worker bee.

May 7, 2014 Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

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I’ve been funky and introspective lately. A little unmoored.
After all that excitement in April of the trip and offering my own job proposal/promotion, and getting flat
results from it, the job at least, it’s felt like I’m back at square one again.
Back at the crossroads where it’s my turn to figure out what I’m doing with my
life. What I should do, what I want to do, what I can do.

And it feels disheartening—I guess that’s pretty entirely
how I feel. A little flat, a little steam-less. My friend told me yesterday
this too shall pass; even though that makes small comfort when you’re “in it,”
she is of course right. But once again, folks are suggesting ideas for what I
should do next, and nothing seems right.

Do I stay at the job I have with a salary and
responsibilities that don’t reflect what I can offer? Do I stay here because
it’s stable, because my boss said he’s willing to offset some of the costs for
a non-profit management certificate course? Do I stay because it’s “easy”?

Though, is it? Is it easy to feel so small in the work you
do? Is it easy to know you can do more but stay put? Is it easy to accept the
minutae and banality of office clerkness? NO. Of fucking course not.

This is not the
easier road, but it is currently the one I’m standing on, and the one that is providing
me a livelihood. And when I come to consider it, it’s a decent, if on the
meager side, livelihood. Do I stay because other people have it worse off, and struggle harder?
Haven’t I learned the foolishness of martyrdom?

It’s not like I’m not trying. I’ve sent out two resumes, one
rejected. And assume I’ll send out more. But my heart is not in this. I guess
I’m just disappointed at the moment – having put a lot of energy into offering
my job some ways to increase their success and my own, and was told, “Not now,
and probably not for at least a year, if then.” Do I hang on for that??

I need more clarity from my job about what that really
means. I want more clarity around if this is just going to be me languishing
for another year—and also, if I am owed that annual cost of living increase
that my coworkers receive. And if that bit is worth it anyway?

I pulled the 4 of Cups this morning, the card of
self-absorption, apathy. They really nail me sometimes.

Introspection can be a healthy habit, when it’s accompanied
with outward action. But when it’s just mental masturbating, or emotional, then
it’s not really effective.

It’s hard to pull yourself out of the mire though. But, as
my friend said, this too shall pass. More will be revealed, the cloud will shift
from in front of the sun, and I will know what to do next.

Much of it starts with asking the real and hard questions to
my boss. If this is really worth my while to stay, to build toward what I
offered them, then I really need to know that in more than
empty promises of someday. That doesn’t work for me.

Is that too much to ask? I don’t know, because I haven’t
yet.

I was brave enough to ask for what I want; having been told,
“Not now, maybe someday,” am I brave enough to ask for what I need? It’s not like I have other offers rolling in.

But, the answers to my own questions and to my boss’s will help
determine whether it’s time to seek those offers or not, and I can stop feeling quagmired again.

Life is way too short to languish in “maybes” that you can
get a clearer answer to.

community · connection · courage · encouragement · poetry · spirituality

Connect.

May 6, 2014 Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

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I haven’t much to say today, so I’m going to pull a Melissa
and give you one of my favorite poems.

I first heard David Whyte on the carride home from my annual
women’s meditation retreat perhaps 5 years ago. My friend, in her new and
exciting Mini, maybe even with the top down, decided we were a little too
altered at the moment to listen to music on the drive down the mountains of
Napa, and so put in a CD of David Whyte. I’d never heard of him. Or his Irish accent. Or the way he repeats his own lines when he recites
them, the way he pauses to savor and emphasize words. But, I did that day.

The next time I heard the poem recited, it was in the
hospital, maybe a year and a half ago. The same friend brought a slightly battered, second-hand copy of the David Whyte book named for the poem. The nurse that
day, with her Hawaiian flowerprint scrubs and her own Aussie accent, saw the gift exchange and exclaimed her own
love of David Whyte. So I asked her to read this one aloud to us, and
reluctantly, shyly, she assented. It was so still and lovely in that room then.

When you get a chance to hear him, do it. Till then, reading
will suffice.

