The World in Which I Live

Words matter. It’s astounding how powerful words can be. They can incite horror as easily as they can lift hearts and minds. We’re living in a time when we are hit with a daily barrage of hateful rhetoric, and we can easily see that when words are used to hurt, manipulate, and build division, they can do just that.

From the moment we are born to the moment we die, words surround us. The power of those words that take hold inside our heads can either give us strength or weaken our faith in ourselves or our resolve to reach for our dreams and goals.

The early words in our life do so much to shape who we are. The words themselves, the way they are spoken, and, more importantly, the way we interpret them can define how we perceive ourselves.

My mother and I used to play a game when I was very small. We called it monkey. She would yell “Monkey!” and I would run to her and jump in her arms, and she would swing me around. It was fun, and I felt so loved and held by her, and in turn, valuable to her. The flip side of that coin was that my father would tell me I was born in a zoo, and my father and mother were monkeys. He was trying to be funny. He liked to tease and cajole. It was how he showed love. But for me, at such a young impressionable age, unable to think critically, it hurt my feelings. In many ways, it was a way of showing me he had no ownership in my life, that he didn’t want me.

As I grew older, I was very skinny, and that somehow became so defining a feature that I began to feel it was what gave me worth. When puberty hit, and I developed quickly, I was the skinny girl with a big rack. This was how I defined my worth. Skinny with boobs. From puberty forward, my main source of self-worth lay in what boys and men thought of me.

I set aside the fact that I had a fair amount of talent as a vocalist and actor. I was of above-average intelligence but tried hard to hide that fact.

Focused so heavily on my appearance, as many women are, it became apparent that the only way I would prove worthy of love was if I remained skinny. It was something my father told me on repeat, and he did not mix words. He was of a generation that only saw a woman’s worth in marriage and motherhood. It was certainly not his fault; he had never been taught otherwise. That I wanted something more from my life was a concept that he could not fathom.

My father has been gone for over two decades, but still, his words linger. I’m a monkey (not pretty). No one will marry me if I get fat. I better marry the first person that asks (no one else ever will). Time and time again, his words were proven false, but still, they sometimes sneak into my thinking and cause me to second-guess my real worth.

I don’t always give my talents, and my heart and my intelligence their due because I still (even though I do know better) let those voices sneak in.

I’m learning to replace my father’s words and the words of countless men that reaffirmed his words with my own words. I am flexible, strong, happy, healthy, and enjoying my life. I will speak these words to myself every day and drown out all those old, tired, and inconsequential words until they no longer have a voice.

Words Matter…I will make mine matter the most.