hello, my name is...

“I have to think about it.”

I stared at him and kept my mouth shut. I thought, “Maybe he means he has to think about what he wants to say to me right now. He wants to really get it right and so he’s taking time to think about it.”

Silence.

I kept staring at him and kept keeping my mouth shut, though my eyes were slowly narrowing and my lips sucking themselves right back into my mouth to keep myself from talking. I thought, “Okay! He’s still thinking. That’s fine. I am a human who is full of patience and understanding. I am not annoyed or sad, but I am actually glad he’s taking the time to really think about his response to my question.”

Silence, still.

The question I asked wasn’t, “What’s your favorite song in Hamilton?” or “What should we cook for dinner tonight?” or “What are your thoughts about aliens or God or the concept of mass incarceration?” These are the questions you’d need some time to think about. 

The actual question I asked doesn’t matter that much. It may have been, “What is this relationship for you?” or “Are you willing to show up for me?” or “Do you care about me?” I had asked all of those and then a few more vulnerable ones. His answers were all something similar:

“I don’t know.”
“I’m not sure what you want me to say.”
“I have to think about it.”

Regardless of the wording of the question, those are not quite the words you expect to hear from a human with whom you have any sort of romantic relationship. Or any meaningful relationship, for that matter — friendship, coworker, or otherwise.

First: What?! Second: Ouch.

While there is not a one-size-fits-all, step-by-step guide, Merriam-Webster definition of love, or dating, or relationships, I sense that there are at least a few shared truths that we hold as important. We want someone who we like spending time with and who likes spending time with us, too. We want someone to talk and listen to and who will listen to us, too. Someone who makes our lives better than they were without them, whatever our definitions of “better” may be. We want someone we can show up for, and someone who shows up for us. We want someone who is steady in how they feel about us, is clear about much they care for us, and someone who takes in all the complicated parts of us, the good and the bad and the weird, and responds accordingly.

We want to be seen.

I have an embroidered patch on the whiteboard above my desk. It looks like one of those name tags you get at a networking event:

Steph sent me a digital mock-up of this patch last August, during a moment when I was at my wit’s (wits’?) end. Later, in a ridiculous, sleep-deprived, lightning-speed text message thread, we dreamed up a life where one day, when we’re roommates in a nursing home, we’ll wear matching denim jackets with hundreds of matching, embroidered patches. Patches that represent our friendship, our lives, and the cores of who we are. This patch would be our first, capturing so many of those complicated parts of us.

So I bought a real-life version of that patch for Steph and then bought one for myself, too. We said that we should wear these words as a name tag every day so that anyone who encountered us would know who we were, and would be invited to respond accordingly.

Hello, I know who I am in my body and my soul (and I hope you see that knowing, too). Hello, I am not only comfortable with feelings but I’m going to TALK about them (and I hope you’re willing to, too). Hello, I drink a dangerous amount of coffee each morning and yet I am level-headed and can get shit done and am calm in a crisis (and I hope you recognize my contributions, too). Hello, I know my worth (and you should recognize my worth, too).

Hello. This is who I am. See me, or I’ll see you riiiiight out the door.

Because when someone sees you, they don’t need time to think about things like if they want to text back or make time to see you or how they feel.

And the people we invite into our sacred lives -- the family we stay connected to, the friends who become our chosen family, and especially the people we invite into our calendars and beds and hearts -- they need to see us. Every single one of us deserves that from the people we hold near to us.

He and I were talking through a screen when he couldn’t answer my questions. I was at my desk, looked up at my whiteboard, and saw that name tag in my line of vision. Bright red, staring me down, nudging me to come back to myself. And I thought, “He doesn’t see me. He doesn’t know who I am. And it seems that he doesn’t want to try. So why am I?”

I took a deep breath. And I told him that no, actually, he didn’t need to think about it. That in itself was an answer. And I wasn’t willing to wait for someone who didn’t know, on a gut-level reaction, that they wanted me. 

And while I’d like to say it felt immediately empowering to realize and name that, I hung up and cried -- the shoulder-shaking, are-these-tears-or-is-this-snot? kind of crying. Just sobbed into my lap for a good 10 minutes because -- despite what I knew deep in my core about worthiness and despite looking up and whispering to myself, “Hello, my name is Sexy Empowered Emotionally Mature Caffeinated Calm Woman!!!” -- it hurts when someone you’ve opened yourself up to, who you want to see you, is unwilling or unable to do that.

Even if it breaks our hearts and makes us cry or scream, we must walk away from those who do not see us, and those who aren’t willing to try. Even if we’re tempted to, instead, change ourselves because maybe that version will be seen -- to dye our hair or to not ask the question or to pretend we like the things they like that we actually do not like  -- we have to leave. We have to cancel the happy hour or skip the holiday gathering, have the breakup conversation or another hard one, put distance between them and us, or -- in this case -- hang up for the last time. 

I got out of my chair and went to get a Kleenex to sop up the tear-snot. I looked in the mirror and, despite the blotchy face and hazy eyes and achy heart, saw myself. That hurt, yes, but I looked in my own eyes and knew it would hurt even more to have kept going on like nothing was wrong. To keep going without being seen.

And then what? What do we do in the wake of not being seen?

We find those who do see us. We must hold on tightly to those who really, truly see our whole selves, who are willing to sit in the muck of life with us as we navigate our own, forever-changing versions of “Hello, my name is…” The ones we call in the aftermath of a conversation like this, who can grieve with us in the pain and celebrate with us for trusting our knowing, our worth.

