femminista: thoughts of a feminist rhetorician

I refuse to be silent. To worry and avoid and fear speaking truth. I am not a shy person, certainly not a person who has trouble speaking her mind. But there are things that I keep hidden from the world. I'm a terrible liar, but a convincing actress. The name of my famous curtain calls--healthy cat. It's true; every day I perform the role of "normal." Not in the plain vanilla way. No one would ever accuse me of being boring or, to be honest, even normal in most of its senses. No, my performance of normal is much more specific, more "rocky road" than vanilla. I play the role of the fully able-bodied, healthy young woman. I have done so for almost twenty eight years. But now, as I prepare to enter the twenty-ninth year, I note that my costume is ragged at the edges; there are tears in the bodice and on the sleeves; my makeup is wearing thin; my hair falling out. This show cannot go on.

My leg fucking hurts. It has hurt all day, starting in the foot and hip, moving up and down to meet at the knee. No position is comfortable. Nothing I do will make it feel better. I sit through my afternoon class--three hours of sitting, punctuated by a short five minute break. As the class progresses so does my pain. I know that I should get up; try to move around. It probably won't help; but it will make me feel helpful, like there's something that I can do. It's a lie that I tell myself. More accurately, it is a role that I play for myself. Like I said, I'm not a good liar. But I play the role to match the illusion/delusion that I am in control of my body; if not convincingly, then at least with determination. So, I stay seated, to avoid drawing attention to myself. I mask my pain with a smile. I shift and move in my seat. I seem to be fidgeting. My smile falters; my fidgeting turns to a desparate attempt to massage through the pain, rubbing my thigh, shifting positions. I'm not smiling anymore. I look at their faces. Have they noticed? Can they see that my pain has increased my usual daytime nausea? It's the reason I bring cookies that I don't eat, even though they are gluten-free. The irony is that these people, the ones that I am trying to hide my pain from, are the only group of students in my entire educational career who know that I have these health problems. These are students in my Rhetoric of Access class. On the first day of class I took the first tentative steps towards this unveiling, a veil that I only recently realized I was wearing. Actually, veil is probably inaccurate; facade is closer to what I've worn all these years.

Talking about illness makes people uncomfortable. When they ask "how are you," they expect you to say "fine. And you?" This is one lie that I, like many, have mastered well. Pretending to be well. I laughed at myself yesterday when the nurse asked me how I was doing and I started to say "fine," because that's my line. It's the role that I am expected to play. Even at the doctor's office. You might argue that this isn't really important. Millions of people repeat the same interaction, day in and day out, and they are all performing a role that no one really gives much credence to. But actually, that is my point. Granted, it may be quite vague and unclear at the moment and it may take several posts to bring it into focus, but I will. Because someone needs to speak up. And, well, I can project amazingly well, even the seats in the back will be able to hear every word.

Pain and a frequently weakened body have controlled most of my life. The last thing that I want to do is be defined by my illness(es). To give them more control. But it's been twenty-eight years--I've exceded my life expectancy by twenty eight years--and they're still with me. Maybe it's time to make some peace. I've always been afraid that if I accepted them, I'd be giving up--relegating myself to a life of weakness, sadness, loneliness and pain. But somehow there must by a way to make peace with reality without giving up on hope. That's what I am trying to do. I am trying to negotiate a space to communicate with this body that I can't control; to make peace with it's imperfections; to stop hating it, because hate never made anything better. I've known that for some time; I'm trying to learn the rest. I need to create a space where I can identify with the parts of me that are restrictive and painful, those physical attributes that I currently deem faulty and broken. But I need to do so with care so that even as I accept and integrate that part of my identity,as I let it out of the closet, I don't let it identify me.