I was 12 when I was first made aware of my body as a sexual being. I didn't want to be made aware, mind you. It was summer and I was invited to the beach with a friend and her family. It was on that beach trip that I experienced my first French kiss, my first sexual touches, my first glimpse of the mature male anatomy, and my first experience of raw fear. This was not a beach romance. It was molestation at the hands of my friend's father. I consider myself lucky - I was not raped. I consider myself cursed - all of those potentially wonderful 'firsts' were shattering. It was wrong on so many levels beyond the obvious: he was a father figure, a church deacon who prayed from the pulpit, the husband of one of my mom's good church friends, a choir member who sang the role of Jesus in an Easter cantata. It was all a great big secret. To the best of my knowledge, no one in his family knew what was going on. No one in my family knows even today - until now, that is. My brother reads my blog. (Figured out who it is yet, Bro?) I was so ashamed. Like so many victims, I felt it was my fault. I shouldn't have worn a halter top or a two-piece bathing suit. I shouldn't given him a hug - it probably sent the wrong message. I shouldn't have allowed myself to get caught alone with him. The 'lesson' I learned and internalized from that experience was that my body was somehow bad. I should cover it up. For years I maintained the tomboy image, wearing jeans and loose t-shirts. I told others and myself that it was because it was silly to primp and carry on. In truth, I was afraid.
In high school, I was insanely skinny. I was proud of it, too. Now when I look back at my pictures, I am shocked at how anorexic I looked. I was skin and bones. At 5'5", I weighed maybe 95 pounds. Actually, at my skinniest, I weighed just 89 pounds. For two years, I could hardly eat without feeling sick. It wasn't that I wanted to lose weight. I just couldn't keep food down. I lived off of the two foods I could stomach - mashed potatoes and vanilla milkshakes - along with Ensure drinks and Maalox. Strangely enough, those were the same two years I was in a relationship with Ron. Ron used to send me flowers, give me nice gifts, and take me nice places. At first I thought it was because he loved me. Eventually I figured out it was more because he liked to be known as the guy who did all those things for his girlfriend. It was a real ego trip for him. I was under constant pressure in that relationship to measure up. It wasn't enough that I make straight A's. He wanted to know why I wasn't ranked in the top 3 in my class. It wasn't enough that I made the auditioned ensemble at my church. He wanted to know why I never sang a solo. Eventually I reached the point with him where I would get physically sick if he even tried to hold my hand in the car. The 'lesson' I learned and internalized from this experience was that no matter what I managed to accomplish, I was still not good enough.
Skip to my next relationship, the one that led to marriage. I'm sure there are good memories of good times from at least the first 3 years of marriage hidden somewhere in my psyche. Unfortunately, the last 7 years of marriage were so horrible that the good memories were buried under an avalanche of bad ones. I consider myself lucky - I wasn't physically abused. I consider myself cursed - the wounds of verbal and emotional abuse run deep and take years and years to heal. Remember that by this time I already believed that my body was bad and I would never be good enough. Then mix in a husband who felt he should be able to say or do whatever hurtful things he pleased during the day and still have a hot wife to put out for him in bed at night. When it didn't work that way, he told me I was frigid - a prude. And that was my next internalized 'lesson.'
His tune changed when we separated for the final time. I rebounded mightily into the arms of a man who was rebounding mightily from his own unhappy marriage. Suddenly the frigid prude was labeled as a whore. And the labeling didn't come just from my ex. A lot of people disapproved of that relationship, even the people closest to me - not that there were many of those left after being so isolated by a controlling husband. Now it's always mattered a lot to me what others think of me. Too much, quite frankly. It crushed me inside to think that I was now considered to be immoral, unwise, and loose. I couldn't understand it at the time because my emotional self, which had been mutilated and destroyed by my ex, was being nurtured by someone who for a time treated me as someone who was lovable and desirable. Obviously the rebound relationship didn't last. They never do. And the 'lesson' I learned from that experience was that my body was bad, I was never good enough, and when I wasn't being a frigid prude, I was a whore. There's nothing like living life in the extremes!
Is it any wonder that for twelve years following that relationship, I shut myself off from men altogether? (Except for a very brief, very uneventful dating relationship that lasted maybe 2 months. I don't really count that one.) I poured myself into my seminary work, into my daughter, into my ministry, into the adoptions, into the kids. I inhabited my body, but somehow felt separate from it.
Then my oldest daughter became a teenager who cares about clothes and makeup and hair. She started talking me into trying on different kinds of clothes. I found I liked it. I found a new hairstylist/makeup artist and discovered that I liked paying attention to these things too. I started moving back into my body - not merely inhabiting it. And it feels good.
Then something amazing happened. Two and a half months ago I met someone who has become a huge part of my life. I have fallen hard, and it is mutual. (Thank God!) I am crazy about him. The catch? Well, we still haven't actually met face to face. The story is long and complex. If you've followed my blog then you know a good bit of the story. But it doesn't seem to matter. He will come home. We will see each other. But all these weeks of talking - just talking - have helped us develop a deep and serious relationship. I see a future here. I really do.
I have to admit that while I'm happier than I've been maybe ever, on a certain level I'm scared. All of those screwed up, misguided 'lessons' from my past play those worn out tapes in my head: Your body is bad. You aren't good enough. You're a frigid prude. Or maybe you are an immoral whore if you act on your feelings. These things have nothing - NOTHING - to do with who I really am and nothing to do with what Coach thinks or feels. But they are my tapes. I'm working hard to erase them. It's time - past time - to unlearn some bad lessons.
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