We are not our labels.

So, I am white. I am middle class. I am a mother. There are a lot of words that can be used to describe things that I am—labels.

Language is important. It’s how we interact at a level more sophisticated than body movements, or primal grunts. It’s one of the things that separate us from other species. It helps us build deep relationships and connections with those we care about, but language can also divide us from each other.

I love language. I love words. I like the way they can be strung together in ways that new people, places, and stories can be told. I like when they turn into songs, poetry, and funny jokes. I like their strength, their occasional subtlety, and I like their vulnerability.

Words can be victimized by their users. They can be turned into things they were never intended to be. As Michael Hutchence of INXS wrote: “Words are weapons, sharper than knives. Makes you wonder how the other half dies.”

I think people who have found themselves deeply hurting at one time or another have a relationship with language and words that is different from the relationship most people have. We often feel we have to craft our thoughts so carefully when we share them, that they cannot do us more harm, and they cannot be dismantled.

I had an amazing thought yesterday when I was driving. I don’t have a lot of self-confidence. I often doubt my abilities, and my capacity. The thought I had was magical. It was like my inner voice wanted to share a secret with me.

“You are who you are, and you are so good within that space that you never need to worry about being better or more for someone else. There is nothing incomplete, wrong, or inadequate.”

I don’t know where it came from, but it felt amazing. The words had nothing to do with any labels I normally wear. It doesn’t mean that I woke up today feeling like a brand new person. I didn’t. But I still have that to carry.

Most of today, I continued to be white, middle class, and a mother. I fit under those labels and categories—among others.

Not everyone is so lucky to have the kind of labels that fit me. And that is where language and labels come in. The labels that most people use to define me are like soft, warm blankets. Most of the time, I am treated with respect, dignity, and kindness. Only my four-year-old doesn’t seem to understand my labels.

There are other words—other labels—that aren’t as lucky. Black. Mexican. Trans. Immigrant. Illegal. Muslim.

Nobody questions my humanity. My labels don’t erase my species, my DNA, my physical makeup. They don’t turn me into something else.

Today, I saw a post on social media about a woman who had a cake made to honor the deaths of 77 transgendered women of color who were killed because of hate. One of the first comments was by a man declaring that “blacks” kill other blacks, and anything else that moves. For the last couple of years, our country has been divided over what should happen to people who come here illegally, or as refugees. “Illegals” need to do things the legal way. “Illegals” need to stay in their own countries and work to make them better instead of coming here. “Refugees” need to stay behind and fight for themselves. “Refugees” aren’t our problem.

From the side of a building in Dublin.

We use other language and labels, too. We need to help our “own people” first. We need to take care of our “vets.” People on welfare are “lazy.” They should get jobs, and work like the rest of us. She was dressed like “a slut,” no wonder she got raped. We conquered the “savages,” and built a great nation. The “blacks” are better off here than if we’d left them in Africa—never mind that not all blacks actually came here from Africa. That’s another way we dehumanize people—by refusing to learn or know anything about them.

Words are weapons. We use language and words to dehumanize people, and that dehumanization makes anything we do to them all right. We use language to justify our personal greed, and to find someone to blame for our feelings of disenfranchisement. We use language and labels to take what we want from people who have less than we will ever have, and from people who have already been robbed.

Right now, there are around 2,000 children in cages, because their “illegal” parents came here in search of safety, security, and to escape violence and oppression. There are a fair number of people who think this is okay, because “illegals” need to do the right thing. They need to come here legally like the rest of us.

We have a history of taking words, language, and labels and twisting them to our own advantage. Maybe that’s human nature. I don’t know. But I do know this. I take the label of “mother” very seriously. I take the label of “child” seriously. There is no such thing as an “illegal mother,” or an “illegal child.” There is no such thing as an “illegal” human.

This is our work—our blackness, greed, sadistic, and inhumane nature. If we can look this thing in the eyes, and give it a label that makes it all right, we earn whatever hellish words others will use to describe us.

Words and language are my drug of choice. They’re what I use to sift through all the scattered clutter, and disarray that lives within me. They’re what I use to figure myself out, and where I fit in the wider world. I don’t care about my labels—what words people use to describe me. I know who I am, and even with all of my flaws, foibles, and failings, I can look at myself and know that I am no more human than anyone living across an imaginary line, or possessing a different level of melanin. I am no more human than someone who wears a hijab, or who wears a cross around their neck.

I am no more human than anyone else. And being able to recognize that feels like truth, faith, love, and all of the things that are hard to claim. Any one of the kids in those chain link fences could be my child. Any one of the young black trans women who have been murdered before the age of 35 could be a friend of mine. Any one of the mothers holding their children in fear of what they left behind, and in fear of what lies ahead could be me.

