***I found this unpublished blog from like 2010 - just posting now (Feb 2016)
A few weeks ago I had a halting realization.
It caught me off guard; found me dumbfounded without words of explanation and stared me down so matter of fact that I couldn't help but accept what it was. With my jaw loosed and my weapons of defenses resting, I watched the pieces settle.
I am a pawn of the empire.
It was a moment of self actualization infused by the subtle creaking of an old wooden house. I was making up for lost time in the kitchen I share with 4 other girls. There are five of us 20 somethings in this 3 bedroom, one and a half bath just north of Franklin Avenue that call this place home. This particular time, it was just me, 2 overflowing sinks of dirty dishes, and what seems to be a village of super mice peeking out of boxes in the basement.
When the noise of our bustling house is silenced by its occupant's absence, the lack of sound could be described as less than than assuring - like that of an unnatural stillness.
I pulled all of the dishes out of both sinks, one by one, and filled them instead with suds and tap water. I dipped each dish into the water, circled its edges with precise consideration and turned the faucet counter clockwise until the water ran transparent over flawless glass, plastic, and silver.I shook the drops off, and set the respective items carefully on an increasingly overwhelmed drying rack to my right.
I did this again.
And again.
And again.
Somewhere in the commonplace task of rinsing, scraping and ringing out old sponges, my mind wandered to the extraordinary place called "quiet".
I am a pawn of the empire.
For all of the thoughts that I have; for all of the words that I so eagerly sound out with the motion of my tongue, and the curl of my penmanship on paper...so few of them are truly an echo of my heart.
I am a pawn of the empire.
I've been raised in a conservative, lower white middle class family in the suburbs. My mother is 2nd grade teacher in St. Paul, and my father is a city bus diver for Metro Transit. Rebellious in nature, by 13 I had gleefully fallen victim to that of the "counter culture" - to this unwritten set of cultural ideals that repelled all things supposedly cliche or shallow. I think it was appropriate, because this probably stemmed from a social awkwardness I had developed in elementary school - having been so suppressed by the rules of a fundamental baptist institution in my formative years. What I mean by that, is that in 6th grade, my first year in "public school", the only kids that were agreeable enough to be my friends were the outcasts. The "bad" kids.
The counter culture started with hair dye for me.
It continued through a long line of interesting clothing choices, safety pins pierced through my eyebrows, patches that were hand sewn and a nice selection of home made stencils. It was always more than that though - it was a separation of "self" from "them". It was a way of saying "NO, dumb America. I will not buy in to who you are telling me to be." It was a way of saying "NO, mom and dad. I will not be who you are telling me to be." It was a way of saying "NO" to any one who told me that conformity was the way to success; that beauty was the only way to love; and that an image could define a person. I wanted to force every stereotype through a blender, drink it as juice, pee it out clear and take a picture just to prove were all the same when our shit leaves its house.I wanted to crown black sheep king, and run all the white ones out of town.
But the other day, in the quiet of my old creaky house, wearing two hands with wet, pruned fingers, I became painfully aware that still, after years of fighting this...shallow cultural stigma, I am a pawn of the empire.
The thought came to me when I was processing through a serious relationship let down. *insert overused female-related joke here* I had my expectations set above sea level, but the ship sank faster than I could say "go". Having what seemed like all the time in the world to think, I let the negativity of my disappointment capture each new thought like cotton in a spool of cobwebs.
I followed that small, simple hurt to a deeper brokenness...
To a more intimate longing from the self.
I heard this little whisper of a voice raise underneath my breath and mumble the desperate question of...
"Will the love of someone else ever be enough to make me feel loved?"
Knowing the inevitability of people failing to meet my expectations, and knowing also the vice versa, of my failing to meet the needs or wants of others...how are to we to go on in loving one another?
See, I have been fighting this, consumerism, this...war against that which is material; fighting this battle against corporate America with this opposition towards any and everything mainstream. Its been a fight to prove that THINGS can't fill you; that all of hot sexy bodies will wrinkle and die and that the shallow gain of mortal pleasures won't matter at the end of the day. But to be honest, I shop at Target on a regular basis, and I don't feel bad about it. Sometimes I buy my morning coffee from Starbucks instead of the local shop, Tillie's Bean, because I think Starbucks serves better coffee and its more convenient.
I realized in the moment where my whole world shut down because some one I wanted to love didn't want to love me back, that I just have a taste for a different kind of consumption. Its a drug called acceptance, and a million faces glowing with admiration couldn't satisfy it.
No matter how many people we have in our lives, no matter how busy we ever become with social events and witty banter, with familiar glances and subtle affirmations of recognition, there will always, also be moments that we stand still. Alone.
This particular day, it was just me, 2 overflowing sinks of dirty dishes, what seems to be a village of super mice peeking out of boxes in the basement...and a pleading God waiting in the stillness.
He asked me, shortly after I realized that I was looking for my fix, what it would look like if there was no one else -
Just Him. And me.
