Your voice
I never understood women and men who said they didn't have a voice.
You always have a voice. You just have to choose to use it.
And I thought that choice was always easy. Why WOULDN'T one choose to be heard? What ramifications could possibly be dark enough to make you lose your voice?
When I was a child, I never shut up. No matter how much trouble it got me in. I was quiet, for the most part, but when I felt the injustice of my voice being stifled, I spoke up. I got grounded countless times, slapped in the face a few times, even got the belt a time or two, based on my inability to stop my voice. And even when I was being punished for it, I felt the respect it garnered. My parents would joke about my inability to allow them the last word if I thought I was right, but underneath their joking was the knowledge that they were raising a strong daughter. A woman who would stick up for herself. I felt their pride in that knowledge, and it strengthened my voice, regardless of the consequences. There were no ramifications dark enough in my childhood to stifle my voice.
And then I made the decision to be quiet about my faith. I shut my mouth, and I walked with my head down. Because I felt the consequences of speaking up would be too painful. I could take a lot, but I couldn't handle the loss I knew my voice would bring. I was quiet for a number of years, from 17 or so till 23. But my voice built up in my chest that whole time, causing an ache in my throat. I would open my mouth to speak, and nothing could get past the lump of what I was choosing not to say. I stuttered, I blushed, I dated men who loved that I couldn't speak.
And then I spoke to myself. I let myself hear everything I was hiding away from. And I made the decision to run away. I wasn't going to use my voice to server the ties of family and love. But I was going to go far enough away that I could speak without being heard by them. The ties would still be there, safe from the knowledge I couldn't keep inside anymore.
I spent years listening to myself speak after that. I went through a fascinating life, glamorous and crazy and so much fun (to me, a HIGHLY sheltered young woman), and I spent all of it monologue-ing to myself. I told myself the story of the life I was living, and I forgot to actually live it. I was in a relationship with a man who loved my words, not the least because I told his story too. I made our lives shiney, through the story of them I told. He loved my words, but he didn't love my voice. I learned the difference between the two during that part of my life.
Words can tell a story. But your voice? Your voice creates that story.
When I decided it was time to stop telling a story and start creating one, I left him. And I left much of that life.
I was free, for what felt like the first time ever, to be truly honest with my voice. The first thing I did was start dissecting my relationship with sex. I felt like sex was a huge part of the story I wanted to create, and I didn't have the resources to do it right. So, I started garnering those resources. I wasn't always true to myself during this time, I didn't always speak the truth to others. But for the most part, my voice helped craft a beautiful story about sex. About how men and women and women and women interact in this world. I lived this story, and it felt like I was truly alive for the first time in my life. I'd gone from off stage monologue to first person action, directing every scene from inside of it. It was green things at the end of a long winter, and I've never been happier.
And then a part of me decided it was time to start figuring something else out. I wasn't sure quite what it was I needed to figure out, but that part of me went about crafting the opportunity to do so.
I pulled someone into my life who would create a whole new, much stronger dynamic. I installed him at the foundation of my life, and I went on building over him. I bounced my voice off his wide shoulders, and listened to the echo, trying to find my place in this new dynamic. The echoes spoke of a past I'd left behind, a harsh judgement I'd run away from. This persons strong judgment of the world I'd created, of the people I loved, echoed the hatred I knew I'd have garnered if I'd let my voice out of its box, let those I loved hear the story I was creating in my own head.
And I embraced it wholeheartedly. I took it as a challenge, on the surface, to soften the harsh edges of this angry human being. To force him to accept the world I'd chosen to create, as my family never would.
Instead, my soft edges wrapped around and inside the mold of his strength, of his anger, of his weakness. And I let them, thinking I was learning something new, that I was still growing.
I wasn't learning something new. I was recreating something old, something I'd never dealt with. That I didn't know HOW to deal with, because I couldn't even acknowledge it existed.
I don't beat myself up over this lack. I was never given the resources to handle being truly alone, and I was constantly threatened with the knowledge of how easy it would be to leave me behind if I spoke up about my faith. I took the lessons learned as a child, and I never questioned them. Instead, I recreated those scenes, now with more disturbing dynamics. Power plays that evolved into sex as surrender. Creating peace through silence, instead of honesty. Accepting gifts, creating dependency through money and physical need. Lies that sat well in my own ears, that soothed my own heart, told with words given to me by someone else. My mouth became their voice, and I started telling another persons story again.
Even as all of this was happening, even as it is STILL HAPPENING, a part of me screams in rage. A part of me finds the words to tell my own story. But they're just words. I locked my voice away again, and I blush and I stammer and no longer try to force honesty out past the lump in my throat.
It feels like the only valuable lesson I'm learning right now is empathy with those who suffer because their voice is gone. I understand better the inability to choose to speak.
It's still a choice. But it's a choice wrapped around with thorny knowledge, guaranteed pain. It's a choice that your body shies away from, will you won't you, because it learned its lesson one too many times. Self preservation in the form of lesser evils. And a refusal to acknowledge that greater good is waiting behind the thorns. It's a fight between very basic parts of who you are as a human being, and which part wins is a crap shoot. The variables include choices made for you from the moment of your birth, and the only control you really have at all is how you deal with those choices.