Knowing all of that is what earns us one label—one honor—humanity. That’s the only label we should be striving for.

Sometimes, you really can’t make it on your own.

So, twice in the last week, the worst possible result of mental illness has taken the lives of people who seemed to have it all.

Most of us would have identified Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain as people who had built lives that were grand, strong, and in many respects, untouchable. We didn’t know them, but their presence in our lives for their respective reasons gave us license to feel connected to them—even if only loosely.

I never owned a Kate Spade bag or accessory. I have liked some of them, and even coveted them a little, but even when I made my own money, I never would have indulged myself at that level.

I only occasionally watched Anthony Bourdain’s different series over the years, but his rock ‘n’ roll approach to travel, exploring unique cuisines, and other cultures always left me a little in awe.

I knew absolutely nothing about Kate Spade, other than her relationship to David Spade, and the fact that she had lived in Kansas City. I didn’t know her story.

I knew that Anthony Bourdain had stumbled down a checkered path with substances, and due to his chosen profession, he had probably sustained plenty of scars, some of which didn’t come from a gas burner or careless knife handling.

Both of these celebrities had so much to “be happy” about. They were well-known, well-loved, wealthy, untethered to so many of the anchors that most average people feel in their daily lives. They had so much going for them.

But here’s the thing: Mental illness does something to us that most people don’t realize. Mental illness—depression, anxiety, addiction, post traumatic stress disorder—perpetrates a crime. It steals our identities. It steals the part of us that we identify as ourselves, and leaves behind something very different

Sometimes dress up hides our pain.

. Feelings of sadness, anxiety, hopelessness, despair, or lack of control don’t necessarily infiltrate our lives everyday, but at times, they can surface so fiercely, and without warning, that we find ourselves spiraling when yesterday we were fine. And it doesn’t necessarily require a trigger. It can be cumulative, and we can reach a breaking point at which the load is just too heavy, and it’s suddenly a lethal combination.

Many are quick to label those who commit suicide as being selfish. After all, the deep void they leave behind is often deeper, because unless you’ve been suicidal, it’s very hard to fathom. It’s hard to understand that when you spiral into this abyss of despair, you’re not always trying to relieve your own pain, but instead, you are frequently trying to unburden those you love by lifting your weight from their lives.

Mental illness is a great deceiver. It whispers lies that twist inside your darkness and make sense when nothing real does. It tells you that those you love are better off not having to worry about you along with their other troubles. It tells you that when people are kind to you, it’s not because you are worthy of that kindness, but because they feel obligated, or they’re just being polite. It finds all the holes in your confidence and sense of self, and it gnaws away at them, until you are filled with doubt, and who you are is both shredded, and unrecognizable.

Not knowing anything about Kate Spade, I wasn’t aware that she had actually sold her brand just over a decade ago until I read an article about her after her sudden death. She had recently changed her legal name to Kate Valentine, and had launched a new brand called “Frances Valentine.” Her new brand hadn’t performed as well as her original effort.

But aside from whether or not her new venture was as much a success as her original venture, can you even imagine what it must be like to find yourself in a position where you can’t even call yourself, or your work by your own name? Sure, selling her company was her choice, but for someone who battles mental illness, struggling to find an identity in a chaotic emotional state can make you a much easier target.

And that’s why it happens. 

As for Anthony, a couple of articles I read today discuss his openness about struggling with addiction and depressive episodes. On at least a couple of occasions, he talked about the kinds of things that would trigger him. One really struck me.

In an episode of his show “Parts Unknown”,  he talks to a therapist about something that had triggered a near breakdown. He and his crew were preparing to film a staged fishing scene. Dead squid were being tossed into the water around him. In the therapy session, he reflects on the event.

"For some reason I feel something snap, and I slide quickly into a spiral of near hysterical depression. Is this what it's come to, I'm thinking as another dead squid narrowly misses my head,” Bourdain narrated. “Back in the same country almost a decade later, and I'm still desperately staging fishing scenes?”

He also talks about a nightmare in which he is in a hotel, but cannot check out, and cannot find home. He doesn’t know where to go to get home.

Sense of integrity and grounding seem very apparently to have been traits Bourdain strived toward in his work, both in the kitchen, and on his shows. I could easily imagine a staged scene making him feel like a fraud—and I can also easily imagine how bad that taste would have been in his mouth. Having a home—a place to ground yourself and regroup is a basic necessity, and not just a physical home. Being set apart from others can prove so isolating that you are left to look at yourself, and your life from a distance.

Again, a loss of identity, connection to self, and who you are as a person is the crack in the armor even someone as seemingly strong as Anthony Bourdain has trouble fighting.

We’re living in a tough time. There’s a lot of crazy swirling around in the world. It can be difficult to process all of it without some of it sticking to you. It doesn’t take much to trigger deep pain, especially if it’s not buried as deeply as you thought.

