Wasting Away Again in Judgey-Mama-Ville

Dear Sibyl, As a new mom, I find myself HATING 'mom-talk.' I find it awkward listening to my friends tell me the new developmental leap their kid has taken.   How do I respond if my kid has already been doing that (for months)? I hate how it makes me feel.  If I disengage and reply with "That's great," I feel sad I didn't take that moment to brag about my own kid. BUT if I engage and be truthful about what my kid is doing, does that start an unintentional "let-me-one-up-you" war? I don't want to prove anything---I don't want to put that pressure on me or my little man who is just happy banging stuff around and laughing about it.  

I hate mothers who are scared of germs---who won't let their kid play in a public park.  I hate mothers who won't let their kid sit in dirt or GRASS (for crying out loud who cares if a dog peed there once a million years ago. . . and yes. . . I heard that come from a lady once).  I hate them because they tell these things to me AS MY KID IS PLAYING IN DIRT. . . AS MY KID SITS HAPPILY IN THE SHOPPING CART WITH NO CLOTH PROTECTION.  What do I say to them?  (You are neurotic?)   

Is there a polite way to disengage from this?  I'm not into the 'mom-shop' talk.  I don't mind talking about motherhood but I hate when it turns into what people’s kids are doing and when they did it and just you wait. . . and oh I would NEVER let him do that. . . you let them eat what?  From the whole foods salad bar???  GERMS!!!!  I especially hate when they talk to me as if I have no idea what is coming next.  I find it patronizing.  

For the love of all things---how do I deal with them?

Trapped in Momville

Dear Trapped,

You’ve got to take it all less personally.  Let me explain, because believe me, I know what you mean---I’ve been there.  And it never goes away.  Parenting brings out a level of anxiety and neurosis in certain people that even that mom who is armed with antibacterial hand gel just to let their kid use the swing has never known before. That does not mean you need to get caught up in it, or identify yourself with that woman in any way.

New moms are trying to define themselves in their new role, and some women do that by getting very particular about everything child-related.  These moms are unsure of how to be a parent, so they equate it with Getting It Right, and then work hard to shore up their definition of “right” by forcing you to feel their anxiety and agree with them about this worldview.  You have to fight not to be sucked in to the crazy-making conversational dance about what food you introduced first to your baby and what that means about you as a person.

And that probably means you feel alienated, and lonely.  Which is an uncomfortable space to be in, but a normal way to feel.  What you've got to let go of is the hatred.

When I became a mother, I was shocked at the level of discourse of the mothers I encountered on the playground, at playdates, and just out in the world.  The level of competitiveness was striking---moms even found ways to put down my child's early verbosity ("She's going to have quite a mouth on her when she's 13!") and would urge their kids to draw like my child was ("Hunter, draw a circle!  You can do it, see hers?  Just like that."), looking over at me to prove my kid was nothing special, after all.  I was saddened that all they wanted to discuss was diaper changes and when to wean, while I had read three books and watched several documentaries that week that I was eager to discuss, but my attempts to shift the conversation fell on deaf ears.

From observing this pack mentality over several months, I realized a few things: I was going to find "my people", eventually, but these folks were not it.  Therefore, I separated the moms I knew into two categories, "co-workers", and "friends".  The co-workers were the moms I always saw on the playground but knew I was never really going to connect with, the ones obsessed with germs and growth charts.  I delegated them in my mind to the annoying co-workers I once had in the professional setting---I talked to them when I needed to, stayed emotionally detached from them, and, if anything, found compassion for their exquisitely neurotic states.  If they pissed me off too much to have compassion for them, I moved on to just pity their children.

The ones I found to be friends with were always slightly off.  The moms who would plunk down on the park bench and say, "I almost dropped the kid off at the Fire Station last night.  This latte is the only thing keeping me from doing it now."  The ones who talked about their sex life, or lack there of, the ones who cracked wry jokes at their family’s expense, yet still daily inspired me with their devotion to their kids.  Also, I found that I could often relate more to the nannies, who were invested but just removed enough from the children to have more of a sense of humor about all of it, and more likely to invite me out for a drink after my husband got home.

You are going to find your people.  You will know, when you walk into their house and their homes are not neat as a pin with family portraits hanging everywhere and cookies baking in the oven, but rather, their home looks lived in.  You will know, when they ask you how you are, and they really mean you, not how well your child slept last night.  And they are going to make this wild world of parenting so much more fun.

So, the way you deal with the new moms that are driving you nuts with the comparison-based mom talk is you don't hang out with them.  You take out a magazine at the park when a mom you don't know is hovering over their kid and yours, and smiling crazily at you like, "Aren't you going to follow your kid around?!"

You decline the playdates to the houses where the moms have disinfected the bottoms of all their shoes, even though they never wear shoes indoors.  You do this even if that means you are lonely sometimes, and just end up hanging out with your own kid.  This will force you to go find the parents you can actually relate to.

You go find your people, and you try, really hard, not to talk shit about those other moms.  They are fighting a terrible battle that they will never win, the battle to protect their kid from struggle, and from life.  Leave them to it.  Be your own kind of mother.  Go play.

Love,

Sibyl

Submit your own quandary to Sibyl here. 

Semiramis: Ancient Woman of Mystery.

The first reason I wanted to write about Semiramis was because of her cool name, and the second was because I hadn’t written about an ancient historical woman since my first post on Hatshepsut. Lack of sources and all that.

But after just a cursory scan of her Wikipedia page, my interest was very much piqued, more because of what wasn’t there than what was. It’s true that with ancient figures, as opposed to modern ones, the lack of sources can be crippling. Photographs and phonographic recordings are certainly easier to interpret than crumbling papyrus scrolls. But even as far as ancients go, Semiramis’s life is a complete mystery. And yet, this hasn’t prevented a whole bunch of people—mostly men—from liberally inventing her life story in a whole bunch of ways.

The real Semiramis was probably actually an Assyrian queen named Shammuramat who, following her husband Shamshi-Adad V’s death, ruled as regent for her young son from 810 to 806 BCE. Her actual looks, personality, and accomplishments are shrouded in that aforementioned mystery—though, at the very least, we know she spent a few years in charge of the Neo-Assyrian Empire at its powerful height, with a rule spanning from Asia Minor to western Iran. The neighboring Greeks, Iranians, and Indians probably fueled the Semiramis legend due to their contact with the Assyrian empire during her reign. Average Greek/Iranian/Indian guy: “Those Assyrians are badass and they’re ruled by a woman? Man, she must be super hardcore, bro.” (It’s my theory that bros are not a new phenomenon.)

Beyond that, Shammuramat/Semiramis’s life gets murky. But like I said, a whole bunch of people over the centuries—mostly men—can tell you plenty about her. Here’s a brief rundown of the, shall we say, creative Semiramis interpretations:

Ancient Greeks and Persians believed her to be the legendary queen of king Ninus of Babylon, who oversaw the building of the Hanging Gardens, one of the Seven Wonders of the World.

Greek historian Diodorus Siculus, who lived in the first century BCE, devoted a lot of ink (or stone chisels, or whatever) to Semiramis in his The Library of History. According to Diodorus, she was the daughter of a fish goddess (!) that was raised by doves (!!) and then married to the Babylonian king Ninus. When Ninus died, she pretended to be her son for forty-two years (kind of a more soap-opera version of serving as regent), and during that time commanded armies, conquered Libya and Ethiopia, built palaces, and waged an unsuccessful campaign in India which included an army of mechanical elephants (!!!). However, Dio S. refuted the popular claim that she built the Hanging Gardens, noting that these were built after her time by Nebuchadnezzar (owner of one of the best names any king has had, period).

Ammianus Marcellinus, a Roman historian, claimed Semiramis invented eunuchs— yes—initiating the practice of castrating male youth. Others also said she invented the chastity belt. (I hear those words, my mind still goes to Maid Marian’s steel padlocked underwear in Robin Hood: Men in Tights.)

Armenian tradition depicted her as a harlot—in a traditional story, she killed the Armenian king Ara the Beautiful after he refused her hand in marriage.

Dante put her in the Second Circle of Hell, along with Helen of Troy, in his Inferno. Probably another one of those “harlot” things.

Alexander Hislop, the 19^th-century Protestant minister, wrote about her in his The Two Babylons (1853) and placed her in biblical tradition. According to Alex H., she was the consort of Nimrod, builder of the Tower of Babel, and she deified herself as the Sumerian goddess Ishtar, mother of Gilgamesh. Later Catholic tradition was based on Semiramis’s Ishtar legend—including the Virgin Mary—which, essentially, allowed Hislop to equate Catholicism with paganism. (Which leads me to question, where does that leave Protestantism? But I haven’t read this masterpiece of theological inquiry, so I won’t judge, beyond the fact that I just sarcastically called it a masterpiece of theological inquiry.)

On top of all this, Semiramis has been the subject of silent and talkie films (Queen of Babylon, 1954; I am Semiramis, 1963), operas (Rossini’s Semaride; Meyerbeer’s Semaride), plays (Voltaire’s Semiramis, a brief mention in Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus), and 18^th-century paintings (both paintings shown here; Jean-Simon Berthélemy’s Semiramis Inspecting a Plan of Babylon), among other things. Now all that’s missing in terms of namesakes is a feminist pop culture website (a la Jezebel).

Like Jezebel, Mary Magdalene, Cleopatra, and a host of other ancient women, Semiramis has become synonymous with female licentiousness and sexual immorality, a symbol of woman’s role as earthly temptation. But she has also been attributed qualities of leadership, daring, ambition, courage, and empire-building. She’s even been called a fish goddess’s daughter---which sounds like the name of an Amy Tan novel.

So the stories are obviously all a little different. But for me, the striking common thread is, again, the way that Semiramis serves as an empty vessel, whether that’s for themes of sexual immorality, leadership, divinity, or what have you. Basically, she served whatever purpose the dude---storyteller, scroll-writer, Enlightenment playwright, or silent film director---had in mind, informed by the cultural context of the times through which her legacy was passed down. And these contexts tended to be supremely male-centric, Bible-obsessed, and probably Orientalist.