I have more sympathy for those who chose to deal with those choices through silence.
You always have a voice. You just have to choose to use it.
And I thought that choice was always easy. Why WOULDN'T one choose to be heard? What ramifications could possibly be dark enough to make you lose your voice?
When I was a child, I never shut up. No matter how much trouble it got me in. I was quiet, for the most part, but when I felt the injustice of my voice being stifled, I spoke up. I got grounded countless times, slapped in the face a few times, even got the belt a time or two, based on my inability to stop my voice. And even when I was being punished for it, I felt the respect it garnered. My parents would joke about my inability to allow them the last word if I thought I was right, but underneath their joking was the knowledge that they were raising a strong daughter. A woman who would stick up for herself. I felt their pride in that knowledge, and it strengthened my voice, regardless of the consequences. There were no ramifications dark enough in my childhood to stifle my voice.
And then I made the decision to be quiet about my faith. I shut my mouth, and I walked with my head down. Because I felt the consequences of speaking up would be too painful. I could take a lot, but I couldn't handle the loss I knew my voice would bring. I was quiet for a number of years, from 17 or so till 23. But my voice built up in my chest that whole time, causing an ache in my throat. I would open my mouth to speak, and nothing could get past the lump of what I was choosing not to say. I stuttered, I blushed, I dated men who loved that I couldn't speak.
And then I spoke to myself. I let myself hear everything I was hiding away from. And I made the decision to run away. I wasn't going to use my voice to server the ties of family and love. But I was going to go far enough away that I could speak without being heard by them. The ties would still be there, safe from the knowledge I couldn't keep inside anymore.
I spent years listening to myself speak after that. I went through a fascinating life, glamorous and crazy and so much fun (to me, a HIGHLY sheltered young woman), and I spent all of it monologue-ing to myself. I told myself the story of the life I was living, and I forgot to actually live it. I was in a relationship with a man who loved my words, not the least because I told his story too. I made our lives shiney, through the story of them I told. He loved my words, but he didn't love my voice. I learned the difference between the two during that part of my life.
Words can tell a story. But your voice? Your voice creates that story.
When I decided it was time to stop telling a story and start creating one, I left him. And I left much of that life.
I was free, for what felt like the first time ever, to be truly honest with my voice. The first thing I did was start dissecting my relationship with sex. I felt like sex was a huge part of the story I wanted to create, and I didn't have the resources to do it right. So, I started garnering those resources. I wasn't always true to myself during this time, I didn't always speak the truth to others. But for the most part, my voice helped craft a beautiful story about sex. About how men and women and women and women interact in this world. I lived this story, and it felt like I was truly alive for the first time in my life. I'd gone from off stage monologue to first person action, directing every scene from inside of it. It was green things at the end of a long winter, and I've never been happier.
And then a part of me decided it was time to start figuring something else out. I wasn't sure quite what it was I needed to figure out, but that part of me went about crafting the opportunity to do so.
I pulled someone into my life who would create a whole new, much stronger dynamic. I installed him at the foundation of my life, and I went on building over him. I bounced my voice off his wide shoulders, and listened to the echo, trying to find my place in this new dynamic. The echoes spoke of a past I'd left behind, a harsh judgement I'd run away from. This persons strong judgment of the world I'd created, of the people I loved, echoed the hatred I knew I'd have garnered if I'd let my voice out of its box, let those I loved hear the story I was creating in my own head.
And I embraced it wholeheartedly. I took it as a challenge, on the surface, to soften the harsh edges of this angry human being. To force him to accept the world I'd chosen to create, as my family never would.
Instead, my soft edges wrapped around and inside the mold of his strength, of his anger, of his weakness. And I let them, thinking I was learning something new, that I was still growing.
I wasn't learning something new. I was recreating something old, something I'd never dealt with. That I didn't know HOW to deal with, because I couldn't even acknowledge it existed.
I don't beat myself up over this lack. I was never given the resources to handle being truly alone, and I was constantly threatened with the knowledge of how easy it would be to leave me behind if I spoke up about my faith. I took the lessons learned as a child, and I never questioned them. Instead, I recreated those scenes, now with more disturbing dynamics. Power plays that evolved into sex as surrender. Creating peace through silence, instead of honesty. Accepting gifts, creating dependency through money and physical need. Lies that sat well in my own ears, that soothed my own heart, told with words given to me by someone else. My mouth became their voice, and I started telling another persons story again.
Even as all of this was happening, even as it is STILL HAPPENING, a part of me screams in rage. A part of me finds the words to tell my own story. But they're just words. I locked my voice away again, and I blush and I stammer and no longer try to force honesty out past the lump in my throat.
It feels like the only valuable lesson I'm learning right now is empathy with those who suffer because their voice is gone. I understand better the inability to choose to speak.
It's still a choice. But it's a choice wrapped around with thorny knowledge, guaranteed pain. It's a choice that your body shies away from, will you won't you, because it learned its lesson one too many times. Self preservation in the form of lesser evils. And a refusal to acknowledge that greater good is waiting behind the thorns. It's a fight between very basic parts of who you are as a human being, and which part wins is a crap shoot. The variables include choices made for you from the moment of your birth, and the only control you really have at all is how you deal with those choices.
I have more sympathy for those who chose to deal with those choices through silence.
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