Everything
Is Waiting For You

Your
great mistake is to act the drama

as
if you were alone. As if life

were
a progressive and cunning crime

with
no witness to the tiny hidden

transgressions. To feel abandoned is to deny

the
intimacy of your surroundings.
Surely,

even
you, at times, have felt the grand array;

the
swelling presence, and the chorus, crowding

out
your solo voice. You must note

the
way the soap dish enables you,

or
the window latch grants you freedom.

Alertness
is the hidden discipline of familiarity.

The
stairs are your mentor of things

to
come, the doors have always been there

to
frighten you and invite you,

and
the tiny speaker in the phone

is
your dream-ladder to divinity.

Put
down the weight of your aloneness and ease into

the
conversation. The kettle is
singing

even
as it pours you a drink, the cooking pots

have
left their arrogant aloofness and

seen
the good in you at last. All the
birds

and
creatures of the world are unutterably

themselves. Everything is waiting for you.

David Whyte. listen. (start at 1:19; so good!) read.

acting · band · courage · fear · finances · progress · scarcity · trying

Progress is Boring.

May 1, 2014 Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

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(in an effort to release perfectionism, I’m going to
admit this blog kinda bored me, but I’m putting it up anyway. achievement
unlocked!)

I’ve heard there’s a difference between planning and
projecting.

Do the first to create peace; do the second and create
angst.

As with most of my plans lately — job stuff, the Boston trip,
even the acting (I’ll be auditioning again on Saturday) — it’s been a lot
easier, though not easy, to take the action and let the results be what they
may.

What I’ve gotten to see out of this way of being around the
trip and the acting is that indeed, the action was worth it, regardless the
results. In fact, that the results are still positive: I get to feel the joy of trying, and the smile associated with
remembering. I get to feel proud for showing up, and a sense of peace around
having not “gotten my way” or gotten in my way – unlike the outcome of projecting.

It’s nice to be able to recognize that the effort was worth
the effort. It could be easy to dismiss, and say, That wasn’t worth my time
since I didn’t get what I want – but, we know, I did. I got to spend time with
someone I enjoy; I got to experience auditioning (and even acting). I got to
see who and how I am in relationship, in perseverance, in something new – and I like who I was,
and who I saw.

I’ve been hemming around signing up for my work’s retirement
plan. I’ve been eligible for almost half a year, and it’s been on my list of
“action items” to talk to the accountant at work, find out how much would be
taken out of my paycheck to hit the minimum, which would be matched by my
employer.

Some people dream of
this kind of benefit… and I’ve been scared to look. What if there isn’t enough
for me now? What if there won’t be enough for me later? What if it’s too late?
What if …

“Clarity leads to freedom,” is a phrase I hear around now.
And the truth, like my student loans, could be a lot more palatable than I
imagined/feared/projected.

So, this week I did ask for those numbers. I sat, listened,
saw the highlighted figures on the page, and then stuffed the paper into my purse! Carrying around this step toward clarity without actually looking is still being in vagueness.

I’m still scared. As if looking at a page will harm me!

Clarity leads to freedom. It’s better to know than not know.
It’s better to try than not try. It’s better to live in reality than in
fantasy, mostly because my fantasies are pretty nihilistic.

If I’ve gotten anything out of the last few months, or even
year, it’s that trying can actually be fun.
No matter the outcome.

I think about my band. I think about playing bass in that
band. And how freaking fun that was. It was some work, and not always serene,
but it was fun. It was enlivening.

And I quit.

It was time to move on, but that doesn’t discount the value
and the importance of that experience in my life.

From the vague listening to the accountant, I don’t think my salary
can support those retirement contributions, modest though they are. But, also,
I’ve learned that my estimation of things can skew toward scarcity and fear, so
I’ll be taking those numbers to friends who can help me get more perspective on
them, since there may be a truth that I can’t see through that fog.

The other thing that comes up lately, is that I think I
wanna band again. Active verb. To band. I want to band.

So, I’ll plan, not project.

camping · community · confidence · courage · doubt · grace · insecurity · laughter · love · self-esteem · self-love · serenity

Confidence: How To.