In this, then, Semiramis's story is not so different from the story of women today. Sure, we’ve come a long way. Yet women often continue to serve as symbols of societal morality, to be talked about with or without women’s participation. There are public debates about how women should dress, how women should behave sexually, how women should balance work and home life. There are political debates about rape, birth control, abortion. There are humanitarian debates about women in other countries---most recently, Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn’s Half the Sky made a splash---and how their dress, rights, cultural roles represent the relative freedom and, perhaps, morality of their societies. (And maybe whether or not we should invade them.)

So as awesome as all the stories about Semiramis are, as an ancient woman of historical legend, I think the most interesting thing about her is that she has secrets. That, maybe, I can relate to.

How To Train Your Dragon: Letting Doubt Into Marriage

Dear Sibyl, I am writing because I feel afraid. I got married in August to a man I adore and feel such a comfort with, but we are so different in every way (not the least of which being that I am a minister/chaplain and he is not a person of faith, and our cultural differences). We have had conflicts over the last four years that I would call "normal" for most couples but this weekend was one of those conflicts that left me wracked with doubts.

Doubts like "with this divorce rate what am I thinking?? Are we going to make it?? Is this rocky adjustment period a horrible sign or is it just the reality of marriage?"

He is a genuinely good man. My family loves him. I can be myself around him---except on nights like this when I am super defensive and analytical and miss my parents like a two year old does and cry nonstop. Then we have to go to separate corners.

Anyway, I thought that better than blogging about this would be writing to someone who seems to find the beauty and depth precisely in the imperfections of life and relationships. So I am wondering if you are someone who has somehow made all this work, against all odds.

I hope against hope that we can too.

Sincerely,

Newlywedded but Doubting Bride

Dear Newlywedded,

It's beautiful that you are allowing doubt into your relationship.  Doubt is the creature that lurks at the door, and you fear it, imagining a dragon, when really you should let it in and set a place for it at the table.  Once it's been well fed and seen in the light, you'll see its scales will fall off and transform into something more human.

My husband and I have been married for nearly a decade.  We have had our share of bitter heartbreaking periods in that ten year span, but are now in a place that is so good, that we often joke that we should produce some "It Gets Better" videos for young couples who are starting out and wondering why on earth they should stick with something so tragically difficult.  The fact that it is hard is the very reason it turns out to be so rewarding, as time goes on.

Everything gets better if you stick with it: the sex, the communication, the spiritual connection.  Just this past weekend we lay in each other's arms, totally naked, wrapped around each other like ribbons on a May Pole.  Our time together was brief---soon we'd have to hit the grocery store to get food for dinner, pick up our child from the babysitter, and be back to the grind of life.  But that moment felt infinite, as we bared our hearts and bodies to each other.

So, what advice would I give to a newlywed, especially one with some big differences to overcome?

1. Let each other grow and change, even if it looks like you are growing in different ways.  Lets go back to the ivy branch image from last week, as a metaphor for a relationship.  As you grow, you branch out in different directions, but you also twine together in places, always coming back to the same root and source, which is your love for one another.  Don't be afraid of his interests that are different from yours---encourage them.  Give him time and space to explore those very things that you don't enjoy---but also take an interest in them, at the very least asking him to explain to you why they are so meaningful to him.

2. Learn to fight.  One of the first lessons my husband taught me, when we were first dating, was that I couldn't curse at him and lose my mind in our arguments.  It took some practice, but rather than saying, "Aw, forget it, I just won't talk about this stuff with you", I worked on it, and we found a way to talk about the hard stuff with respect.  The biggest mistake I see couples make is avoiding difficult topics.  I have seen that ruin marriages more than anything else.  Marriage is all about getting in to those sticky places in life that you were hoping to just skate by, together.  Try to have a sense of humor in the midst of it---my husband and I have found that being able to make each other laugh is the best way to defuse an argument and get to the bottom of what's really bothering us, without our defenses up.

3. Keep having sex.  Just keep doing it.  Sex is a huge bonding agent.  Have you ever noticed that if your communication is just off, and you are snapping at each other more often, that just getting laid really helps?  Yeah, that's because when you meet each other nakedly in the bedroom, you can see each other in kinder light. My husband and I have had major dry spells with sex, but in those times, we have never been okay with it.  It's never been "Oh well, I guess I'm not such a sexual person".  Sex is the glue of the relationship.  So, even when it was infrequent, we were talking about it all the time, trying different things to get it going again.  You have an entire lifetime to figure out each other's bodies, so enjoy.

4. Ask for help when needed.  The early years of marriage are like resistance training workouts---you build the muscles of finding a way to heal what seems totally broken, again and again. You live in hope. And when things seem just too foggy for either of you to see the way through, you get help. I know a couple that goes to a therapist when they feel they need a "tune-up" or have a conflict they can't settle on their own, OR every five years, whatever comes first.  I love this perspective, because it takes the stigma off of the desire to have someone help you with your issues, and creates space for you to allow things to arise between you that are unexpected.  And please don't tell me you can't afford it.  If you invest in making your home nice to live in, your car run well, or your body to feel good, you can spend money on your relationship.

It sounds like you have a good partner at your side, one willing to do the difficult work and share in the spoils of love and creating a life together.  Hold on to one another, for when the really hard times come, you’ll remember that you sailed through stormy waters in the beginning, and came out afloat, doubts and all.

Love,

Sibyl

Submit your own quandary to Sibyl here.

Marissa Mayer's Easy, Breezy Climb

In the PBS Documentary that premiered this week called, Makers: Women Who Make America (about the history of feminism in this country), Marissa Mayer, President and CEO of Yahoo! and the 14^th most powerful business woman in the world (according to Forbes) said that she does not consider herself a feminist.  In her brief interview, she went on to associate feminism with a “militant drive,” a “chip on the shoulder,” and with a perception of negativity.  You can watch exactly what she said here: Her comments came to my attention because my husband’s Twitter feed was all aflutter (also, aTwitter) with varied responses to her statements.  I had intended to see the documentary the night before, but ultimately decided to save it for the weekend, so I hadn’t seen the clip.  He asked me if I had heard what she said and wasn’t I outraged?  My initial response was tepid — after all, I have heard women (and men) talking about feminism this way my whole life.  I totally understood and in some way related to her desire to dissociate herself from the more “outlandish” or “angry” version of feminism, so dismissed by the mainstream.  After all, this version of feminism is threatening and flips the script on men in traditional positions of power.  The more we discussed it, the more I wondered if it was that Ms. Mayer had been so privileged in her career and social trajectory that she had truly never experienced barriers or that she had so internalized the narrative that women should “go along to get along” that she sincerely couldn’t empathize with “radicals.”

Marissa Mayer, you stand on the shoulders of the women throughout our history who acted out in a way that you might consider ugly.  By all accounts, you earned the daylights out of the position in which you find yourself today.  You are eminently qualified for your job in terms of your education and experience.  You have a reputation for being an unapologetic workaholic.  And yet, you don’t seem to realize that the reason you had access to your education, any of the jobs you have held or the resources and social sanctions to work as hard as you have is because of feminism … the bra-burning kind.  Or, even worse, you are so disconnected from that struggle and have no sense of why women have been forced to be so reactive, that you don’t want to affiliate with that identity.

I want to say here quite clearly that I obviously don’t know Marissa Mayer at all.  I don’t have true insight into what she was thinking when she said those words (that I now can’t stop watching on YouTube).  I also haven’t seen the entire context of the interview, which might soften the seemingly cut-and-dried indictment of her sisters in arms.  I do know that when you have achieved that kind of status (breezily climbing the ladder, she seems to believe), the public has a tendency to hang on your every word, particularly in the context of being interviewed about your extraordinary accomplishments in a documentary about FEMINISM.

This also comes on the heels of her establishing a company-wide ban on working from home.  Flexible scheduling and telecommuting have been cornerstone achievements in establishing equality in the workplace.  Introducing the idea that the work environments could and should be more flexible has boosted the careers of both women AND men in recent decades and allowed both parties to be more available for childcare, among other things.  Many studies, including this 2009 study by major corporate employer Cisco found that people are actually more productive and satisfied with their jobs when they have this flexibility.  This is particularly salient for women, for whom the traditional work structure is still punitive when they have children and prevents them from keeping pace with their male counterparts in terms of advancement.

And what about Marissa Mayer and her own, personal, work-life balance?  She made history when she was hired by Yahoo! as the youngest CEO of a Fortune 500 company ever and immediately announced that she was also five months pregnant.  Working mothers everywhere glommed on to her story, waiting with bated breath to see how this would all play out.  She ended up working from home during the end of her pregnancy, took only two weeks of maternity leave and had a special nursery built next to her office at Yahoo! so she could be close to her newborn after her lightning fast return to work.  I don’t have to tell you what a poor model this is for working women and how nobody else on planet earth has the money or power to build a nursery next to their office and bring their infant to work.  Maybe Oprah or Martha.  Maybe.

I write this on a day when Congress has finally voted to re-authorize the Violence Against Women Act.  Shockingly, despite the description of what the act aims to prevent being right in the title, this wasn’t remotely a done deal.  In fact, it was kind of a squeaker.  138 Members of Congress (Republicans, all) ultimately voted against it.  It sort of makes me wonder where we might rustle up a bunch of feminists to demonstrate the appropriate level of fury?

I hope that as Marissa Mayer evolves in her career, she might reconsider her notion of feminism as negative.  It is, rather simply, the entire reason she has a career.  I get that she pictures feminists only as wearing combat boots and reading poetry about their vaginas.  But, she is in a position of vast power and has great wealth and we could use her in the trenches.  We could use another woman who fits all the classical norms of beauty and prominence to publicly recognize that there is still so much work to be done.

I've Got a Perfect Body

The title of this post most definitely does not reflect my personal relationship with my own body, oh no of course not, though (as we will discuss) I wish it did. It’s a line from a Regina Spektor song (“Folding Chair,” from 2009’s Far) that rolls through my head sometimes, which I absolutely love:

“I’ve got a perfect body / But sometimes I forget / I’ve got a perfect body / ‘Cause my eyelashes catch my sweat”

I love how this little sentiment subverts our expectation as to how one’s body should be judged. What is the “perfect body” anyway? Who is it for? Yourself, or everyone else?

