Becoming Enough
Day 432
My heart raced. I laid my index and middle finger to my neck, timing my pulse. I seriously need to calm down, I thought, knowing that it wouldn’t happen. For an hour, I’d surveyed the breaking waves, judging where I wanted to enter the water, what line I wanted to take on the paddle out, where I wanted to sit among the other surfers. Most of all, I’d surveyed my inner self, and whether I had what it would take to ride one of those giants.
I was about to do something surfers only dream of doing. I was about to paddle out at one of the most famous big wave surfing arenas in the world. Many had lost their lives here. This is where boys become men. This is where women become warriors. This is where–perhaps–I would finally prove my worth to my mom, to my ex-husband, to the church, to the world, to myself: I am enough.
I sat and watched. Was it my ego that said I was good enough? My lack of self-confidence that said I wasn’t? I drafted a text to my coach: “Hey, I’m thinking of surfing Waimea Bay. Bad idea?” It took me 20 minutes to hit send. I was terrified he would say I wasn’t ready, calling out my inflated ego, and I would be crushed.
My phone pinged. My hands shook. “Not a bad idea” he replied. “Just remember all our training to ensure safety and fun.” Green light. Game on.
I gathered my surf tools and walked down to the beach. Under one arm I carried a ten foot surfboard shaped for big waves, known as a “gun”. My free hand clutched an extra thick surfboard leash, made specifically not to break in heavy conditions, and an impact vest designed to help with floatation and in absorbing some of the thousands of foot-pounds of pressure created by house-sized waves crashing over my body. I carried the vest in my hand rather than wearing it because I knew there were surf paparazzi swarming the beach. I knew I was the only woman who would be surfing and I knew I looked much cuter in a hot pink bikini than I did with a padded vest that made me look like a linebacker. I passed by a young family on the beach as I headed to the entry zone. The mother saw me. Nudging her young daughter, she whispered, “Look, she is going to charge it out there!” Her words gave me chills. That one stroke of ego at once calmed and inspired me with an even bigger reason to do what I was about to do.
Day 433
My phone pinged with a picture text from a surfer friend back home in San Diego, California.
“You are on Surfline, BTW.”
What?
I opened the picture. It was a screenshot from the number one surf website in the world. It was of me, on my hot pink board in a hot pink bikini on a wave. The caption read “Melanie Williams, charging.” WHOA!
Never mind that my form was awful and the look on my face said, “Please don’t die!” I cannot even describe the rush I get from being seen.
How big can I get? How much can I achieve? What will it take for people to know me? How many risks will I take and how much of my life will I give to receiving recognition?
Every time my ego steps out of the shadows and I am honest enough with myself to recognize it, I am sent into a panic. What if they don’t like me? What if they see through my act the same way I am now seeing through it? What if they have been seeing through it all along and laughing at me behind my back?
T Minus 30 Years
My mother will tell you I was fiercely independent from a young age. My earliest memory is around the age of two, when my seven-year-old sister tried to change my diaper. I didn’t like the idea of my sister doing something for me, so I stuck my socked foot into my own poo to stop her. She removed my sock–which I didn’t like at all–so I stuck my bare foot in my poo just to teach her who was boss. I’ve been refusing help from others and stepping in my own crap ever since.
Around the age of three I didn’t like the idea that my mom was teaching my older brother to read and not me. I borrowed his tutorial cassette tapes and taught myself. All five of us kids were homeschooled by my brilliant mother, for all 13 years, kindergarten through 12th grade. Although I think I might have skipped 1st grade, since I pretty much had taught myself most of the curriculum before I was five. My parents chose to homeschool us primarily to avoid the peer pressure of traditional school. We lived in the country on a hobby farm with ducks, goats, pigs and chickens. There were no other children around. My best friends were also my worst enemies: my brothers closest in age.
Monday through Friday, my father left for work before I woke. He returned at 5:30 each night, kissed my mother, and went to shower. My Mom instructed us to set the table as she finished plating up a made-from-scratch dinner. After dinner my Dad completed household projects, watched an hour of TV and then went to bed. On Saturdays, Dad worked around the house for most of the day, playing with us in the late afternoon. On Sundays, we all went to church and after, Dad would snooze while watching the Detroit Lions lose a football game.
My Dad, the hardest working man I know, taught us the value of hard work. What he was able to do as a small business owner blows my mind. Providing for 5 hungry kids and allowing my Mom to stay at home with us, he still found time to teach us to change the oil in our cars, how to shoot layups, how to bait a hook and how to skin a buck. All without a single complaint. Not one. Not ever. I learned from my Dad that if you work as many hours per week as a human can reasonably sustain, then you can be squarely middle class, comfortable, safe and mostly happy.
We lived in a nice house. We took a vacation every year. All five kids had a car to drive upon turning 16. Despite her exhausting work homeschooling us, maintaining the household and helping her own parents run their farm, my Mom never brought home a paycheck.
