The Metamorphosis of the Rock Hard Bitch

In college, one of my roommates watched me blink back tears as I struggled to figure out why I hadn’t heard from the man I was dating – now I know it was my own fault, and in trying to get his attention I had inadvertently ended our relationship – and said in wonder, “Could it be, Morgan, that you’re not near as tough as you always make out yourself to be?"

Fast forward eight months or so, and my nickname had become Rock Hard Bitch amongst my fellow American exchange students in Spain, not because I was a rock hard bitch, but because all of them were surprised to learn how caring and sensitive I was underneath the rock hard exterior I showed when I first met someone – the rock hard bitch they had all originally thought me to be.

Anyone who knows me well knows what bullshit this first impression is; anyone who’s known me since childhood has likely exclaimed, perhaps more than once, “Geez, Morgan, you’re so sensitive.”

At some point, I started to make up for my sensitivity by presenting a less sensitive front: one that was rock hard, unreachable, impenetrable, invulnerable. As was the case in Spain especially, when I was as out of my element as I had ever been, I threw up those walls to protect myself and to get through the daily motions of trying to be understood and understand in an accent I was unfamiliar with, in a language I was not all that comfortable with yet, in a foreign country that was far away from the one where I had grown up – the one whose psyche had just been rocked by a terrorist attack. I was terrified, and I didn’t know anyone, so I did the only thing I knew how to do: I hid within myself and faked a confidence I didn’t feel. 

It was not the first time I’d been called something similar to a rock hard bitch, and it would not be the last. I always found the label amusing, because it was so obviously NOT me that I found no reason to be offended. I was even proud, because it meant that it was working: that I was presenting the strong person I had always wanted to be instead of the terrified unlovable child that I always felt like inside.

It’s been years since I’ve been called Rock Hard Bitch. In the past four years or so, I’ve been working hard on being able to show a more vulnerable side of myself; instead of needing to find reasons to bring others down or pick them apart to justify my own actions, I’ve been working on accepting my own humanity and the humanity of others. I have been trying to remember that perfectionism is the opposite of being human, and that perfectionism is a goal I should not strive for because it will mean striving away from the amazing subjective and varied existence of actually being a human. I have been working on this, and yet it seems that I still have a long way to go.

I gave my unfinished manuscript to a friend to read. This is a person I have shared many things with, whom I feel I have opened up to and often shown a vulnerable side to; this person is also a regular reader of my blog. When he gave me his feedback, he told me that – among many other wonderful things he had to say about my writing, things that gave me the strength to continue on when I had been vacillating on whether I should finish the damn thing at all – my book showed a vulnerable side of myself that he had never seen: the cracks, he said, in my otherwise well-put-together exterior.

Oh God, invisible audience. What have I done? What have I done by channeling that Rock Hard Bitch persona for so long that she still stands between me and my friends; my life; the person I am striving to be? 

Every day life feels very personal, very too close for comfort, very raw and terrifying to some extent. I do not walk around fearing a physical attack, but I do find that I walk around with earphones in so I can’t hear the whistles of the construction workers, I separate myself from many people whose needs feel like much more than I can bear, and I find myself spending time alone because it feels better than spending time with others that leave me feeling depleted. All this, and yet it is no longer a case of needing to be angry at those people; I do not blame them anymore for what they need from me, I have simply realized that I don’t have to give to those people and that it’s best to be away from that need. At the same time, I’ve been working on being more honest with those that I do value: showing that vulnerable side that causes me to burst into tears at the drop of a hat, because sometimes that’s just what I need to do. It’s presenting the gooey sensitive side of me and hoping to be understood, but not being attached to that actually being the case; instead, just knowing that the act of showing myself is important, not necessarily to others, but to me. 

It seems, however, that I am still a work in progress; that often I am terrified enough to throw up a wall and stand behind it without even realizing it’s there. It seems that even here on my blog I am not showing myself in all my full humanity, and you know what? It’s true. It’s true because my book IS much more vulnerable, otherwise I wouldn’t have struggled as much as I have in whether or not I should publish it. I say this before it is even done, and yet I find that NOT writing is worse: trying to hide that vulnerable part of me ultimately feels like a personal betrayal. And I can’t do it anymore, invisible audience. I can’t deny me any longer. The Rock Hard Bitch is tired of doing her job: tired of standing between me and the rest of the world. Although there is definitely still a use for her – not everyone or every situation is safe to be vulnerable with or in, after all – she is tired of working so hard with no time off. And I’m tired of letting her. So here’s to progress, and baby steps. Here’s to humanity, in all its imperfect and vulnerable glory.