Last week I visited the Mütter Museum in Philadelphia, a dark and morbidly fascinating collection of medical specimens and wax models of human oddities housed in a physicians’ college. Most of the specimens date back to the early twentieth century and have that curio cabinet look about them, though they were ostensibly used for legitimate research purposes.

A lot of it was interesting—all of it left me feeling a little queasy. The models and specimens were, for the most part, divorced from the experience of the human who was afflicted, and were presented as isolated parts (syphilitic skulls, tumored eyes). Cold, scientific. But one exhibit I found to be sympathetic and particularly heartbreaking.

This exhibit showed a series of photographs of a boy who lived in the middle of the twentieth century. In the first photograph, he is a beaming 5-year-old boy who has just recovered from a fractured leg bone and is standing tall in his little 1940s shorts. In the next photograph, he is about 7, and we can see that something is wrong with his leg—it’s growing a bit crooked, skinny, weak. The photographs continue over the years, and soon we see that the malformation of his leg has also affected his posture. He can only stand with his head stooped forward, one shoulder collapsed, as he shoots up over six feet with one healthy leg and one long, crooked, bone-thin leg. In each of these later photographs he stares straight at the camera, stoic, defeated, with an air of despair. He died when he was about 40.

This was someone who would not be able to walk through a crowd without attracting strange looks, revulsion and/or pity. This was, I suppose, an imperfect body, one that had trouble functioning, one whose skeleton (or a facsimile thereof) was placed on display in a goddamn curio cabinet. Because of one long, pronounced flaw.

On the other end of the spectrum is the story of the Ukrainian Barbie “trend” that’s been circulating on the Internet—girls who are quite literally striving for physical perfection. Through plastic surgery and hardcore makeup regimens, women like Anastasiya Shpagina and Valeriya Lukyanova attempt to achieve the exaggerated proportions and pert, doll-like features of Barbie dolls and anime characters. It’s alarming and simply cannot be healthy, physically, mentally, or emotionally—yet this is their choice. This, according to their interviews, is what makes them happy and comfortable. Including possibly having ribs surgically removed to get that perfect tiny waist.

What is perfection? I think it’s worth asking ourselves that question. Whether or not we admit to it, there must be some idea of “the perfect” that we consciously or unconsciously believe in. If there was no “perfect,” there would be no such thing as flaws. Or if there were, they would be things like a malformed leg that made walking difficult and required medical attention---not a bit of cellulite or ears that turn out too wide.

In a recent Jezebel piece, Tracy Moore points out that it is often realism, not insecurity, that informs women’s reluctance to describe themselves as “pretty” (or, when they do, to qualify it with their numerous flaws or non-normative traits).

“For them, it wasn't that they couldn't think they were pretty. It was that they all knew, after lifetimes of being shown images of what is pretty, cute, beautiful or not in staggering detail, EXACTLY what kind of pretty they are or aren't, to what type of person they were most appealing, to what degree their prettiness abounds. Just saying they were pretty without acknowledging the exceptions seemed to be like admitting that you didn't understand how pretty works. And ‘pretty’ isn't a permanent state, either: it's a complicated, evolving assessment, discussed with a detached, almost economic appraisal.”

I get that “pretty” or “beautiful” are extremely abstract signifiers that we never like to imagine ourselves as fully qualifying for. But if not us, who does? Hypothetically, what would the erasure of all these supposed “flaws” get us to? A fake Barbie?

Whether it’s insecurity or realism, I don’t think there’s any problem with celebrating the body and face you have. It’s not perfect in the literal sense, but it’s not supposed to be. If it works, for the most part—if you ever feel good about yourself—if anyone has ever paid you a compliment—you might as well have a perfect body.  The women who started and/or participate in The Nu Project, a photography blog of female nudes who embrace and celebrate their bodies as they are, seem to know this. (Warning: NSFW.) What I love about this project—besides for these women’s bravery in bearing all despite deviations from supposed “perfection”—is the sheer diversity of their bodies, the oft-needed reminder that there’s more ways to be and to look and to appear than the narrow parameters of beauty presented to us in the media.

Maybe all of us are perfect. Or maybe none of us are perfect. All I know is, it's a waste of time to feel shame---whether that's shame at feeling unattractive, or shame at feeling attractive and expressing that confidence aloud.

But also, I think it’s important to remember: we have bodies but we are not bodies. We are more. Accept the physical reality, then concern yourself with more important things, like being an awesome person. Right?

The end.

Does Being an Adult Totally Suck?

Dear Sibyl, I finally feel like a real grown-up and I find it horribly disappointing. I can't imagine a better husband, my two-year-old daughter is awesome, and I love my work. Unfortunately, there's a big but. I was prepared to have a big, important career and I don't think that's possible as a mother of a small child (without being independently wealthy).

My parents told me I could be anything I wanted to be and my husband regularly says he's waiting for me to strike it big, so he can retire. Unfortunately, my career options are high in intellectual, social, and personal rewards, but not so much in financial rewards. My husband isn't going to be retiring on my salary anytime soon, which means his job needs to be the priority.

The part that really gets me is that I will never fully realize my potential career. If there are two working parents, one parent always has to be the one who will figure it out if the babysitter is sick. One parent has to make sure there is food in the fridge and favorite pajamas are washed in time for bed. One parent has to sign on as parent #1 (at least to provide the kind of support that I envision providing to my child). Maybe there is a system where both parents share all child-related responsibilities, but I'm not sure I can imagine it. After all, one of the major tenets of management in a professional context is maintaining individual responsibility: if everyone is responsible no one is.

Most big, important careers demand to be the priority. And I think the realization that made me a grown-up is that you don't get to have two priorities at once in life. I want my child, and eventually children, to be my first priority, but I also want to know what I could have done with my professional life had I been able to give it my all.

Sincerely, Two Paths, One Life

Dear Two Paths, One Life,

Are you sitting down?  Okay, because I’m about to deliver a series of blows that may hurt at first, but hopefully will settle in as the best kind of truth.

First of all, no wonder you are disappointed in adulthood, since you are completely missing the point.  The goal of life is not to be a big, important person who is responsible for everyone and amasses wealth for retirement.  I totally understand why you believe this, as this is our culture’s greatest falsehood, one we shout and whisper and slip into the food we serve.

But, Honey.  Oh, Honey, no.

The choice is not between being a mother and being a big shot.  It’s about being a person of substance, no matter what tasks you find yourself doing.

First of all, we need to address your sign off name.  There are three lives you are talking about here, and three paths, but you have submerged them all into one life---yours.  Of course there's no space to spread your wings!  You have both your husband and your child on your back, and you're stumbling around blindly.

A better metaphor for what should be going on is: One root, three vines.  Your husband and yourself formed the roots of your family tree when you bonded yourselves to one another.  Your lives climb like an ivy plant, branching off in some places, intertwining and holding one another up in others.  Your daughter's is an offshoot, that right now gets all of its nourishment from the roots of your marriage.  However, she'll branch off on her own more and more, and eventually she'll start her own vine, on some other wall.  The way things are now, both of their branches are choking yours, and no one can grow.

I think the problem is that you need to redefine success.  What is “making it” as an adult?  Is it a life of growth, or one you read about in the newspapers?  Because the people making headlines, especially ones with big, important careers, are always falling from grace, in big, important ways.  Just this month: Jesse Jackson Jr., Oscar Pistorius, THE POPE.

You don’t need a big, important career to be a happy adult, you need to be a big, important you.  Be the biggest star of your life.  Be the most important person in your child's life.

Do you want to make something happen?  Then follow your passion and do it!  But if you just want to feel important, then I don't think you will find that kind of validation in a high-paying, high stakes job.  That kind of validation only comes from within.

I want you to let this dream of being this powerful figure die so you can see what rises from the ashes.  I want what rises to be you.

In order to do this, you cannot use management tenets to run your family---your family should be be run on love, and love means everyone pitches in.  So, let go of some of the responsibility for being “Parent #1”, and let your husband plan back-up childcare for once.  And tell him to stop putting pressure on you to strike it big so he never has to work again!  What the hell?

So, perhaps you are not going to be on the cover of TIME magazine.  But, I doubt very seriously that that is because you are devoting your energy towards being a mother, instead.  I believe that you can still have what you want---have a feeling of being a successful adult who makes waves in the world, while still showing up for your children---but it is going to require a worldview shift.

Being an adult means we get to weave together the life we actually want, which, yes, is really difficult, but has the potential to create something totally unique and beautiful.

You are not missing out on fully realizing your potential career, if you are fully realizing your potential self.  You will need to give up the goals of prestige and leisure and take up the goal of love, but I promise you, it’s a better investment.

Love, Sibyl

Submit your own quandary to Sibyl here.

Josephine Baker: Dancer. Spy. Subverter of Racial Assumptions.

 

About six months ago, I wrote about the racist moments that cropped up on the latest cycle of “America’s Next Top Model." (I realize in reality TV-land that this might has well have been the last century, and that about seven seasons have aired since then.) One of the moments that struck me as the most insanely questionable was when a designer dressed up black British model Analiese in a skirt of dangly plush bananas, while he dressed the other two models—both white—in more traditional, Marie Antoinette-style outfits.

It was pointed out to me that the tropical getup may have been purposely evocative of today’s Historical Woman, the amazing Josephine Baker: an American-born French singer, dancer, and all-around entertainer who fought Nazis and racists on the side. One of her most famous stage costumes was a skirt made of dangling bananas, usually accompanied by a complete lack of a top. This throws the whole ANTM affair into a much more complicated and ambiguous place—especially considering Ms. Baker’s agency in marketing her act and image in this way. How to feel about it now?

Let’s start with the banana skirt. The garment has been alternately described as problematic and empowering, as an accessory of European colonialist fantasy and as a tool that Baker knowingly used to subvert racial and gender categories. In this way, the skirt is really a microcosm for her entire career, at least in the early decades.

