Walk the Walk

This is what my face looked like almost 50 years ago at my first birthday party.  From the looks of things, I wasn’t too impressed with the festivities.  When I was old enough to look at pictures and ask questions, my mom informed me that I was wailing like a banshee because some inconsiderate (probably the coochie-coochie-coo type) neighbor lady absolutely insisted on waking me up to give me my birthday present.  I obviously did not appreciate being woken up from my peaceful slumber and to this day, if someone wakes me up, that’s the reaction they will get.  I hope there was something spectacular inside that white tissue paper with the pretty pink bow—like a diamond tennis bracelet, maybe.  And, I wish I still had that Fred Flintstone doll—I like Fred Flintstone.

I’m not much of a crier, for several reasons:  I’m not a fan of the ugly-cry face, crying makes my nose run, and it gives me a headache.  Those are all good reasons, I think, and because of those reasons, I make every effort possible to avoid crying.  If something starts to get me choked up, I think about baseball (not really, but I’ve heard that works for other things); honestly, I really do try to do a mental subject change.  Unfortunately, crying isn’t always avoidable, and so this face you see on Baby Amy is the same face that people got to see last night.  UGH.

I did a talk at the library last night.  It was an author talk, but it wasn’t the kind you might think.  I talked very little about my book, and none about the writing or publishing process.  Because May is Mental Health Month, the librarian who invited me to do the talk wanted me to focus more on my experience growing up with an alcoholic father and how those experiences influenced my decision to write a Young Adult novel dealing with addiction in the family.  She called the event, HOPE OVER ADDICTION.  No problem, I thought.  I can do that. And I wrote my talk.

I’ve never given a speech longer than ten minutes, so writing one for the time she wanted me to speak (15-30 minutes) proved a little challenging.  My mentor in Toastmasters once told me that women speak at a rate of about 150 words per minute.  When I wrote my speech, and divided the word count by 150, I was at least five minutes short.  I had more experiences I could add into the speech to make it long enough, but the ones that really mattered were too painful to talk about.  As a matter of fact, one thing that happened was something that only two or three people knew about because it was so embarrassing when it happened, that the mere thought of it today makes me cringe.  If the thought of it was too much, I knew there was no way I’d be able to talk about it—especially to strangers.

I mulled over different things I could add, but the things I didn’t want to talk about kept pounding on my brain’s door, and when I finally realized why they wouldn’t go away, I realized that I had to include them.  You see, a big part of my talk was a call to action encouraging people to open up and talk about how addiction in their lives affects them, and how it makes them feel.  I was asking them to be brave and talk about things that are hard to talk about.  I planned to tell them they shouldn’t be ashamed or embarrassed to open up, yet I was going to stand up there and refuse to talk about the hard stuff?  One word: hypocrite.  I decided that if I was going to talk the talk, I needed to walk the walk.  So, I did.  I added two experiences I knew would be really difficult to share.

I practiced my speech at least 15 times, and not once did I get choked up or cry.  I knew it would be fine, and not a single tear would be shed by this girl.  Like I said….easy, peasy.  I walked into the room feeling fairly confident. I’d practiced many times, and I had an outline to put on the lectern just in case I lost my place, which (with a speech that long) was my biggest concern.  The librarian introduced me, and I walked to the lectern and began talking.  My voice was a bit shaky from nerves, but I was holding things together well enough.  And then, I got to the first hard part…

Y’all, I ugly-face cried.  I didn’t do the whole hyperventilate thing, so I’m feeling pretty good about that, but still.  I was so frustrated with myself for not being able to hold it together, but today I realized that I wouldn’t have been 100% real if I’d left out the hard stuff; I could’ve stuck with only sharing the memories that weren’t painful, but that wouldn’t have been the whole truth.  The whole truth is that growing up with an alcoholic or drug-addicted parent sucks.  Kids who grow up in the midst of that chaos walk around with scars that will never fully heal, and last night, my little breakdown was solid proof of that.

I’m happy that I included the hard things…I really am.  I’m also glad that people who witnessed it didn’t laugh or look freaked out.  In fact, when they spoke to me after the program, they were very kind and didn’t even mention the whole crying thing. 

I think when you ask people to do something, it has to be something you’re willing to do yourself.  Even when it’s hard.  And even if it makes you ugly-face cry.