Manifestos: The Way Back

They were making too much noise just a moment ago, clicking and unclicking their seatbelts. Young boys playing a stupid game they created, for they are always making things up on the fly, by creating a game they played by unclicking the others’ seatbelt. That, while mommy is driving, is a stupid STUPID game. Do not do that.

My head whipped back around to the front after I gripped a little tighter on the wheel and glanced at their father, now my ex. Or now my why? Both fit. I was driving, their father in the passenger seat, and they were sitting directly behind us. Mallory was just getting to the age where she could get rides with friends. If she was with us she would have been in the back. The way back as my children re-named it.

It was a car crash, a mighty shove from behind that made me think I was blind. My neck performed acrobatic moves to snap hard and, naturally, my glasses flew off my face and ended up in the back seat. The regular back not the way back. Someone, who was very drunk on a Sunday right before dinnertime, tried to stop before smashing into the back of my van. The squeals are stuck in my ears to this day, and I recall how they warned me that I was going to get hit. My reflexes were too slow and too late. I was trying to get out of the way, but I had just enough time to let up off the brake and then the van got pushed out into the intersection.

The way back seat was crushed and pushed up to the regular back. Anyone sitting there would have been killed. I could deal with the whiplash and bad back I would have from this car accident. Everyone lived, the car was totaled, and I went to my first chiropracter. And I wasn’t blind.

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In college, I took a self-defense class. All girls were encouraged to take it if we walked alone in the dark on campus. We were told, “Better to be safe than sorry” which is a tired old platitude. But also, “Listen to your instincts. Humans forget they have them.” and “Kick ‘em in the balls. Always always go for the balls.” We girls, we laughed lightheartedly at that, nervous giggles in the midst of a scary thought of being attacked.

Little blue lights with phones were put up around campus and self-defense classes were offered. There wasn’t more patrol unless campus police were ticketing our cars. That’s the money maker. Patroling at night to make it safe for girls? There’s no money in that.

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I lost a lot of stuff when my marriage ended. Couches that my father gave me, the piano a friend had donated to me so I could learn to play again as an adult, and pictures of art on our walls. When I went back to graduate school I had to talk him into it. But, I can make more money with a higher degree. You can take on the cooking and cleaning, right? Help me out with the children? The yes was a resigned one that really meant no. Everything fell back to me.

Hold out your hands, palms up, cupped a little. Here, let me pass you some responsibility, please. This is too much. I’ve been doing so much for so long. Help me.

There went my marriage, passed between two sets of hands, slipping through cracks where your fingers open up some space.

Everything was no. Do you think I can get another degree? No. Can we go out on a date by ourselves and not invite other people with us, please? No. Can we take a vacation when I’m done with my classes? No. But it will be like my graduation present. It will be a way for us to find a way back to each other. These last few years have been hard. 

No.

Self-defense isn’t just physical, you know. There’s an awful lot of defending of personhood that I’ve learned to battle. Listen, girls. I want to tell you someting really important that I’ve learned. Maybe you’ll learn it on your own, but I want you to be smarter than I was. Stop asking permission in those bad relationships. If you’re not a whole person going in, you’re halved on your way out. He doesn’t complete you. Do that for yourself.

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I lost my way as a young girl turned into young mom. I found it again because, after being at college for a month my friend Tammy met my boyfriend from high school when he came to visit. After he left she said, “I like you a lot and have ever since I met you. But whoever he turns you into isn’t a likeable person. It’s like I didn’t even know you when he was around.” I broke up with him and found my way again. Then, I got pregnant with Mason at 20 and moved in with that new boyfriend and lost my way again. Twisting and turning through a doomed marriage, I struggled to find my way once more and told myself YES when he was saying NO.

After the car accident we got a big check from our insurance company and paid our medical bills with some of it. The rest, about $6,000, went into a CD we were both named on and I pushed a vacation even more. “Let’s take the big vacation with that. First class flight to someplace like Bora Bora in one of those huts on the water where they bring you food and drinks with little umbrellas.” No. Not yet. Always, no.

I have three friends named Tammy. Another Tammy was getting her master’s degree with me. We talked about how much work it was to take classes and teach and raise children at the same time. I told her about my dreams of a dream vacation. Dreaming, all the time. During our last semester she said we could stay in her condo in Florida and get a cheap flight and make our own meals and do a vacation together, but on the cheap. It would have to do. We celebrated my 37th birthday on the beach, Second Tammy and I. When I got home, tanned and relaxed, my boys met me at the front door. They asked about my trip and I said I was sad that I wasn’t home to celebrate my birthday with them and I gave them souvenirs I bought. I asked if they had gotten mommy any presents while she was gone.

“Daddy says you had your present with your trip.”

Losing my way again. Nagging little nasty words of me beginning to believe I didn’t deserve better. I should have been happy with my vacation on the cheap while six thousand dollars grew in interest in a CD account for a vacation we would never take. “Don’t you ever treat a woman like that,” I told my sons. My voice grew stronger as the nagging words faded away. Self-defense. Self-worth. “Don’t you be so mean.”

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Girls, listen to me. Find your way back again. Every time you do you become a little bit stronger, your voice more clear and determined, your self-worth building up like a sandcastle tower on the beach. Waves will creep in to destroy it. Don’t let it. Build a fortress around it. Build two. Whatever you can build, build it. You need the protection. Little blue lights won’t keep you safe enough. Stick together, two by two, or even more if you can manage.

I packed my things on a sunny October day while he took the kids out for the day. Just my clothes and journals and personal effects. No couch, piano, or wall art. It was months before he went to a lawyer and filed for divorce, but only days before he took all the money from the CD and spent it. No vacation for us, no getting it back for me. No tropical huts or fruity, umbrella’d drinks or first class plane tickets. Not for me, anyway. All the power of the word no, thrown back at me in revenge or hatred or something I hadn’t recognized before.

The opposite of love isn’t hate. It’s apathy. When you no longer care enough to let your feelings get tangled up in a web you’d been spinning. I was there already. It’s what made it easy to leave.

The way back isn’t just one direction and it’s not one road or one decision. It is a million little ones with a common theme: go get what you want. Take the left up here if it leads you on your path. Turn around if you find that this is the wrong direction. Swerve. Miss the potholes. There is a destination here, keep searching. You’re worth the gas it takes to fill up and just go. Find your way back.

For you, girls, the answer is always yes. You are always whole. You are worthy and smart and strong. You are so strong, in fact, that people will spend an inordinate amount of time telling you that you are not. You will spin your own webs and get tangled up, but find your way back again. You will do stupid stupid things, but you may learn from them. You can see clearer now than ever before.

You there, young girl? Yes, you. For you, the answer is yes.

 

Kelly Wickham is a writer, educator, and speaker who’s writing has been featured on Yahoo! and the Huffington Post. She’s been a guest on NPR, speaks at blogging and education conferences, and pensMocha Mommaand Babble’s Mocha Momma Has Something to Say. Kelly also is the Social Media Director for Little Pickle Press and has a thing for writing manifestos that rally the crowd to rally themselves.

Connect with Kelly at her About.me page, and on  and .