Lise Deguire's Blog, page 2

Tracy Chapman Trounced Me but It's OK

I was a senior at Tufts University when I entered a competition with an improbable band comprised of the Rabbi, the Dean, and two other coeds. Although I am capable of instigating this kind of madness, I don’t think it was my idea. I was friends with the Dean then, and I think it was he who proposed that we perform in the talent show.

The details are hazy. I remember protesting his first song selection, “Surfer Girl” by the Beach Boys. I loved “Surfer Girl,” so I had no objection to the actual song. However, I had sung it once, years ago, with my brother, Marc. I stood in the arched entrance of our living, and he sat cross-legged on a tan tasseled cushion near the window. Across the room, we spontaneously sprang into the closing harmony. “Little one, oh-oh. Little one…” I sang to him.

“Girl, surfer girl, my little surfer girl,” he chanted simultaneously. We had that perfect, ineffable sibling vocal blend. But, my perfect brother Marc died two years later. That blend, in every conceivable way, was irretrievably lost to me.

I knew I couldn’t choke through that song again. I also didn’t want to alter the memory of my perfect duet with my now-dead brother. Firm no to ”Surfer Girl.”

At the time, I was music director of the Jackson Jills, the Tufts female a cappella group, so I recruited two friends to join our pick-up band. The Rabbi sang lead, the Dean played guitar, and we sang backup. We practiced two old songs. One of them might have been “Money” and the other, “My Girl.” I’m not sure, but that was the feel. My friends and I created some cute 60s choreography, arms outstretched, hips swaying in unison. We wore color coordinated sweater dresses, and being in our early 20s, we looked cute in them.

The talent show took place in the basement of the student center on a small stage near the bar. Several acts went before us, but we were a serious hit. Our songs sounded great, and we had a fun, happy groove. At the end, we were all flush with confidence that we would win the competition. There was just one act after us.

A lone young Black woman stepped on stage, her hair in dreadlocks, eyes downcast. She perched on a stool with her guitar. One spotlight illuminated her in the darkness. She began to sing, “You’ve got a Fast Car. . .”

I sat, riveted. I had heard her name before on campus, Tracy Chapman. She sang locally, but I had never seen her.

Tracy finished “Fast Car,” her distinctive voice low, her guitar playing rhythmically hypnotic. I applauded wildly. She stopped, re-tuned her guitar, and took a breath before her second song. She began, “Don’t you know…?” and sang her song, “Talkin’ ‘Bout a Revolution.”

I could not believe this woman in front of me. That voice, those original compositions, those chords, that look.

Tracy was the final act, a blessing to everyone else who performed that night. My friends and I awaited the judges’ results, drinking beers at the bar. After a while, the Dean and Rabbi informed us that our group was eliminated for the prize, because we were a faculty/student group. I thought this was probably just what the judges told them to help us save face. There was no universe in which we won that night.

Tracy Chapman accepted the award, still looking straight at the floor, smiling shyly. I watched her, waiting for a chance to speak. I made my way up to her, my voice high-pitched with awe. “Tracy, that was an incredible performance. Your songs are stunning. You are extraordinarily talented.”

“Thank you,” she replied softly, making no eye contact whatsoever.

“Thank YOU” I said and walked away. I never spoke to her again. But three years later, her first album was released. On it, she played “Fast Car” and “Talkin’ ‘Bout a Revolution” exactly as she had performed them that night. Tracy won three Grammy awards for the album.

***

              Life is funny. Sometimes you are sure you will win recognition. I have applied for all kinds of opportunities, awards, and grants. When I talk with my friends, I downplay my chances. “I probably won’t get it.”

“Probably, but who knows?” They reply.

Well, that’s what most of my friends say. I do have this one friend, Jodi. She is a world-renowned sleep psychologist and speaks all over the globe. She takes risks just like me, applying for international grants and opportunities.

“I probably won’t get it” I said to Jodi, explaining the latest prestigious grant for which I’d applied.

“Yes, but don’t you always think that you will? I always think I will.”

“Yes!” I grinned at her. “I do always think I will; that’s the only way I can keep trying.”

 Anyway.

The talent show, in which we were most appropriately beaten by Tracy Chapman, is a perfect slice of life. Sometimes, you put yourself out there. You prepare a great song, have your moves down, look cute in your sweater dress, and make the whole audience cheer. Then, it turns out you are in competition with a future Grammy winner.

And that’s OK. Honestly, it’s hilarious.

I know many people who are so afraid of rejection that they never try. Their minds flood with the imagined agony of defeat. They cringe with anticipated shame and embarrassment. Full of these images, they convince themselves it is better not to try. But you know what happens if you never try? You never fail, but you also never succeed.

In the past few years, as I wrote my book and began speaking, I have stretched and stretched and stretched. I’m not interested anymore in worrying about failure. That’s just a waste of time. Failures happen. Instead, I’m laser-focused on accomplishing as much as possible with my time on earth. So, I go for it. In less than four years, I have: won three awards for Flashback Girl, won a writer’s grant, keynoted at several national conferences, delivered a compelling TED talk, written for several national publications, and much more.

But let’s be clear. In less than four years I did not win four other awards for Flashback Girl, did not win a different writers grant (that super prestigious one I told Jodi I could win), was turned down for several national conferences, was turned down for about 10 TED talks, had articles rejected by the New York Times, Washington Post, and plenty more.

The point is, there is always a Tracy Chapman. There is always the potential of a genius, standing in the wings, more talented than you. Many times, it won’t be your turn. Still, those experiences and lessons can have tremendous value. And, sometimes, if you try, YOU get to be the Tracy Chapman. Sometimes the distinctive voice they want is yours.

Go for it.

Lise Deguire's multiple award-winning memoir, Flashback Girl: Lessons on Resilience from a Burn Survivor, is available for purchase on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Newtown Book Shop and The Commonplace Reader. Check out her TEDx talk "Scared Not Scary"

If I Only. . . Or, What You Bring to Life's Picnic

In the The Wizard of Oz, little Dorothy, in her blue-checked dress, encounters a series of misfits who become friends. First, she meets Scarecrow, then the Tinman, and finally the Cowardly Lion. Each introduces himself with his own version of the same song. The Scarecrow sings, “If I Only Had a Brain.” The Tinman croons, “If I Only Had a Heart.” The Lion quakes out, “If I Only Had the Nerve.”

Many of my psychotherapy clients sing their own version of this song. One bemoans her appearance, envying her sister who is blonde and thinner. In sessions, I gaze at her, appreciating the beauty of her intelligent eyes and kind smile. Another client says she is terrible with technology and unemployable. I observe that this client is diligent, intelligent, and poetic with language.

I can sing this tune too, a long song about various skills that I do not have. When I turn my head towards my inadequacies, there is plenty of material. If I Only …”

Could cook dinner

Could catch a ball

Could turn on my TV

Could sweat when I’m hot

Had an Ivy League education

Could keep plants alive…

Are you surprised? I’m guessing you read this blog because you think of me as accomplished and occasionally wise. All true. But it is easy to fall into defining oneself by the lack of abilities, as opposed to the abilities one has.

These songs of inadequacy can be easily triggered, even under lovely circumstances. I regularly sing with my two best high school friends, Joe and Susan. We have sung together for decades, and have the most beautiful 3-part vocal blend. Recently we were rehearsing, which brings us great joy, just being together, laughing, and making music. Still, somehow, my song of inadequacy got set off. It wasn’t them; they are the kindest people imaginable. But I found myself feeling less than, listening to them sing and play. I felt myself entering a dark descending tunnel.

“I’m telling myself the story that I’m inadequate.” I muttered. (These are the things one can say to one’s best high school friends).

“What?” Joe and Susan turned away from their music stands to look at me, their brown eyes wide.

“Susan, you have an exquisite voice. Mine is fine, but not nearly like yours. Joe, you compose all these gorgeous songs. You both play the guitar and I can’t. I just sit here, singing harmonies as best I can.”

Susan, my dear friend, looked at me in shock. “I’m really surprised you are saying this. We wouldn’t sound the same without you. You hear things we don’t hear. You are always listening, making us better. You come up with great harmonies, and improve the lyrics.”