I would never discourage anyone from checking in with a friend if you suspect they’re in trouble, but it’s also important to understand that when they respond, the part of them reassuring you that they are “just tired,” “just busy,” “a little stressed,” and any number of other things we say to persuade people that we are fine may not be the person you think you know.

It’s hard to ask for help when you are swept away into the maelstrom of nonsensically troubling, but deafening thoughts and emotions. Being strong enough to ask for help when you need it is an Olympic level feat.

Helping someone who can’t ask for help, and who cannot let you in is also an Olympic level feat. Does that mean you shouldn’t try? Of course not. It might mean that we have to do something really hard. We might have to connect more deeply, and more honestly with the people we love, so we can better perceive when something feels “off” with them. It may mean that we have to be willing to take risks with the relationship in order to lead them to other loved ones or professionals who can get them the help they can’t ask for.

The loss of Kate Valentine and Anthony Bourdain in this way seems like a wake up call to those on the outside of mental illness, and recovery. But for those of us who have fought demons, and who occasionally find ourselves chasing them away again, their loss is a chilling reminder that things are not always what they appear to be, and no matter how beautiful the “picture”, not being able to connect with your real identity can pull anyone under.

So, I will never own a “Kate Spade” bag, because in the end, she was struggling to find herself as Kate Valentine, and if ever I am lucky enough to indulge myself with such a bag, I will choose to honor her struggle for self by choosing a Frances Valentine bag.

Th next time I travel, I will try to get out of my own comfort zone at the table, and take a few more chances to live a bit on the edge. I will honor the spirit of reckless grit that Anthony Bourdain brought to every table upon which he broke bread, and raised a glass.

And in the meantime, I will try to be kind to myself in my own struggles, and I will try to be on the lookout for those I love who seem to be lost at sea. When we are feeling strong enough in ourselves, we need to be willing to carry someone who is not.

When people hurt each other, the pain is always real.

So, from time to time, we hurt other people. Most of the time, it’s simply the result of a careless word, or unintended slight. Occasionally, it’s because we think something we feel is more valid than the other person’s feelings.

We can’t undo hurts that we cause, but we can accept responsibility, and try to make amends. This can’t happen when we hurt someone, and don’t recognize our role in the situation, or that a hurt has even happened.

I have been watching a dear friend struggle with one such situation, and today, I witnessed something similar, but on a smaller scale. It has me thinking a lot about how easy it is to put our own feelings ahead of those of someone else—even when the relationship between you and the other person is significant.

In close relationships, we always hope that people we care about—whether friends or family—will have our best interests at heart, and will try to offer support and understanding when we most need it. From time to time, we all need soft places to land, and to feel like we can seek the counsel or comfort of those to whom we are close.

It’s soul-crushing, confusing, and unsettling when we ask for that soft place, only to be thrown out in the cold, because the person we sought that counsel and comfort from steamrolls us with how possible outcomes will impact them, rather than seeing the struggle we are going through. The situation becomes all the more complicated when there are other loved ones to think about.

How do you, as the hurt party, confront the situation without escalating it, and potentially destroying more than one connection? It’s a tough thing to balance, especially if you believe that confronting the person who hurt you is unlikely to change their perspective. What if the other person feels so entitled to their viewpoint, that standing up for yourself will only create more bad feelings, and worsen already strained connections?

I wish I knew the answer. I know that some of us will do anything, and everything we can to right a wrong—no matter how small it might seem.

In a situation in which I found myself involved today, I discovered that a soft place I had created for my friends had presented a sharp edge. That “edge” was the result of a personal struggle that I had brought to the table. Not everyone involved in the conversation felt heard and valued. And sadly, I felt like my efforts to make amends got hijacked in the process.

We all have similar emotional needs, even if not similar triggers. In some circles, we may even share similar histories and traumas, but we don’t necessarily respond to triggers or social interactions in the same way. We may actually pile on when someone feels attacked, instead of recognizing that the other person’s viewpoint and feelings may be different, but that doesn’t make them less valid.

We’ve all been that person who felt shutdown in a place we thought we should be safe. It sucks. It’s not right. And it really makes some of us question if it’s even possible to move forward in the relationship or the space in which it happened.

In a social setting where we may only be acquaintances with other people in the group, it’s easy to weigh the pros and cons of remaining, and to cut our losses when we walk away. We may feel the sting of the situation, and it may cause an old set of wounds to unnecessarily open for an afternoon, but we are unlikely to ever have to face those who hurt us again.

In some cases, the hurt either runs so deep, or it is the exclamation point to a hundred others, and disconnection is easy—surgical, complete. In others, the hurt is extremely deep, but disconnection is complicated—the hurts are cumulative and the immediate hurt feels like a last straw, but disconnection will certainly harm others we care about. None of the options on the table will provide resolution, and the only thing confrontation is likely to bring is a feeling of closure—possibly to the entire relationship.

