This blog has moved. The new address is: http://tokatieandclaire.wordpress.com/
The reason for the move: Katie is finally back from camp, so I finally had a chance to talk with her and her sister (Claire) about the blog. It was initially anonymous because I wanted to check with them before I used their names non-anonymously. It was initially only addressed to Katie because it was simpler narratively to just write to one girl. Also, "Katie" is much more anonymous than "Katie and Claire".
However, it turns out that both Katie (11) and Claire (9) are excited about having letters to them published. Claire preferred that her name was included as well (which almost made me cry with happiness, as much as when Katie said the first letter about grief had helped her), so the blog obviously needs to change its name. Since I am currently averaging about 10 readers per day, I figured it would be better to change names now rather than wait.
Katie and Claire both said they would read the letters and give me feedback on them, including questions, so if I find myself changing letters because of their questions, I will re-post the new versions along with their commentary on the originals.
Thank you for joining me at the new location!
Aunt Angie
Saturday, July 11, 2009
This Blog Has Moved
Saturday, July 4, 2009
to katie: about looks and attractiveness
Here's the secret about the way you look: no matter what you look like, lots of people will be wildly attracted to you, and lots of people won't be attracted to you at all.
Someone likes everything, someone dislikes everything
Attraction is exactly like food: Tons of people love kimchee and green tea and potato pancakes, but I can't stand any of those things. And as much as I love guacamole and Hawaiian pizza and tiramisu, there are people out there who get ill at the thought of them. There's a big huge world out there full of different people from different backgrounds who think different thoughts and like different things. All of those factors go into what someone finds attractive.
There are places in the world where the standard of a woman's beauty is measured by how long her neck is (longer is better), or how small her feet are (smaller is better), or how crooked her teeth are (the snagglier the better), or how much fat she has (the more the better). And in those places, there are people who are insanely attracted to women with short necks, or large feet, or straight teeth, or low body fat. It just happens that some people go against what is considered normal - just like people who like exotic or super-spicy foods - there are always some people who do not like what everyone else around them likes.
So, in a culture like ours in America, where a "beautiful woman" is typically defined as someone with a big eyes, a small nose, high cheekbones, straight teeth, very little body fat, long legs, and an hourglass figure (large breasts, small waist, wide hips), there are tons of men who are immediately attracted to women who do not fit that description at all.
Most people like lots of things
When your Uncle Kevin and I are eating dinner at a restaurant, sometimes we talk about what we find physically attractive or unattractive in the people around us. I usually find tall men attractive, but not if they look like they spend most of their life being confused or angry - I only like happy, nice galoots. But sometimes I find short men attractive, especially if they have an easy smile, or they are being really adorable with their kids. Uncle Kevin is usually attracted to sturdy-looking women with wide hips and strong muscles - the kinds of women who look like judo would come naturally to them, because they have a low center of gravity and great core strength. But then sometimes, he'll think a tall, thin, pixie-ish woman is adorable because she looks him straight in the eye and laughs at his jokes.
Both your Uncle Kevin and I find lots of different kinds of people attractive. We are not unusual at all. Most people have more than one type of person who they find physically attractive.
Now, here's the weird thing about your Uncle Kevin and I (well, okay, one weird thing... obviously there are lots of others): it does not bother us to talk about other people who we find attractive. For some reason, when men and women are dating or married, they think they need to pretend that the only person in the world they find attractive is their partner. We both think that is silly.
I am a healthy, intelligent woman who appreciates the beauty around me, and if I find another man attractive, it does not threaten my commitment to my husband. And just because he finds another woman attractive does not mean he is planning on leaving me; it means that he is a healthy, intelligent man who appreciates the beauty around him. In fact, we have a game where I spot women I think he would find attractive and point them out to him, and he does the same for me. I think I'm winning.