When Josephine Baker, born Freda McDonald in St. Louis, Missouri in 1906, arrived in Paris in 1925, France was obsessed with black culture. For them, Josephine—who appeared in a show called “La Revue Nègre”—was a safe venue for their fantasies about “the savage,” a figure often extolled as the antidote to a spiritually oppressive civilization. That Josephine was from Missouri and not deepest Africa seemed to mean little to her French fans and critics.

“The white imagination sure is something when it comes to blacks,” Josephine quipped. I like to think she meant: “White people sure can be racist!”

Baker appeared in a number of shows in which she was usually scantily clad, often portraying a “savage” who meets a French colonial explorer and dances to the accompaniment of African drums. See a video of one such dance here. Critics rhapsodized about her primal vitality and her exotic looks. Picasso extolled her “coffee skin, ebony eyes, and legs of paradise,” and she was admired by everyone from Ernest Hemingway to Jean Cocteau (oh, Paris in the 1920s!).

While the banana skirt and the “primitive” dances, as well as the audience reaction, may induce discomfort in a modern mind (like mine), it’s possible that in the context of her time Josephine was exercising an unprecedented kind of power, even as she reproduced the stereotypes that still popularly characterized her race. Her particular brand of entertainment was insanely marketable and earned her great success and admiration. She herself may have been the one who invented the banana skirt—thus it was not, as the liberal imagination (like mine) might like to infer, foisted upon her by a racist white stage manager. Either way, she certainly took advantage of its popularity, advocating for everything from banana moisturizers to pomades to custards that bore her name. (This last was actually created by Alice B. Toklas, Gertrude Stein’s GFF. Oh, Paris in the 1920s!)

Josephine Baker’s crazy whirlwind of a life was by no means limited to her stage career. During World War II, Josephine was a spy for the French Resistance movement. Thus, she joins Julia Child in the “unlikely spy” category. (Waiting for Josie & Josephine.) Her Europe-wide performing career was the perfect cover for her to casually participate in—and then remember-- all sorts of important conversations, and she passed the info on to the Allies, aiding Charles de Gaulle and his Free French buddies.

What motivated this singer/dancer to enter the world of political intrigue? It’s true that she was a devoted nouveau francaise and that she loved her adopted country—but even more, Josephine hated Nazis. “The Nazis were racist,” she told Ebony magazine in 1973. “They were bigots. I despised that sort of thing and was determined that they must be defeated.”

As a result of her service to France, Josephine became the first American woman to receive a full French military funeral upon her death in 1975, an event that shut down the streets of Paris. She even got a 21-gun salute, which, apparently, is more than just a Green Day song.

There’s really too much more to say about Josephine in this confined space. For example: She adopted twelve children from different countries and called them her “Rainbow Tribe” (way before Angelina Jolie). She lived in a fifteenth-century French castle. She had pet cheetahs. She participated in the Civil Rights Movement and was asked by Coretta Scott King to help lead it following the assassination of King’s husband. (Baker declined, probably for safety reasons.) She refused to play to segregated audiences on her U.S. tour and thus helped accelerate integration.

Josephine Baker’s legacy continues to inspire many women to this day, and her image—often, but not always, including that infamous banana skirt—pops up in the most unlikely of places. Look for her cameos in Midnight in Paris, The Triplets of Belleville, and the animated Anastasia. Even Beyoncé has paid tribute.

I wonder now what Josephine would think of where we are now, both in the U.S. and Europe. She was happy with the progress that had been made even in her own lifetime. But how far have we really come? To what extent do we still exoticize women of color? Even as overt, sickening racism becomes less frequent, what subtler forces are at play that continue to reveal and reinforce power imbalances between whites and minorities?

I’m optimistic that, at the very least, the visceral discomfort induced in liberal-minded minds (like mine) by seeing a black woman dressed in a banana skirt by a white man on TV means we’ve at least made some progress.

A Beautiful Life

Dear Sibyl, What do you think is the best and most gracious way to keep social life simple? I get a lot of requests to do things both for fun and on the professional level (i.e. sit on a committee or board) and I also want to have a good amount of unscheduled time, because I know that is what works for me, to keep me sane. But what is a good way to do this in a world that encourages frantic activity?

Sincerely, Lil’ Miss Popular

Dear Ms. Popular,

The most frequent answer to the question "How are you these days?" is "Busy!"  What if people answered this question a bit more accurately and said, "I have a lot of tasks to complete all the time, but inwardly I feel a little disconnected."  Because that is the true definition of a busy life.

Time is social capital.  First of all, I'd like to commend you for taking the time to consider your social commitments and seek to knit something together that supports you individually as well as helps you feel a part of a greater community.

Much of our lives are made up of the people we spend it with.  Some of that we don't have a whole lot of choice about: the co-worker that is hired after you and talks your ear off about their skydiving obsession, the fellow dog owner who tries to get you involved in puppy politics at the dog park, the neighbor with the backfiring van who will never move out.

So, when you have a rare hour of free time, you want to be sure you are investing it in something or someone who will add depth and continuity to your life, rather than feeling like you are flitting around from one commitment to the next, always playing catch-up with each person.

Personally, I often find myself falling head over heels for a person or an organization, and throwing myself into that friendship or activity with great fervor, only to find out a year down the line that they were not who I thought they were, or that I've outgrown them.  If I stopped doing this, however, my life would remain stagnant, and I would eventually feel isolated from my own lack of willingness to risk and put my whole self into my relationships and endeavors.

Carl Jung had the idea that we are drawn to people who have something that we need, and can help us realize those parts of ourselves.  Over time, we are meant to start doing those things on our own, and when we do, we may find that what we were meant to learn from that person, and what we had to share with them, has made the relationship redundant.

Does that mean you need to stop calling your best friend from elementary school, who have little in common with now but love seeing, for the tether she gives you to the past?  No, but I would suggest saving visits with her for special times: her birthday, when the band whose songbook the two of you have memorized comes to town, or a holiday you love spending with her.

This may free you (and your old friend) up to do some new things.  When you do, consider, "How is this going to help me grow as person?  What is it about this activity or friend that I am particularly drawn to?  Is that something I really want more of in my life?"

For instance, you may be excited about a certain couple because they have great parties that look cool on Instagram and give you blog fodder.  If that is really your only connection to them, I suggest giving them a very slim slice of your life, perhaps accepting only every third invitation.  However, if you have a friend who is exceptionally kind to your child, and who could teach you how to make terrariums, and remembers to ask after your sick cat, see if she can meet you for coffee tomorrow.

I have to say I am quite taken with your idea of preserving unscheduled time.  Perhaps you can block that out in your calendar, and write "Reserved for Spontaneity" in the square.  Then, when you are asked to fill that time with volunteer work or a baby shower, just say, "I cannot.  I have an engagement with my mind."  Then everyone will think you are weird and won't invite you places anymore anyway and you'll have lots of free time!

I am being a little silly there, but honestly, you have the right to curate your own life.  Consider your calendar like an art exhibit, and choose the pieces that inspire you the most and that you want to look at all the time to hang on the walls of your days.

Feel free to create something beautiful with your community and your time, even if this means turning down some invitations.  Choose beauty, however sparse that may be for you, over busy-ness.

Love, Sibyl

Submit your own quandary to Sibyl here.

Can I Hate Chris Brown?

For the record, I don’t hate anybody. Some celebrities—Justin Bieber, Ashton Kutcher, Kim Kardashian---get on my nerves. And there are other male superstars who have mistreated women, physically, sexually, and/or verbally---Mel Gibson, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Charlie Sheen—who piss me off/gross me out/don’t deserve to be successful.

But hate is such a strong word.

The titular question flitted through my mind as I viewed the recap of his latest douchebag escapade on E! News. Chris apparently got into a dust-up last week with singer Frank Ocean over a parking spot outside Frank’s studio. Shoves/punches may have been thrown, including one from Brown at Ocean. Of course, it doesn't sound like the fight was as crazy as Drakegate 2012, which had Brown and Drake and their respective crews throwing shit from across an NYC dance floor at each other, apparently in a tiff over Rihanna. Which was then, as any good fight is these days, taken to Twitter.

But while Brown-Drake 2012 was like, WTF, Ocean-Brown 2013 is like, Chris Brown just go the fuck away. First of all, I love Frank Ocean. He’s adorable, he’s subverting heteronormative sexuality, and he sings beautiful songs that make me cry. (See here and here. Gah.) Second, Chris Brown took it—yes—to Twitter and posted a photo of Jesus on the cross and noted “the way I feel today”. Obviously, this is completely ridiculous in this context, but let’s zoom out a second and remember that there is literally never a situation where you compare yourself to Jesus that doesn’t make you look like an asshole. Which is what he is. GO AWAY.

This is by no means the first time I’ve pondered whether I really hate Chris Brown. The last time was on Halloween, when he and his buddies decided it was a clever idea to dress up as the Taliban. Long, shaggy beards, dusty turbans, rags, AK-47s and all. On top of being tasteless, there’s more than a whiff of casual racism happening here, as tends to happen whenever the “terrorist” costume idea pops up.

Then there was the time he said this to comedian Jenny Johnson on Twitter: “take them teeth out when u Sucking my dick HOE” Sure, she had just called him a worthless piece of shit, but it doesn’t need to be reiterated that misogynistic, sexually threatening insults are not the correct response. Especially when you’re Chris Brown, and you a) are already known to have beaten a woman, and b) do, in all truth, deserve to be called a WPOS.

And yes, lest we forget, God forbid, the number one reason why anyone should ever feel like hating—or, serious minimum, hating on—Chris Brown: he brutally beat his then-girlfriend* Rihanna and did no jail time**. Nothing will ever make that okay, really. He’ll always have done that, and that will always be unacceptable. That it was such a public escapade, and that Rihanna herself was arguably even more famous than him, made it a much greater lightning rod for outrage than aforementioned messrs. Sheen, Schwarzenegger et. al. who have also mistreated women less famous/powerful than themselves. This is true.