When we are hurting because someone we counted on has been careless with our feelings, it’s hard to focus on which battles are worth fighting. If the fight is essentially the nuclear option, nobody walks away a winner. It absolutely sucks when someone we share our struggles and feelings with tears us down, and it isn’t wrong to want to stand up for ourselves. But maybe, being the bigger person isn’t so much sparing the feelings of the person who hurt us as it is assessing the possible collateral damage.

As much as I struggle with sharing this Louis CK quote, it really says what I want to say so eloquently that I have to hold my nose and just use it:

“When a person tells you that you hurt them, you don't get to decide that you didn‘t.”

And hopefully when you do hurt someone, you see the impact, accept your part in the hurt, and try to make amends for it.

Sometimes, people just can’t walk with us.

So, we often find ourselves in situations where we need support or comfort from others. We expect the people we care about to be emotionally available to us when we are emotionally stretched.

But what happens when someone we hope to lean on just can’t be there for us? Worse yet, what happens when they shut down, or even lash out at you for the possible outcomes of the struggle with which you are dealing?

We all have times in our lives when we aren’t there for people we love. Whether it’s because we are dealing with too much ourselves, or because in that moment we lack the capacity or emotional intelligence to offer any comfort or support, the ripple effect of our ineptitude is the same.

Someone gets hurt.

In the case of simply being too overwhelmed with personal issues, the slight can be forgivable, even if it takes time. After all, the airline attendant reminds us to always put on our own oxygen mask first before we assist others. There are times when you simply cannot help someone else because you yourself need help.

If we’re lucky, the person who needs us in those worst of times scenarios understands, and can patiently wait for us to rejoin them in the struggle when we get back on our feet. Maybe they can even see so clearly what we are going through that they are willing to help us first.

Sometimes, the problem isn’t so simple.

We expect different things from different people. We may understand that our friends love us, but have full plates, and not being there is not about failing us. Family can be a very different story.

Growing up with parents who lacked the emotional intelligence and maturity to actually parent, I feel a certain level of expertise when it comes to feeling abandoned by people I needed at times I needed them most.

My mom was a teen mom before MTV made it cool, and without question she never received the nurturing needed to develop maturity, emotional strength, or a sense of self-awareness. My grandma was a young first-time mom as well, and she probably received even less nurturing as a child than she passed along to my mom.

My dad was “missing in action.” My mom being pregnant and alone was not his problem, and he allowed himself to believe he didn’t share in the responsibility of raising me, or even helping me. I grew up without him, and expecting nothing from him.

Sadly, we all need to be parented at times. We need to have our basic physical needs met. We need to learn basic life and survival skills. And we all require minimum emotional care that only parents offer.

In my case, my mother’s lack of emotional and intellectual maturity meant I grew up in a situation where our roles were often reversed. My dad’s absence in my life left my mom and me desperate for stability, security, and a home. My mom made some bad choices about all of that, and life was pretty awful.

When you survive a childhood from which you need to recover, you tend to believe everything else should be smooth sailing.

I met my father as an adult, and though I still expected nothing from him, I grew to believe that perhaps I could. Perhaps he could be the emotionally available and stable parental influence I had always needed. But as luck would have it, 20 years hadn’t been enough to make him the dad for which I desperately hoped.

And as time went by, I began to realize more and more that not only could my mom not be a parent to me, she couldn’t even maintain the imperfect mother-daughter friendship we had cobbled together throughout my childhood.

My parents just weren’t capable of providing me with the soft emotional place to land that even we as adults sometimes need. I found myself in so many grown-up situations that I just couldn’t take to either one of them. And despite the fact that I had never really had an appropriate relationship with either of my parents, for years I mourned the feeling of loss that such an emptiness left me.

As an adult, I started to seek out other nurturing relationships to fill that cavernous void. I began to slowly understand that other people could support me and comfort me in ways my parents just couldn’t. I also slowly began to recognize their emotional deficits for what they were—not maliciousness, merely an incomplete development of the basic tools they needed to be my mom and my dad.

I won’t say that I never stumbled. Not having something so basic as a core family unit to rely on leaves a big hole. At times, you try to fill that hole with the wrong things, and in the wrong ways. You often realize too late that the hole has no bottom, and you’re never going to fill it. Some holes are just black.

It still hurts sometimes. I occasionally still miss having the kind of relationship with each of them that most children have had with their parents. That being said, I also recognize that family isn’t always the group of people you are born into. Family is something you can create, foster, and grow with people who are able to love, comfort and support you.

All humans are flawed, just in different ways.