April 30, 2014 Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

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Think of something you know you know how to do. Something
you enjoy knowing how to do. Maybe it’s making the lightest quiche, or playing
the drums, or changing a bicycle inner tube. Maybe you know that you know how
to plant seeds that germinate, or fix this computer bug, or mix the perfect vermillion. Maybe it’s as simple
as knowing you know how to hug a child, or tell a good joke. Find something that makes
you feel competent and confident.

Experience that feeling. The surge of blood through you, a
sense of guidance, purpose, direction. A sense of being the right person for
the job, in the right place at the right time. A feeling of ease and tension
release, of certainty and even exuberance. I know how to do this – I love
doing this.

For me, about 2 years ago, I realized it was (car) camping.
I know how to do that. I knew when we
needed wood, when we should start the fire, how to put it out. I knew how to
set up my tent, how to walk in the woods, how to avoid poison oak. I knew how
to brush my teeth at the tap, and use my headlamp to find my missing sock. I
knew how to have fun, how to do what needed to be done, how to help others
because I knew how to do these things.

What if… we allowed for the possibility that we could have
that feeling in more places in our lives. If we could recognize the mastery we have in some areas, and allow that
sense of confidence and competence support our less certain attempts. Maybe, it’s just knowing that I know how to
put on liquid eyeliner with deft precision. Can I allow that to fill up my tank
a little? – Come to think of it, can I recognize that I know how to fill my gas
tank! (If you grew up in NJ, you might not!) 😉

But the point, today, is that although there are many areas
in which I am not an expert, and that will always be so, and there will always
be something to learn in the places I want to become more adept… there are also
a host of places that I haven’t recognized I’m doing pretty well.

I think this is what they call, “building self-esteem.” What
a concept.

But, it’s true. People in general, and people like me, tend
to dismiss what we think is easy for us. For me, I have tended to dismiss my
writing when its complimented, since it can be so easy for me. What’s the value
of something that is wickedly simple for me?

Somehow the idea that valuable things are hard things came
into our zeitgeist. This is not to say that you or I needn’t work for what we
want, but it’s about recognizing what we have, and sometimes what we’ve been
given, that we take for granted.

I take for granted that I know how to put on crisp eyeliner.
I learned it, I do it, it’s a part of me. So, I forget it’s not something everyone else knows. I take for
granted that I can write this every day, for better or worse! I take for
granted that I can talk to the children at work and make us both smile. – Well,
that one I don’t. I don’t take the smiling for granted, just the knowing that I
know how to do it.

If I were to go through a given day or week, and take note
of the things that I seem to “instinctively” and “intuitively” know how to do,
how many things would pile onto that list?

Sure, there are blank spots, there are gaps, there are wide
berths of where I want to know and learn and be more. But they’re gaps. They’re
not the whole.

If I tried to recognize that I could feel the same
self-esteem while cooking eggs in the morning as I do when making a teepee out
of wood in a fire-pit; if I could remember to feel adept and facile when I
parallel park my car; if I could allow a sense of ease and confidence for the
simple act of knowing to pause in today’s heavy sunshine,

I imagine that delightful, intrepid poise can offer a
foundation for my less assured endeavors.

adventure · beauty · courage · intimacy · romance · serenity · sexuality · vulnerability

I want to tell you everything.

April 22, 2014 Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

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I want to tell you how gently he kissed my forehead, and how
warm his body felt as I shifted in the night. I want to tell you how natural and
serene it felt to twine my fingers into his and lean my body against him as we
waited for the stoplight to change. I want to tell you it was a good thing his
roommates weren’t home most of the time we were, and about quietly resting my
foot on top of his knee while he told me a story over the sunlit kitchen table.

I want to tell you everything. But, it’s not only my story.
And this one is still being written, still has a few more “Choose Your Own
Adventure” plot twists available, and the ending of it could be sooner or
farther than we know.

So, I’ll try my best not to tell you that it was only when I
was finally unpacking my suitcase in Oakland that the tears that had surged and
abated in airports across America finally fell. Or the relief I felt stepping
into the open air of the BART platform and looking around at the hodge-podge of
people I’ve grown so familiar with. I’ll try not to tell you about the dull and
persistent ache of withdrawal.