*And now-girlfriend. But that’s an outrage for another day. **He may have also not done the community service he was sentenced to. Let's just add that to the outrages.

But the fact that certain crimes draw less outrage doesn’t mean we’re making too big a deal over Chris Brown’s criminal douchiness. It means we’re not making a big enough deal about all the rest. And: Chris Brown still lives his life unmolested. Chris Brown still has a career. Chris Brown still got to perform at the Grammys last year in a “comeback” tour that seemed to have amnesia about why he had to “come back” at all.

All the other stuff is just frosting on a bad-person cake. Also, let’s not forget that by continuing to support him, when he hasn’t made any significant public effort to address and apologize for his actions, we send a message that what he did was okay. . . that it was on par with (or even, less than) those times Lindsay Lohan drove without a license, or Winona Ryder shoplifted. Just another oops! celebrity screwup. (Which, incidentally, is probably a countdown show on the E! network.) For proof, view this disturbing assortment of statements from (where else) Twitter, collected after his Grammy’s performance last year, where various women say something to the effect that "Chris Brown's so hot he can beat me any day." Takeaway: We all still have work to do.

Hate is a strong word. But it’s definitely okay—maybe even necessary?—to hate on Chris Brown.

Hungry Hungry Humans

Dear Sibyl, Is it me, or does everyone and their uncle have a food allergy/aversion/snobbish avoidance these days? I've found it increasingly difficult to share meals and prepare food for others without objections from gluten-free, only-eat-local-everything, on-a-cleanse, vegan, paleo-diet friends and family members.  I used to crave the communal intimacy of a shared meal, but now it seems "what I'm not eating" dominates the conversation (and makes my allergy-free, trying-to-stay-sane self question if I really should be eating that dairy/gluten/egg-rich muffin). Am I being insensitive?

Signed,

Eating the Damn Muffin Already

Dear Eating The Damn Muffin Already,

I wish you were my dinner guest.

Recently, we had a couple we were getting to know over for dinner.  I had baked a delicious dessert, since they were bringing the food.  The meal was saucy take out, rich in butter and spices.  When I brought out the salted caramel cake I had made from scratch, I was shocked that neither one of my guests were willing to try it.  They demurred, saying that "Sugar is poison, you know", and that they are cutting it out of their diet completely.

Stunned, I set my cake back on the stove, and, due to the calls of my toddler, who had been promised a special treat in honor of our guests and had even helped to bake it, I cut the members of my family slices and passed them out, leaving our guests to watch us consume a whole bunch of homemade poison.

Their choice to eat greasy take out and then refuse cake baffled me, but everyone deserves to do whatever they want with their body.  Really what bugged me were their terrible manners.

We live in a time of shifting ethics about food.  There used to be a cuisine that was considered "American", that everyone was expected to eat.  In an age of growing education about where our food comes from, who benefits from our consumption of it, and how to best feed our bodies, people are making more informed decisions about food than ever.

This is a really positive thing.  I would like nothing better than to use only local ingredients, from companies that respect the land and pay their workers a living wage.  I want to serve my family healthy food that will help our bodies grow strong.  However, I am not willing to give up the common decencies of community to do so.  My motto is "People are more important than things."  And that includes my current food philosophy.

So, what to do, if you have been invited over for dinner, and you know your hosts do not eat the same way as you?  First of all, ask what's on the menu, and what you can bring.  If you are a strict vegetarian, tell them so ahead of time.  If you have no food allergies, but would like to eat a certain way, offer to bring a salad or special gluten-free bread, and make that the focal point of your meal, eating sparingly what your hosts have provided for you.

Sharing food is such an important part of community building.  Another vital aspect of community is truth telling.  So, if you're on a diet, say you're on a damn diet.  Don't couch it in New Age terms, and definitely don't judge other people's food choices, especially not in their home.

So, to answer your question, are you being insensitive by not loving all the new diets people are trying?  Well, unless you are placing a pig on a spit in front of your vegan friend or inviting your gluten-free buddy over for Bread Fest 2013, nope.

If you find yourself irked by Macrobiotic Mary on your friend list, why not do something with her that is not centered around food?  I'm sure you can agree on an indulgent movie to watch together, to make up for the decadence missing in her diet.  Just make sure you order exactly what you want at the concession stand, and stand by your choice.  But get the small popcorn---she’s not going to share.

Love,

Sibyl

Submit your own quandary to Sibyl here.

Lessons from Utah...

Dearest Clara,

Mountains always look better when covered in snow, don’t you think? There is something about those white capped natural structures that takes my breath regardless of whether I’m seeing them from the ground up, or from the sky down.  When I was in Utah just a few weeks ago, I was elated to finally see mountains all around. Last year I made a trip at about the same time and didn’t see a single one—in fact, I could barely see two feet in front of me because of all the fog and snowstorms.  This year, during my week in Utah, I also learned to:

• Drink water, water and more water: The climate in the mountains, especially in the wintertime, is dry as can be.  If you notice you’re thirsty, it’s too late.  Start drinking water in advance of your trip and keep drinking more than you think.  Your body and skin will need it more than you realize.
• Bring a bucket of lotion: Well…not a bucket but you’ll need a lot.  Again, because of the dry climate and the changes in weather, you’re skin will need a little more love and care than it usually might.  Add some strength and add some quantity to what you normally use —and don’t forget those hands! Lots of lotion if they’re out in the cold—remember, your hands will show everything first.
• Consume food as you consume alcohol : Seems like it would be natural right? Because of regulations in the state of Utah, you need to order food at the same time that you order alcohol.  All in all, that’s not a bad general principle to live by—a little something in the stomach when you grow old enough to have a drink is a generally a good idea.  When I think of all the times I enjoyed a glass or two (or perhaps even just a little bit more) and the morning wasn’t as bright, it was always because I had forgotten to eat or didn’t eat very much.  Ordering both at the same time could be a good rule of thumb as you navigate your way through your young adult years.
• “Look out for the praiseworthy, virtuous..or lovely”: I confess I’m not very familiar with the Mormon religion, which is quite present in Utah.  But one of the principles that I’ve learned about through my travels and conversations, is that there is a specific element of faith that addresses praise for the good or the deserving.  Perhaps it is simply a longer way of saying that credit should be given where credit is due, but I can’t help but think that it is a wonderfully generous and selfless principle to be on the lookout for things that deserve praise and then to actually give it.  So many of us go through this world feeling like our actions or efforts of gifts are unnoticed—and so many of us mean to give credit but don’t.  Be the person that looks for genuine opportunities to offer a bit of notice for that which merits it.

All my love,

Mom

Catherine the Great: Prussian. Empress. Enlightened Despot.

Are absolute rule and enlightened republicanism compatible? Can you extol the Declaration of the Rights of Man while also oppressing minority groups? Do progress and violence coexist? Does progress exist?

Sorry to get a little politico-philosophically heavy-handed. (Sorry also for making up the word “politico-philosophically.”) These were just questions drifting through my idle mind as I pondered the legacy of today’s YHWOTD, Catherine the Great. Specifically, her legacy as an “enlightened despot.” Oxymoron much? Not so much, no. Or maybe it is. I leave that for you to decide.

Let’s rewind. Catherine was born with the title Princess Sophia in Prussia, in what is now a part of Poland, in 1729. As was the custom of people in her social class, she was engaged to her cousin when she was about ten. She hated him right away. His name was Peter, and he was Peter the Great’s grandson and heir to the Russian throne.

Following the engagement, young Sophia relocated, converted to Russian Orthodoxy, and changed her name to Catherine II. Which, by the way, has always struck me as an incredibly strange convention, getting abruptly, somewhat nonsensically renamed once you plan to take some kind of ruling gig. Like “oh, your name is Albert? Well, we’ve had a lot of kings named George. So why don’t we keep that going. What are we up to now? Six? Okay, George VI. Off you go.”

Catherine was married to sickly alcoholic and Prussia-lover Peter for about seventeen years; despite a troubled relationship and her numerous infidelities, they stuck it out for a time. But power corrupts (or so my high school English teachers told me). When Empress Elizabeth died in 1762, Peter took the throne, really sucked at it, and then was overthrown in a bloodless coup by his not-so-devoted wife. Then he got strangled.

Catherine’s turn.

Fortunately for Catherine, people liked her a lot better than Peter. She immediately set about modernizing and strengthening the Russian state. She continued Peter the Great’s turns towards westernization, though she also reached out diplomatically to Japan and tried to take some of Alaska—indirectly paving the way for Sarah Palin’s political career. She saw Russia through several war victories, against the Ottomans, the Poles, and her own cousin the king of Sweden. (The European ruling classes were pretty incestuous, in both the literal and figurative senses.)

On top of her political acumen, Catherine was also something of a writer. She penned multiple fictions and comedies and was a regular correspondent of European luminaries like Voltaire and Diderot. In fact, she and Voltaire were kind of long-distance besties. They never met in person, but they wrote thousands of letters to each other over the course of their lives.

This was part and parcel to Catherine’s long-standing interest in Enlightenment thought. Along with Joseph II of Austria and Frederick II of Prussia (also fellow members in the “II” club), Catherine was considered an “enlightened despot,” an absolute-style ruler who had Enlightenment ideas. You know, peace, love and happiness life, liberty and natural rights to property.

In some ways this may seem paradoxical, but one has to remember that democracy as we know it didn’t exactly exist yet. At the time, there was a completely viable trajectory that saw progress and individual liberty being best achieved under the iron-fisted rule of a despotic absolutist. No contradiction there! Said a lot of people in the eighteenth century.

Catherine’s legacy is not without blemishes. Most often, she’s criticized for her policies towards the Russian serfs—it’s said her rule saw a high (or low) point for serfdom in the Empire. For example, under her rule serfs (read: one step below "peasants") could be banished to Siberia by their lords the nobles. Or, alternative form of punishment, they could also be mercilessly beaten. So. . . even though you might have bought the compatibility of Catherine’s Enlightenment ideas and her despotism, you might still have some trouble with that whole “oppressing the serfs” part.