I paused. Yes, I did do those things. I even knew I did those things. But somehow, in the moment, what I could do didn’t feel as important as what I couldn’t do.

In school, we grow up taking classes in reading, writing, math, science, music, art, gym, etc. It is truly important to have background on these basic topics. However, I think many of us encounter our limitations early in elementary school (I know I did; hello gym class!) and feel humiliated. Because we experience our weaknesses so young, we have no way to understand that no one is good at everything, and it is normal not to be. In our immaturity, we encode these failures as “I’m not good at math,” and begin anxiously focusing on our weaknesses, instead of on our unique and vital strengths.

Once I read the memoir of a doctor who had spent the winter at the Antarctic science station. Dr. Jerri Nielsen started one chapter saying (I am paraphrasing here) “Whom do you think is the most important person at the Antarctic science station? Do you think it is the doctor?”

I paused and thought, “Well yes, I would think it is the doctor.”

             

“No,” she continued. “It is the person who knows how to fix the generator.”

I have never forgotten that statement. Our existence is complex. Sometimes there is desperate need for the mechanic who keeps us from freezing to death. Sometimes it’s the physician, who treats our infection. Sometimes it’s the cook who feeds the hungry crowd. Sometimes, it’s a musician who brings comfort in grim times.

After 911, I was inconsolable, like everyone I knew. The balmy blue-skied Tuesday was a spectacularly beautiful morning, suddenly twisted into dark hatred, melted steel and profound grief. Nothing made sense; I could barely think and hardly work. But five days afterwards, the Philadelphia Orchestra gave a free concert for the city, and I went. The hall was packed, full of people with haunted faces and reddened eyes. The Orchestra played Barber’s Adagio for Strings. I wept throughout the concert, grieving in unison with the entire audience. After that concert, I felt like I could go on.

There is a need for all of us, with our unique abilities. Can you run fast? We need you. Can you sooth a crying baby? We need you. Can you fix a dishwasher? We need you. Are you a good listener? We need you. Are you reliably kind? We need you. The key is to recognize and value your own skills, and to develop them further to help our world - in both big and small ways.

There is an intervention I sometimes do with my clients. It’s similar to the “I’m going on a picnic" game that kids play. I invoke this exercise when a client despondently tells me all the things they are not. Not gifted, not a college graduate, not thin… whatever. Recently my client “Marsha” (name changed) was focusing woefully on all her shortcomings and anxiously ruminating about what others thought of her. I had known her for two years, and I knew her well.

“I want to know about your strengths. I want to know what positive attributes you know to be true about yourself,” I said to Marsha.

“Strengths?”

“Yes. What do you know is true about you?”

She paused for a long time. Then, with a half-smile, she responded, “Well. I know that I care about people and want to help them.”

“Great. You care about people and want to help them. What else?”

“I’m a good gardener.”

 “Awesome. You care about people, want to help them, and are a good gardener. What else?”

 “I . . . don’t know.”

“OK. So let me ask you, are you responsible?” I asked Marsha, who had never missed a therapy appointment in two years.

“Yes, I am.”

“Great. So, you care about people, try to help them, are a good gardener, and you are responsible. What else?”

 She smiled now. “I make a good chocolate cake.”

“Great. You care about people, try to help them, are a good gardener, are responsible, and bake a mean chocolate cake. What else?”

“I don’t know.”

“Are you funny? I think you are funny.”

“I guess I am.”

“So then, you care about people, try to help them, are a good gardener, are responsible, a good baker and you are funny. What else. Are you honest? Let’s keep going.”

In this way, Marsha began to focus on her strengths, strengths that she chronically overlooked. I repeated one strength after another, like the “I’m going on a picnic game,” the repetition of which reinforced the message. Yes, Marsha, you are good at many things; here is just a starter list.

Imagine a world in which we all rested confidently in our abilities, secure in what we had to offer. Free from self-critical ruminations, we would jump in to give what we had, each of us confidently contributing to the “picnic.” One friend could cook a comforting lunch, steaming with strengthening food. Another could shovel the sidewalk, using his strength to keep others safe. Another would smile at strangers and say hello, putting everyone at ease. Everyone would joyfully bring their own precious gift to life’s picnic, and no one would feel inadequate.

You see, it takes all of us. No one has the full package, but together we actually do. I suggest that you try your own “I’m going on a picnic” game. If you find it challenging, play it with someone who loves you very much. I will start:

I care about people.

I care about people, and I work hard.

I care about people, I work hard, and I sing good harmonies with my friends.

Your turn.

Lise Deguire's multiple award-winning memoir, Flashback Girl: Lessons on Resilience from a Burn Survivor, is available for purchase on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Newtown Book Shop and The Commonplace Reader. Check out her TEDx talk "Scared Not Scary"

Winning the Worst Award

Picture me at 22 years old, bright eyed with big hair and a big smile to match. I strode the campus of my college, Tufts University, with ease. I majored in psychology, and knew all the answers, all the time. I was the one near the front with my hand raised confidently in every class.

Follow me here, while I set the stage.

In high school, I spent a lot of time high, bored, and distracted. My natural intelligence usually kept me afloat. But in pre-calculus, I failed to pay attention, and key concepts slid by, imperceptibly at the time. My quarterly grades progressed like this: A, B, then C, and then an ominous D-. My pre-calculus teacher informed me he would grant me an unearned C for the course as long as I promised him not to take calculus the next year. He just didn’t want to deal with me anymore.

At Tufts, in contrast, I worked with laser-beam focus. I was all in. Challenged to take a math class, I decided to take calculus, wanting to prove my old math teacher wrong. This time, fully motivated, I carefully worked my way through each lesson, practicing and learning the concepts. My final grade for calculus: A+.

It wasn’t just academics. I played piano, acted, and sang. I auditioned into the women’s a cappella group and fell in love with close harmony singing. By senior year, I was elected music director of the group. I was a fair music director, writing decent arrangements. My strength was in leadership, being a warm, inspiring leader, creating better cohesion than the group had previously enjoyed.

(I’m still setting the stage.)

By my senior year at Tufts, I was selected and encouraged to apply for high academic scholarships like the Rhodes or the Fulbright. I did apply for a Rhodes, (and I didn’t get one), but I want you to see the picture. I was a bit of a star.

In April of my senior year, before graduation, I received notice that I would be recognized at the Academic Awards Night. This was a big deal. I asked around but none of my friends were given an invitation. I was not told what the award was for; that would be revealed at the presentation.

I burst with curiosity and anticipation. What award would I receive? Would I be selected for a psychology department award? A general academic award? A leadership award?

The Academic Awards ceremony was held in the beautiful Goddard chapel on a warm spring evening. Picture the Tufts campus, graced with tall trees and wide-open vistas, never as beautiful as it was in April, flowering and green. The chapel somehow was both intimate and expansive, filled with warm wooden pews and graced by a high vaulted ceiling.

I sat in a pew and rifled through the program, searching for my name. There were music awards but my name was not there. That seemed fair enough. I was a good musician but there were better ones. There were leadership awards but not for me. OK, once again, I had done a great job with my little a cappella group, but it was just one year of leadership, and others accomplished more than I.

I kept turning pages. There was a psychology department award, but my name was not listed. This perplexed me, because it seemed the only option left, and truly, I was one of the best students in the department. What award was left?

Finally, I saw it. The Sarah G. Kinney Memorial Prize (name changed) “is awarded to a junior or senior who has shown character, diligence, and perseverance in achieving high scholarship standards in the face of adverse circumstances. This prize was established in 1982 in honor of Sarah G. Kinney, an example of great courage and mental fortitude as she pursued her degree while battling an incurable illness.” My name was listed, along with two other students, whom I did not know.

The award was announced, and our three names were called. I stood up, and so did they. One of them walked with crutches and weakened legs, making his way painstakingly up the aisle. The other slowly guided himself to the front, tapping his cane so he could arrive safely, despite his visual impairment. I stood at the front of the chapel with these men. Just a minute prior, I thought I looked pretty in my short sleeved dress, but now I felt exposed. I wished I could fall through a hole in the floor and never be seen again.