He’d said, “escaping the world” once when we were planning
this.

I’m sure all vacations have their hangovers. The return to
grim reality, and also to familiarity. The return to my own coffee pot and car
and a toothbrush that doesn’t fold in half. There’s a relief and a longing.
Like finishing a delicious meal and finally placing down your fork, overfull,
yet wishing you could savor it all again.

You remember the small moments. The ones where you took a deep, satiated breath. The angles of the New England homes you drove past on ancient winding
roads, and the spray of the Atlantic, blue today, over the rocks. You remember
playing with his pinkie finger while you waited for your pregnant waitress, looking, still self-consciously, out the window by your table, since it
was only day 2 and you felt new and strange and uncertain.

You try to remember everything. To etch it into
consciousness, since it will certainly fade, the exact tightness of
his arms around you while you lay naked against him; the exact way his chest hair curled while you fiddled with it musingly; the exact timbre of his echoing laughter under the short
kitchen ceiling.

I’d told you before I left that I imagined being held
delicately and protectively and surely by him, and that for once, I wasn’t
frightened of it. Well, friends, it was true. And though we’ve taken fantasy
and pulled it into the realm of reality, with all its attendant Yeses and Finallys
and Contentedness, … we also both took the courageous move to explore the exact
shape of reality’s rough edges and Almosts and Not Quites.

And should it be once again with the man this time was spent
with, and should it be another person completely: I am buoyed to know that I
can rest in the arms of a man, with no thought of escape.

adventure · change · courage · fear · hope · isolation · love · recovery · relationships · risk · romance · safety · terror · trying

Changing Underpants

April 12, 2014 Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

“It’s like he really likes me & I’m not running from
it,” is what I wrote in my journal this morning.

In fact, on Wednesday, I’ll be heading toward it, at 500 miles per hour.

I have my heels dug firmly into the ground below the plane
that will carry me there, and I have compassion for the terror and fear that
insists I stay in my cozy isolation.

It reminded me of a story I’d written in college (A Perverse Act of Gentility), although now,
many of the details have changed. Most importantly, the part where I’m actually attracted
to him, and that he’s never fallen into the deathly “friend zone.”

But, the final sentence of that story, about having
humiliation and disgust for someone who “held me like an angel” — that’s what
sparked the memory this morning. That I anticipate being held in the same way by the Boston Cupcake, but I that anticipate feeling in polar opposite to
how I did then. In fact, that I
already do.

The number of years I’ve spent avoiding true connection is vast. I’ve written extensively here about hiding from, running from, being
suspicious of love, but if you’re new to reading me, trust me: Intimacy …

Well, here’s the vicious Catch-22 I’ve found myself in for
as many years:

I am terrified of being loved; and it is also the absolute
thing I hope most to be. It is where I know healing, change, elevation, joy, enlightenment, growth, revelation, and alchemy will occur.

So, there is something different this time (no matter what
the “outcome”) with the Cupcake: I am
actually heading toward it. I’m not listening (wholly) to the fear. And, I feel
different. “Even in my underpants, I feel different,” to quote Elizabeth
Gilbert.

But, less in my underwear (though, yes…), and more in my chest cavity, in my guts, I feel different. At the same time that I have this electric fence
around my whole body, I have a magnet within it too. And one is fading.

I want to be loved
more than I want to hide, and I can feel the shift. I can feel tectonic plates,
long-ago formed in the tundra and tumult of my creation, beginning to ease. A
slight release in the tightness of my guts, and mostly, an excitement. Not just
the titillation and anticipation of getting to spend time with someone I really
like, but also, the opening of a door that for so long hung a sign that said,
Do Not Enter: Radioactive Waste.

Years ago, I wrote a poem about a dusty “Back in Five
Minutes” sign on the massive-shipping container that is my heart. About
brushing the caked dirt off it, but not needing to open it then, just being content
to know that it’s there, “secure, intact, existent.”