Still, Catherine was able to see Russia through what many considered its Golden Age, ruling for thirty-four years (that’s almost thirty-four years longer than her husband) and expanding the imperial frontiers. Call her enlightened, call her despotic, or call her the bane of the serfs—she certainly was powerful.

The Other War On Women

Birth control. Binders. Bodies. Babies. As last fall’s presidential election came to a head, the phrase “war on women” became commonplace, part of the traditional vitriolic mud-slinging that both sides used against the other. As a woman, and one who places a high value on the freedoms of women, I of course followed the back-and-forth debates with interest, nausea, or amsuement, depending on what I was hearing.

But during that same period, I found myself spending a lot of time thinking about a different “war on women”—the war of woman against woman, the war that we wage on each other, no men required.

At the beginning of my pregnancy last summer, I was talking to a pair of newlywed friends about my quest for the best pregnancy books.

“I don’t want to read anything that is going to make me panic about what could be wrong with my baby, or feel guilty about the pregnancy and parenting choices I make,” I told them.

The husband wrinkled his brow in confusion. “What do you mean, feel guilty?” he asked. “Why would parenting books make you feel guilty?”

I had to laugh at his response. It hadn’t taken me long after seeing that positive pregnancy test to come to understand just how incredibly saturated with guilt the world of pregnancy and parenting really is. Pregnancy books, websites, and forums are filled with dramatic stories about the harm you could potentially do to your unborn baby through seemingly innocuous things including (but not limited to!) nutrition, exercise (or lack thereof), medication, and even hot baths. Champions of epidurals or unmedicated childbirth regularly spar over the various merits of their preferred method, often making it seem like your child’s entire future life could hinge on whether or not you had a medicated labor and delivery.

And things only get more heated when you get into the world of parenting, with all its various methodologies and ideologies and conflicting advice. Breast or bottle? Crib or co-sleeping? Baby swing or babywearing?

Parenting isn’t the only arena in which women seem to spend an awful lot of time attacking each other, of course—it’s just the one I’ve been immersed in the most as I’ve prepared to welcome this new little one into the world. I’ve also seen women go to bat over things as big as career choices and hiring help, and things as insignificant as dyeing their hair or wearing makeup.

And let’s not even get started on the pressure we put on each other when it comes to what a woman should look like.

Don’t get me wrong: I’m as guilty as anyone else. I have on far too many occasions found myself judging another woman’s lifestyle choices, or fashion, or hair, or parenting, or career path. I’ve cringed on seeing wardrobe choices I don’t agree with and raised my eyebrows at life paths that seem less-than-ideal according to my worldview.

But still, I can’t help thinking:

What would the world be like if we women didn’t spend quite so much time and energy waging war on each other?

My resolution for this year is to give myself more grace—to stop holding myself to impossible standards, to have a little compassion for the times when I inevitably fall short (and then do so again, and again, and again). I’m vowing in 2013 to be a little kinder and gentler on myself, accept my own weaknesses and allow myself a little more love.

And all of this, this thinking about new year’s resolutions and about the war among women, has me thinking also: What if we all could do this, just a little, for each other? What if we could allow each other just a little more grace, a little more love, a little more acceptance? What if we could let go of our own lifestyles and convictions just long enough to recognize that, regardless of whether we feed our children by breast or bottle, we are all worthy of love?

It might just be a powerful change, indeed.

Do you ever find yourself at war with other women?

Are You My Mother?

Dear Sibyl, Recently my grandmother got ill, and my mom went across the country to care for her.  I know this is the right thing for my mom to do, but I'm feeling abandoned and upset.  My mom recently retired and was so excited about all the ways she could spend time with her grandkids (my children) and help us out.  I know this sounds incredibly selfish, but my mom also has 5 siblings that live near my grandmother, and I'm just dumbfounded that she dropped us.  Any words of wisdom?

Distraught Daughter

Dear DD,

We never know when our mothers will leave us.  For some it is early, from a death or an emotional detachment.  For others, it is much later, unfortunately often at the time we feel we need them most.  Either way, it is always painful, and always a reason to mourn and find a way to move on.

So many of the problems in relationships, particularly with family, stem from expectations.  You expected that your mom would be there for you, to help you raise her grandchildren.  This was not an unreasonable expectation, since she has been helping you thus far, but now that you are having to shift your way of thinking about her role, it's leaving you feeling abandoned.

Your mother has her own life.  She's an adult, and she can do anything she wants with her retirement---she's earned it.  So, I'm wondering, how did she tell you that she was leaving town, and letting go of her commitments to you?  If she left without notice, and without you getting a chance to tell her how much you'll miss her, and how sad it is that your kids will lose their close relationship with her, then what you need to do is tell her how you're feeling, and that she could have handled the communication of the change differently.

The other piece that stands out to me from your letter is that you feel that her siblings could be stepping up to the plate and helping your grandmother so your mother could stay with you.  Well, that's an awkward situation to be in.  I'm not sure you want to take on your entire family system, and get involved in their complicated maneuvering of this caregiving issue.  So, you'll have to adjust your expectations for them as well as your mom.

Here's the tricky part.  You need to change what role you are giving your mother in your life (and your kids' lives), without losing the emotional connection to her.  This means you can't just totally detach and say, "Well, I guess she doesn't care about me or her grandchildren!"  You prevent this by being honest about your feelings (stop judging them as selfish and let yourself have them), with yourself and with her, and by accepting what offers she can give at this time.  That way, you're keeping the door open for a closer connection with your mom when she has the space and energy for it again.

You might find this change in roles means you are able to support your mom a bit, too.  I bet it is hard taking care of your grandmother, and perhaps you will get closer to her in this time by offering your ear to her, to listen to her struggles.  In order to do that, you'll have to forgive her for bailing on you.  It won't be easy, but if what you ultimately desire is more closeness with your mother, you'll find it a beautifully strange process.

Love, Sibyl

Whitney Cummings and the Maligned Female Showrunner

Lately I’ve been catching Whitney Cummings’ new late-night talk show “Love You, Mean It” because it airs on E! right after “The Soup” starring my alternate-universe husband Joel McHale. I’ve long been hesitant to embrace Whitney’s brand of comedy, which feels---particularly with the premise and set of her new talk show---derivative of Chelsea Handler’s blasé, sexually liberated cynicism, which, while fun, doesn’t need to be duplicated. Plus her NBC sitcom “Whitney”? Not great.

But the more I watch Whitney at her most comfortable, doing stand-up comedy and riffing on talk show round tables, the more I like her in spite of myself. She’s funny, self-deprecating, and even touches occasionally on social consciousness. In the first episode of “Love You, Mean It,” she hammered the trend amongst young females to ironically address each other as “hooker,” “whore,” or “slut.” And in last week’s episode, she called out Esquire magazine journalist Stephen Marche for his ridiculous assertion, in a cover story on Megan Fox, that women like Amy Adams and Lady Gaga and Adele are “perfectly plain.”

Of course, there are still moments---just like with Chelsea’s show---that are cringeworthy. Whitney herself doesn’t approach Chelsea’s flagrant disdain for PC-ism, but her round table guests certainly do. And both shows are on the E! network, so they’re not exactly “60 Minutes.” Or “The Daily Show.” They talk about celebrities and silly videos and Instagram.

It’s also worth noting that Whitney is, as guy friends of mine have phrased it, “really hot.” Every episode she comes out with a new blow-dry hairstyle and a cute outfit. Her promos feature her mugging in a bunch of self-conscious poses, poses that showcase her attractiveness, yet also wink at the camera---for instance when she leans all the way back in her chair with her legs apart like a dude and flashes a peace sign.

It’s that mix of self-awareness and self-deprecation on the one hand, insecurity and vapidity on the other, that seems to characterize not just Whitney but a whole neo movement of young modern feminists. Whitney’s simultaneous embrace of fluff, femininity, and super-competence calls to mind Zooey, Mindy, Chelsea, women showrunners who are out there, you know, running the show.

In spite or, more likely, because of this, there seems to be more than your average TV hate for Whitney, and to a lesser extent Mindy and Zooey. Why is this? What is it about Whitney, in particular, that makes her a lightning rod for criticism? It's true that "Whitney," "The Mindy Project" fall short of shows like "30 Rock" and "Parks & Recreation" and "Girls" (though these female showrunners, even universal favorite Tina Fey, can face their own gender-based criticisms---Lena Dunham was another target of that nonsensical Megan Fox article). But would there be such an onslaught if the shows were run by men? Why don't comedians like Jeff Ross and his schlubby, lowbrow, mean-spirited Comedy Central show "The Burn" get as torn apart? I say, more power to the women who take charge of TV. You can find fault with their comedy, but you might also recognize that, even in this day and age, being a female showrunner is still a pretty pioneering thing.

The Vanishing Man

Dear Sibyl, This summer, one of my best friends from childhood contacted me.  Actually, he was the first person I ever Loved.  As a teen, I hid my feelings from him for five years.  Finally, I told him how I felt in a letter, and said that if he didn't feel the same we shouldn’t continue to be friends.  I didn't hear from him again until this summer---fifteen years later.

When I heard from him, I was both excited and wary.  It was great to have him back!  At the same time, he was newly divorced after being separated for a year and clearly looking for something.  He said that he had a crush on me all those many years ago too, and that he had thought about me many times.  He started to talk about wanting to come visit.  I live over 600 miles away.  His tone became more and more romantic, and it was around this time I decided to do a reality check.

I didn't say I wasn't interested.  On the contrary, I was very interested, but I said that if he was going to keep talking romance, I needed to see him.  I told him that I really want children and a family, and that if he wanted to get together I would need him to be open to exploring that possibility with me if things went well.  

He responded that he cared about me, but that his relationships usually happen more 'organically'.  I said I understood and was sincerely grateful for his honesty.  We both said we were still very much interested in maintaining the friendship.

I didn't hear from him after our conversation for four months.

On Christmas, he reached out.  Although my feelings were mixed, I was mostly happy to finally be hearing from him again.