Our silly game of "who else do you find attractive?" is only fun because both of us are secure in our commitment to each other. I know that Kevin loves me for a thousand reasons, most of which have to do with the great conversations we have, but he also happens to like that I am built strong and sturdy. And Kevin knows that I love him for a thousand reasons, most of which have to do with the great conversations we have, but I also happen to like that he has beautiful eyes and a big wide strong chest at just the right height to snuggle against. Mmmmm Kevin-hugs are the best. Oops, got carried away for a second, sorry.
Middle school and high school are especially tricky for figuring out what you like
In middle school and high school, everyone is trying to figure out what they like. Everyone is making up their mind about their taste in friends, clothes, music, art, cars, hobbies, and the kinds of boys and girls they find attractive.
To figure out what you like, sometimes people do science without knowing they are doing science: trial and error, combined with the process of elimination. You try something, you gather data about that thing, and then you move on to try the next thing to gather data about it. This scientific experimentation is painless when it involves clothes (well, it can be expensive, unless you pick up your mother's skill of fabulous bargain shopping): you try different styles, you gather data about which clothes work for you and which don't, and then you move on to build an overall style that works for you, and you know what does not work for you.
The trial and error process can be much more painful when it involves figuring out who you find attractive. You may start dating someone, thinking that you find that person very attractive at first, but then you find out that you have boring conversations together, or the way they laugh gets on your nerves, or hugging them feels like you're about to break them and it makes you nervous. Or, they may figure out something about you that they no longer like. One of you decides to stop dating and move on to the next experiment, and the other one is probably going to be hurt for a while.
It happens with friends as well. You may start to be friends with someone, and then realize that they always find a reason to be mean to people who are not there, and you suspect that they would do the same to you, so you want to stop being friends. It is a natural process of learning. Hopefully, you learn along the way, so that as you get older, you get better and better at knowing what kind of people you want to have around you, both as friends and as a romantic partner.
Most likely, in middle school and high school, you will be on both sides of this learning process. You will probably choose to walk away from people, and other people will probably choose to walk away from you. That does not mean there is something wrong with either of you, only that you are all figuring out what you like and do not like. Science can be rough.
And sometimes, people will change dramatically, which can change whether or not you like them: a skinny tall shy girl in middle school will turn into a confident captain of the basketball team in high school with great leadership skills. Some sweet, nice, polite guy in middle school will turn into an angry, brooding punk in high school who only hangs out with people who have dyed their hair and pierced their nose. When people change that completely, what they think is attractive will also change just as completely.
So choose what you like
If you like keeping your hair styled and your makeup perfect and your nails painted, go for it. If you like the hippie natural look, go for it. If you like keeping up with the latest fashions, do it. If you like being the cool retro girl who finds quirky vintage clothes, do it. And if you like to mix it all up and choose a different look every day, knock yourself out. Someone will love it.
What I hope for you is that you never get worried about the shape of your body or your face because you're worried "nobody will like me." If you do find yourself thinking that, then you are believing a crazy lie, and figure out how to talk yourself out of it. Many, many people of all shapes and sizes and looks find out at their high school reunion that other people had massive crushes on them, but were too shy to tell them. I never had a boyfriend in middle school, but I found out later that at least four boys had a crush on me. You are attractive, even if nobody is telling you.
As for your body size and shape, I'm sure you will hear a lot about "body image" in the next seven years. Many girls make themselves unhealthy because they are worried about being fat, even when they are perfectly healthy. It's horrible and very sad. What I hope for you is that you keep yourself healthy enough to do any activity you want to do, and don't worry about it beyond that.
What will probably happen is that you will irrationally pick some part of you that you think is ugly, because most women do. For me, it's my knees. I think I have ugly knees. I know, it's crazy. I mean, who has pretty knees? Knees are just kind of ugly on everyone. But I am irrationally convinced I have knees that are uglier than most. However, I know that I am still very attractive to plenty of people, in spite of my ugly knees. Hopefully, if you do pick a body part or two to irrationally dislike, you will learn to live with the fact that you are a little bit cuckoo, but love yourself just the same.
The secret look
So I just spent this whole letter telling you that everybody likes something different, but now I am going to tell you a secret: the one thing that almost everyone is attracted to is happiness.