I didn’t want an award for being burned-but-smart-and-diligent. At the time, I worked so hard to not be that burned girl like I had been throughout my childhood. In college, I desperately wanted people to see me as more than that. I was intelligent! I could sing! I was super nice! That’s what I wanted people to think about me and I thought I had been successful. In one crushing moment, I realized that, no, even here in college, I was still just that burned girl.

I have never hated an award more in my life.

At the end of the evening, I walked back to my house which I shared with friends. My roommate Cindy was there, whom I had lived with for four years. We were very close. She smiled at me, “So, how was it? What award did you get?”

I gazed at her, plastering a smile on my face. I reached for self-deprecating humor, the defense so often used when humiliated, the only angle left for me at the end of that agonizing evening. “I got the well-adjusted gimp award.”

***

I never tell people about this award. To this day, it embarrasses me. Recently, I mentioned the award to my husband.

“What award?”

“You know, that award I won in college. The Sarah G. Kinney Memorial Prize.”

“I don’t know what you are talking about.” I hadn’t even told my own husband about the award.

What would I have preferred? Did I not want to be recognized for my strength and resilience? I think the answer is yes, perhaps. If the award had simply been for character, I would have felt proud. If the award had been for resilience, I would have felt more uneasy, because that implicitly introduces my personal backstory. But the award was for people battling challenging personal circumstances, which already felt exposing. When it was given exclusively to three students with visible physical difference, it felt excruciating.

I don’t want to be recognized for being a good-person-while-being-burned. Or being a smart-student-while-being-burned. If the accomplishment is moderated by my disability, then I become ”othered,” someone who is pitied and less-than. Imagine, for example, if you happen to be overweight, and were given a work award (publicly!) for being smart-while-chubby. Picture yourself at the departmental event, standing up to receive your award, perhaps along with your two other overweight coworkers. See how awful that feels?

In contrast, I proudly declare to anyone who will listen that I graduated Tufts summa cum laude. When I received my diploma, with this distinction enscribbed on it, it did NOT say summa-cum-laude-while-being-burned. It just said with highest honors. There is nothing embarrassing, cheapening, or “othering” there.

Like the good girl I was raised to be, I wrote a thank you note to the family of “Sarah G. Kinney.” I expressed my appreciation for the prize, and my condolences for their loss. I did not mention my embarrassment because I didn’t have words for it at the time, and also, it wasn’t appropriate. I mentioned that I was going to a doctoral program in psychology in the fall.

Shortly thereafter I received a letter back from Sarah’s father, the first line of which I will never forget: “Life is full of strange and unexpected coincidences, and we have just encountered one of them.” It turned out that Sarah’s father was a psychology professor at the very doctoral program I was about to attend. The story ended well enough. I got to know Sarah’s family; they were kind, and I was glad to have connected to them.

The Sarah G Kinney award was the last award I received for a long time. I did not earn an award at my doctoral program, nor earn any special recognition at my different jobs. Many years later though, I earned several distinctions for my book Flashback Girl. These were awards for writing. Again, not writing while burned. Just writing.

If I could go back to that April night in 1985, here’s what I would do. I would tell that crest-fallen girl, the one who tried so hard to fit in and not be noticed for her burns, that in time, everything would change. That she would embrace her identity as a visibly-different person. That she would write about it, and speak about it, and change some lives for the better. That she would eventually take pride in the scars, the history, and her struggle.

But I still wouldn’t give her an award for being smart-while-being-burned. I would give her an award for being a hell of a person.

Lise Deguire's multiple award-winning memoir, Flashback Girl: Lessons on Resilience from a Burn Survivor, is available for purchase on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Newtown Book Shop and The Commonplace Reader. Check out her TEDx talk "Scared Not Scary"

How I met TED

“You should do a TED talk,” a literary agent suggested, as I blinked at her.

“A TED talk? What would I even talk about? And how do you get a TED talk?”

The agent responded, “I don’t know exactly, but a TED talk would really help your platform.”

I refrained from snorting. Having just learned the definition of “platform,” I was painfully aware that I didn’t have one. I also didn’t have a book, a contract, an agent, or much of anything, aside from a half-written manuscript. “Right. I’ll work on it.”

That conversation happened five years ago. I have been working on landing a TED talk ever since. Let me tell you, it wasn’t easy. I applied at least ten times, all over the country, and never heard one word back. More gallingly, I applied to my own undergraduate alma matter. I was interviewed by three earnest Tufts undergraduates, who voiced enthusiasm for my pitch. I awaited the good news.

A week later I received an email, “Thank you but…Please apply next year…”

That response was crushing. Still, I picked myself up and the next year I reapplied. Once again, I was an interviewed finalist, and once again, I was turned down and asked to apply again.

I applied to Tufts TEDx four years in a row, and was an unsuccessful finalist all four years, until I threw in the towel. (No thank you, Tufts, I love you dearly but I will not be applying again.)

So, it was a thrill when my TEDx proposal was accepted by my graduate school, Widener University. Once the talk was confirmed, the game was on, a game which required literally months of preparation. It turns out that doing a TED talk is complicated. I submitted an outline, which was approved. Then my script was approved. At this juncture, I realized with dismay that I would have to memorize this 17 minute script, which was essentially a protracted monologue. (You may have never noticed, but TED talks are delivered with no notes or guiding slides. There is no teleprompter either.)

I used to be awesome at memorizing. I could read notes three times and know them verbatim. In graduate school, during exams, I could close my eyes, visualize my notes, mentally turn to the right paragraph, and locate the answer for the exam.

Aging brains being what they are, that time is long past. Painstakingly, I worked to memorize the 14-point talk. Three months ahead, I started to learn one paragraph at a time, making sure to note the transition from point to point. Each day I worked on this. For the final two months, every day I said the entire talk aloud, muttering to myself as I drove to work, took a shower, or walked the dog.

Figuring out what to wear was equally challenging. TED suggests that you do not wear the following: anything white (washes you out), black (blends into background), vividly colored (not good for the camera) or patterned (ditto.) That eliminates most wardrobe options. I had the added criteria of needing a sleeveless dress. Because my talk is about being disfigured, I wanted a dress which fully revealed my scars.

Ordinary shopping overwhelms me on a good day, so I approached the dress situation with trepidation. I had one great idea, my friend Kathy. She is a dear friend, a psychologist herself, with excellent design taste, and, mysteriously to me, loves to shop. “Will you come TEDx dress shopping with me?”

“Of course!”

Off we went to the mall. We went into one store, where I found a good-enough dress. With relief, I immediately declared, “OK, that’s fine. Let’s go.”

Kathy looked at me aghast. “We only went to one store! You have to look around.”

“I hate shopping,” I whined.

“I know. But seriously, we have to at least go to two more stores. You just have to.”

Thanks to Kathy's patient persistence, I wound up with a much better dress and shoes to match. Talk memorized, outfit prepared, I was set.

On the day of the talk, I got my hair done, ate a little, and traveled down to Widener. My husband Doug drove with me. Several friends came to cheer me on as well.

I was the second-to-last speaker so there was a long time before I went on. I waited in the dark wings for my turn, doing a breathing exercise to calm me. As my turn neared, I closed my eyes and I said a prayer. “Please let the words come through me. Please let these words lift people up who look different. Please help me explain. Let the light shine through me.”

And I walked on. Energy filled me and the words simply flowed. They were my words but also, they were not my words. They were the experiences of everyone who looks different, who has been stared at, or made to feel inferior. They were the words of others who have worked to bring equality to the disfigured: psychologists, researchers, social activists, writers, and any in the community able to speak out.

And one more thing. I am a Deguire. You may not know many Deguires, but I assure you, Deguires can entertain. My dad could bring the house down with a piano and a grin. My grandfather played and sang at every party. My daughters are so charming you could forget your own name. That Deguire blood flowed through me as well.

Today, I am thrilled to share this TEDx with you: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zD9KhXQOED8 The talk is entitled “Scarred Not Scary.” It is about my experiences being disfigured, the prejudice disfigured people face, and how Hollywood frequently portrays the visibly different as evil or pathetic. Please check it out.