They are the moms and sisters and best friends and maybe even the lovers, the mentors and bosses and sometimes even the unexpected ones (the baristas or the writers or the long-lost-loves who show up again, years later). They are the ones who want to bear witness to all the complicated, wonderful, raw parts of us. They tell us that they do, and they show up.

And they don’t have to think about it. Not for one second.

resolve.

When I was in middle and high school, I would spend hours cutting up magazines: words written in thick or loopy fonts, photographs and images used for stories, recipes I wanted to try when I cooked my own food one day, bullet-pointed cures for acne and steps for what to do when you encounter your crush at the grocery store. I tore the pages off, cut out the words, and pasted them into an ever-growing volume of inspiration that still sits at my mom’s house. I got such joy from this activity — one of those things where I’d lose track of time for hours, emerge from my room twenty minutes past dinnertime. I didn’t have many hobbies growing up (and still don’t), but magazine-collaging would definitely have been one of them.

Sometimes, come December, I’d take my favorite clippings and put them on a poster board. These were my new year resolutions, the words and images and feelings I hoped to embody in the coming months. I’d match colors, mix fonts, and find words like “bold” and “do your thing” that would direct my coming year. I’d post it in my room and, truthfully, often forget about it. These posters became pieces of art that blended in with the rest rather than spaces to check-in about how I showed up in the world.

I was a teenager, consumed with boys and friendship drama and figuring things out, so it makes sense that I wasn’t totally focused on self-improvement or radical change in the early 2000s. But this year, I decided to do it again. I sat down with copies of magazines that had been piling up under an end table for months, turned on a James Bay Spotify station, and began cutting up the glossy paper.

I made a vision board. And I made resolutions.

In my heart of hearts, I know that January 1st isn’t different than December 31st. I know that New Year’s Resolutions hardly ever stick past the first week, and that people use this arbitrary date to have a fresh start or to turn a new leaf or to finally begin a new chapter. To lose the weight. To read the news. To save money. You can find article after article about this, about how making grandiose resolutions is, essentially, a waste of time because it likely won’t last.

And yet, I make resolutions of some sort every year. Some are more successful (in 2014, I made a resolution to get out of the city every month and I adventured twelve times) than others (I’ve had a goal of running a half-marathon since 2012). So far, nothing has drastically changed from 2016 to 2017 except the date on my iPhone. Yet January 1st is a clean slate in my planner and, year after year, feels like a good time to reassess where I’m at and what I want to change. Flipping the calendar to a new page feels like I can do so, too.

And this year, maybe more so than others, I need that.

Because 2016 has been filled with a lot of shit. It’s been filled with so much horse shit! There, I said it. It’s been terrible for the world — we are still in a war; there’s been a steady increase of horrific violence; and climate change isn’t going anywhere just because D. Trump says it doesn’t exist. For the country — racism and homophobia and sexism have a new, loud platform; Prince and the Brady Bunch mom and the Growing Pains dad died; and that last point about D. Trump very much applies here, too. It’s been a rough 2016 for me, too. I named aloud and struggled with depression, I had all sorts of doubts about my career path, and I was thrust into romantic drama and, subsequently, heartache.

I’ve seen the news stories, the listicles, the memes, which echo the overwhelming cry from humans around the globe. And I'm adding my voice, too: 

“2016 was awful. Let it be over, already.”

But December 31st, 2016 was not much different than January, 1st, 2017. While we can hope that 2017 will be better than what 2016 threw at us, we don’t know that. Donald Trump is still our president-elect. Aleppo is still burning. My heart is still a little sore. Maybe it will be enough to not see 2016 staring back at us every time we look at our calendars, phones, or email history. Maybe writing a new date on checks, job applications, or essays will be the small boost we need to help us move through the shit, the anger, and the pain that 2016 brought to us. We all deserve a chance to reset, recalibrate, and focus on a new beginning. We deserve an opportunity to wipe our hands of 2016, if we need or want to. We can’t, unfortunately, ignore it or pretend it didn’t happen — it will always be a part of our collective story as humans — but we can prepare our hands (and hearts) to hold the new, messy year ahead of us. 

I wrote my resolutions on index cards and stuck them on the wall, right next to my bedroom door, with sparkly gold Washi tape. Some are new (getting a 4.0 in my first term of graduate school), some are old (I still have hopes for that half-marathon). Some will be easy (taking time to adventure each month), and some will take a lot of work (reading 52 books!). Some are action-oriented (cultivate a daily writing practice), and some are hopes for how I will exist in the world (speaking up whenever my gut tells me to, even when it’s hard). And right next to those resolutions are my 2017 collage — a vision or inspiration board, perhaps. It’s a reminder of where I’ve come from and the resolve I have to keep moving forward.

I desperately need this kind of resolve to move forward — not despite 2016, but because of it. I need to believe that the world can be better, that I can accomplish goals for self-care, work, political engagement, and school. My resolve feels clearer when I think of my resolutions for 2017 in this light. How can I use my voice and words to speak up for what I believe in, and to denounce what I do not? How can I put the privilege I have and the money I make, into causes and organizations which contribute to the world I want to live in? How can I spend my quiet hours doing something that feeds my soul, so I can be recharged each day when I enter this big, messy world?

Despite the facts and research and articles, there’s something beautiful about this public declaration of newness and of change. Maybe I will read ten books this year. Maybe another year will pass where I will not run a half-marathon. Maybe I will not speak up at times when I should. But I need to believe that I will, and then offer myself grace if I don't. I need to believe that I can fully live into my intentions, that I can do as much as I can to make my corner of this world a little bit better each day. While I hope that 2017 will bring a new light and hope for our world, for now, I’ll just start with my vision board and resolutions. 

So, what is your resolve for 2017?