The title of this post refers to 13 Reasons Why, the new series on Netflix based upon the young-adult novel of the same name by Jay Asher. For those of you who don't know, it's the story of a teenaged girl who ends up taking her own life and her thirteen cassette tapes she leaves behind chronicling why she chose to take that action.
There have been plenty of times in my life when I contemplated the same thing, especially before Better Living Through Chemicals (I miss you, Dare Dutter). Why I did not choose the same action had a lot to do with the faith I had and the knowledge that at least one person on this planet loved me for me...even if I didn't (and I miss you even more, Jay Douglas).
I didn't love me for me for a very, very, painfully very long time.
When I posted in November about Kate 2.0 and understanding that I have been looking to those around me to tell me what normal is and realizing...hey, they don't know any more than I do was an absolute revelation to my middle-aged brain. If only I could have come to this sooner, perhaps the real dreams I've had regarding the husband and children I do not have could have come to fruition.
But when I wrote about Kate 2.0, I'd bootstrapped myself into that position primarily by how I was thinking. And I had completely ignored the 800-pound gorilla in the room named Kathie.
Some of you reading this might remember the days of Kathie. You might even remember her fondly. Some of you might have been confused when I refused to be called that name anymore and insisted that my name is Kate.
I didn't want to be Kathie. And who could blame me? Kathie had endured the indescribable indignity of having a diaper put on her at an 8th-grade assembly (forgot that, did you? I assure you; I did not. Pretty sure Bob DeLong hasn't forgotten, either.). She lost the love of her life in college and was told by the group of people she was involved with that this was a happy occurrence, that he married someone else (that he's not married to now, folks), that this was God's Big and Wonderful Plan.
Kathie had two parents who were neurotic at best. I know you all love my Mom, Carolyn. I love her more. But when I was growing up, when I was Kathie, Carolyn was a gigantic hot mess who didn't know how to handle a lot of things and had made me her best friend--and got visibly upset when it was clear I had a best friend that wasn't her. Why did I remove myself from social situations? Carolyn was easier to live with when I did that; she was less threatened and my life was safer on the whole. (For the record: Carolyn says she should have been "locked up"--her words--when I was a teenager. Perimenopause hit her HARD.) But my Mom was only half of the equation.
Those of you who live in California know just how much I love my Dad, Bill. I love Bill. He's hilarious, and awesome, and I wish that Prozac had been available in 1970 so I could have had a somewhat-normal childhood, but it wasn't, and I didn't, and pre-1990 Bill was a gigantic hot mess that Carolyn and I just tried our hardest to live with. He was distant and inconsistent and sometimes dangerous; I've told many people that I heard "I love you" from him twice a year--either Christmas or my birthday (they're a week apart) and then shortly after Chairman Emeritus Mary Hulman would croak out "Gentlemen, Start Your Engines" at the beginning of the Indianapolis 500 every year.
But Kathie had to contend with two people who were full-on crazy some days. (Please, please understand that this is NOT how things are now, and not how they have been for nearly 30 years, with my folks. We love each other like crazy and most days like each other, too. It's taken a lot of work, but it's work that all three of us have been committed to ever since that cute little green-and-cream pill made its way into our lives and we all had a place to start from. Therapy is also an amazing thing.) And yet Kathie's response to this insecure craziness at home was to be the Sparkle-Plenty Miss Piggy Bright Spot that took a helluva lot of ribbing from her cohort in school.
Kathie was naive, and brave, and amazing.
But I didn't know that until quite recently. I saw her as weak, and ineffectual, and deserving of the outright hatred she received from said cohort. (Not all of you; for God's sake, stop bristling because if you are MACS Class of 88 and you ARE reading this then the chances are high that I am not talking about you then and I surely am not talking about you now.) Some of that cohort made her life a living hell. I probably did that to other people without meaning to, although I tried my best not to. I know what it's like to feel like the butt of everyone's joke all the time.
And so, one day in college, I tried to become Kate. It didn't take, and I didn't know the horrors that were ahead of me. But after college, when I worked at 2 places that already had 3 people named Kathy on the payroll...Kate was easier and, quite honestly, the name I have preferred since I was small. It's just that my Mom preferred Kathie because she liked the spelling and who was I to argue with my Mom?
So I became Kate. I drew a line in the sand and started over, and became in my mind something different from Kathie, someone else, someone who wasn't the laughingstock, someone who wasn't screwed over by the only person she thought she could have a good marriage with. And those of you at the Mexico United Methodist Church can attest that I did not take well to being called Kathie once I declared my Kate-ness. I wanted to be Kate and bristled if I was called anything else.
Fast-forward to this past week, when I was confronted with the fact that until I accepted that Kathie was a part of my past and as well a part of who I am, I was not going to move forward. I was not going to be okay. I couldn't love only the select parts of me that I deemed worthy (like my musical ability or my grammar Nazi skills). I had to love all of me, and that includes the me that was called Kathie.
So I did. It was not easy work. It was horrible. Buy stock in Kleenex because their stock is going to go up for all the tissues I went through this week.
But I am Kathie. And Kate. And Kathryn. And all those permutations that make one extraordinary human being.
And I love all of that.
All of me.
And that has cascaded an entirely new outlook on life. Because all of me--the Kate-ness, and the Kathie-ness, and all of the Kathryn--does not care about what anyone else thinks any more.
I didn't know that I would have proof of the change so soon, but it came last night.
I went to see Colin Mochrie and Brad Sherwood at the Uptown Theatre in Napa last night. (Honest plug: even if you don't know who these morons are, go see them anyway. Unless you don't like comedy. It's improv comedy the way God intended it, and these are two master craftsmen. I assure you that lost-Hargrave-brother Brad Sherwood did not put me up to this.) This was my second time seeing them, and honestly it was just as good this time as last. They tightened up a couple of things, played a few different games, and enjoyed life in general with all of us.
When I went a year ago, they brought people up on the stage and did things to them or made comments and even as I tried to enjoy myself, I sat there cringing inside. Why would they choose to allow themselves to be mocked like this? Don't they know the stigma? That's what I sat there thinking. And so while I enjoyed the show--and to be fair, I think that show was at least equal to the one I saw last night--I also was really, really, really tense as I watched it.
Last night I sat there and didn't think those things. I thought, What great sports. Because the people on stage were laughing as much as the rest of us. They were what we would call in statistics a self-selected sample, and if they couldn't handle the ribbing, they would not have chosen to get up there. In particular big shout out to the middle-aged couple who provided sound effects--they were fantastic and cracking up and trying their very best and failing miserably and enjoying life.
I was forcibly reminded of all the listening I'd done to Brené Brown recently, in her talk The Power of Vulnerability. She says that we perceive it as weakness in ourselves and strength in others, and as I watched the woman doing sound effects (I think her name was Alyssa) and how she would try and just...not do what Brad Sherwood wanted exactly, but he was kind (for Brad) and rolled with it, she stood there and laughed so hard I was sure she was going to fall on the floor. And I thought, that's the power of vulnerability. She's being brave. But she probably didn't see it that way. She thought, "I'll try my best." And she was awesome.
That, maybe, is the power of humanity: to see ourselves and accept our flaws and get on with it.
This is Kate 3.0, with restored access to the Kathie engine, embracing all that I was, and am. You want to call me Kathie? I'll respond, proudly, gratefully, honestly.
It's a whole new ballgame.
