There’s a lot of anger simmering under the surface sometimes. Like the Hulk, some of my drive, determination, defensiveness and stubbornness as a single woman may be rooted in a simple secret: I’m always angry.

When I laugh at the tweet I saw last week that said “If we put a woman on the twenty dollar bill, will it only be worth $15.88?”, it’s a laugh that hides a twinge of frustration.

When certain politicians co-opt my values and play on fears to get votes, I feel helpless rage.

When my favorite writers are misquoted and misappropriated to prove a point or justify an action, my inner English major goes all Braveheart.

When I arrive at an airbnb booking and there are extra charges and fees and you have to pay for towels and sheets and a 400-euro deposit in cash, and you have no option except to swallow their requirements, because cancellations forfeit the whole cost of the booking.

When my car tires get slashed by someone who makes approximately fifty times more money than I do.

When these things happen, I feel outrage. I sense the injustice of it all. I lose a little bit of hope in the world. I feel powerless to effect change, like it all matters a little bit less.

For others, however, it seems that injustice fuels the sense that the words they have to say in this stage of reaction matter MORE. Words spoken (or written on facebook) in the stage of injustice-processing classified as outrage seem to matter MORE than words spoken out of deep thought, considered study, or any sort of expertise.

It’s not because I never feel outraged at political, financial, race, class, or gender injustices that I don’t often post about them on social media or even here on our oh-so-unbiased-and-totally-like-philosophical blog. I suppose I feel that my response should be more than mere reaction, especially in this culture of outrage, where it’s common to emote outrage every other day about what this politician said or didn’t say, or how celebrity A supported or backstabbed celebrity B, how corporation A is lying and corporation B is cheating.

I’m not saying that anger doesn’t have value. but what happens beyond outrage that we often don’t record? Pick your favorite incident of outrage–an oil spill, a politician misquoting the Bible, Cedric the Lion getting shot, The Bachelor giving a rose to the wrong girl, Disney re-make ruined your favorite childhood movie, or, to use a recent example–The Cincinatti Zoo’s decision to kill Harambe the Gorilla after a four-year-old child escaped into his enclosure.

Who’s the target of your outrage? The mother? People in general who choose to propagate the species? The zoo staff? Zoos in general? The child? THE HUMAN RACE?

You see, outrage is easy. It’s our first reaction. What comes after outrage, blame, and snarky/angry comment discussions that apparently way too many people have time for? Real thought. Real conversations about important things. I am guessing many parents had good talks with their kids about not running away, about death, about how it’s important to care for animals by leaving them room. A realer, deeper anger than mere outrage.  Quietness. Grief. Despair. Confusion. Discouragement. Depression. Coping with a new normal. Healing. Hoping. Responding with life-change, instead of just reacting emotionally.

Comedian John Cleese speaks along the same lines in this video. Comedy, (which we hope can be found on this blog now and again) is a sort of thoughtfulness that takes processing, takes us beyond mere reaction. It requires a filtering and distilling, and it requires hope; a transformation that takes us past “This HAPPENED! OMG! Disaster!” to “This happened, and this is what it means for me and possibly for you, and just like with everything that has happened or will happen, there are highlights and shadows and it’s important to see both of them to get the whole picture. Also, have a laugh to keep from crying.”

Dear Working Girl:

Be brave.

And then live with the consequences.

Because they won’t always be good. Sometimes making a brave step ends in heartbreak. Sometimes accepting a new job, moving to a new city, and giving up your home, your friends, and your security for a new opportunity might end in unexpected unemployment.

Sometimes you’ll try something new at work, try to help out a designer and exercise your creative muscles by making wireframes for a website project, and the designer will let you spend hours on learning the process and making them. Then he might tell you to throw them in the trash can without looking at them.

Sometimes your teams will fail you; sometimes you’ll get shut down for making suggestions, sometimes you will get told your work is not worthy of a raise.

You will lose battles at work.

You will hire someone who turns against you, who might even get you fired.

You will get failing grades in school (or in life) because you tried something different.

You might wear something that, in retrospect, looks pretty silly on you although it looked great on the web page.

Write something. Start a blog. Fill a sketchbook. Read your poetry out loud.

Be brave anyway.