When we don’t receive the emotional and intellectual nourishment we need as children to develop into adults who have a sense of empathy, understanding and self-awareness, we have much to overcome. If we are lucky, we encounter the right people and situations to gain those things from others. If we aren’t, we will be stunted, and unable to provide even the basic emotional support to those who rely on us.

Emotional instability and darkness can be mistaken for avoidance, lack of empathy, or self-involvement. But to the experienced observer, cautious acceptance can allow someone we love to gather themselves back up, and return to us when they are healed.

Unfortunately, some of us have deeper flaws than others. Some flaws are created by habit, and years of being written over, again and again. Some of those flaws make us feel easily threatened by change or uncertainty, and that causes us to miss opportunities to be there for people when they reach out to us. Some of those flaws are like grooves worn into our being from years of having our wants and desires placed in front of everyone else’s—we literally don’t know that our personal sense of entitlement and status harm or slight the people we love. We have never had to be accountable for our bold sense of expectation from those around us.

In the end, when we need someone and they cannot be there—for whatever reason—we are left to decide the way forward, both in the struggle we needed help with in the first place, and in the unbalanced relationship that has left us feeling abandoned, or even harmed.

There aren’t always easy answers. We want what we want from people, for better or worse. But people don’t always meet us at the same emotional, intellectual, or stability level that we, ourselves, are on.

Depression: Survivors, and collateral damage

So, there have been several times in which I have found myself being pulled under by the quicksand of depression, and I think I will probably always struggle with anxiety and self-doubt. At times, these issues have taken over every aspect of my life—almost like a vine, opportunistically taking over an old building.

Sometimes I have been strong enough to ask for help. Sometimes I have been strong enough to pull myself out of the mire. And at other times, I have been so lost that the only solution has been time.

During the worst times, just about every relationship in my life has been damaged or impacted. Even when people love you, they sometimes grow impatient, because it’s hard to be a good friend when you can barely find the strength and courage just to get out of bed each day. And in the middle of these black holes, everything is so awful that you don’t believe you have anything of value to offer anyone else. If you feel so worthless, why would it occur to you that anyone else could need you.

I know I made that assumption the last time I found myself circling the drain.

After my miscarriage, my depression and hopelessness was exacerbated by hormonal shifts about which I was clueless, and helpless against. And at the time, it seemed like everyone around me was either in the middle of healthy pregnancies or becoming pregnant.

A good friend experienced a scare during her pregnancy. She wanted to go to lunch with another friend and me—both of us had experienced pregnancy loss. In the moment, it didn’t occur to me that she really wanted to be around me. I was feeling so useless that I thought she had only asked me along to be polite. She needed me, but I couldn’t be there. I know it seemed selfish to her and to my other friend, but I really believed I was “saving” them from me.

Depression and anxiety are a perfectly toxic cocktail. They are like the mean girls in your middle school. They take everything that’s happening to and around you, and twist it until all you are left with is a rope, and you don’t know if you will use it to hang on, or to let go.

You become so isolated that the only things you believe are the things in your toxic inner monologue. Your need to be alone is the only thing you trust, because you don’t want your darkness to spread.

Depression and anxiety are the worst kind of prison, because you just don’t believe you are worthy of help, and without help, you may not survive. So, you have a really have a hard time breaking free. And just like a prison, the world around you keeps turning—without you. If you do finally escape, you often find that almost everyone has moved on—without you. You have been left behind.

During my last major battle with these demons, I lost almost everything—my job, my friends, my physical health, and if it hadn’t been for my belief that my husband and my dog needed me more than I needed “to leave”, I would have lost my life, too.

In the years that have come and gone since this period in my life, I have experienced occasional, but transient periods of sadness or the blues. I knew that I would be more susceptible to postpartum depression after my daughter was born, and I was able to ask for help when it hit. After having lost so much before, I refused to allow myself to spiral again.

For a long time, I looked at everything I lost before as penance. The friends who no longer wanted to be around me were the price I owed the universe for being such a toxic wasteland of sadness, and such a terrible friend.

Even in the process of moving away from the “battlefield”, I believed the whispers of the demons that had inflicted so much damage. I believed it was all my fault, and that the reason I had lost so much was because I failed—I failed to keep my shit together. Somehow, I was supposed to be some pillar of strength, and I was supposed to look at what felt like death, and deflect it like bullets bouncing off of Wonder Woman’s bracelets.

It doesn’t matter how irrational that belief sounds as I write it. And sometimes our beliefs become our truths. I still struggle. My friends have always been my life’s blood—even when I have had very few. For the most part, biological connections have failed me. As an adult, I have built a “family” out of my friends. When I lost almost every single one, I didn’t lose friends, I lost sisters.

In the years since my personal “war” I have tried to repair what I can. When I think of damaged friendships, I see chipped or broken pieces china. I try to gather every piece I can, and piece them back together as closely as possible to how they were before. When pieces are missing, I do the best I can.