Almost everybody wants to be with the happy person. Oh, sure, there are some sad people who only want sad friends, and angry people who only want angry friends, but they are the minority. The person who can laugh easily, encourage others, and see the bright side of a tough situation is almost always surrounded by people who want a little more sunshine in their lives.
So the way you can improve your looks to attract the highest number of people (friends, romantic interests, and later, even bosses in interviews) is to practice having a dazzling, easy grin:
Now remember how that feels, and take a good long look at how it looks, when you smile when you are relaxed and happy.
That's the look that always gets attention.
Sunday, June 28, 2009
to katie: you can do anything, not everything
Dear Katie: When you were a toddler, you loved Madeline. You listened to every story read a hundred times, you watched every show, and your third birthday party had a Madeline theme (just for fun, ask your Mom about the cake at that party and see if she punches anything - the frosting was deep deep blue, and there was looooooots of it). It's easy to see why you loved her: your family has a deep personal connection with France, and Madeline rocks.
Also, when you were a toddler, you were good at almost everything you tried to do. You could learn songs quickly, pronounce words pretty well, and identify letters and numbers and shapes very easily. Plus, you loved to do new things, so you asked to do things a lot, which means you got to do a lot of stuff most little kids don't get to do (my favorite being: take your first picture from the top of the Eiffel tower so you would remember where Madeline lived - it wasn't why you went to Paris, but once you were there, it was a cool thing to ask).
Not everything came easily, though. Learning new things often takes practice, and you had very little patience with yourself for anything but perfection. I remember one spectacular meltdown because you couldn't get the sheets on the bed to be perfectly straight by yourself (the secret was for you to get off the bed first, but you clearly thought we were all nuts for suggesting it).
Your mom and dad were starting to worry about you a little bit, because you expected so much of yourself, and you got so unhappy when you couldn't do things by yourself on the first try. Madeline to the rescue! You saw a Madeline video where she said, "You can do anything, but some things take practice."
Finally, someone you trusted had said that you may not be able to do everything perfectly on the first try - because you absolutely trusted Madeline. Way more than your parents, or me, because all of us were clearly nuts a lot (it's a look you still give us from time to time, in fact). So when you didn't remember your dance steps, or how to write your name, or how to color inside the lines, your mom and dad could say, "Remember honey, you can do anything, but some things take practice" and you would calm down and let yourself practice until you got it right.
The saying is just as true now that you're a tween, of course. As it turns out, a lot of things come naturally to you - you are good at physical activities, mental challenges, and the social aspects of life. There are very few things that you could not learn to do very well if you set your mind to it.
So, from one person with a lot of blessings and gifts to another, here's the secret catch: you can do anything very well, but you cannot do everything very well all at the same time.
You can't do everything
Because almost everything takes practice before you're really good, there are not enough hours in the week to become excellent at volleyball and golf and swimming and water skiing and martial arts and classical dance and ballroom dance and hip-hop and piano and singing and math and science and history and writing and painting and sculpture and music and film-making and interior design and waiting tables and astronauting (your first answer to "What do you want to be when you grow up?" was "Well... a waiter... or an astronaut").
You can't do everything very well
Now, sure, there is enough time in a long, full life to try all those things. There is plenty of time to learn something about all of them. But trying them doesn't mean you are going to be great at any of them. Being great at something almost always requires that you spend many many hours dedicating yourself to practicing.
You can't do everything very well all at the same time
Most people have a choice: either you can learn a little bit about a lot of things, or you can learn a ton about one or two things. Like me, for example. Since I graduated from college with a degree in theater and creative writing, I have not kept up with the American theatrical scene. I have not seen most shows that have been on Broadway in the past 20 years. I do not know who the hot American playwrights are these days. I have not even see all the movies nominated for Oscars for Best Movie for the past ten years or so.
But in the time that I have lost touch with the America theater scene, I have learned a ton about Christianity, church-planting theory, analyzing data, building databases, writing requirements for computer software projects, managing projects, managing people who write software and analyze data, giving professional presentations, and the technical challenges facing our legal system.