Love and not-so-rock-hard kisses

Morgan

A Year in Review

A year ago almost to the day, my boyfriend and I broke up. I had quit my job that had seemed like a perfect fit because it was part-time with benefits just a month before, and although many people didn’t know it, my family was struggling with my dad’s depression, which was the worst it had ever been in my lifetime, and most likely the worst it had ever been in his, too.
If you had told me that a year from then I would be living in a beautiful mountain town in Panama, about to perform in two one-act plays and 80,000 words into a book I’ve been wanting to write for years, I would have wept with relief, even if I didn’t believe you. This time last year was the toughest time I’ve probably ever lived, and it has become a central theme in the book I’m writing.
Last weekend I spoke to my dad on the phone, and he asked if there were parts of the book I didn’t want my parents to read. I said yes, but that it wasn’t for the reasons he might think.
“I can’t tell my story without telling part of yours, and I’m worried about what you might think of what I have to say,” I told him.
“Well, I’m not afraid of the truth,” he said. “It’s no secret that I was really sick, and I would hope some good comes out of it – that maybe you learned something from the experience.”
It was exactly what I needed to hear.
Even as it has become obvious that this book is most importantly a processing of the last year of my life, it has also become apparent that the story is not over: that there is more to learn. I am continuing to write it, not about the past anymore, but about every day that I live here, everything I learn about myself: where I've come from, and where I want to go. I’m not sure when I’ll reach a good ending, but I just have to trust that I’ll know it when I see it.
An important part of the journey, however, is gathering the courage to share some of the most painful parts.
Below is a letter that I wrote to my dad last October – when he was already MUCH better than he was at this time last year. I share this partly to gather the courage to share my story, and also to celebrate. I’ve come a long way in a year, and truth be told the mileage from home is the least important part.

Dear Dad,

I can’t keep the silence any longer. It is excruciating to me to see you in pain. I can’t imagine what it would be like to have a child, considering the powerlessness I feel that you are my parent and there is nothing I can do to make you better.
For as long as I can remember, my universe has been shaped by your depression. This fact of life was discussed in the family, but not outside of it. You wanted to wear your anonymity like a cloak of invisibility, but when I borrowed it – which was often – I wore it like a badge of honor, especially because you wore it so well: so bravely, so stoically. Few of my friends could claim a depressed father, even if, at that point, your depression was held in check by medications that no longer work.
Do you realize, Dad, how inextricably we are linked? When I fled to a yoga retreat center in Canada this summer, you asked me why.
“Is it the money?”
“No, it’s because of you, Dad.”
“Me?!?” you exclaimed, as if you existed in a vacuum; as if our family hasn’t been battling implosion as we helplessly watch you suffer.
I am not without resources, thank goodness, and they have told me in many ways and under no uncertain terms that there is nothing I can do to empower you more than to simply live my own life and love you for who you are, regardless of how you feel. I am to trust you to your own path, as you have trusted me to mine.
I can know this to be true with all the intuitive fibers of my being; I can know I am attached to my laundry list of ideas to banish your depression and I want them to work, but there is no guarantee. I am just one in a room of many voices, clamoring for your attention, wanting to be heard, insistent that I know you better than all the other people you see for their professional opinions.
I know my role, but I want you to know: if it were in my power, if I could change it, fix it, or take it away, I would do it. I would not hesitate for a single moment, if it meant you would never wake up depressed again.
Do you know that watching you struggle is terrifying, horrifying, painful? Every time I talk to you and you say you don’t feel better, that you feel worse, that you’re anxious, or afraid, I want to hunt down a physical version of your illness and cut it to pieces and watch it die a slow, painful death so that I can know it has suffered even a little bit for the vast amount you have endured on its behalf.
You cannot see out of the hole you’re in; even when we assure you that you’re improving, that the treatments are helping, that you are better, your shoulders stay drooped, your spirits stranded, your eyes downcast. What I wouldn’t give to make you smile; a smile that would lift the corners of your mouth and cause you to laugh at the absurdity of it all, of your life, of the little problems that you used to remind me meant nothing, but now weigh you down like cement shoes.
I may think I have the answers for you, Dad, but they are my answers applied to your questions. Until YOU find the answers to your questions, there is only one thing I can do: stand next to you, hold your hand, and tell you that I love you; that I always have; that I always will. Because I do; I always have, I always will.

Love and a whole year of kisses
Morgan

The Steve Jobs Garage Phase

It’s not for everyone. Many people are incapable of having a point like this in their life, simply because they have obligations that do not allow it. For many others, such a phase is unnecessary: the life they want and have imagined is accessible to them without growing pains, an uncharted outcome, fear or doubt. Some of us, however, are not so lucky: we are the chosen few that cannot seem to take the easy way in.