Finally, I have a request. If you like this talk, I ask that you share it. I am trying to reach people with visible difference, to educate the general public, and to inspire Hollywood to change. Email it to your friends, post it on your social media, talk about it to others. People with visible difference do not have much power, and we are just 1% of the population. We need our friends and allies to help us. The more eyes on this message, the better chance of making a positive difference.

Thank you.

https://youtu.be/zD9KhXQOED8?feature=shared

Lise Deguire's multiple award-winning memoir, Flashback Girl: Lessons on Resilience from a Burn Survivor, is available for purchase on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Newtown Book Shop and The Commonplace Reader.

Darkness Descends; An Ode to Joy

It crept in like a low fog, so lightly that I didn’t notice it beginning to swirl around me. A vague unease, a weighty sigh. The sun truly came up later and set earlier, ending my jaunty after-dinner walks with my terrier Frankie. Who enjoyed those walks more? He with his white tail aloft like a plume, his ears bouncing with each rapid step? Or me, watching his tail up and his ears bounce, trailing a few steps behind. But our evening walks ended, closed in by growing darkness.

There were mounting disappointments. Talks I thought I’d be giving that inexplicably were awarded to another speaker. People who enthusiastically swore they would buy my book who clearly never did, leaving me checking my book sales with a head shake and a frown. Important new contacts who promised they would be in touch, who vanished in a puff of smoke after I emailed them. The disappointments started to whisper to me: what you are doing doesn’t… matter.

I went to my high school reunion, only to realize that not many people remembered me. I couldn’t blame them, because I had only attended there for three short years. Still, it was jarring to see people gaze at me, with no sense of who I was. Adding to my plight, I attended the reunion with my dear friend Joe, whom everyone, and I really mean this, everyone in the whole world adores. The day after the reunion, he shared, “I keep getting texts from everyone.”

Across the room, I responded, “And I keep getting texts from no one at all.” We laughed together.

A few days later, Joe texted me, “I am still getting texts from the reunion.”

I replied, quoting Charlie in It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, “I got a rock.” I was joking, but also something descended further inside me. My internal whispering grew. What you are doing doesn’t matter. You don’t matter.

For many people, the anniversary of a profound trauma or loss sneaks up and trips them each year. October is my dangerous month. The encroaching darkness takes me down every year. But far more, this is the same month in which my brother died, hurling himself like a madman through the dark Cambridge sky. Decades pass, many decades, but my mood seemingly cannot escape descending with him.

What does it matter? Why do I try? Who would miss me if I stopped?

Recently I attended an event at which I was greeted by some with great enthusiasm, but oddly ignored by others. What do I focus on? The people who lit up with beaming smiles when they saw me? Perhaps that is who I might usually focus on, but now, in dangerous October, my mind seized only on the disappointments, the slights, the hurts.

Again, the thoughts: what does it matter? Why do I bother?

Do I surprise you? Yes, I am usually positive, strong, hardy, and successful enough. But the gremlin of depression lies inside me too, buried like a squirrel’s acorn, planted by the DNA of my relatives, all of them gone, gone, gone.

When my brother took his life, my father angrily blamed my mother’s gene pool. “There is so much depression on your mother’s side (names changed here): Aunt Ida, Uncle Frank, cousin Arnold, cousin Alice. Your mother passed all that on to Marc. We don’t have depression on my side.”

Years later, my father ruefully took it all back. “I used to say it was all your mother. But actually, Uncle Bob had depression, and your cousins Jocelin and Pam. It’s on both sides, I guess.”

My dad told me he didn’t suffer from depression. Certainly, it wasn’t his fault. But when he died, he left behind his diaries, full of thoughts of despair, anger, and suicidal ideation. My mother didn’t suffer from depression, she said. But she died on anti-depressants, in a room in Switzerland where she had flown to take her life.

I was depressed when I was young, for many years. I am not depressed now. But I am passing through a dark, dark cloud, dense with hurt, rejection and fatigue, a dark cloud of existential doubt.

What does it matter?

Already I feel the pressure to end this piece on a positive note. Can I find one? If I don’t, will that be either artistic integrity or a slap in the face for those (how many are there, really?) people who rely on me for spiritual uplift. And is it responsible for a psychologist to admit to despair?

But it comes to me, the one positive that even now, feeling so sad, I know to be true. The world keeps spinning. This dark day will turn into another, which will or won’t be as dark. And then there will be another, followed by another. As time passes, I won’t feel this way.

I have passed through other dark times and made it through. I have also experienced profound joy and satisfaction. Nothing lasts, let alone mood states. The only way things don’t change is if we make the mistake my brother made. He took his despair and ended his life while he was despondent. He ended the chance to see that the world continued to spin, and that light follows darkness, always, sooner or later.

As I write, the fog begins to lift.

***

I drove to my office after I wrote these words, getting myself together for the day. My first client of the day was a woman I have known for a long time. I have walked with her through despair and disappointment. I know her well. It was time for her appointment so I left the door open so she could come in.

I heard her footsteps coming down the hall. She entered.

“Hello, come in. I’m glad to see you,” I said to her.

She looked at me sadly, intense grief in her face, “And I am so very glad to see you.”

“Ah,” I thought quietly to myself. “I guess I do matter. I matter to her, that’s for sure. I’m glad at least that I can be here for her.”

I’m still finding my way this October, as is the case virtually every October. My coping tools include walking with my dog, listening to music I love, and remembering that it is not always like this. Sometimes life breaks your heart. Sometimes there is a momentary grace.

The maintenance man at my office is an older Asian man. He is polite and friendly, although his English limits our conversations. This morning, it was dark and dreary, equally matched by my dark and dreary mood. I drove to work and exited my car, heading toward my office. In the distance, I heard someone whistling. It was the maintenance man, walking toward me from a distance. He was whistling a perfect rendition of Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy.” Not a note was out of place, the venerable, majestic tune rang out through the parking lot. There was no one to hear him but me.

It felt like the universe was signaling: Keep going. There will be joy. Not only that, but listen carefully, there is joy right now. Just listen.

Lise Deguire's multiple award-winning memoir, Flashback Girl: Lessons on Resilience from a Burn Survivor, is available for purchase on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Newtown Book Shop and The Commonplace Reader.

The everyday grief of an "obsolete" mom

Grief plays tricks. It sneaks up and slaps you in the back of your head. Today, I was watching my car go through the car wash, soapy brushes swirling away the dirt, when I heard the chiming chords of the Faces song “Ooh La La.” I immediately began to cry.

“Ooh La La” was on frequent rotation in our household three years ago, when COVID delivered my two adult daughters home in a panic. Anna arrived first, her senior year at college abruptly over. Julia came in from Chicago a week later, spooked by the empty grocery store shelves and the abrupt closing of her work. We huddled together for months, a most unusual development for a family with two adult girls. We played games, ate meals, comforted each other, argued occasionally, and listened to music. Music like “Ooh La La.”

I know plenty of parents of adult children who derived secret pleasure from the Covid lockdown. It wasn’t seemly, surely, to be a little bit happy about Covid. Who could feel such a thing? But there was indeed pleasure in that unexpected time, a crowded dining room table, a full back seat, week after week of a reunited family.

Years later, my daughters are back where they are supposed to be. Read that as: far away. Julia lives in LA, living her best life with her boyfriend, and their new puppy. Anna lives much closer, in Philly. But she is busy with two jobs, a great apartment, and her new relationship.

Will Julia be home for the holidays? No, she has to work. Will Anna attend my next big talk? No, she will be at a wedding.

This is how it is now. I am a late middle-aged woman who has raised two amazing daughters and they are off, being amazing somewhere without me.

What a bitter pill motherhood can be. When you have either had exceptional luck, or done a good job, your adult children are confident enough to move far away. They are strong, smart, and self-supporting. Off they sail to California, like my daughter, or Colorado, like my friend’s daughter, or on a cruise ship sailing the world, like my friend’s son.

