My Literature Baby: Mirrored Reflections

Luigi is helping me read. Here are a few great pieces of literature we recommend for our readers during the upcoming winter months:

What is the What? by Dave Eggers

Beloved by Toni Morrison

The Choice by Nicholas Sparks

Great Short Short Stories 

This is the way I see womanhood as God made me.  This woman has goals, dreams, and she is comfortable enough to express herself. My hair is 14" now because I have not listened to anybody who says I should cut it. I really like this suit because it is professional and the woman wearing this means business. This feminist is the epitome of womanhood in every sense of the word! This woman is going places in her life.

In loving rememberance of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Meridel LeSeuer, Susan B. Anthony, Catherine Beecher, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Harriet Jacobs, Flannery O'Connor, Katherne Anne Porter, Kate Chopin, Zora Neale Hurston, Ellen Glasgow, Edith Wharton, Anzia Yezierska, Alive Brown, Mary Wilkins Freeman, Constance Fenimore Woolson, Harriet E. Wilson, Willa Cather, Tillie Olsen, and so many more. I thank each of you for opening up and sharing your stories about living the lives of womanhood through the use of fictional characters. Sometimes fiction helps us cope with realism and expression.

 While enrolled in my Women’s Literature course over the summer, I struggled with the concepts of the terms feminist and feminism. Before taking this course, I struggled with our media roles on the big picture of the way a feminist should be like. In the 1990s, we had a First Lady who chose to include her maiden name along with her husband’s last name. We had an African American lady in a high position sue an African American man for sexual harassment. We had a woman, along with the President, make the decision to send a raid into a young child’s home and send him back Cuba.

I became uncomfortable with the feminist approach in our society. I became more comfortable with the role of being a female. When I went into the world alone, a female counselor spent two hours a week with me teaching me how to be assertive. At the time, my coping skills consisted of shutting down and holding everything inside until I almost broke, eating, and sleeping. When I learned to assert myself better, I wrote more. I was afraid – and still am – of offending people and upsetting people. So I censored, edited, and deleted writings. I realize today this censorship is not a healthy role for a woman.

As a young woman struggling to “find myself,” I did not share my struggles with anyone else. In fact, my thinking was the less people who know, the better. Afterall, what could someone else do to help me? I don’t want anyone else’s pity or care. I am used to dealing with problems on my own. As an older woman, I have discovered that reaching out to other women is a sign of strength. Seeking counseling is a sign of strength. As embarrassing as the initiation process may be, there is strength in a woman’s soul when she believes in herself enough to seek help. This is much better than a woman sitting in her comfort zone crying for hours. Soon those hours in solitude become days. Days become weeks. Weeks turn into months. Suicide begins to have a flirtation with life. Life is not strong at this point. Life means nothing. Suicide is stronger than life. So, she comes to terms with this new power. Suicide makes sense. Suicide is the option she chooses. No one will miss her. No one has been visiting her for months. There have been people who have been angry, disappointed, and unsupportive throughout this process.

At this woman’s funeral, the service is performed by the Pastor. A few friends stand up to give pre-written testimonies on how good of a friend she had been back in the day before the depression became worse. What these friends do not share is the truth. These friends watched this woman suffer in silence and did nothing. Why? Each time these friends asked how their friend was, her response would always be, “I’m fine.” How could these friends know this friend was being robbed of her daylight savings hours spent outside in the sun?

I dreamed of dancing like a ballerina as a 

child.

I am a survivor of severe depression. I have seen the ugly side of depression and I have seen the side nobody else sees. I have been shut down during my lifetime. I have been told to write my feelings down in a journal instead of publicly. How would this repression of thoughts, feelings, and survival skills be beneficial to helping another woman? I, too, was a conservative in thought and feeling. This repression did not let my voice be strong in this world. Every struggle I faced had to be hidden. I had to play a part on a stage where the lighting was terribly low and only a few characters entered the stage. This drove me to cry out. I was tired of this depressing setting. I strongly abhorred what I had become. I had become a monster of the self even Casper could not recognize. This became an ugly feeling inside.

I wanted to rip the thorns off my heart with my the flesh palms of my bare hands. I wanted to gut the thorns the way a pumpkin is gutted at Halloween. I wanted to break the thorns into pieces with the short nails I had on my fingers. I wanted to throw the thorns back to Satan himself. Satan marks no unwarranted grave upon my heart. No heart of mine is going to be broken by manmade hands. Repression is the most repulsive thorn I know. Repression is the thorn that pops helium-filled balloons. Repression steals the sun from stages that have proper lighting. Repression is no friend of mine. I do not set out glasses of hot chocolate for thy enemy. I build an earthwork against depression with God’s help and grace.

Luigi's love keeps me from going off the deep end.

I am delivered from repression and repression is delivered from my female wrath. Repression is replaced with my voice. My voice was one weak and now strong. A woman’s voice discussing problems she faces on a daily basis is much grandour and less vile than repression could ever be. Oh, yes, ye of little humanity! Slide back into your tunnel of darkness and stay there! That should be your sentence for hurting so many women. Repression, who called you unto me? Certainly not I.

I am a feminist of my own making. I am fascinated with feminist authors, and their literary characters speak to me. I am spoken to on the sides of empathy, beauty, advocacy, and the self. I do not like the way most of these women are treated and they do not like how I am treated at times. When I read about their lives, I am drawn to reach out, provide alternative endings that are happy, and bring an awareness to their causes. I refuse to be repressed in this case. Anyone who even suggests repression needs to take a good, long look in the mirror.

This is my role model. One day I would love to meet this angel again.

There are more layers to being a female than what meets the naked eyes. As a woman living in today’s society, we need a change. We need a change today. We need to stop blaming ourselves for what happened to us years ago, weeks ago, and even yesterday. We are reminded by our dear sweet unconscious minds that love to bring up old hurts and wounds. We are reminded by our loved ones. We are reminded by the bad decisions we made. We are our own worst enemy, and is this ever a dark place to visit. The door to this isolation room needs to be locked with double or triple bolts. The room needs to be condemned and torn down.

Some good advice to not annoy this writer! Dark humour at its finest!

I had the choice of not continuing to write publicly. Yesterday when my husband heard this news, he was upset. For weeks and years, my husband has watched me write about everything. In the middle of the night, I wrote. I wrote what my heart felt. I deleted writings I had composed over the last three years.  I deleted everything. A part of me died yesterday. I almost deleted Mirrored Reflections as well. This is my literary baby and my world, or my voice. I am no murderer of dreams nor am I ever going to go back to the tragic mental state I was in at the age of twenty. My husband suggested I still keep Mirrored Reflections. For his sake I kept my literary baby. No adoption is needed today. The fee would have been pretty high as far as I am concerned. I would never sell my literature baby to repression. Repression can go back to the tunnel he came from. God resides in this tunnel and through Him I am delivered. In God we must trust. 

Mary, Joseph, and Baby Emmanuel, "God is with us"

Luigi and I would like to wish David Cook a Happy belated birthday! 

 His birthday was December 20th.