Going to My Happy Place

             My happy place is in the summer.

 I have a few. My favorite happy place is the place that I go when I am overwhelmed, whether it be in conversations or situations. But to be completely honest, my happy place is where I go to get away from myself and my overwhelming non-stop thoughts. I usually go to my happy place to shut up my brain when I’m trying to go to sleep. I think I underutilize this happy place. This happy place is a field of tall wild grass that I used to be able to hide in as a child. It’s on a slight incline, and it’s in a clearing amongst a dense pine forest with skinny toothpick trees—so many of them that after a while they block out most of the light. I swear it’s straight out of a movie: in the middle of the field is a rock that I used to run to and stand on as a kid (in my denim overalls, obviously. Hello, it was 1997).

                My happy place is near a vacation home that my relatives have owned for several decades. Every summer, I thought I’d never go back there again what with the recession and the potential to sell it. So finally, the summer after my grandpa died when I was twenty, I walked myself out to my clearing with far too little bug spray or inhibition, and I spent 15 minutes taking a mental picture of it (1 minute for each bug bite I got on my back for not moving). I was blessed enough to be able to make my way back their on my own accord last summer, and I finally shared the space with David. This was something that I was struggling with telling him about, because in a relationship, it’s hard to have my own things because I’m so open, but I had this. He didn’t really understand the gravity of where I took him, which I ultimately preferred. It was still all mine. 

                I do share a lot of things, or at least I try to. My struggle isn’t opening up, but holding back. I try to be aware of the messages that others are telling me when I am trying to communicate with them through body language and facial expressions, but I’m not always good at it. I have spent so much time trying to read others well, that I have lost practice with choosing how to represent myself. Luckily, the most important people in my life have had patience with me and have given me time to show them who I truly can be. I need to have more patience with myself. If this means not finishing an assignment when I told myself I would because I was walking the dog, meeting with my alumni group for dinner, and taking 20 minutes to myself when I got home, then that’s what it means. At the end of the day, I find myself recounting all of the things I didn’t get around to and have to re-organize into the rest of my week, instead of thinking of all of the things that I did get done. If I wish to maintain any shred of sanity that I’m still the proud owner of, this absolutely must change.

                This week started a new me. I bought the face wash I should have been using for months. I started flossing and using mouthwash. I am drinking more water and I am making a sanity schedule for myself. I can only do what I can do. I need to remember these words when I step into class next Monday. I can only do what I can do. I can try to listen, I can try to respond, but I can only do what I can do. 

A Reflection Letter on Sexuality

Dear professor and assistant professors,

I did not turn in a reflect page at the end of class yesterday because I wasn't ready to talk about it. But I am now.

Yesterday in class, I made a comment about why are sexuality labels important. The class responded with "That's called colorblindness."

My immediate reaction was that I was incredibly offended. I obviously know what color blindness is, I stood up in front of the class and talked about it two weeks ago. I'm not an idiot, and I also know that no part of colorblindness is a positive thing. I was also offended that someone in the class would think that I was dumb enough to offer that up as a public comment for everyone else to hear. If I was uneducated enough to think that colorblindness might be the slightest bit acceptable, I'm DEFINITELY not dumb enough to open my mouth about it in a class that appears to be so progressive. But after 5 classes together, apparently you think I am just that stupid.

After taking time to work it out in my head, and figure out what I meant to say, this is my response:

My original point was twofold. I know that I phrased this wrong based on the response, but my first question was, if the journey to finding or choosing the appropriate label is more detrimental than the results of having that label (or only lead to detrimental results associated with that label), then why are we pressuring people to choose and giving them all these options? Why can't people just make their own label if they choose, or NOT make their own label if they choose NOT to? I think student affairs perpetuates this need to identify every possible identity to effectively work with students. We need to have a discussion about the fact that sometimes not having to make that choice is more beneficial than the frustration of going through the process, only to find yourself completely alone once you come to a conclusion.

In my life, I have chosen to play in the mud, to not wear the pink, these, my definition, make me less feminine. I have chosen to continue living under the label of feminine female. Does that make me a liar and a fake? MAYBE. But I prefer not to deal with that label because I am okay being labeled how I am- feminine female- I'm lucky enough to say that there is a very slim chance of someone telling me that I should then create a new label for myself because I'm not what I appear I am, and I'm not what I say I am. I have lady parts, I wear dresses, and I'm romantically involved with someone who identifies as a man in all the same ways.

In addition to still disagreeing that not labeling sexuality is absolutely nothing like colorblindness for a variety of other reasons, the message that I was trying to get across from my original comment was NOT "Why can't everyone be treated the same and we don't need these identities" (How it was apparently perceived by someone who spoke up about it).

The comment I was trying to make was this: Why can't we be PEOPLE first and labels second? Why can't we define ourselves by our feelings and actions FIRST and not our preference to have or not have sex with someone with or without a vagina? If someone's actions reflect or tie in to one of their identities, that's great, and we'll learn that about them along the way.

As we continue to learn about identities, I think a week at the beginning of the semester to focus on this idea that people are people (and love is love) would have been beneficial. We have been focusing a lot on identities in this class, can I just identify as human sometimes?

 Yes this might be boiled down to the bare minimum of understanding, but this is also a reflection, and we all have more to learn. It's never this simple, and I know that. I'm on the journey. And sometimes it sucks.