I think some of what is occurring is that I am finally opening up
that shipping container, and taking a look inside. That I’m allowing the door
to be open for a few minutes at a time. That I’m allowing myself to
dream about what it would be like to unpack it all, to discard the fallacies,
and engage and indulge in the luxuries.

Moreover, I’m letting myself do more than just dream about it,
and I think that’s where the true change is occurring. I am heading over a continent, through years of
flirtation, through a lifetime of resistance, toward possibility. There is a
willingness to step into the unknown that hasn’t been there before, and after the willingness is actual action. Call it
cancer, call it recovery, call it straight-up flouting of boredom and
stagnancy.

I still am terrified, I know that. But I also feel
different. In my ribcage and in my underpants, I feel different.

adulthood · adventure · chance · courage · crush · doubt · fear · passion · risk · romance

The Whatifs

April 11, 2014 Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

Last month, I contacted my psychic to ask about this upcoming trip to visit the Boston Cupcake (as he shall henceforth be known).

I can get an emailed reading from her, and despite your and
my own doubts, I get pretty accurate and insightful results from her, via email
or by phone. I mean, I’ve met her and
all – but this isn’t about her. It’s about him. And me.

I’d panicked a little after we’d confirmed that I was going
to fly out, over the continent, to spend 4 days in his bed, arms, town, space.
As Shel Silverstein elegantly put it:

Last night, while I lay thinking
here,

Some Whatifs crawled inside my ear

And pranced and partied all night
long

And sang their same old Whatif
song:

Whatif it’s awkward?

Whatif I can’t sleep?

Whatif I don’t come?

Whatif we ruin our friendship?

Whatif it’s good, but that’s the end of it?

Whatif it sucks in person, and we never text-flirt
again?

Whatif we do like each other?

Whatif we fall in love?

Whatif I’m too bruised to fall in love?

Whatif I have to move?

Whatif I move and it doesn’t work out?
Whatif we get married and have kids, and everything works out amazingly?
Whatif we get married and have kids, and struggle for money?

Whatif I have to leave the Bay Area?
Whatif I can’t afford to leave the Bay Area?
Whatif there’s no women’s spiritual community?
Whatif I never see my friends here again?
Whatif I hate the winter there?

Whatif he doesn’t like the way I laugh?

Whatif I don’t like the way he chews?

Whatif …

What if.

Va voy.

So, a few days before the deadline to purchase my flight, I
emailed my psychic to try to divine some answers. What are the implications of this
trip? Is this a good match? Is this a good thing, even if it’s not a match? What Is Going To Happen To Me???

Well, here’s what happened: She got sick, and emailed me
that she’d have to postpone my reading until the following week. Or, she could
just PayPal me back the funds and cancel the reading.

So, I thought about it. What was I really trying to get from
her and her answers, anyway? Assurance, Confirmation, Certainty.

Ah, yes. Certainty. If you can tell me with certainty that the
risk I’m about to take has the outcome that I want, then I’ll take it. If you
cannot tell me with certainty that it will be alright, then I am terrified to
risk it.

So, I went to her blog, to re-acquaint myself with her, to
see if I could divine my own answer, since I knew I was trying to get something
that no one else could really offer me. That life can never offer me.

And her most recent post was basically, if I remember
correctly, about taking chances. About putting your best effort forward, and
letting go; about allowing ourselves to try, and to know that whatever the
outcome, we’re cosmically safe.

Arghh…. Right. I am
safe, loved, assured, no matter what any outcome; but it is my responsibility
to try.

If nothing changes, nothing changes.

So, I emailed her back, and told her her blog helped me
realize that it was up to me to take this risk, to try without certainty to
allow adventure, intimacy, attraction, vulnerability into my life. That I would
take the refund from her, and go on this trip, and let all these unknowable
chips fall where they may.

Because, it all flows from what I was just saying yesterday,
about throwing my hat in the ring at work, professionally putting myself out
there, just for the esteem of it, not
knowing if it’ll “go my way,” but getting the benefits of trying anyway.

It’s all about what I’d quoted earlier this week, “You gotta
get in it, cuz it’s a day-by-day gig.”