But I didn't learn all those things all at once. I probably learned how to be good at those things one or two at a time, and each of those things took a couple of years to figure out. Some of them took five or ten years before I finally felt like I really knew what I was doing.
You have to choose what you practice
There are still lots of things that I am not very good at. For example, I am pretty good at managing programmers and data analysts: I can usually get a group of programmers to do a pretty good job and end up pretty happy that they are working for me. It sounds easy, but it is not. Lots of people hate managing programmers. Programmers are famous for having strong opinions and not always being the most polite when they disagree with you (your Uncle Kevin is, of course, an exception to this rule... usually).
But I am just not good at managing non-technical people. I don't know why. A couple of times I have tried, and more than once, people's job performance gets worse, and they are less happy with their job than they were before I was their boss! Ouch! That is not a good combination!
So I have a choice: either I can choose to throw myself into learning how to manage non-technical people, or I can accept that I am not good at it, and try to avoid doing it. And, if I spend a bunch of time learning this new skill, because I am not very good at it to start with, all those hours are time that I am not learning how to do something else.
So practice what you love
Sometimes it's worth it to learn something really really hard, even if you are not very good at it to start. For example, learning to cook well and bake well are extremely hard, but almost everyone can benefit from knowing how to do it. You will almost never be in a situation as an adult where being a very good cook is a bad idea. Being a very good cook makes it easy to throw parties, have guests, and let people know you love them. Cooking is a general skill that is helpful every day for everyone, because people have to eat. And cooking is something you can learn in an hour or two per day over many years - you do not have to drop everything else you are learning just to learn it. So if you are not a good cook to start with, but you want to learn, definitely keep at it - it'll be worth it.
But something that is not as useful every day, like mountain climbing (especially because you live in a very flat part of Texas) may not be a good idea to pursue unless you are willing to give up learning a lot of other things to learn it. It takes a lot to learn, and you would have to stop learning other things in order to be good at it. But if you really really love mountain climbing, and you dream about it all the time, then yeah, go ahead, learn everything you can about it.
Now that you're going into middle school, you are going to have more choices of things to learn: more after-school activities, and your friends will be doing a wider range of things. When you look at all your friends together, sometimes it may feel like they know how to do more things than you do, but if you look at them one by one, each one of them probably knows just about as much as you do. You have ridden horses at camp and studied martial arts and hip-hop, while another friend may have danced in the Nutcracker and be very good at science, and another friend may take excellent pictures and speak Portuguese. But probably nobody your age has done all those things.
The important thing is you keep learning about what you love. If there are things you love learning about, learn more, any way you can. Ask people, read books, take classes - any way you can learn, you do it. Chances are that whatever it is you love, other people love it too, and there is probably a great way to make a living doing that thing. Many people pick one or two things to do very very well, and they spend their lives continuing to work to be the best at it.
But you may find out that you are the kind of person who just loves learning new things more than you love practicing any one thing for many years. Ask your Uncle Kevin - that is how he is. He learns more every week than most people learn in a month. He reads about new things, tries new things, and builds new things as often as he can. His life will always be full of new information and new skills, and it makes him very interesting to talk with because he knows a little something about lots of topics, so no matter what you think of, there is a good chance he knows something about it (and if he doesn't, he'll make up something silly, so it's always fun to ask).
I am also a person who loves new things - I am perfectly happy learning new skills every few years, and I would not want to do the same thing at the same job for ten years in a row. And I am very happy being just an okay water skier, an okay swimmer, and not very good at all at painting or decorating or cooking. I loved learning about all the things I know about, and I am not sad about the other things I have missed.
Well, maybe I'll learn to be a better cook. Some day. But don't hold your breath waiting for it.
Love,
Aunt Angie
Friday, June 26, 2009
to katie: about doing the right thing
I'm a big fan of doing the right thing because it's the right thing to do, not because you are afraid you are going to get caught doing the wrong thing.
Here's my favorite story about doing the right thing. I heard it when I was about your age, and I think about it a lot.