My mom could run a country. A business woman, a powerhouse, a do-it-yourselfer, a real life renaissance woman. The oldest of three, she grew up on a farm with a father who always expected more out of her. She was a straight-A student, the main cook in the household by age 9, and still milked the cows everyday. Her father, of course, was fiercely proud of her, but he never said it, nor showed it. Men of his era didn’t do that kind of thing. These days, my Mom remodels bathrooms, lays tile, leads a Bible study, drives a tractor, runs a tutoring organization with hundreds of students, constantly babysits grandkids, throws pool parties and has the entire family over–18 of us–for Sunday dinner every week.
My mom can cook. She owns and abides in the kitchen. When I was a teenager, my brothers and I would frequently show up at the house with 10 hungry friends. Within 10 minutes, a whole counter full of snacks appeared. She makes you chicken salad sandwiches if you are taking a flight. She makes you the world’s best enchiladas if you are having surgery. If there is a funeral, she makes ham sandwiches for hundreds of people. Every year around Thanksgiving, she feeds her entire church, more than 300 people, with turkey and ham and stuffing and mashed potatoes and all the fixings. She graced our backyard sledding parties with warm cookies and hot cocoa. Our summer pool parties received cookies with fresh lemonade. We had family dinner seven days a week, a meat, a starch, a veggie and often dessert. Her Sunday dinners are some of my best childhood memories and something still I look forward to when I visit home. She insists on a crisp tablecloth, fine china, crystal glasses, and beautiful serving bowls filled with mashed potatoes, fresh sweet corn, yams, green beans, roast beef, homemade yeast rolls and jellies she made herself from berries she grew in her own garden. After dinner, my entire family would succumb to a food coma. Scattered around in the living room, we’d recline with glazed eyes, half-watching football browsing the Sunday paper, half high as a kite.
My mom doesn’t touch, nor does she pay compliments. By contrast, I am a touchy person. I’m a hugger and a cryer. I issue a compliment the minute it hits my brain. Nothing makes me feel loved so much as a hand on my shoulder and a whispered kindness. I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve heard my Mom say I love you. And I’ve never seen her cry. But she does cook, really, really well. And I was starving.
My older sister is, and always was, more beautiful than me. She is almost 6 feet tall, slender in the right spots and curvy where she should be. Her hair and skin are perfect. She always smiles and never utters anything negative about anyone.
When she was 11, my sister started dating a boy she met at Christian summer camp. My parents allowed him to call my sister once a day for half an hour. She was allowed to see him once per week. He would come over after church for Sunday dinner with the family. Ten years after their fateful summer camp encounter, she married that same boy. She married promptly after her college graduation, where she graduated 2nd in her university and gave a speech. Fifteen years later, they are still married. He is a pastor and she homeschools their four, very well behaved, intelligent and beautiful children. They have a big, lovely home just 15 minutes from where we grew up and where my parents still live. My sister maintains the best attitude in all situations, always looks on the bright side and never speaks a word of gossip. My sister was, and still is, perfect.
Meanwhile, every dress I tried on made me look fat. But looked awesome on her. My hair was a frizzy mess, while hers was flawlessly teased. Every time I won an award she had already won the same award years earlier. My sister got a pimple once–but I had full on acne. People would often tell me, “Your sister is so beautiful, she should be a model.” Thanks.
My conservative upbringing and frugal mother didn’t help my body image. I wasn’t allowed to wear anything like the other girls were wearing because it was considered too revealing. My clothes always came from the clearance rack. With five kids, I can’t blame my parents for not buying name brand stuff. Shopping with my mom was a nightmare. I would always end up crying because she’d reject everything I picked out. If my selection did make it into the fitting room, she’d inspect me with “that look” on her face and say the same thing: “It’s just not very becoming on you.” I ended up with clothes that looked like hand me downs from grandma.
Honestly, looking back on photos, I was very cute. But some people are just natural born beauties. I was a tomboy, my sister was a princess. I had no intention of entering a game in which I would ride the bench. I was not going to play second string to my sister. I decided I wouldn’t even try. If I couldn’t be perfect like my sister, I decided, then I would be weird. I refused to wear girls’ clothing starting around the age of 11. I chopped off my hair and spiked it up with Elmer’s glue. Even in high school, I never touched makeup, never got my ears pierced, and never painted my nails. I attempted to dress as strangely as possible. The first day of homeschool classes at the homeschool family co-op my freshman year, I wore a hawaiian sarong wrapped over wide leg jeans, knock-off Vans skate shoes with two differently colored neon laces. I’d popped the lenses from a pair of plastic reading glasses and added a bit of duct tape to make them appear broken and repaired. From that point, I used my babysitting money to buy my clothes at thrift stores. If I couldn’t be popular for being hot, I would find some other means to be recognized.
My quest to be seen took on a lot of different flavors as I aged. But the question in my heart was always the same, “Am I valid?”
Twenty years later, I would risk life and limb in waves as powerful as freight trains, still trying to be seen.
______________________________________________________________________________________
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