We moms know what to say. “What a wonderful opportunity! I’m so proud of you!” we proclaim brightly, choking back our tears. “California is gorgeous; you are really lucky to move there.” We say the right words. We mean them too, or at least part of us does. The part which isn’t grieving.

My innards ache. My heart hurts. I could cry at the drop of a hat. “Ain’t no sunshine when she’s gone.” No day feels complete. Only the sound of my daughters’ voices, chatting together, fills me with complete happiness. My heart has been ripped out of my body and I will never get it back.

No one dances in the kitchen. No wide grins beam across the table. No blond hairs lay in the sink. No sneakers crowd the back door. Where is the pile of jackets? Where is the wet laundry at the bottom of the washing machine? Where is the rap music when I wash dishes? Where are the girls who don’t feel like hugging their mother, but do anyway, draping their arms reluctantly around my shoulders?

I worked so hard to raise these girls right. Having been a neglected child whose parents rarely paid attention, I had no internal roadmap to guide me. I figured out how to parent using three models: my brother, parenting books, and desperate consultations with my friends. Adding to the challenge, I had divorced the girls’ father, and we did not usually function well as co-parents. I did have my husband Doug though, and he was all in. But we only had the girls half-time. I did everything possible to bond with them, teach them, love them, and help them during that precious half-time.

All that effort, all that devotion, all that self-sacrifice. Making lunches and packing snacks. Spreading sunscreen on wriggling protesting bodies. Climbing out of bed at 3:00 AM because a tiny voice is howling (To be honest, this was mostly my husband). Enduring elementary school band concerts. Yawning through middle school band concerts. Miraculously arriving at high school jazz band concerts, astounded that my daughter played the saxophone like a rock star.

Vacations which consisted of taking all my tasks and doing them in a more attractive location. Sweating through Disney World, standing on line after endless line so “Snow White” and “Belle” would sign their precious autograph books. (Autograph books which now lay abandoned and discarded in their closets.)

Driving to day care. Driving to school. Driving to camp. Driving to the pediatrician. Driving to the dentist. Driving to the orthodontist. To tennis lessons. To gymnastics lessons. To basketball .To the voice teacher. To tap class. To ballet class. To jazz class. To the flute teacher. To play rehearsal. To the dermatologist. To the gynecologist (GOOD LORD!). To the eye doctor. To band practice. To college visits. To SATs. To “Accepted Students Weekends.”

Onesies, footie pajamas, overalls, kindergarten dresses, soccer cleats, winter jackets lost on the bus, unitards, sweaty band uniforms, prom dresses, graduation gowns.

What is the reward of being a good mother to a blessedly healthy child? They leave you. You show them the world and they go out and take it. The only consolation is knowing that you are lucky. There is a worse prospect: the child who never leaves. Either because they won’t leave, or they can’t leave (which I guess could be the same thing.) So, not only am I heartbroken that my children are so independent, but I also feel guilty. I am fortunate, am I not?

A number of my clients are older mothers like me, dealing with the same loss. Two are new empty-nesters, with both of their children now in college. Another’s son is moving to Vermont. Another’s daughter moved to Colorado. Another’s son moved to Nevada. Somewhere during the course of their sessions, they begin to cry. “It’s so far away!” Another says, “What am I supposed to do with myself now?”

I validate. I comfort. I suggest they read Judith Viorst's book Necessary Losses. I point out that the alternative to these losses are the kids who never leave home. I validate some more. I encourage them to move into this new stage of life, when they are free to return to art class, to book club, to travel, to writing. I do not say that I feel exactly like them.

Like all long-term grief, this mourning is not constant. I do not always feel like this. Many days I bustle about, happy in my clean, neat house, with no piles of shoes by the door, and all the coats hung neatly in the closet. Many days I enjoy the quiet, luxuriating in peaceful dinners for two with my husband. I can read, I can think. I work on projects and dream big, unencumbered by parental obligations. Many days, I am perfectly content, not grieving in the slightest.

But then ‘Ooh La La” comes on at the car wash. Or I hear “Sixteen Going on Seventeen” and remember my Julia, who was once a perfect Liesl. Or a picture pops up on our family photo frame, with my Anna’s dazzling smile. Or any one of a thousand tender memories tumble into my mind.

How could it all be gone? Where did it go? If I loved them less, would it hurt less? (I think this was my mother’s accommodation to the endless losses in her life. She either stopped caring, or perhaps she never had.) I don’t know. No, I never wish to care less. Loving this hard also feels like being alive. I would rather love like this, feeling the knife of grief occasionally twist in my heart than love less deeply. Its better this way.

We birth our precious babies, we raise them, we give them the best years of our lives, and eventually (if all goes well) we smile and wave as they drive away. We go inside, have a good cry, feel the pain. Like all grief, it comes and it goes, and we learn to live with it. That is what we do. We all do it.

Like everything else, we do it for them.

Lise Deguire's multiple award-winning memoir, Flashback Girl: Lessons on Resilience from a Burn Survivor, is available for purchase on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Newtown Book Shop and The Commonplace Reader.

"I was just lucky:" Women, please stop saying these words

The girl had come to win. Her dark straight hair lay in a loose ponytail, her serious face was make-up free. She was possibly 17 years old. Her dark eyes focused on the green table in front of her as she gripped the ping pong racket in her right hand. Her flat, tight abs flashed between a white crop top and gray sweatpants.

My husband and I happened into this room, seeking a place for our card game. We settled at a small round table, pulling out our weathered pack of “Five Crowns.” As Doug dealt the first hand, I glanced over at the activity on our cruise ship, a ping pong tournament in action.

There were about 30 players, competing with a friendly vibe. Some of them played awkwardly, gamely hitting the ball a few times before missing, chuckling with good humor. Some were more serious, volleying back and forth with intensity. The young woman was my instant favorite.

She was called into a match with a young man, as handsome as she was beautiful. Their names were announced, Jess and Jason. They glided around the table like gazelles, back and forth, evenly matched. One point to Jess. One point to Jason. One point to Jess. One point to Jason. My body tensed, rooting for Jess, to whom I had never spoken.

It was down to the wire, match point. Jess scored. To cheers, she was declared the winner of the match. I grinned, happy to see this young woman announced the victor in a sea of men. But as Jess put down her paddle, she murmured, “He played a really good game. I was just lucky.”

Oh no, I thought. “I was just lucky.” With these four words, this young woman abandoned her victory, minimized her skill and strength, and shrunk herself. What pressure was she feeling, in her moment of triumph, looking into the face of her handsome male opponent? Why had she uttered these words, which denigrated her success? Was she feeling too strong, too capable, too skilled in the presence of this man? Did she worry that her strength would be a turn-off?

Did she even notice what she had just said?

***********

Women walk this path. We perceive, sometime around middle school, that our precious skills paradoxically make us less attractive to the boys. Sometime in middle school, girls raise their hands less, absorbing the message that, even if they know the answer, it is more attractive to pretend that they don’t. It isn’t sexy to get the highest score on the biology test. It isn’t sexy to earn the top SAT scores. It definitely isn’t sexy to beat the boys.

The recent Barbie movie hilariously comment on this issue. “Barbie Land,” formerly a haven for girls, has been taken over by the Kens, who seek to establish the patriarchy they discovered in the “Real World.” The Barbies figure out how to fight back. When the Barbies seek to infiltrate the Ken rebellion, they do so by feigning ignorance and weakness. One Barbie asks for a Ken’s help with her computer. Another listens rapturously as a Ken explains the plot of a movie. The Barbie’s feigned unknowing is adopted to lure the Kens into complacency. Once they convince the Kens they are weak and inferior, (and the Kens fight about it amongst themselves), the Barbies are able to recapture control of their world.

Although this is just a movie plot, in our Real World, we struggle to know how to help our own real-life girls. I have many moms in my psychology practice who are raising spirited daughters. Perhaps they don’t want to go to bed, or take a nap, or eat their peas, or wear their winter coat. They argue with their mothers about boyfriends, cell phones, homework, piano lessons… you name it. Still, when I work with these moms, I always point out that their spirited daughter has confidence and strength, and the world needs more girls with confidence. We work together to shape their daughter’s behavior while embracing and nurturing their spirit.