Once upon a time, a company was interviewing people to be their new CEO (Chief Executive Officer, who is everyone's boss - the top dog). The company flew in this guy for an all-day interview because the guy had great experience, great references, and a history of helping companies make a lot of money. Let's call him Bob, the CEO candidate. And let's say that the committee to make the decision was headed up by Ann, who got to show Bob around all day. Bob was their first choice for CEO, and all morning long, he impressed everyone.
Then at lunch, they went to the company's cafeteria, and Ann was behind Bob in line, and she saw him take a butter packet out of the bowl marked "Butter 6 cents" and carefully slip the butter under the lip of his plate, so it would be hard for the cashier to see it, then hold the tray so his hand was covering the place where the butter could be seen. Ann and Bob were talking at the time, so Ann was pretty sure that Bob thought she had not seen it.
Sure enough, when they were checking out, the cashier said out loud everything that she was ringing up, and the butter was not included. Bob did not correct the mistake.
After lunch, Ann told the rest of the committee what she had seen, and they canceled the rest of the interviews and sent Bob home without the job. They all agreed that if Bob could not be trusted with a 6-cent slab of butter, he could not be trusted with their company.
What makes me sad for Bob in this story is not that he got caught (I'm glad he got caught - maybe it will help him think about he's doing from now on), but what makes me sad is that Bob was a "get away with it if you can" kind of a person instead of a "do the right thing" kind of a person.
I don't know if it's a true story or not, but I know that I have worked at many companies where that 6-cent slab of butter would have cost a candidate the job. For sure. Someone who steals something little probably also are willing to steal something big, or to lie about something to make themselves look better.
Some people do the right thing because they are afraid of being caught doing the wrong thing. Maybe they are afraid of their boss, or their roommate, or their girlfriend, or Santa Claus, or maybe they are even afraid of God watching them. I think that is sad, someone making decisions their whole life because of fear.
I prefer to do the right thing because I try to ask myself, "Who do I want to be? What kind of person do I want to be?" Of course, it would be lovely if people notice and tell me I'm great. But mostly, what is important to me is to know that I have been the kind of person I want to be. And I want to be a person who does the right thing even when nobody is looking.
For one thing, practicing doing the right thing makes it easier to do the right thing when people are looking. By then, it's habit.
Also, if you do the right thing regularly, then stuff won't pile up for your future self to do. For example, the other day was trash day, and while we were getting in the car, I remembered that we had some cans in the back of the car to recycle. I could have chosen to ignore it and leave the cans for another day, but instead I stopped and emptied the cans out right then. Because (a) it was the right thing to do (b) it made that rattling sound stop while we drove, which was nice and (c) eventually either your Uncle Kevin or I would need to get those cans out of the car - some day - so either Today Me or Future Me was going to have to do it. And I love Future Me - she deserves good things. She does not deserve to have to pick up after Today Me.
In fact, kindness towards Future Me is a big motivator for doing the right thing. Keeping dishes from piling up, doing laundry... well, really, chores of any kind. Usually if you wait, it just means that much more work for Future Me. Some day you will have to do it. And Today Me is just as capable of getting it done as Future Me will be, so I might as well do it today, so that Future Me can relax and enjoy her day without as many chores piling up.
Future Me deserves to be well-rested. Future Me deserves to wake up to a clean kitchen. Future Me deserves to have clean clothes to wear. Future Me deserves to breathe cleaner air, so Today Me should change the air filters (confession: Uncle Kevin actually does that, but you get the idea). Future Me deserves to live without fear or guilt of being caught having done the wrong thing, so Today Me should just do the right thing.
Yes, Kevin and I really talk about Today Me and Future Me. I understand that makes us dorks, but hey, it works for us.
Tons of love,
Aunt Angie
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
to katie: about wisdom
I have been asked a lot of times, "How did you get so wise?" I really don't know why I've been asked that. I don't think I am particularly wise (I think I am opinionated, and pretty good at explaining my opinions, more than I think I am wise). But there are a things I do that might make me seem wise, so I figured I would share them with you.