If nothing changes, nothing changes.

I won’t know til I try. I won’t have certainty even when I am in it. None of us do, even with cohabitation, a ring, children, none of us know if this will “work out,” or if we’ll end up signing divorce papers, bankruptcy papers, restraining orders.

But, what I know for
certain is that I really am looking forward to this trip, to spending this time
with someone I admire, fancy, and enjoy. I really am so very happy that I am
taking a risk, stepping into the wide unknown, opening my arms and falling into
his, come what may.

adulthood · compassion · connection · courage · friendship · healing · leadership · perseverance · recovery · self-love · trauma · writing

Seeing Someone

April 3, 2014 Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

Yesterday, I saw my new somatic therapist for the 2nd time,
and we’ve decided to continue to work together, for the next little
while. I don’t know, exactly, what changes will be wrought from it, but it’s
nice to have someone to talk to again who’s third party and kind and uninvested
in propping me up or giving me advice.

Which isn’t to say she isn’t keen on helping me recover and
heal, but she doesn’t really have any agenda except that. Which is nice.

At the end of the session, I said how it galls me that I was supposed to, all these years, work on trauma recovery and grieving, and now I
have to go through recovery from the trauma and grieving of cancer to even
get to that layer of healing and muck.

She said something heartening, which I’m not sure I agree
with yet, but maybe will eventually: That it’s all connected. That if we work
on one part, it’s pulling on all the others. Like a spider web, if I work and
tug and pull and excise over here, it’ll ripple across and affect the other
parts.

We’ll see. As always, the act of showing up is one of hope
that things (that I, my life and how I engage in or hide from it) will
change. I have hope, every time I call a friend or reach out for help or write
this blog – this blog is an act of writing myself out of the darkness.

In my “stats,” I see someone read that first blog called
“Cancer,” so this morning I went back to read it too. So much of what I wrote
about the recovery process was true and so many of the questions are still the
same, if not a little more in focus. My cousin is a doctor in palliative care,
and reads my blog (Hi, L.!), and she emailed me the other day after she’d read
my blog to say she’d never thought of life-threatening illness as trauma
before, but of course it is. And to thank me for the bravery of putting my
process of coagulation up for the help of so many.

It’s interesting to read back to that first blog, and to
read the virulent ambivalence of being “an inspiration.” And it’s something
that came up yesterday in my session: the desire to be someone who holds the
torch, and the desire to stop being the
f’ing person who holds the torch all the time.

The duality of being a leader, if you can call this that
(which, frankly, I’m coming to see it is), is that sometimes you want to just
march along with everyone else. You get tired of standing at the top of the
mountain alone to look out and see where you should go next, what horizons need
staking. You get tired of being the one who charges into the fray – of being
the person, as I wrote in that blog, who just “goes with it,” faces it, accepts
it.

AND YET, of course, for me, I want to be that person, too – I want to be the person who is a light for others; I want to be a teacher and a leader and an inspiration. I
want to exact positive change in the world.

Yesterday, in session, we spoke about vascillating between
both these feelings, and allowing it to be. It’s part of owning the all of
myself: the fearless leader, and the exhausted soldier. The tireless explorer,
and the guy who just wants to carry the horse oats and play cards in the tent.

I think part of my ambivalence is a conscious understanding
of what leadership might mean, too. To recognize, without slipping into
workaholism or unseeing “progress,” that I am, and have always been Both/And.

At some point, I also told her that I’d been scrolling
through my profile photos on Facebook just the other day, since I’d put a new
one up. And I came, on Tuesday, sitting in my car waiting to meet up with some folks,
to the photo of myself at graduation from Mills College in May of 2012. That I
stand with a cap and gown, long hair, and a “radiant smile,” I told her.

I told her how I began to cry, looking at that photo, out of
grief that that girl had to go, and would go, through all this. That she had no idea what was about to happen. That the innocence of that
moment and that glee was … time-limited. To see that girl, to know what she was
about to go through, to feel so sorry that she does and will, and still is, is
grief. To know that my right eyelid will never look quite the same, an eye
infection during chemo causing it to droop slightly, so that I can see it now,
though others can’t. To know what that graduation day meant to me – to accomplish
something, to put my energies in and to excel, learn, progress, and shine.

