You Should Smile More

I was going to send the podcast episode with a micro essay as usual, but I have been hit with a blinding migraine so I’m going to keep this short. Side note — once I read that migraines are caused by “too many thoughts” and I suppose that could be true.

It makes me very sad and also enraged, that every time I write about the countless experiences I had with predatory men as a little girl and a teenager and a young woman — and continue to have as a grown woman (with the added horror of having to worry about my teenage daughter out in this mess) — there is a deafening chorus of women in the comments saying, Me, too.

I wonder who we would all be if we did not have to spend so much energy assessing our surroundings all the time, and wondering whether we are safe — safe in a literal, physical sense — but also safe to express ourselves, to say no, to speak up, to take up space, to not waste so much time questioning our worth, to not have to fight so hard for basic things like respect, dignity and bodily autonomy — while simultaneously being expected to hold up the sky.

I wonder who we’d be if we could jog at 5am or 9pm without thinking twice, if we could walk through an empty parking lot without glancing over our shoulders, if we could walk down a desolate street without feeling the need to put our keys between our fingers, if we could leave our drinks unattended when we’re out with friends…

Why do they never ask what men were wearing?

I wonder who we’d be if we were believed when something bad happened, when a man did a thing that is painful to repeat, let alone to have lived through. I wonder who we’d be if we could pass a man on a hiking trail and not worry if there was no one else in sight. I wonder who we’d be if the names they redacted were the names of the children, not the horrific men who hurt them.

I wonder who we’d be if the good men in our lives worked a little bit harder to show us we aren’t in this fight alone — because it feels that way too much of the time.

Maybe we’d smile more.

Sending love to anyone having a tough time right now. None of this is easy, but we are not delicate, and we have each other. That’s a lot.

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