noted with interest. Bible verse after bible verse floated through from the other room while I tried not to hear. It didn’t even occur to me to try to stop what was happening, although I certainly wished I had later. Eventually it was over. Eventually the lasagna I had warming in the oven was done. We ate, I talked to old friends. We had dessert and more coffee and I talked to other old friends. Then it was over, time to clean up and get out, another scramble. I kept moving, numb to my internal shutdown, unaware of what I was refusing to feel or process. It wasn’t until we made it back home that my sister and brother both texted me, both triggered, and I started to let myself feel it. After an hour of texting back and forth, sharing our rage and hurt, I put down my phone and sat in the dark in my bedroom and tried to explain it all to my husband. I remember this moment after I stopped talking, just staring into the darkness, blank, while my husband rubbed my back, unsure how to comfort me when I couldn’t even respond. When my Inner Child gets triggered she doesn’t just freeze, she goes nearly catatonic. It occurred to me that I should move, say something, the idea rising into my consciousness like a bubble through tar. I turned my head just as slowly.

It was just the usual, “be a good little helpmeet and have lots of babies and God will bless your marriage” bullshit. It was nothing I hadn’t heard before, albeit a more concentrated dose than I was used to being handed by my mom. Privately, it was a relief not to be the the target of it this time, to be able to walk away…which, afterwards, made me feel like a coward for abandoning my sister. All these years, and that’s still the line. Women exist to serve men and have babies: that is the sum total of our worth in life. Suddenly, all that work—the food and decorations and coordinating desserts and setup help and endless fielding of RSVPs—felt like gilding on a cage. Why is a woman only deemed worthy of such a bounteous celebration once she has “achieved” marriage? Wouldn’t it make more sense in this day and age to throw such a party when a child moves out of the house, regardless of their gender or relationship status, so as to ensure that they have the necessary accouterments to set up their own home? Life advice could be passed on instead of marriage advice, recipes could be shared along with basic pantry items. No matter how much we pretend otherwise, relationships are not guaranteed to survive intact. But once you’re an adult, you’re stuck functioning in the adult world for the rest of your life. I would call this an “adult launching” celebration, sending a new adult out into the world, on their own for the first time. Wouldn’t it be amazing to be “launched” in this way, surrounded by the gifts and well-wishes of family and friends, secure in the knowledge that they are your safety net if this launching doesn’t take you quite as far as you had hoped? I loved every minute of the preparation for my sister’s wedding shower, but after our mother’s “sermon” all I wanted was to wrap my arms around her (and my past self) and tell her she was worth celebrating all by herself, not because she was getting married, but just because she EXISTED. Period.