Because the world needs you, though it thinks it doesn’t. Don’t stop, even when you keep asking, keep making, keep looking, keep seeking, and keep trying new things and nothing seems to be working.

Because do you know what? Sometimes bravery looks an awful lot like patience. Sometimes it looks like failure. Sometimes it looks like waking up in the morning with smelly breath and fuzzy hair and looking in the mirror and going out into the world anyway.

Don’t freeze. Don’t stop yourself at status quo. Look for the new, look for the beautiful ideas, look for the hard, but wonderful, work. Do not be satisfied with less. Keep speaking up.

Because with bravery, as with prayer, the results are often not obvious. Be brave not because it gets you where you want to be, but because it will change your character deeply.

The world needs your bravery.

Even if it thinks it doesn’t.

 

Fair Warning

“YOU SHOULD’VE MOVED THIS PIECE OF SHIT. FAIR WARNING: DON’T PARK IN MY SPOT.”

The “Fair Warning” note under my windshield wiper, along with an official warning notice from the parking garage at my new workplace, was accompanied by a deflated tire. And it wasn’t just that the air was let out via the valve. There was actually a cut in the tire wall.

All because I mixed up the number of the parking spot I was told to park in, and parked in 131 instead of 1×1.

Fair Warning: I’m angry.

It may not seem that I am, because I’m handling it. Like a grown-up. I discovered the flat, thankfully, before getting onto the freeway, by dint of offering to give a car-less co-worker a ride to her home on my way. In her driveway, she held a cellphone flashlight as I maneuvered the tire iron, standing on it with my full weight in order to remove the bolts when necessary, feeling thankful for those unwanted extra pounds. I’ve had to do this twice this year, and each time I’m grateful for the time my dad made me change the tire in the snow so I would know how to do it. I cut my finger on a metal burr on the edge of the jack, and had a Fat Amy moment.

Together, we pulled the wheel off, leaving grease mixed with blood from my finger, and attached the spare. Agreeing to text her when I made it home, I set up my navigation system to direct me home without getting on the freeway—a 20-mile detour around Lake Washington by surface roads.

I’m mad. I mean really, really angry. I want to let the air out of this person’s tires. I want to scream at the business owners who repeatedly told me I wasn’t worth a living wage, because I am a single woman instead of a family man. I want them to know what it feels like to cry in your office at 10 pm because you’ve been doing workaround after workaround after workaround in order to accomplish a task that should have taken 10 minutes, because they didn’t consider my time important enough to take up development time.

I want to go back to the office of my dream job and tell the partners who fired me and left me to 6 months of unemployment last year, and wish the same fate on their daughters, then flip them both middle fingers and walk out backward with Aretha Franklin’s “Respect” playing over their shocked faces. And they thought I was such a nice girl.

The Pastors who used my passion up until it became imperative to pay me and then dropped me or forced me out of jobs, the leaders who let me go because it was easier than helping me grow into a role. The leaders who overlooked me because I was quiet. The men who hit on me at bus stops, while I’m walking down the street, or use the carpool lanes as an excuse to cut off rule-following, hard-working commuters. The “Unconscious Bias” of privilege is much-talked about these days. I see men apologizing on social media, supporting Emma Watson’s #heforshe, being aware of how it affects their behavior for the first time. But they still own the public spaces without being fully aware of it.

Before I was even fully aware of this concept, I broke up with a college boyfriend. Only recently could I really explain and understand why I felt uncomfortable with the patronizing tone he took with my art, with my friends and priorities, with my church and even with the way I dressed and talked and ate, the college I chose, my family, and with the way I lead my teams in the summer program where we worked together. He didn’t respect my place of leadership—he seemed instead to sense that he was conceding, indulging me somehow, by allowing me to lead, by allowing me to even be there. It was a concession, not an equal relationship. By the last week of the final summer we worked together, not a day went by that I didn’t feel like punching his smug, now-engaged-to-someone-else face. I mentioned to one of my staffers that we had dated briefly and she fell off her chair and rolled on the floor laughing at the idea.

I am so grateful for the vague sense of confused discomfort that finally led me to follow my gut and say the relationship wasn’t for me. I’m even a little angry that I grieved losing the relationship.