***********

I thought for a long time, as the tournament continued. I wondered if I should say something to Jess. If I did, what would I say? Should I mention that I am a psychologist? It might give me credibility, but it might also make her feel more judged. No, I thought.

Ten minutes passed. She sat near me, together with her father. They were watching the tournament.

“Excuse me,” I said, and they both turned to look at me.

“I have been having fun watching you play. You are such a wonderful ping-pong player! I really hope you win the tournament, and I am routing for you.”

Jess smiled, a polite, shy smile.

I chose my next words carefully. “I heard you say, after you won your last match, that it was a “good game” and you were “just lucky.” But actually, you weren’t just lucky. You are a really a great player, highly skilled. I bet you practice a lot. And you know, girls do this all the time. Instead of owning their talents, they say they were “just lucky” when they win. But you are actually super-talented.”

Jess looked at me intently. She did not say a word, and I couldn’t read her face. I had no idea what she was thinking.

Her father answered, “I think she was just being humble. But… you know… now that you mention it, you have a point.”

“Yes.”

“I don’t get it though.” Her father looked quizzical. “She beats me all the time when we play. But when she beats me, she never says she was just lucky. Never.”

“Right. But you are her dad. So, it’s different. I bet she feels safe to compete at home with you. And, with all respect, I guess possibly you aren’t as handsome as Jason.”

We all laughed. Jess smiled, looking down at the ground. I still couldn’t read her reaction.

“Good luck, Jess. I am rooting for you.”

I returned to my card game, watching the tournament as it progressed. One by one, players were eliminated. The room began to empty, until there were just a few people left. It came down to the final match. “Jess and Jason, you are up again.”

Jess strode over to the ping pong table, smiling at her handsome opponent. Back and forth they began to volley, white ball flying, making its faint knocking sound against the two paddles.

Just like before, the game advanced evenly. One point to Jess. One point to Jason. One point to Jess again. I rose from my seat to watch, standing behind Jess’s father.

It was game point again. Jess hit the ball expertly, and it jumped off the tip of the table. Jason swung and missed. Jess had won. A cheer went up throughout the room as her name was announced the victor. I leaned forward, and waited to hear what she would say.

Her voice was quiet but clear. “Thank you!” And with that, she placed her paddle down and walked out. I was beside myself with happiness.

I had one more vivid exchange with Jess the last night of the cruise. I was walking downstairs, heading toward dinner. Jess was sprinting up the stairs, effortlessly. She saw me and smiled broadly. “We had another ping pong tournament today. And I WON!” She declared her victory with such joy and confidence, I could have wept.

“GOOD FOR YOU!” I yelled, a little too loudly in the stairway.

“Thank you,” she grinned, and we paused briefly, sharing joy in her accomplishment. “OK, see you later,” and she was off.

I never did see Jess again, but I thought about her many times. I hope that my words stay with her. Perhaps she will feel more comfortable embracing her excellence. Perhaps she will see the Barbie movie, and think, “I don’t need to make myself small to make a boy feel big.” Perhaps she will be confident, strong, unapologetic, and forthright.

Yes, there is luck in this world. Some of us are born smarter, or prettier, or richer, or advantaged. Privilege exists, and that is indeed luck. However, let’s not sell ourselves short. Our diligence, politeness, and education matter. More to the point, I struggle to think of any time that I heard a boy or man win an award, earn a promotion, or ace a test who then said, “I was just lucky.”

Girls and women, you are not “just lucky.” If you know the answer, then you did the homework, paid attention in class and studied. If you hit the tennis ball, it’s because you took lessons, practiced, and worked hard. If you get the promotion, you earned it by showing up on time, getting along with people, and doing your job well.

Will you still be liked? Maybe not by some. There are still Kens in this world, and plenty of them. But yes, by the people who are not threatened by you. Yes, by the people who will admire you. Yes, by all the girls you will inspire. Yes, by the girl you will someday advise in a cruise ship lounge. Yes, yes, yes.

Lise Deguire's multiple award-winning memoir, Flashback Girl: Lessons on Resilience from a Burn Survivor, is available for purchase on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Newtown Book Shop and The Commonplace Reader.

Road Trips Are Never What We Expect

"The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes."

— Marcel Proust

I’ve been traveling over a year now. My possessions are in storage; my clothes fit in my car; my memories in my head. I’ve left Europe and South America behind. Christmas is approaching and I want some comfort, some familiarity. The beautiful mountains and vistas of northern New Mexico have always touched my soul. So it is that I have arrived in this adobe enclave called Santa Fe, at the base of the Sangre de Cristo mountains.

I am renting a beautiful casita. It’s a combination of modern and traditional, with stained

concrete floors below and massive vigas spanning the ceiling above. The little house is perched at the base of the mountains at 7200 feet where the air is thin, and a warm stream of morning sun pours into the room.

Overnight it has rained. The high desert dust has settled, and the air literally sparkles.

Everything feels so fresh and vibrant.

But I am out of sync with the freshness of a new day after my dream. The dream wasn’t disturbing per se. It was just jumbled. There was a meaning in it, but to my early morning brain, the message isn’t clear.

I sit down to meditate and all of a sudden, it’s as if the dream comes alive. I am standing at the

intersection of three dirt trails. One comes down from the top of the hill, then continues

downward. The other goes off to the right. I stand at the crossroad with my backpack.

A procession of people from my past come down the hill. We meet, we talk, they go on their

way, down the trail. Everyone carries a package which they present to me. I take the parcel,

magically compact it down to nothing, as one can only do in a dream, and I place it in my

backpack.

One person stands out. It is my former business partner.

He is a large man carrying too much weight in his middle. He appears to be jolly, but under that façade I know he is not. He is desperate and willing to do anything for the money and

recognition that is coming my way. But he’s out of his depth. I’ve created a truly novel web

business, based on supporting people through long term illness.

I create. He can only steal. And that is what he does. He takes all the intellectual property from

my business, registers it with the U.S. Patent Office as his own, then dares me to sue him. My

lawyers tell me it will cost in increments of half a million dollars, take three years of my life and

there are no guaranteed outcomes.

When I see him coming down the hill in my dreams, I remain calm. I have no emotion. I just

observe. He arrives, he converses without words, and heads down the hill without much ado.

With his departure, I re-arrange the items in my pack which just keep getting more and more

insignificant. Where it once was heavy and bulky, it’s now so light I hardly notice it. I toss the

pack over my shoulder and take off on a dirt path that climbs slightly upwards, around the hill

towards the rising sun which is spilling golden light on the waving grasses that surround me.

This should be a happy ending. The message from my dream is clear: The past is past; don’t

carry it with you, it will only weigh you down. Better days lie ahead.

But instead, my dream brings up a well of conflicting emotions I have yet to reconcile.

My business partner’s betrayal cost me my business and my home of 18 years. I had to find a

new family for the kitten I’d welcomed into my house when I was first diagnosed with

“incurable” cancer. She was my talisman that I would live. How could I desert her when she

provided me with such hope and solace?

But I also know that in reality, my kitten who is now a cat, has found a good home with two cat

friends and two humans who adore her, and she adores them. My beautiful home is no longer a burden of maintenance, taxes, and repairs. If I’m honest, I was in need of a change, and events conspired to present me with one.

My past life was comfortable. Predictable. Fun, but not necessarily fulfilling. I decorated my

home’s walls with art and the stunning African floors with rugs. I surrounded myself in beauty

and it resonated deeply with me.

In time, I sensed a hollowness to my materialism. Its beauty wasn’t diminished, but I had

grown. I needed a connection to something greater. To pay the medical, legal ,and business

bills, and to re-find my own footing, I sold my house and took off in search of an elusive

something.

I flew, I sailed, and I drove. Four continents and thousands of miles passed. I got into the

rhythm of traveling homeless. I became a good photographer and writer and even won a few

awards.

One of the things I love about travel is that on the road I feel reconnected with a sense of

possibility. Part of it is the intensity of being present in unfamiliar environments. And being

present opens the door to greater connection with oneself.

