Right & Good

I picked up the chalk-ladened erasers as the dust began to settle against my plaid school uniform. I can still smell the white particulate that hung in the air, just beyond an old chalkboard. It was my day and my turn to take all of the classroom erasers, and bang them outside, just beyond the broken water fountain we would crank for any sign of life on hot days at recess. The back porch of our school had a metal railing where we would hang our heads and little arms over to aggressively bang, releasing remnants of phonics and arithmetic into the air. I was in second grade, and having a turn at this task was a gold star. I imagine I skipped down the hall. I imagine I was completely satisfied with my work at hand. The imagining stops when I make it back to my classroom, because what ensued thereafter doesn’t need to be imagined. What happened thereafter was an intense, very public humiliation at the hands of my 1990s, Catholic school teacher. I was asked to stand in the front of the room, until I could say what I had done wrong. My paralyzed, 7-year old self, facing a room full of second grade faces equally terrified. What had I done wrong? The blood drained from my face and down to my little fingertips where it froze, like I now was, without permission to move until I could say what I had done wrong. I was wrong. I was not good. Evidently, it was not the day or my turn to bang erasers, I would later learn. Pages were turned. More chalk was caked onto those erasers. And eventually, another second grade body was humiliated over a different scenario. But my internal battle ensued. Please let me be right. Please let me be good.

Fast forward many years.

I am a late-20s something changing in the parking garage at work out of day-worn scrubs and into cocktail attire. I am tired, but I am focused. I am applying fresh mascara and covering cheek blemishes as I move through rush hour traffic. I take one last look, as I remind my reflection that I am a wife of a soon-to-be partner. I will be classy, conversational, and confident. I will be right. I will be good. I walk into the event and meet the faces of admin’s who call me by name, but realize there is no name tag for me. They didn’t know I was coming. I am used to this scene. I have lived, and I have survived this scene. The one where my then husband forgets to acknowledge that I am his partner in life. This scene rolls off my body like an old worn hat. A glass of Chardonnay is placed in my hand, and I catch his eyes for the first time. I hold my first and only question of the night on the edge of my softly lined and rose-painted lips. The question I was confident I knew the answer to, because I had worked harder this time. I would be right. I would be good. I ask if he likes my new dress. I get the fast, up and down look of his otherwise distracted eyes, as it’s okay, slips out between his lips that are now sipping a cocktail. He reminds me he has a room full of clients and disappears. I am paralyzed among a sea of suits and business jargon, when a kind soul I know from prior engagements approaches me for a friendly, awkward side hug, and tells me I look beautiful as he turns to walk away. More cocktails are had. More smile and nod conversations, dull handshakes, and after a long, late drive home, I learn that my dress was not short enough. My heels were not tall enough. I was not right…I was not good.

My question, dear partner, is when were you told what makes you right?

When was it decided what makes you good?

When was the power handed over to another to decide?

When did we stay small, and the world continued to rotate while we were paralyzed in a frozen frame?

When did our validation rest in someone else’s perception and definition of our worth?

Wherever and whenever this took place. In a time of childhood innocence, adulthood experience or relationship, or somewhere in between. If placing your self worth in the hands of another circulates your body, penetrates your soul, and lies dormant in the cracks of a trauma that once defined you, then it is time we take back the power.

Self Worth may be defined as an internal belief of all that which makes one valuable, worthy and belonging, regardless of external validation and accomplishments. In other words, a healthy sense of self worth reflects: my value lies not in what I do, but simply in who I am.

I am enough.

Redefining my self worth has been one of the hardest phases of my healing journey.

I have learned that taking back the power requires an on-going commitment; a dramatic and conscious shift from validation seeking and rating worthiness by external measures to a deep, internal love of self.

Taking back the power requires rewriting the narrative of all that was once believed; all that makes me right & good.

Taking back the power requires a curiosity. A questioning. Who am I outside of the things? The perceptions? The titles?

Taking back the power requires a desire for something different.

A desire for different led me to a complete dependence on and surrender to God. It led me to leave the narrative I once thought was my purpose. A desire for different was a catalyst for shedding the labels, the titles, the possessions. A complete surrender moved me to a space where God emulates: You are none of those things. You are mine.