Pleased to Know You

I recently had lunch with a high school acquaintance who tracked me down for an upcoming class reunion. We hadn’t seen each other in thirty-five years, and we jabbered nonstop while trying to cover the past decades.

Unlike me, she’d been married to her husband almost fifty years, lived in our same Missouri hometown, raised two children, and became grandparent to five. She owned and ran a business where she’d started as a secretary in her late teens.

Me, I’d had two failed marriages in my twenties before finding “the one” in my late thirties. After twenty-three years of marriage, I lost my love to Lewy Body Dementia five years prior. I’d lived in three different states before returning to Missouri to reconnect with siblings, nieces, and nephews. I’d had countless jobs in many industries doing office work before I became a cosmetologist. Finding that career ill-suited, I obtained an education, taught college, and later became a campus supervisor before retiring.

Lunch over, my friend sat back and said, “You know, I was twenty-eight when I had the clearest revelation. I’ll never forget it, the thought of, ‘I like myself. I love being me.’”

I smiled and nodded, thinking, wouldn’t that have been lovely.

My mother never liked herself. The sixty-something years I knew her, she’d said aloud, “Oh, LaVerne. You’re so stupid. You do such dumb things. I could shake your stuffies.” She was always mad about her actions or decisions.

I didn’t like me, either. I wasn’t raised to think with pride and confidence. Only self-loathing. My self-talk matched my mother’s phrases.

But, I did have shining moments that broke through the dark haze, moments I couldn’t deny my intelligence, diligence, strength, or courage.

One of my first memories is when I was three. My mother hung clothes on the line outside. I wanted to help, but couldn’t reach that high. She’d strung a low line between the V-legs of the swing set for me. She gave me the wet rags to hang. One-two-six-three: I counted and tucked the fabric over the string and pushed on pin after clothespin to cover every visible edge of the cloth. Secure, my rags flapped in the breeze. They wouldn’t blow away. I did a good job. I liked me for my accomplishment. It felt good.

I liked me at fifteen, too, when I told my religious mother that I would no longer practice Catholicism. Over that past year, I’d been sitting on the outside church steps during Sunday mass with several of my friends. But it felt morally wrong to deceive myself or her. I didn’t believe in in her faith, of that I was sure. I couldn’t force myself to step inside the church to pretend I did, and yet still live with myself. And I couldn’t lie to my mother and still live with myself. I went home and came clean. She came undone, calling me a sinner, a heretic, and a heathen. She said I was a lost soul and a traitor to God. Nothing but a pagan. I would go to hell.

She refused to speak to me for weeks, and when she finally did, she spit out a litany of nasty barbs, how I was no daughter of hers and no better than a worm. She meant to shame me. I wasn’t ashamed. I was proud. I’d stood up for myself and my own beliefs. I liked meeting that new part of me, discovering my fundamental values. I was growing into my own person.

I liked me at twenty-two for turning to my young husband of two years and asking for a divorce. We’d dated all through high school and married upon graduation. Two months later, he joined the service. We were moving to Texas. My freedom ticket from my parents, town, and state. From there, we were Colorado bound.

As I crossed from teens to twenties, I realized my husband and I had no common goals or interests. No solid base to build a happy future upon. He wanted nothing more than to laze on the couch and eat fried food. I wanted to see and experience the world, be outside and active, try new cuisine, and live fully. Catholic-raised girls from small Missouri towns in the 70’s did not get divorced, but I did. I broke every cultural rule I’d learned in order to honor my core standards, despite the backlash from my husband’s mother and family. I believed I deserved happiness. I liked me for fighting for it.

At thirty, I decided to move to California with no friends, job, or place to live waiting. Reckless, yes, but that’s why I wanted to push myself through my small-town fear and go to San Francisco. Intuition told me that California would offer the best opportunity for my new cosmetology license. I stumbled, but I found passable employment, friends, and a place to call home. I took care of myself when every decision and failure terrified me. I patted myself on the shoulder. I came through for me.

At forty-eight, I obtained my Master’s degree. I beamed like a proud parent. I'd started college late, fitting it around my full-time work. I took classes evenings and Saturdays year-round (before online schools). Through sweat and stubbornness, I kept up a 4.0 GPA. The journey from junior college to graduate program took me over ten years, but it happened.

I was married to my third husband John for twenty-three years. His illness in the last three years of his life brought me to my knees, but I stayed by his side, crawling through Lewy Body Dementia’s harshness. I sat with him when he took his last breath, a scene that will forever haunt me. Despite the pain, I admired my strength through the entire ordeal. I felt honored to have been his wife.

Before and through John’s illness and death, and the years afterward dealing with my overwhelming grief, my therapist listened to me berate myself for my crazy life. One day while I shared yet another “You’re stupid, Katherine” story, she asked me what I would feel and say if a friend was telling me this.

I answered, “I’d feel compassion. I’d tell her to lighten up and be kind to herself. I’d tell her I respected her for enduring bad marriages to good, recklessness to stability, and health through sickness. No one has a life that’s problem-free. We do the best we can.”

My therapist nodded. “So why are you so cruel to yourself?”

She tasked me with an assignment: go home and make a list of gentle words to use every time my mother’s voice popped into my head. Instead of “stupid,” I called myself, “honey.” Instead of “dumb,” I said, “dear.” Within months, I caught myself praising and soothing instead of criticizing and shaming.

Magic.

And before I realized it, I thought, I love me. And I do.