He dated someone briefly in the intervening time but is once again alone.  A few months ago, he was checked out by a doctor and learned he is sterile.  He bought a house in order to move toward a place where he can have a wife and children.  He knew he was sterile when he bought it, but he hopes to have a family through non-traditional means.  He was not in a good place on Christmas, because he had just spent the whole day around family with lots of little children.  He was feeling lonely and sad.  I doubted when I hung up the phone that I would ever hear from him again.

Since then, he has apologized several times for being a bad friend to me, and the two of us have been communicating almost every day, texting or emailing.  It has felt good to have him back in my life.

My love life has been complicated recently, and I let him know that the first time we talked.  For the first time ever, I’ve had a Friend with Benefits.  My FwB is great, but I always knew he was moving away. In fact, FwB just left this morning.  

The longer my old crush and I talk the more I realize I have major unresolved feelings for him.  In fact, I have been unable to climax since our initial Christmas conversation.  The one time I successfully came, it was because I was concentrating really hard on pretending I was with Old Flame instead of with my lovely FwB.  This has never been a problem for me in the past.  

Mostly, boundaries with Old Flame have stayed platonic this time around, but last night, on the eve of my FwB's departure, I texted that I was considering spending the next six months in celibacy.  Old Flame texted back ('jokingly") that I should visit him so he could “knock the bottom out for me instead”.  We flirted with each other and with the idea of me visiting.

I know this situation is emotionally precarious.  I really do want a family and a partnership, but after years of searching, I’m also feeling exhausted.  I want to have fun.  I want to have sex, hence the FwB.  I want romance to just happen for me the way it seems to be happening for ALL of my friends without having to work to meet that someone special.  

Even more powerful than these needs for sex and fun is the feeling that this man still has lessons to teach me.  Maybe he's just going to teach me more about heartbreak, but there's only one way to know for certain.  I want to find out.

I want to visit.  I want have sex with him, but I don't know if the flirting is genuine.  If it's not, I definitely need to ask him to stop.  At the same time, I'm tired of being the boundary police, the one who has to bring up all the serious stuff.  I’m also dreading bringing it up since the last two times I brought it up he completely disappeared.  If it happens again, do I keep letting him back into my life?  Our relationship has meant so much to me over the years, I don’t want to cut him out.  How do I even start this conversation?  Again?

Sincerely, Deja Vu

Dear Deja Vu,

Sweet baby jesus, you have a LOT going on here, girl.

The first thing I need to point out here is that you have not seen this person in fifteen years.  Fifteen years.  I know he seems quite attractive and interesting over text, email, and the phone, but things can be very different in person: is he comfortable in his own skin?  Does he tip waitstaff well?  Is he a road rage driver?  Can he dance?  These are things you'll never know on g-chat, and could be deal breakers.

The thing is, I am getting the sense from your letter that nothing would be a deal breaker for you.  You want to correct this past hurt that you’ve held onto for all these years, and you’ll jump at any chance to do so.  It was not too much that when you expressed your desire for kids, he disappeared, or that he came back saying that he's sterile, then vanished again.  So far, this "relationship" is completely on his terms, and you are hanging on his every whim, like. . . well, like a teen with their first love.

It's like you took a snapshot of him at that time, over a decade ago, and you're in love with a photograph, not the real guy.  You're dying to get back that hormone fueled fusion the two of you shared, which, even then, was rooted in you pursuing and him distancing.

I understand your strong desire for a relationship -- the part of your letter that was about your longing for love, fun, and sex was the most relatable piece.  However, I have to be the un-fun boundaries holder that you no longer wish to be.

Reality is, none of your friends' loves are as easy as they seem from the outside.  Love is always messy, fraught with doubt, and everyone eventually has to do massive amounts of work to come to a good place with the other person.

To sum up, dear Deja Vu, Step One is to meet this guy.  Go ahead, have sex with him, get all your curiosity and teenage dreams fulfilled.  However, if there is even a glimmer of the pursuer-distancer pattern between you in person that you've established across the miles these past few months, run, Lola, run.  You don't want to spend your life offering him things just so he can turn them down.

I know you want a relationship with a long-term partner.  However, don’t settle for Old Flame if it turns out he’s really just looking for a flash in the pan.

Love,

Sibyl

What’s Your Story, Little Friend?

As Milan Kundera said, “Dogs are our link to paradise. They don't know evil or jealousy or discontent. To sit with a dog on a hillside on a glorious afternoon is to be back in Eden, where doing nothing was not boring---it was peace.” ----------------

Last Saturday I went to the dog shelter with Husband. Since I lost Gaia I have spent so much time crying and thinking of all the precious memories of our time together. Sorrow can be the worst enemy, a dangerous emotion, a sort of secret that you hold near you, that sometimes comes and knocks at your door, which you would never want to open.

Gaia left such a big hole in my life, and at some point I thought how risky it could be to let the wave of pain flow into me without trying to defeat it. I can’t consider welcoming another dog in my heart, yet. I just don’t think there would be as much room for him as Gaia had for herself. But I have found very helpful to visit other dogs at a shelter near home.  Their company comforts me, it helps me think that I can see Gaia in their eyes and that somehow she is still alive in them. And maybe I can bring them little drops of happiness, too.

So I met Tata. She is the sweetest dog of all. Almost 14 years old, a little chubby, and quite lazy as the volunteers told me, she wouldn’t have enough of cuddles. She was literally attached to the fence, which unfortunately I could not enter---only volunteers can. She has lived the last six years at the dog shelter. I wonder who could get rid of her this way. A dog like this is a friend, not a burden.

And then there was Pelo (the one on the left). Pelo was brought to the shelter by a woman who found him near her house weak and hungry. He can’t walk well, and he limped a little as came towards me. One family decided to adopt him a few months ago, but as they took him home he was not eating and looked very uncomfortable, he was basically untouchable. Pelo is still traumatized by his past and he doesn’t seem to want to forgive humans for what they did to him.

Ciuffo, probably a crossbreed with a border collie, was brought to the shelter ten days ago. He is only 1 year old, and you can see how much he needs to run and play. Certainly, a shelter is no place for him. His story is weird---the two women who brought him there were mother and daughter, and they simply said they couldn’t take care of him anymore. No further explanation, just like that. As I approached Ciuffo, he came to me with wide open eyes and hopeful. But when he saw my husband, he literally ran away. No matter what we tried to do to placate him, he wouldn’t trust him at all. We thought he must have suffered for some severe trauma . . . maybe Husband reminds him of some bad person who used to hit him?

What’s your story, little friend? What is your journey? What happened to you that made you so distrustful?

In the end, I’m happy all these dogs, and many more, found a refuge in this shelter. Some of them would prefer to live with the company of a new careful family, spending their days on a couch. But some of them would rather stay at the shelter, close to other dogs and far from humans. Anyhow, I’m thankful to all the volunteers who offer their service. They take the dogs to the closest field for a walk, they feed them, they clean them. But over all, they have given these dogs friendship, and hope for a better future.

Sacagawea: Guide. Interpreter. American Symbol.

 

She adorns our dollar coins and she makes a cameo in almost every fifth-grade textbook, but how much do you really know about Sacagawea?

If you’re like me, not that much. It’s all very gratifying to imagine the stalwart Native American guide for the Lewis & Clark expedition leading her white hosts over mountains and across rivers, all while carting a small baby on her back in a leather baby-sack; but the real story is both less romantic and potentially more impressive.

Sacagawea was born to a Shoshone tribe in present-day Idaho around 1788, just a few years after a certain British colony had gained independence on the other side of the continent. When she was 11 or 12, a battle with the Hidatsa Indians resulted in Sacagawea’s capture and transport to what is now North Dakota.

It was here that young Sacagawea met the man who would be her husband—one Toussaint Charbonneau, a Quebecois fur trapper who was living amongst the Hidatsa tribe. I can just picture the bearded man’s man, covered in mangy fox fur, courting the thirteen-year-old (yuck) Shoshone transplant in the snowy wastelands of North Dakota. Let’s be honest. No one will ever make a love story out of it.

A few years later, two dudes named Lewis and Clark were on their way to chart the newly-purchased Louisiana Territory, of Louisiana Purchase fame, and they enlisted Charbonneau to help guide and interpret. Sacagawea was an added bonus: since they would largely be passing through Shoshone territory (oops---I mean America), her expertise in that language was an asset.

The romantic images of Sacagawea summiting mountain crests, arm outstretched to beckon a weary but bright-eyed Lewis and Clark into the next gleaming American valley, are kind of, well, idealized. Surprising, I know. In reality, Sacagawea served as more of an interpreter than an actual guide, and Lewis and Clark frequently make reference to her as “the squar [squaw],” “the wife of Charbonneau,” and, inexplicably, “Janey.” Ever so occasionally, by her actual name (or more, their best approximation of it).

At one point, the expedition nearly lost a boatload of letters and other important crap that Lewis and Clark were toting around. Sacagawea speedily retrieved the items before they sank or were swept away; and in gratitude, the pair named the waterway the Sacagawea River.

Which kinda seems like a really typical Lewis/Clark move to pull, if you know what I mean. “Oh geez, thanks, Sacagawea! . . . You know what I’m gonna do? This river? I’m gonna name it after you. There. It’s been named. I’ve decreed it. From now on, everyone will call this the Sacagawea River. Okay, let’s keep moving. Keep up.”

Which she did, even with a baby on her back. The baby, Jean Baptiste, was a big hit with the guys. Clark liked the little guy so much that, it seems, years later, after Sacagawea’s death, he adopted him. (Toussaint was still alive, but probably kind of a deadbeat, anyway.)

While Sacagawea’s role in the Lewis and Clark expedition can be overstated, it doesn’t diminish the significance of what she did. Her knowledge opened up new frontiers to the American explorers, and she was hence able to practice an autonomy and freedom of movement unknown to most other American or native women of her time. It’s been speculated that another of her important roles in the expedition was to serve as a symbol of peace—most native groups understood that the presence of a woman in a party meant there were no intentions of war. (Which in and of itself is an interesting kind of powerful not-power. For more on this, read Juliana Barr’s excellent Peace Came in the Form of a Woman.)