I now recognize that true travel is about mindset over matter, perspective over place. You can’t collect it. You can’t visit it. You must experience it. Joseph Campbell once said that :

“People say that what we’re all seeking is a meaning for life. I don’t think that’s what we’re

really seeking. I think that what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life

experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonances with our own innermost being

and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive.”

For me, the rapture of being alive is about being acutely present in the moment. And while the

novelty of travel fosters that presence, it’s available everywhere, every day.

I’ve come to see life as a road trip, full of twists and turns, ups and downs. There’s always a

new adventure around the corner. Perhaps it’s something seemingly mundane about how I

choose to react to someone. Perhaps it’s about choosing to understand rather than judge.

Whatever the situation, will I dare to be fully present, to live and experience that “rapture of

being alive?”

Road trips are never what we expect. Not if we’re open to the journey. Does the next bend in

the road reveal beauty or challenge or both? Or is it all in the eye of the beholder?

I am putting my hope in the latter because that I do control. And wherever my travels take me, I happily travel with myself. For that I am deeply grateful . I leave you with an Irish poem:

May the road rise up to meet you.

May the wind be always at your back. 

May the sun shine warm upon your face; 

the rains fall soft upon your fields and until we meet again, 

may God hold you in the palm of His hand.

Pat Wetzel is a graduate of The Wharton School of Business, a pilot, a traveler, creator and host of the podcast Bump In The Road and author of the upcoming book Bump In The Road: Stories of Courage, Perseverance and Resilience.

Lise Deguire's multiple award-winning memoir, Flashback Girl: Lessons on Resilience from a Burn Survivor, is available for purchase on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Newtown Book Shop and The Commonplace Reader.

My Worst Fear: Public Speaking (to Nobody)

I stood at the head of the conference room, psyched, and ready to present. As requested, I had arrived early to set up for the talk. I wore my funky blue and gold sandals, a pink blazer, a pink and blue flowered blouse, and stylish blue pants. My hair was blown out; my nails manicured. The brand-new presentation was projected on the screen, and I was ready to go. The room was... empty.

It was 1:50, ten minutes before the scheduled talk, and two young women finally strolled in. I greeted them warmly, thinking they were conference attendees. “Actually, we are volunteers. We will help you with the audience and pass out the evaluation forms at the end.”

“Well, so far there is no audience to help with,” I grimaced.

“That is weird,” said one. “I know people were interested in your talk.”

I thanked my lucky stars for these two pleasant doctoral students from Marywood University. I asked them about their program, their upcoming comprehensive exams (the bane of all psychology students). We chatted about the area, the weather, the conference. I tried to distract myself from what was happening. No one was coming to my talk.

One of the students was about 25 years old, with long wavy hair, wearing a long, flowered skirt. She will make an excellent psychologist. She could smell my vulnerability and was already working to help me. She said, “You know, I think people didn’t get the message that your talk was rescheduled. I bet they all think it’s at 4:00. They sent out an email, but lots of people don’t read their emails.”

I gazed despondently at the vacant room, empty chairs next to the smooth tan desks. “Yes, that makes sense. Maybe I will just come back at 4:00. I’ll do that.”

“OK” said the woman, “We’ll see you then.”

Hurriedly, I packed up my computer, and the stack of books I had brought for sale. I fled to my hotel room.

You see, I have a great fear: no one will come. This fear snakes back to 7th grade, the worst time in the world, when girls turn on girls with a vengeance. On one jaw-dropping morning, I went from having a secure group of six awesome friends to having no friends at all. Ever since then, I have a profound fear of giving an event and no one showing, my social pariah status exposed for all to see. What if I give a party and no one comes? What if I speak and no one comes? What if I'm in the hospital and no one comes? (To be fair, this did actually happen to me, so maybe my fear goes far deeper than 7th grade). What if I die and no one comes?

I know I am not the only one with this kind of fear. I have been to authors' book signings and witnessed them bravely presenting to a group of three of their closest friends, smiling through gritted teeth, shaking their heads.

Once I joined a “live Facebook” event, given by my daughter’s friend who promised a big announcement. I wanted to support this 17 year old girl, who had hung around our house throughout high school. When I joined her “live event,” I could see there were just two other people watching, one of whom was her own mother. “Hi Mom,” she groaned, her despair evident to all. I flinched with sympathy.

Now I sat in my own moment of mortification. However, there was still a job to do. I had to manage this biggest fear, with all its accompanying emotional sequela, alone in a dreary hotel room in State College, PA. I called upon all my cognitive skills, all my self-management techniques, all the skills I teach my clients every week. I had to do it myself, and I had to do it fast.

I sat down on the bed, and talked to myself, as if I were my own patient. Here was our conversation:

No one likes me. Actually, Lise, no one knows you here. They have no opinion of you at all because they have never met you.

It’s just like middle school. No, it’s not. You are 50 years past middle school. You are not in 7th grade. You are a grown woman with a doctorate.

Well, it feels just like middle school. Yes, it does, but feelings don’t mean that is what is actually happening.

This is my worst fear. I tried to give a talk, and no one came. No one came because the talk was not well-scheduled, and no one even knew there was a time change. Also, you are addressing a niche area, and some people won’t be drawn to the topic. That is not something to take personally.

I just want to cry my eyes out and never leave this room. Crying would be a bad idea, because you are in fact presenting again in two hours. You don’t want to look like a wreck.

I feel so bad. I understand, but let’s get away from feeling and more into thinking. You are a great speaker. You have spoken all over the country, to thousands of people, with much success. This one event is due to a scheduling glitch. It's not about you.

At least this will make a good blog. True, if you are willing to write about it!

Two hours later, having successfully not cried, I returned to the conference room. I plugged in my computer, set myself up again and waited. At 3:50, an older man shuffled in and attempted to set up his laptop. He complained that he couldn’t find an outlet. He complained that his previous workshop was poorly done. He complained that the presentations have not been clinical engaging.

I could have kissed him.

A middle-aged woman with a lovely smile came in and sat to my left. Then the two graduate students returned, whom I greeted like they were my best friends. It was 4:00. The room was virtually empty, but perspective is everything. Four people came to hear my talk, and I was going to give them everything I had. I was ready to kick ass.

Disfigurement: A Call for Awareness.

My talk starts with my own story of being burned, then expands to a general discussion of disfigurement, what it is like, and how we are received by others. The talk addresses the way Hollywood uses disfigurement as a trope for villainy and/or being pathetic. We discuss how these depictions increases the stigma. People learn about the Face Equality Movement, ways to improve interactions with the visibly different, and ways psychologists can help.

When I discussed Hollywood representation of disfigured people as being villains, I asked the audience how many of them had ever noticed this. One woman raised her hand.

When I asked how many people had ever heard of the Face Equality Movement, no one raised their hand at all.

When the talk was over, I perched on the edge of a table, answering questions, grateful to be done. The extra-kind graduate student commented, “I’m so glad I came to this talk. I never thought about any of these issues, and I learned a lot from being here.”

I am both embarrassed by this experience and super proud of it, simultaneously. It is embarrassing to travel across the state and give a talk to an audience of four. It is embarrassing to tote a stack of books to sell, and to reload every single one of them back in the car trunk.

“How did the conference go?” texted my friend. “I bet you did great.”

“Long story.”

“Oh no!”

And yet. I could award a medal to every therapist I ever worked with, because all that therapy was alive and kicking in my brain. It would have been easy to sink into old scripts of social rejection, assuming the worst in everyone, feeling alone and hopeless. Instead, I talked back to the fears, and wound up giving a great presentation. That talk may have only touched four people, but those four people really heard me.

A part of me shudders to share this story publicly. No one needs to know, right? But something hard happened, and I know that discussing the hard stuff is what truly helps people. Sometimes in life, we bump into our worst fears. “No one will come” is one of mine.

Perhaps you will encounter your worst fear someday too. If that happens, treat yourself kindly and talk to yourself with compassion. It's awful when your worst fear happens! Then, tap into your own wise inner voice, the adult part of you, who can solve problems. Have your own therapy session with your own little self. I bet the wisdom you need already lives in your brain, somewhere. Tap into it. Hold yourself up, talk to yourself with kindness and wisdom and keep on going.