Yes, it’s true: I make my life harder than it needs to be. I feel a need to find a path that has not been tread before; that is barely visible through the underbrush; that many can’t see at all, and that even those with a decent weedwacker would avoid. Yes, it’s true: I want to be Steve Jobs, and develop a fantastic idea in my garage.

Okay, maybe I won’t be able to invent the next big technological breakthrough. Maybe I’m just fooling myself that my ideas, my drive and my dream will get me anywhere at all. Maybe I’m not the next Steve Jobs, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have a right to the Steve Jobs Garage Phase.

The SJG Phase is where you’re hunkered down with your project. To passerby and people listening at the garage door, it may not seem like there’s much going on. They may not realize that you’re asleep at 10 a.m. because you were up until 4 a.m. agonizing about the next step; that you’re working weekends and strange hours with little to no pay to try and coax your little dream to life. They don’t realize that your dream is finicky and you haven’t figured out what to feed it yet; they may not know that at the slightest upset, it will retreat into its shell, never to be heard from again.

The most dangerous part of the SJG Phase is the mailman; the friend, the family member. They knock on the garage door, hear nothing, and enter. They see nothing they understand, shake their heads and proclaim that you are not making headway. The tiny dream is hiding from them, so they cannot see its glimmer of intelligence or potential for growth. All they see is you, in the middle of your garage, surrounded by pizza boxes, insisting loudly that you have not lost your mind, that they would understand if only they could see.

This well-meaning person cannot understand, but they try to make you understand that there’s an easier way out. You don’t have to live in the garage, they say. Come out into the light.

At this point, you have a choice. You can turn your back forever on that tiny idea and let it die alone in the garage, or you turn your back on your well-meaning friend and let them think you’re crazy. It’s not an easy choice; some have waffled back and forth, running back to the garage to search for the tiny dying idea, others burying the memory deep because it hurts too much to think about it in the light of day.

If you choose to remain in the garage, you shrug your shoulders, wish your well-meaning friend a good day, and close the garage door behind them. It may not be the most hospitable of places, but the garage is nevertheless home to your idea. For what it’s worth, you’re going to feed that idea and watch it grow into whatever the heck it wants to. When its limbs are strong enough and its little heart beats furiously at its own accord, you will follow it out of the garage, and into the light. 

Love and dingy garage kisses,

Morgan

What Would You Tell a Younger You?

Last night I was at a barbecue and a 40-year-old man was speaking about what he would say to his naïve 28-year-old self.
My first thought was, of course, “naïve?” I am not much older than 28 – I’m just over a month from 30 – and I wondered at what he had learned in those 12 years that made him think he was naïve at 28.
When I thought about it more, though, I realized that this is a pretty natural occurrence: you look back on your life from a place of greater experience and more lessons learned, and you wonder at the actions you took and the thoughts that prompted them.
I don’t think you can look back and judge a younger you for something you didn’t know – even when groaning over something that you’d prefer not to remember, you have to think, “How would you have known better without that experience?” Nevertheless, if I was going to sit down with a younger version of me – and I was convinced this younger self would listen – there is definitely some wisdom I would like to impart. Some of it is information that I should still try to remember. If life teaches us anything, however, it’s that we’re never done learning and changing. That, in my opinion, is one of the best things about it.

So, without further ado, a letter to me. Feel free to share what you would tell a younger you in the comments.

Dear Morgan,

Happy Almost Birthday! You’re almost 28, and even though you don’t know it, your life is about to change forever. You’re only months away from starting your first cookbook, and less than a year away from spending a summer in Mexico, and that time is going to make everything different.
I read some of the things you wrote recently, and I get it – I understand exactly where you are and what you’re going through; I’ve been there. I know you don’t believe me, but you should: you are not the only one who has felt this pain.
You’re going to be just fine. I know it’s scary, and you don’t know what’s coming. I know that you love surprises, and that underneath the logical side of you that gets caught up in the details – where will the money come from, how will you survive, etc. – you revel in the idea of your life as a series of gifts that you get to open, and be surprised at what you find.
I know you aren’t really into listening to advice right now, but I’m going to give you some. I know you’ll pretend that you don’t need it, but I hope that sometimes, in the dead of night, when your fears start to get the best of you, you will pull out this letter and read it, and remember that there are wiser people than you who told you it would all work out just fine. Here are a couple things I wish someone had told me when I was your age:

Let yourself feel, regardless of the emotion. You have just as much a right to react emotionally as anyone else. If you’re angry at someone, let them know; it will ultimately make the anger dissipate faster, and you’ll grow closer to the person as a result.
Trust yourself. Learn to know when you’re making a decision to please others, versus one that will help you become a better, happier you.
Stop comparing yourself to others. They have their own paths, and they’re very different from yours. Stop wondering why you can’t follow someone else’s destiny because it seems more clear-cut.
Regardless of how much it hurts, realize that all experiences – good and bad – lead to becoming a better you. They are necessary, and should be welcomed.
Let yourself love more, and more deeply. In the end, you’re only hurting yourself by not letting anyone in.
Believe others when they compliment you, and sincerely thank them for their words. It will ultimately lead you to love yourself more, which is not a bad thing.
Remember that both compliments and criticism are just someone else’s opinion, and they only have as much power over you as you let them.
Stop being your biggest critic and become your biggest fan.
Let yourself have an opinion, whether you think it’s a good one or not. By allowing yourself less than what you allow others, you are showing them that you believe they’re better than you.
Remember that people love you, whether they’re with you or not. Remember that we are all only human and we can’t always express our love perfectly, but that doesn’t mean it’s imperfect love.
Crying is healing; stop holding it in.
Laughing is contagious; let yourself laugh more.
Yelling is cathartic; do it when you need to and you’ll feel better.
Admit it when you’re wrong. People will love you for it.
Play more, work less.
And finally, forgive yourself for the mistakes you’ve made in your past. You’re the only one who hasn’t already done so.

I know you’ll have a great birthday, Morgan. I wish you nothing but the best, and I know that’s what you’ll get. Have faith in yourself and the rest will come to you. I love you.

Love and knowing kisses
Morgan

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A Dangerous Four-Letter Word: Fear

Last week I did something I have been meaning to do for quite awhile. It’s nothing major, and probably not life-changing, but for some reason it was something I could never bring myself to get around to doing: I created a food blog. It’s called Savoring Life, and it’s related to my book Savoring Chelan and the book I’m currently compiling, Savoring Leavenworth (I’m savoring things, get it?)
For anyone who has never set up a blog, there really isn’t much to it: you find a blog host (Blogger, WordPress, etc.), fiddle around with the design until it looks how you want it to, and write something on it. Seems easy, right? For a writer like me, who writes a lot and already has a weekly blog, it really shouldn’t have been that big of a deal, but it was.
Part of the reason that I dragged my feet on this is because it’s a commitment. If you’re going to have a blog and get any sort of regular audience, you have to post on a regular basis. Not only that, but you have to be able to blog about interesting things to keep your audience. (This is where I would like to give a shout out to my friend Molly Steere, who just celebrated her blog’s first birthday and just passed 10,000 hits – way to go Molly!)
The truth is, there’s something about committing to do something regularly that has made me want to drag my feet. What is that something? It’s fear, plain and simple.
It’s such a small word, fear. It doesn’t leap off the page at most people, and it rarely incites the kind of response that other words do: massacre, genocide, food poisoning, Rapture. Fear isn’t even a normal four-letter word that you should teach your kids never to use. Some words, though, are sneaky like that. You think about the word fear and it doesn’t motivate or scare you the way “plague” or “empty cookie jar” might, but it is still an incredibly dangerous word.
How many things have I failed to do because of fear? Countless things. There’s no way to keep track of how many times I didn’t do something without even being able to admit that fear was the reason I didn’t do it. I like to think I’m not the only one that rationalizes my way out of facing my fears. Mountain biking? I could break a leg, or fly over my handlebars. Going to Mexico? There are drug cartels there. Talking to that cute guy at the bar? He probably has a girlfriend already. Asking for help? It’s easier just to do it myself than to be shut down.
The worst part about fear is not what you actually fear, however. It’s the totally unstudied and illogical idea you have of what will happen if your fears come true. What’s the worst possible thing that could happen to me regarding my food blog? That someone finds it highly offensive – “Fried plantains? You HARLOT!” – and tells everyone to shun me forever. See? When you admit your worst fears out in the open, they seem silly and illogical. The trick, then, is to admit what your worst fears are, maybe just to yourself to start with, then deciding that the realization of that fear is not worth hanging back for.
I was scared to start a food blog because of what it could mean: yet another thing I would be required to write on a regular basis. But wait a minute, I’m a writer…what I WANT in life is something more to write about, something I care a lot about and want to share with others. What do I care about, think about and do nearly every day? I care about, think about, and write about food. Why shouldn’t I share that with you, invisible audience? If I leave out the fear factor, there’s no good reason left.

Love and fearless kisses
Morgan