The Reflections of a Wet Sewer Rat

Dear Readers and Self,

This is a freewrite so please do not be bothered by the lack of structure and/or relevancy.

I spent a very nice evening with a great friend discussing dreams, grad school, Napoleon, and whatever else came to mind. Beer and coffee, talk and turkey burgers with a truly great friend. My walk home was a mite less pleasant. Twenty minutes walking in a summer downpour! It’s ironic that one topic over coffee had been my desire to start swimming again. Blasted big mouth of mine. My sandaled feet splashed through disgusting NYC street run-off water and I had nothing to cover me. If I possessed ESP (like Vincent) then I might have heard passing (dry) drivers in their fast cars wonder if I was an oversized (albeit colorful) sewer rat. Thank Goddess that my tank top was blue and my skirt grey!

This is what my Pandora played for me while I swam:

• Mos Def – Do It Now
• Lil Wayne – Lollipop
• Jay-Z – Dirt Off Your Shoulder
• Heiruspecs – Heartsprings
• Alicia Keys – If I Ain’t Got You
• Kanye West – Get Em High

While part of my mind enjoyed the sounds, another part remembered the rain back home. Today I missed it terribly! Getting caught in the rain in Oregon is inexpressibly refreshing. It’s cooler than New York City and so much cleaner. The rain feels good to the touch. I can’t really describe it. Maybe it feels softer or kinder or friendly. Memories echo with familiar laughter while we run for cover. I remember the scent of wet pavement, damp soil and soaked wind. Can’t forget the pine trees! That’s the smell of home and it’s a blessed thing to breathe. The sky becomes grey and the spectrum of greens darkens a bit but it’s vibrant still! I do miss that rain.

Still, I won’t be ungrateful. I have felt burdened to write but blocked from doing it well. This brutish downpour emboldened me to just put something together. It is good to write even if it is not masterful.

I read this blog entry today that I intend to take to heart. She has vowed to reposition the hater in her head as not just against her but against all women:

“I’m going to consciously banish that creepy, self-hating voice from my head and ask myself each time I want to succumb to it’s[sic] lull if I would say to a fellow woman such awful things.”

I got to practice this idea moments after marveling over it.

My first reaction: “Wow, what a phenomenal way to think about it! How simple but true!”

Second: “Alia, you’re so stupid for not having considered it like this before! How could you be so small-minded!”

Third: “Wait a second here…”

I thank Shelby Knox. Pandora. My great friend. Rain. And the Goddess.

Dear haters in my head

Dear haters in my head,

You are ruining me. I am miserable. When you whisper I struggle to decipher the more probable state of affairs (internally and externally) from your demeaning and de-edifying lies.

I am less fun to be around when you whisper so. I think my loved ones suffer me in moments like these out of loyalty and long term faith rather than for anything that I offer them in the moment. I drain them. My patience is thinner and I can get mean. My lips quiver more often for I am weaker and my feelings are more vulnerable. I am timid often when I otherwise wouldn’t be – shameful. You silence me, haters. A terrible thing to suffer.

My self worth plummets because you encourage the competitive comparisons in my mind between me and every other woman I know – most especially those whom I admire most and are friends with. I then hate them. These beautiful, powerful, wonderful women for being all of these things. Jealousy. And (big shocker!) I fail each competition you goad me into. My flaws against another’s strengths. My looks, humor and intelligence never enough!

The uniqueness each woman in my life possesses and wields so elegantly deserves to be adored and celebrated. Not envied and thus discounted. True and full-hearted unions with any one of them could be so… much! How to characterize “much”… I think the haters are scared of the potential, the possibilities. Perhaps I am too.

I write about you, dreadful and spiteful haters because I must tell you (and myself) clearly how useless you are to me. I must reprimand you for the terrible chaos you incite. Most importantly though, this letter serves to name you. You and all of your (D)effects. Uninvited HATERS in my head.

Haters, you whisper because that is a hateful thing to do and it is all you are capable of. Infectious fictions of exaggerated failures and flaws. All for what? You’ve no constructive purpose. And though I know that I shan’t ever be rid of you, I will not suffer you so terribly any longer. Those fallacious, poisonous whispers will no longer gain so much ground as I’ve permitted before. You have successfully harmed my self perception and my attempted communions with other women for far too long. I love these gorgeous gals fate has gifted me with. I love the grand guys I have similarly been blessed by and now is the time that I attend as much to my gals as I have my guys.

Now is my time and my space when “competition” becomes a different word in my feminism. Not so inherently good. Now is when the haters’ din is successfully disregarded in lieu of more probably accounts of myself and the reality around me. Haters, you pain me. Quiet down! For I speak louder than you now.

Angry but glad to have had such a discussion,

Alia

P.S. Haters and More