I did it. You can do it.

Lise Deguire's multiple award-winning memoir, Flashback Girl: Lessons on Resilience from a Burn Survivor, is available for purchase on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Newtown Book Shop and The Commonplace Reader.

How This Grinch Forgave Her Mother (Mostly)

“Have you forgiven your mother?”

Oddly, this gut-wrenching, intensely personal question follows me wherever I go. I am a psychologist and I present about psychological resilience and the experience of disfigurement. Unlike many clinicians, I freely employ my own history of multiple traumas as part of my talks. During the Q&A, inevitably a smiling audience member raises a hand to inquire, “I want to know; have you forgiven your mother?’ Outwardly, I field the question with aplomb. Inwardly, my Grinchy heart, two sizes too small, growls “No.”

Unfortunately for both of us, my mother was the unwitting source of most of my life’s traumas. I cannot accurately tell my disfigurement story without saying that my mother accidentally set us both on fire and abandoned me in it to save herself. I cannot accurately tell my resilience story without saying that my mother emotionally neglected my brother and me throughout our childhoods, and that he tragically ended his own life when he was 19. There were many more traumas in the wake of my mother’s carelessness, strewn about like clothing after a shipwreck. She divorced two husbands, set her daughter on fire, and lost her son and step-daughter to suicide. When I went to family therapy with her, even the therapist seemed stunned by my mother’s blithe ability to shrug off any accountability. My mother sailed on, mysteriously oblivious to the damage done.

I once imagined that after my mother died, I would be released from thoughts of her. She hurt me so deeply, albeit unwittingly. I certainly am freer, but for that dangling question, thrown from every audience at me like hooks from fishing poles, waiting to snag me. No matter where I speak, from California to New Zealand, the same question comes, “Have you forgiven your mother?”

I’m not sure what forgiveness even means. I love the news stories of extraordinary grace, when somber people wholeheartedly forgive murderers for killing their relatives. In this light, my struggles with forgiveness seem so petty. Why can’t I be like that? What is the matter with me? The best I have managed is an intellectual understanding of why my mother was who she was, and an acceptance of her limitations. Is that forgiveness? Surely it lacks heart, like the Grinch, his poor heart two sizes too small.

Another question: why does everyone wish to know if I have accomplished forgiveness? Forgiveness is supposed to be good for us, improving our health and well-being; perhaps I am asked this question out of concern. Sometimes though, it feels like a moral test, as if I can only be a person of rectitude if I have forgiven my mother. Sometimes it makes me mad. I have been through so much, and I work so hard to make the best of things. Must I also be a paragon of forgiveness?

Recently the Washington Post ran an article on forgiveness, and mentioned a workbook written by psychologist Dr. Everett Worthington, available for free. I downloaded it, with hope, exhaustion, and doubt. What could a free online workbook provide that a decade of psychotherapy could not?

One of the first questions the workbook posed was how much I wished to forgive my mother, on a scale from 1-10. I pondered for a minute. Most of me did wish to forgive her, whatever the heck that even meant. Part of me felt hotly sure that she did not deserve forgiveness, having never been sorry for all her failures, being so righteously sure of her blamelessness. Back and forth I toggled between wholeheartedness and resentment. I finally settled on “7.”

The workbook had many steps, some of which felt meaningful, and others trivial. One paragraph struck me, a way to gauge an “injustice gap.” Hurts range in impact from minor to profound. Also, people can range from deeply regretful to completely unapologetic. The hardest hurts to forgive are those which caused profound pain by a person who is completely unapologetic, which creates a deep “injustice gap.”

Generally, I am an easily forgiving person. I have (unwisely) forgiven men who repeatedly broke my heart and (more wisely) forgiven my self-involved but loving father. I never even got angry at my beloved brother, my hero, who took my heart with him when he jumped from the tallest building in Cambridge. So, it has always mystified me why I couldn’t feel more forgiving toward my mother. Now I realized, it is because she inflicted deep damage, unapologetically and repeatedly. Perhaps my inner Grinch was particularly challenged by a deep injustice gap.

The workbook continued; just because my hurts were deep and my mother unapologetic, I still had assignments to complete. A new section asked me to write a dialogue between my mother (KSD) and myself, in which I should describe how she hurt me, and how I imagined she would respond. Here was mine:

“Me: I wish you could apologize for all the damage you did to me and Marc (my brother.)

KSD: I don’t think I did so much damage. Things were very hard for me. I’m sorry that you feel I damaged you, although I don’t think I did.

Me: I know that you are incapable of seeing this.

KSD: I don’t see it the way you do.

Me: That is your limitation and I try to understand it. I would like to forgive you but it is very hard because you are not sorry.

KSD: I really don’t know what you are talking about.

Fair enough, I thought, with intellectual detachment. What an interesting exercise.

However, there was more. I now had to set up two chairs facing each other. I was to say “my lines” sitting in one chair, as if I were facing my mother. Then, I needed to sit in the other chair, and say my mother’s lines back to “me.” I was instructed to repeat these lines from start to finish, repeating for ten minutes.

It commenced recognizably enough. Sitting in my black kitchen chair, I talked aloud to my dead mother, saying an exhaustingly familiar, “I wish you could apologize for all the damage you did to me and Marc.” Even though her chair was empty, my stomach tightened, and my breath grew shallow.

I rose from my chair and sat down in hers. I said my mother’s response, “I don’t think I did so much damage. Things were very hard for me. I’m sorry that you feel I damaged you although I don’t think I did.” Sitting in her seat, I imagined myself as my mother. I felt her energy, calm, cool, distant. I expected to feel exasperation with her. Instead, I began to feel what it was like to be her. A new feeling arose, out of the blue: Confusion.

Back and forth I stood and sat, stood and sat, stood and sat. When I sat in my mother’s chair, and recited her lines, something shifted. I was not walking in her shoes, but rather sitting in her seat, and this had an unexpectedly powerful effect. She truly had no idea what I was talking about. Not a glimmer of awareness. Not a touch of insight. She honestly could not comprehend one word I was saying.

Hot resentment released inside me. Something long held within, a red and yellow battle flag I clutched in my sweaty fist, unfurled and became a vibrant banner waving in the breeze. I have known for a long time that my mother didn’t understand the damage she left in her wake. In this moment, I could truly feel her mystification, her anxiety, her emptiness. I could feel what it was like for her to face my taut righteousness, utterly confused.

And you know what, just like the Grinch’s heart instantly grows three sizes, my emotional forgiveness burst from a 7 to a 9. (I wish I could say a 10, but a 9 was big for me).

***

Recently my daughter and I were cleaning up after dinner. She put away the leftovers while I did the dishes, our usual chore division. Anna asked, “Are you more like your father or your mother?”

“I am more like my brother,” I smiled.

“Mom, that’s not what I asked.

I thought, my hands soapy in the kitchen sink. “Well, I am like both of them. My dad was creative and fun, and I can be like that. But I am like my mother in that I am practical, responsible, and steady. I get things done. I work hard. She did too.”

We are all more than the worst things we have ever done. The Grinch stole Christmas that one time. He took all the “Jing tinglers” and “Gar Dinkers,” and all the cans of Who Hash. Towering above him in rage, he beat his tiny dog Max with a whip. In the end, though, the Grinch’s heart burst open with love and he sees the error of his ways. He winds up at the head of the Whoville Christmas table, an honored guest, carving the “roast beast.”

Unlike the Grinch, my mother never saw the error of her ways. That is her tragedy, and mine too. It is good to call to mind that she was also punctual, efficient, and intelligent. It is good to remember that, despite the tragedies, eggregious as they were, she never meant me any harm.

Surely, I am more than the worst things I have ever done. Surely, by stretching my Grinchy heart, I can extend that same ephemeral grace to my mother.

Lise Deguire's multiple award-winning memoir, Flashback Girl: Lessons on Resilience from a Burn Survivor, is available for purchase on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Newtown Book Shop and The Commonplace Reader.