I went back to therapy and started pole dancing class the same night
Hello, my darling subscribers, train girlies, comrades, and nosy nellies! Good evening from the train. It’s cold. There are snow flurries. I am getting dinner with two of my dearest friends tonight, and I am so excited.
I am writing you all today to implement some of the suggestions my therapist offered to me when we met the other night: I need to find ways to make trying new things fun again. And I figured I would try by writing to you all for the first time in an embarrassingly long time.
I have started drafts about how Abortion is showing up in local elections, and how ordinary, patient people sharing their stories is what turned me from a teenager who wore Ronald Ragean t-shirts to an abortion champion, stan, cheerleader, and voter. There used to be a picture of me in said shirt on facebook, and I pray to god I have effectively removed it from the internet.
I had another draft started to weigh in on all the marriage discourse, and how it’s all bullshit in its entirety, and that we are STILL pushing “just marry a man” to women as a panacea for world peace, population growth, and economic stability. (Rebecca Traister handled this rather masterfully).
But I didn’t send any of those drafts out. I got scared, and these and other half-baked ideas are sitting in abandoned google docs with names like “Untitled Document 6” or “Something Something Abortion” or “Here We Go Again on Marriage Discourse,” none of which are terribly compelling.
A few years ago, one of my New Years’ Resolutions was to try new things and let myself be bad at them. And I think that’s what kicked off my gym-going year. I had always understood myself as very clumsy, unbalanced, and generally out-of-control of what my limbs were doing at any given moment. I really wanted to give myself permission to be terrible at working out, and not get frustrated when a passing-by personal trainer didn’t see me minding my own business, tap me on the shoulder, and say they really saw something special in me, and could they take me under their wing to be their protege and someday compete on a national stage.
And what had happened was, I had a blast. I did the silliest Zumba classes and Dance HITT classes in the world. I did yoga in public! I let people perceive me as I struggled to do pushups and situps. And then, about eight months into it, it turned out that my control over my appendages and center of gravity had grown exponentially. Imagine that.
But I feel that that edge I once had has dulled. I have let that fear creep back up and keep me from trying. It’s embarrassing, and it makes me feel small, but I am telling you all so I am less scared of it all.
I harbor so much anxiety about how I will be understood. And it’s showing up in peculiar places. I panicked all morning before my own bridal shower, terrified everyone would be talking about me and how weird I am and more. I sure haven’t emailed you all in a long time. After a few weeks where my schedule didn’t leave much room for exercise, I gave up entirely, terrified of what it would feel like to “start over” – in front of no one, besides my friends who watch my Instagram for my daily-ish 45-minutes-of-govt-mandated-fitness selfies in the mirror. I am getting married in March, and putting pen to paper to write vows is so daunting as to require a full-system override in my brain.
So in conclusion, if at first you don’t succeed [at trying new things], try to try again.
I do want to share something I’m quite proud of with you all, though. Back in October, I was honored at the Lancaster YWCA’s Women of Achievement luncheon, and was offered the opportunity to say a few words.
This was important to me: In a room of corporate sponsors and lifelong members of the Nonprofit Industrial Complex, I felt called to draw attention to the risk disparity in different community members. During the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020, some people joined book clubs, or attended webinars, or posted graphics they found informative on their instagram accounts. All fine enough activities, I suppose, but nothing that really reached outside the self, and nothing that meaningfully challenged the systems that only survive because of the oppression of Black people.
This has always rubbed me the wrong way, especially as my neighbor is presently serving a thirteen-month sentence for putting her body on the line as she fought for the people she loves, including her children. And so, drawing attention to the disparity between the luncheon attendees and the people they were there to support and serve, I gave the following remarks:
I have spent the bulk of my career telling candidates to keep it short, so I suppose it’s my turn to take my own advice for once.
We’re all here today to celebrate our fights against racism, and my neighbor Jessica Lopez is sitting in prison. We are here to empower women, and Jess wrote me a letter from prison, heartbroken she can’t bring her children trick or treating to my house this year. Jess put her body and her freedom on the line for the future of Black people in Lancaster.
What are you willing to do to build power?
We are not going to be-nice-to-each other out of a crisis that sends moms to jail. We cannot continue to improve ourselves as individuals, thinking that self-improvement will change the systems that separate parents from children, here and elsewhere. We will not have reproductive justice until mothers like Jess are supported with everything she needs to be present for her family – good schools for her children, a safe home they can afford, a good job, and care for their minds and bodies.
So as we think about what we do after this luncheon, the answer is not to read another book about antiracism, or attend another workshop.
The solution is to build power in your community, in your neighborhood, in your workplace, and in your school district – and you can do that exactly as you are right now. It’s to attend your school board meetings, and share your stories with someone else who feels alone and powerless, and to listen to their story, too.
It’s to reach outside of yourself and to hold hands with another person, and together, demand what you deserve.
Me? I deserve a community where my neighbor Jess can fight for our shared neighbors, and bring her kids trick or treating to my house.
And that’s today’s missive! A few other notes for you all:
Caucus member Rachel assembled an OFFICIAL Train Girlie Caucus playlist! Stream it here!
My very favorite space-country quintet, the Nielsen Family Band, has a show at Tellus360 on Christmas Eve Eve! Tickets are here.
The homies at Popular Comms came out with a groundbreaking study: The People Yearn for Public Schools! Read all about their work and resulting comms advice here.
If you have really great advice for how to get started on vow-writing please send it to me!