I find it humbling and overwhelming when people I loved, but loved poorly occasional support or comfort for more simple struggles—mostly “mom” struggles. Because of how awful that period of loss and sadness was, I easily find myself so embarrassed that I don’t know how to express my gratitude when friends return.

Some people may kindly point out that taking on all the responsibility for how depression and anxiety damaged or destroyed relationships is a symptom of the disease. That’s true. At the same time, I understand how the people I loved—and still love—felt. They may not always have thrown me the floatation devices I needed as I struggled, and they may not have realized the depth of my depression, but there were times that they needed me, too.

One of the hardest parts of depression is the feeling that you don’t matter to anyone else. When you feel that way, you aren’t able to realize that you are affecting anyone else. How could you be affecting anyone when you don’t matter?

And that’s why I work to repair what I can. When you get better, you also develop some clarity. You understand that while feelings are uncontrollable, and they are deeply hurting you, they are also hurting others.

In the instances where I have been able to repair or make new friendships, I find myself feeling and behaving hyper vigilantly. If I am thinking of someone, I try to let them know. If something feels off, I try to address it. I’m not always successful. It’s a work in progress.

And I still struggle with bad moments. The pain and loss from before are always just under the surface. When plans with a friend fall through, I am quick to believe it’s because I don’t matter as much to that person as they do to me. And I often have at least a passing belief that they are right. When I reach out to someone, and they don’t reach back, I usually feel that it’s because I have done something to push them away, hurt them, or that I am just not valuable to them.

These are the demons—the mental pot stirrers. These are the thoughts that can start to pull you back under. If you’ve never felt it, it sounds crazy. But that’s kind of the point—feelings don’t pay attention to reality. And just because you can’t see a physical wound, or a person doesn’t have a cough doesn’t mean they are well.

Living with depression and anxiety isn’t living. It’s life being put on hold, paused, and sometimes even stopped. It’s like being trapped in the trunk of a car, and not being able to pop it open. The driver would save you, but they cannot hear you.

Even if we aren’t dealing with depression, it’s easy and only natural to get caught up in our own struggles. It’s hard to find balance and give people grace when we are trying to manage our own problems. But it’s worth remembering that sometimes people need us most when they aren’t able to say so.

As the Scotsman Ian MacLaren wrote, “Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.”

Protest is Patriotic: This land is my land, this land is your land

So, tomorrow many students across the United States are planning to walk out of their classrooms for seventeen minutes. That’s one minute for every person who was shot and killed in a high school in Parkland, Florida last month. In the school district we live in, the local school board voted to discipline those who choose to walk out with detention, because it’s an “absence”.

All of us social media jockeys have been stating our cases, and declaring our outrage about either the disciplinary action or the walkout itself—all depending on which side of the aisle we sit on.

As I have been reading all of the commentary, a few things strike me. One—many people are piping up with the idea that instead of a walkout, we would be encouraging our kids to befriend someone new—make seventeen new friends. Two—those of us who think this was a bad call by the school board are seething that our kids’ First Amendment Rights are being trampled. Three—many who so frequently preach about the Second Amendment and what our founding fathers intended, appear to be a little uninformed about how our nation became independent in the first place.

Number one: When it comes to major issues, there’s hardly ever just one solution—one option for addressing a problem. There’s an old saying—‘there’s more than one way to skin a cat’. That saying exists, because as awful as it might be to think about, there is more than one way to skin a cat, and most problems we face in life actually require more than one solution.

When my husband and I were expecting our daughter, we talked about the things we most wanted to teach her. One of those things was empathy. So, when I read the suggestion that instead of walking out of class to make a stand for better gun laws, and to honor victims of last month’s shooting, we should be encouraging our kids to make seventeen new friends, I totally get it. And I absolutely support that every one of us should be doing anything we can to help our kids become kind, loving and empathetic beings, who see someone alone at the lunch table, and sit down with them.

I do have a problem with part of this suggestion. It’s the “instead of” part. I’ve acknowledged before that I remember the loners, and the kids on the fringes at school. Those are the kids my parents would have told me to “steer clear of”, and thirty years ago, we were only on the cusp of the decades long
issue of mass shootings. I was on the fringes myself a good part of the time. Very few people went out of their way to leave their cliques and befriend me. And I can’t say that I was any better. The issues of social cliques and lack of empathy aren’t new. They have existed as long as humans have been living in groups. So, I don’t believe that trying to change this foible of human behavior is going to be effective against mass shootings in and of itself.

Mental health care without stigma is also necessary, but statistically speaking, those who suffer from verifiable mental illness are actually not the ones committing these shootings the majority of the time.