I suppose, truthfully, I can say the same for my current
profile photo. Almost 2 years later, headshots for theater gigs. The result of
something I’ve also put my energies and monies and progress toward in order to
shine the way I know that photo does, too.

It’ll take some time, as I wrote in that first cancer blog,
to heal from all this. But I am a leader with a torch–though, please,
sometimes, can you be one too?

authenticity · community · courage · direction · faith · help · inspiration · perseverance

From all quarters (and nickels and dimes).

March 27, 2014 Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

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Of time necessity, today’s will be short. Strangely(?), I had a
very particular intention yesterday to show up to my job and do my best–my
actual best, not my “sorta kinda all you need to do” best.

By 1pm, I had a migraine so awful, I thought I’d puke, and
went home.

In addition, yesterday morning I received an email that proposed an
answer to a few of the questions I’ve been posing about purpose, direction,
intention, and desire for next steps. I forwarded it to a friend, and asked her
professional opinion and input. We got to talk (or email) about what interests
me, and what doesn’t, what I do want to engage in, what I don’t. And through
the course of our conversation, I came to a pretty good conclusion that may
result in more action. Because of the nature of my readership, I am necessarily
vague, but know that I sit here today with more information than I had
yesterday in answer to some of my recent questions.

As the saying goes: Call it odd, or call it G-d.

adulthood · adventure · anger · courage · family · fear · healing · health · hope · love · perseverance · relationships

Nature vs. Nurture.

March 23, 2014 Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

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Being raised by a psychoanalyst, I grew up believing pretty
strongly in Nurture vs. Nature. I believed adamantly in Tabula Rasa, and that
every aspect of my personality was developed in reaction to my environment.

Eventually, even through a Psychology Major (that switched
to Minor), I began to admit that perhaps there were a few inborn traits that one
has out of the womb, but the majority of a human’s personality was forged out
of their experiences before the age of 3.

But, I have to admit that the aggregate of my own lifetime
experiences, up to and including a Leukemia diagnosis, has begun to make me
admit that perhaps there is something more to the Gattaca within us. Perhaps
something like perseverance, courage, and visceral insistence on life has more
to do with my wiring as “human” and as “Molly,” in particular.

I would never peg myself as someone brave or bold. I don’t
charge into the fray, or head corporations, or tie myself to a tree before a bulldozer. I have few
of the outward markings I would associate with leader or change-maker.

But I am compelled to admit that my undertakings as an adult
do, in sum, mark me as someone willing to rage, to rail, to fight, to excavate all in the
service of healing.

Though perhaps if my formative years hadn’t been what they
were, I wouldn’t find the need to heal from much. Perhaps.

I had a therapist a few years ago who said something novel
to me: Your dad is not a courageous man. This struck me as apocryphal. My father, the one so quick to temper and anger and
rule of iron fist was not brave? Isn’t that what violence is—bravery? Isn’t
that what power is—anger?

Yet, her words rang so unbelievably true. Like seeing the Wizard behind
the curtain in Oz. I know now that that kind of anger does usually hide and
house one who is critically afraid. I mean, I usually wear my black leather
jacket when I’m feeling more insecure, as if its made of chainmail instead of
leather.

But, I was on the phone with a friend yesterday, answering
her question about why I was in Victoria’s Secret the other day. I told her
about my upcoming trip to meet my consummate penpal—and she squealed. She
thought it was so bold and brave, and adventurous, and ALIVE. She rattled on
that this experience is going to help so many other people down the line, help
women to see that life is meant to be
lived.

It sounded so epic when she mirrored it back like that! And
maybe it is. And maybe it’s not.

But, I do know that with every meditation, every alternative
healer, every inventory, every striving, every goddamn picking myself up, that
I am taking something back. That I am reclaiming something. And if that impulse
to charge onward, in light of all that is, is called courage, then I guess the
Wizard granted me a heart on the day that I was born.