In the end we all know very little about Sacagawea, the person. The images that adorn our statues and our numismatics are based on the faces of more contemporary Shoshone women, as no likenesses of S herself have survived the centuries. We don’t even know when she died---while most believe she died in 1812, just a few years after the expedition, some think she actually lived to a ripe old age and eventually returned to her people in Idaho.

But who needs an accurate likeness or a detailed minutiae of her life? What we can say, is. . . the fact that she’s remembered so well when almost all we have to go off of are some scant, fairly dismissive mentions in the journals of two important men, means she’s a pretty damn important woman. That’s only logical.

Blowing in the Wind

Dear Sibyl, I was recently left by a guy that I thought was going to be a long-term boyfriend with a future.  We had only been together for five months but we had been chasing each other for half a year before then and I know he had been interested but thinking he had no chance for way more than that. When we finally got together, we were the dream couple to all our friends and the times we spent were most often in mutual genuine bliss.

Then one day, he invited friends over on a Friday at 1.30 am when I had said that I was tired from a long week. So I was a bit pissed off and went home. He broke up at 4 am with a text and confirmed that in a conversation the next day saying: 'We have nothing in common, he can't see his friends (far from true), I'm reactive--he's proactive, it won't work out so he'd rather end it and it's better for me as well.'

I was devastated. Most friends said it's just gonna be a few days. So I took it with dignity, kept my public appearance, including Facebook, happy and optimistic and left him alone for about 5 weeks. But believe me, I was devastated. I had no idea what was going on and friends told me he wasn't being himself either. So I had hope he'd come to his senses.

Then I saw him at a festival. Snorting mountains of cocaine. Everything became a bit clearer to me. Throughout the weekend I learned that he had re-started cocaine the night before he broke up, been doing loads of drugs since then and that he had lost his job. He did continue to want this breakup but deliberately stood next to me very often and started crying during songs. I have told him now that I don't want any contact for a few months. That included that I didn't want a 'Happy New Year' email either. I thanked him but told him again no-contact.

But now I don't know what I will do after that. I can't avoid him forever. Will he come to his senses? Would it be a good thing if he came to his senses? Should I try and stay friends? Should I avoid him in my life---tricky because we have zillions of mutual friends that I don't want to lose. I think that it's not a lack of love but a fear of failure and of commitment that he's suffering from. I know the cocaine phase is temporary. So is the unemployment. Part of me wants him back after that. Another part thinks that he can't be trusted ever again.

What do you think?

Yours,

Brokenhearted in the U.S.A.

Dearest Brokenhearted,

There are so many ways to cheat on one's partner.  You can disengage emotionally and start up an internet friendship with a long lost fling.  You can sleep with a member of their family, their best friend, or a random person you meet out dancing.  In your case, Brokenhearted, the cheating wasn't sexual at all.  His mistress was cocaine.

When I was a teenager, my best friend lost his mother to cancer, and I, to my great surprise, lost them both.  I adored his mother, and had fully believed that my fervent prayers to save her would turn her illness around, right up to the very end.  By the time she died, however, I was not surprised, having visited her several times in her final days.  But I was completely shocked how my friend reverted into himself, eschewing my friendship for people who never knew his mother, and would not bring up his pain.

I wouldn't take no for an answer.  I wrote him long letters, parked outside his house and waited for him to come home from school, and, when he did let me in, sat with him for hours in silence while we inexplicably watched tennis on his tiny television.  It was all he wanted to do.  Or so I thought---I slowly learned that all the times I couldn't find him, he was off with his new friends, consuming as many drugs as was humanly possible in the provincial area we lived in.

Since that experience, I've learned to look for the presence of mind-and-mood altering substances any time a person has suddenly disengaged in a primary relationship, especially when there is a precipitating loss of some kind.  For whatever reason, your boyfriend's unemployment was more than a temporary career setback---it was a huge loss to his sense of self.  Instead of being able to let you in to that pain, he turned to something to shut it off, in this case, cocaine.

The only bright side is that he broke it off with you the moment he chose drugs over connection with you, even if he wasn't truthful about what he was doing.  This is actually sort of admirable, because most people in the throes of an addiction just take down whoever is closest along with them.  You dodged a bullet, and when you realized the kind of dangerous behavior he was engaged in, you wisely instituted a no-contact policy.

The piece I have to gently warn you about, Brokenhearted, is your assertion that his cocaine use is a "phase".   Drug use is not like body piercing or thinking you're an evangelical Christian.  It's not a phase, it's an addiction, especially if it's been caused by depression because of his unemployment, caused him to do something so drastic as break off a healthy relationship, and if he is truly snorting "mountains" of it at festivals.

I know that in your pain of losing him, you wish he could come back to you, untouched by your time apart.  But he will not be the same person then, even if he does.  He has started down a long road that will take him a good while to return from, and in fact, he should be a different person, if he really digs in to the recovery process.

So, my suggestion to you is to only invite him back into your life if he is a) in some kind of recovery program, and/or therapy, b) willing to discuss why he sought out drugs instead of connection at that time in his life, and c) interested and able to hear from you how it hurt you to lose him in such a way, and what boundaries you need going forward.  Finally, he should agree to never break up with anyone ever again via text message.

In the meantime, tend to your own broken heart.  Think less about him and his choices, and mend your own wounds, sewing them up with the support of your friends, with new experiences that bring you joy, and comforting practices like staying in to intricately braid your hair and read your favorite book over again.

Your boyfriend made a sad mistake, choosing cocaine over you.  Don't follow him down the rabbit hole.  I have seen many people throw away their dignity for the lure of the seductive drug user.  There's something desperate in those hollowed-out eyes, and we are sure that if we can just harness that desperation, we can turn it into passion---for us, rather than the substances.  Instead of chasing that dragon, stay close to yourself, on your own side, in the realm of human, rather than chemical, connection.

Soberly,

Sibyl

Just Somebody That I Used To Know

Dear Sibyl, One of my best friends who I have known since kindergarten is slipping away from me.  I'm in my mid-30s and we've have a pretty distant relationship for at least the past 10 years.  I see her several times a year and love her very much.  We have so much past behind us and obviously care about each other but it seems that she puts no effort to be my friend.  When I reach out to her by phone or email, she does not respond.  And when we see each other in person I feel like she doesn't seem that pumped to be with me.  

We both have kids now and I thought that this would bring us closer.  Both of our dads died in the same month and still we can't seem to find a way to communicate like best friends.  It's strange and sad for me.  I don't feel that there is a way of talking about this with her.  It just doesn't really work to ask someone if they don't like you anymore.  

I want her to be a close friend but I don't know how to do it, our friendship seems so empty and what feels like one-sided.  I am certain that we will always know each other since we are basically family.  I think we have a lot less in common now than we did when we were kids but I still love her very much.  What can I do to make it less awkward and more friendly?

Sincerely,

Long Lost Best Friend

Dear LLBF,

When my teenage best friend slept with my first love boyfriend, I not only forgave her, I put her in my wedding as a bridesmaid seven years later.  At the time, I thought I was being so very magnanimous, but now, seeing how that friendship fizzled out over the years as I struggled to keep the connection with letters, emails, and phone calls that went basically unanswered, I think I had a lot to learn about boundaries and letting go.

For so long, I considered myself a pitbull in relationships---intimidating at first, but once you got in, I'd hang on by my eye teeth forever.  I believed that that was what it meant to love someone---to hold on no matter what happened, but over time I found that what I had sunk my teeth into was simply a hungry ghost.  She floated away from me, and in her wake I found that she was actually a pretty terrible friend.  I had been afraid of letting go of our intimacy because I feared I'd lose a part of myself in the process.  What I realized is that I'd always be the young girl who loved her, trusted her, forgave her, and kept reaching for her, but she had moved on, and I needed to as well.

Luckily, as an adult I have worked hard to create a few incredibly honest friendships, the kind where if we have a phone conversation and the other person seems distant one of us calls back pretty soon after to say "That was so weird.  What is really going on?  I think it's me, I'm in a strange place today.  Sorry I made fun of your boyfriend's hair.  He's Sassoon fabulous."

The juxtaposition of these two friendships, one in which I was striving to make something work even though all I was getting was indifference at best and poor treatment at worst, and the others, in which we are so concerned with keeping short accounts with each other that we go the extra mile to check in about the smallest bit of disengagement growing between us, is what I keep thinking about with your question, Long Lost Best Friend.  What you have found yourself in, all these years later, is a non-reciprocal relationship, in which you are doing all the pursuing, and she is distancing as fast as her legs will take her.

The simple fact that you don’t feel like you can share that you feel disconnected from her is a huge red flag to me.  In order to find the friendliness you seek, you actually have to dive further into the awkwardness.  What have you got to lose?  At this point, you don’t have a real friendship, and it’s leaving you with grief and, I imagine, a growing resentment of some kind.  So, my suggestion is that you plan a date with her, sans kids, to sit down and say, “I’ve noticed we’re growing apart, and it’s sad to me.  Do you think it is just an inevitable part of growing up, or has something gone wrong?  I’d really like to work on this with you.  Either way, you are always in my heart and will be in my life.  But I’d like us to be close like we used to be, when we’d be so excited to talk to one another that we could barely wait for the next chance.  Have you felt this too?”

Hopefully, she’ll say, “Yes!  I’m so glad you brought this up.  It pains me too.  How can we make it better?”  And you’ll have a chance to ask her to respond to your emails and phone calls more frequently.  Or, she’ll tell you what she’s been holding on to, some place that the relationship broke down, and the two of you can work it out.

However, she may claim that she doesn’t know what you’re talking about.  This is the time that you stand firm in your reality, and say, “Well, I miss you.  I’d love it if you called more often.  If you can’t do that, I understand, but we’ll lose a connection that we’ve forged over many years, and I’ll be grieving that loss.”  She’ll think you’re brave for stating your truth, and will be flattered that you hold her so highly.  Then you can relegate her to someone who walked alongside you for awhile, hand in hand, but is now on an adjoining path, still moving in the same direction, but with distance between you.  It could free you up to form a closeness with a new best friend, who has the capacity to give you the intimate friendship you crave.

With Love,

Sibyl