Gun restrictions will not prevent those who have criminal intent from committing crimes. That’s a fact. Someone with no history of mental illness or criminal activity will still be able to get through a background check, and purchase a gun. That’s a fact.

The problem of mass shootings, like so many problems we face in our country, and in the wider world is multi-faceted. Doing one thing instead of another will not solve most problems that have any level of complexity.

Number two: I went to my first march last year. I initially went for some selfish reasons. I am an imperfect person, and an even less perfect activist.

Before that march, the only kinds of activism I had performed were canvassing for John Kerry, standing on a street corner with a sign on Election Day, and voting. None of those things put me in harm’s way. And since the weather was warm that fall, those actions didn’t even cause me mild discomfort.

At the Woman’s March on Washington, I stood among throngs of people—all of us ready to march for a cause, or causes. When we got to the rallying site, there were at least a dozen speakers, all of them there to talk about their stories, and why they were marching. After an hour or so, people around me began to get restless. We were tired of standing in one place. It was crowded, and  uncomfortable. It was cold. Our legs, knees, backs and feet hurt.

I am an imperfect person, and am even less perfect activist, but somehow, I had the epiphany. In the moment, I understood my own privilege so well. I was privileged to be standing there by choice. I was privileged to be be standing there safely. I was privileged to be able to get back on a cramped bus and go home to my family.

I wasn’t arrested. No one sprayed me with a fire hose. No one asked for my immigration status. No one called me a racist or homophobic slur. Yes, as a woman, I have faced challenges and harms that most men never have, but I hadn’t suffered for a cause, or for any other accident of birth. And I wasn’t even suffering as I stood there.

It is a privilege to stand up for others when you yourself have not suffered what they have suffered. It is an honor to serve those who have been marginalized and discriminated against. It is a duty to put yourself in the shoes of others if you want to make the world a better place.

And so, in my opinion, it will be an honor and privilege for our kids to serve detention for standing up against gun violence, because they will be doing so for the hundreds whose voices have been forever silenced by bullets.

Number three: If not for disrespect, and the intentional disregard of law, the United States wouldn’t exist.

Those who declared our independence from Britain were breaking “the law”. Those who dumped a cargo of tea into the Boston Harbor were disrespecting authority. They took risks with their livelihoods, and their safety. The very same people who helped to mold our still pliable Constitution, and added the Second Amendment, had disrespected their government and disregarded its laws.

Many of those disrespectful and law-breaking Founding “Fathers” weren’t a lot older than these “kids” who plan to walk out of school tomorrow. How many of us research our family history, and beam with pride to learn that one of our ancestors fought in the Revolutionary War, or that we are distantly related to Washington or Jefferson?

Even our founders were imperfect at activism, decency, and creating a nation. They let slavery live in a document that preached equality. They allowed discrimination to poison some of our most important ideals. But they did get some things right. They understood that for a nation to grow and prosper, it would need flexibility, and that we would need to be able to make changes when our society changed.

One of the most common arguments cried out when discussing any change to gun laws is that without unrestricted gun rights, we are at risk of not being able to stand against tyranny in our own government. If you really believe and stand by that, then you should actually be supporting the idea of peaceful protest. The only reason you can’t see that is because it doesn’t fit the narrative you yourself believe about right and wrong, and America.

But that’s number four: The great thing about America is that we don’t all agree all the time. We don’t all believe exactly the same things. We don’t think exactly the same way about everything. And because our founders understood this, the foundations of our country supports all of this difference.

We don’t have to agree with each other to be Americans. We don’t have to see things the same way to be neighbors, or even friends sometimes. And we don’t have to sit down to be patriots.

Friend language—the pain of being lost in translation.

So, the last month and a half has been pretty tough—not the toughest, but tough enough to remind me that we have gotten through harder times, and we will get through more. I don’t expect that life will just suddenly stop throwing the occasional curve ball, but from time to time, you experience a little bit of peace, and you let it wrap around you like a soft, warm blanket. It’s cozy.

In life, whenever you decide to take on any major life change, you usually consider things that might come up—obstacles or challenges. But life is really more like the Spanish Inquisition—you just can’t expect or anticipate everything.

All you can do when things hit you in the face like a hard, cold rain is hope that you will be strong enough to get back up when you’re knocked down, and that maybe you and your family will have the support of good friends to lean on.

But there are going to be times when finding good friends is as challenging as whatever you’re going through—not because the people you look to are malicious or uncaring, but because they just can’t be what you need them to be in the moment.

And sometimes, being a good friend seems to be just as challenging as finding one. We’re all trying to get over hurdles, and at times those hurdles can make us feel like being there for someone else is just too exhausting and draining. For some of us, expressing care and understanding is like trying to speak another language.

Worse yet, sometimes the lives we’ve lived, and the way we have unevenly healed prevent us from learning that language.