And I’m mad that he is now a pastor. It’s been many years since I worked with him, so it’s likely he’s changed. But honestly, when I go to churches, my bullshit radar is set to super-alert. Many pastors are now my age and younger, too. It’s hard for me to trust the system that fostered their leadership (even though I also know many good and faithful leaders and pastors who are full of integrity and worthy of respect). And if I catch an echo of patronizing attitude, of what we now term “unconscious privilege,” I want to run as far and fast from that person’s leadership as I can. I see the faces of betrayal and patronization staring back at me from pulpits and stages, no matter how casual the dress code, no matter how authentic the tone, no matter how artistically designed the backdrop.

Am I a victim? Am I wallowing in injustice? Probably some of the time, yes. I’m a perpetrator, too. I’m white, middle-class, educated, and own a (nearly worthless) car and half of a house. This makes me one of the richest people in the world. I have my own “unconscious privilege” biases, too.

To those who didn’t take care of me when they could have: I’m angry. To those who attacked me for innocent mistakes: I’m angry. To those who took advantage of their privilege, however unconsciously, instead of fighting for those who had less opportunity and less advantage. To those who did not and do not begin with love instead of power. To the owner of parking spot 131, who slashed my driver’s side rear tire, as confirmed by my Goodyear tire dealership.

I’m angry.

FAIR WARNING.

But because I am angry, I will not attack your car in return. Because I am angry, I will be more patient (if, because of the cost of damage to my car, a less-frequent customer) at Starbucks. And I will smile and thank the barista who messed up my order and took a few extra minutes to make that magical cup of coffee.

I will be kinder. I will work harder. I will help out when I don’t strictly need to.

And this will be my rebellion.

I will not make fewer mistakes, probably. But possibly one day the barista may become an executive who owns both a shiny black new BMW and a matte-red custom painted sportscar. Possibly someone in a thrice-recalled (thanks, GM), nearly worthless vehicle may park in that former barista’s spot. And perhaps, just perhaps, that barista will remember what it was like to be struggling. Maybe that former barista will not leave a nasty note, will not slash the tires on the GM junker, but will instead simply and reasonably call security and wait for the car to be moved, assuming (correctly) that it was a simple mistake by a stressed-out newbie.

Be kind. Make the world a better place.

There is, in women of a certain age, an attractiveness born from singleness. Pity pretty.

It’s a magical age when you go from being ‘attractive’ to ‘attractive for your age and circumstance.’ All your accomplishments become excellent reasons for why you should be married, though hardly selling points for falling in love. And no one quite knows how to wrap their heads around the fact that someone attractive, accomplished and mostly inoffensive could ever be single, remaining oblivious to the fact that unattractive, unremarkable, offensive people get married every day.

While people are pleased and happy to acknowledge and praise your skills, your fashion sense, your commitment to your job, your volunteer work, your availability to teach Sunday school or lead the youth fundraiser, and your bravery in “living your life,’ it’s often a lead-in to lament that “it’s a shame no one has snapped you up yet.”

Pity-prettiness is conditional. You’re still pretty enough, it says. Pretty enough to not be single for the rest of your life, as if singleness is merely a manifestation of genetics.

When I was in summer camp leadership, a friend of mine had a whole repertoire of folk songs memorized, and we all would learn various funny, antique lyrics. The one the girls thought was funniest was called “If I Die an Old Maid in the Garrett.” They lyrics are about a lonely spinster wondering why in the world she doesn’t have “a wee, fat man, who would call me his own dearie.”

We sang it because the lyrics were comical, but one time when we finished a rousing round of the chorus, one of the male staffers shook his head and said he didn’t like us to sing it.

“Why not?” I asked, surprised.

“Well…well,” he thought for a minute, “… because all of you are too pretty to die old maids!” He said, with the flourish of bestowing a compliment.

We all looked at each other, unsure of how to respond. The thing is, pity-pretty isn’t a compliment. Pity-pretty is an assessment and estimation of value, based on cultural expectations.

At the same time, I know that this language of pity-pretty is used by friends, elderly relatives, acquaintances, and church family with the kindest and most loving of intentions. They want to build me up, encourage me that it’s “not too late.”

And so, we smile and accept these sunflower compliments, and put them in water with a good boulder or two of salt. After all, at least it proves they think we’re not complete mutants. At least they’re not among those that are saying “No wonder she’s single!”