I have many social foibles. I know where most of them come from, but that doesn’t make them any easier to deal with. I’m awkward. My self-esteem almost never allows me to believe that another person truly values my friendship. I tend to “fall in love” with friends—not romantically, but I still know it’s an infatuation of sorts. In the early days of a friendship, I sometimes think about that person so frequently that I start missing them like we’ve been separated by oceans—even if we’re in the same town, and saw each other last week. Sometimes it happens instantly. I meet someone who oozes joy, kindness, life force, or any number of other qualities that sweep me off my feet. Other times, it’s a slow burn, as I start to learn and understand what connects me to that person on a deeper level.

It might sound sweet that I care about people so much. Sometimes it’s not. It can be painful, because as friends, we don’t all “speak” the same language.

I remember this being a challenge as far back as second grade. There was a little girl in my class that everyone wanted to be friends with. She was pretty, always wore the cute and trendy clothes, and she already seemed to understand her power. Even in second grade, I was awkward. I wanted her to be my friend so badly! Sometimes she even let me believe she was. That made it all the more crushing when she would be unkind or thoughtless. All these years later, it still hurts when I think about it.

That pattern continued through most of elementary school. I believed people were my friends, and then I would get hurt—sometimes literally. I remember a couple of “friends” putting me in a tall, metal trash can in the girls restroom—upside down. I was scrawny, and short—I had a really tough
time getting out. But they assured me they were my friends, so I continued to let them pick on me for several more years.

Most people would learn something from these kinds of interactions, and I was no different. What I learned was that when you want to be friends with someone, you just try harder. Sadly, I never learned that this doesn’t always work. I still “friend” hard. And I still get hurt. And I still feel like an idiot. And I still blame myself.

As an adult, I sometimes can’t decide if those feelings have gotten better or worse. Having lived in my current town for just five years, and being a stay-at-home mom, I can very easily “hermit” and tell myself that I am quite content to do so. I probably am content to do so much of the time. So, I actually think this makes things feel even worse when a friendship experience becomes uneven and painful.

In my introverted awkwardness, I already tend not to put myself out in the world as much as many people. Now, I have fewer naturally occurring events that take me out into the world. So, when I force myself out of my shell for someone, and things don’t go well, I end up feeling like I lost, or never had, my “only” friend. It’s sad, and ridiculous. It’s crazy and foolish. But being able to recognize this doesn’t make it hurt less.

I was an only child for nine years. I learned how to play independently early on. I liked having friends to play with, but I also found it easy to entertain myself.

Now, my daughter is, and will always be an only child. She’ll be four this week. She’s impulsive. Sometimes, she’s explosive. And she hates playing alone. As a socially awkward introvert, who has been hurt a lot, it can be excruciating to watch her work through loneliness and trying to find companionship. In her four-year-old calculus, anyone she plays with is her friend. She never asks others to play with her. She always says ‘Will you be my friend?’ I try not to interfere, because I know I can’t learn “friend language” for her, but it can be gut wrenching to watch the person she asks struggle to answer honestly and without hurting her. A lot of the time, they sheepishly agree, but then try to ignore the fact that she is trailing along behind them.

I know that everyone has to learn their own language when it comes to friendship, but as a mom, I can’t help but try to coach her.

I try to prepare her before we get someplace that we may have to play together—she and I. I also try to tell her that sometimes, she should try saying ‘Will you play with me?’ instead, but she has a little bit of a stubborn streak, and seldom accepts advice.

Her impulsive behavior led her to paint her best friend’s face at school—twice. It’s been over a month since the incident. They haven’t played together in an official capacity since. I can’t repair the situation for her, but I have tried to help her understand that if we hurt someone, or act badly, it’s our job to apologize and do what we can to make things better or right. I am also trying to help her understand that sometimes, our efforts just won’t work.

Not a week goes by that she doesn’t ask about playing with her friend. And every time, I try to explain that sometimes when we hurt someone, we can’t fix it. Sometimes, our friends don’t forgive us. Sometimes, no matter how much we want it, they aren’t going to be our friends anymore.

It’s hard to watch your child struggle, but I know that she will have to learn her own way, and while I always want her to try and to work towards repairing friendships, I am cautious.

The word “friend” may be a noun, but for me, it is always a “verb.” No matter how many times I “fall in love” only to be crushed, I am sure that I will never stop “friending” too hard.

I want my daughter to build strong friendships and relationships, but I hope she learns that friendship requires a mutual give and take. There are always going to be times when a friend needs more support and care from you than they can immediately return, but when the shoe is on the other foot, it’s fair to hope that they will return the favor.

The “language” isn’t always easy. The pain can sometimes run deeper than others realize. The greatest friendships can last a lifetime—even when there are stumbles. Sometimes, there is no question that working on the translations is worth it.