After a few people asked me how I got wise, I thought about it, and figured out my answer:
When I was in junior high, one of my Sunday school teachers was talking about James 1:5 - "If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, ... and it will be given to him." My Sunday school teacher said that wisdom is the only thing the Bible guarantees that God will say "yes" when we ask. So every day for 3 years, I asked God for wisdom. If I have any, that's probably why.
That's a true story. I don't know if wisdom really is the only thing that the Bible guarantees that God will give you, but I know at least that it is one thing. Plus there is the story of Solomon in the Bible, too - when God told Solomon that anything he asked for, God would give him, Solomon chose to ask for wisdom, and God was happy with that request. After all, you may lose riches, beauty may fade, and if you have power, someone else may overthrow you. But nobody can take away your wisdom. I figured if God was that happy about wisdom, I should ask for it.
I started a prayer list in middle school. Pretty soon, it got so big that I divided it up by day, so I had something different to pray for every day of the week. But at the top of my prayer list, I had things I prayed for every day, and wisdom was one of those things. I figured why not? It couldn't hurt, and it didn't take long. "God, please give me wisdom" - that's it.
And here is what I think happened: if you believe in God, then you believe that God granted me some wisdom because I asked for it. However, if you do not believe in God, you might still believe that because focused so much on wisdom, that is what I picked up. It's called "The Law of Attraction," and the concept is that you attract the things you think about. After I started praying for wisdom, I started really enjoying reading wisdom and advice that other people gave. Just the other day, I watched a TV show where people who are at least 100 years old were answering the question, "What advice would you give to young people today?"
Well, either way, whether God gave me wisdom, or I attracted it because I thought about it a lot, I wanted wisdom, I asked for wisdom, and here is what I have figured out so far about wisdom.
Wisdom is Subjective
We're going to take a detour here and talk about the words subjective and objective for a moment, because it's important for the rest of this letter.
Subjective means that each person gets to decide whether or not something is true for themselves - it is an opinion. For example, beauty is subjective, so you may think something is beautiful but I do not think it is beautiful, and the truth is that it is beautiful to you but not to me. We each get to decide because it is subjective.
Objective is the opposite of subjective. Objective is when a thing is absolutely true regardless of your opinion about it. For example, the oak tree in my front yard needs water to grow. It just does. It's not my opinion, it's just the truth. If the tree never gets water, it will stop growing and eventually die. If someone says, "that oak tree doesn't need water to grow," that person would just be wrong, and there is plenty of science to explain why.
I think wisdom is subjective, not objective. There is no worldwide, agreed-upon, absolutely true standard for whether or not a person is wise. And for every piece of advice that a million people think is great advice, a million other people think it's baloney. Your mother may think I am wise, but your sister may not, and they would both be right: I would be wise to your mom but not to your sister.
So what I'm telling you is what I consider wise, not what everyone considers wise, because there is nothing that everyone considers wise. Someone, somewhere will disagree with any piece of wisdom you treasure. That just happens with subjective things.
Wisdom is Being a Good Listener with an Open Mind
People can only tell parts of a story at one time, so usually, you have only heard part of someone else's story. You may tell someone what you think, but you have to be ready to listen again in case there is more to the story.
For example, here's a situation I made up where Mary is upset with her boyfriend, and is telling Patty. Patty is trying to offer advice, but as Mary explains more of the story, Patty's advice changes.
Mary: My boyfriend is being so selfish - I asked him to come over and study with me for the math test tomorrow, because I didn't do very well on last week's test, and he's really smart at math, and he said he would not help me tonight!
Patty: Wow. You should ask him why he can't come over.
Mary: Oh, I did ask him. He said he can't help because he's hanging out with his brother instead. Like his brother is more important than I am or something.
Patty: Wow. You should tell him that it's really important to you to do well on the test.
Mary: Oh, he knows that. That's why he helped me study last night. I just want him to help me tonight too.
Patty: Oh, well, it was nice of him to help you last night. Did you go over everything on the test?
Mary: Yeah. But I should be more important to him than his brother, even if his brother does have tickets to the Blue Man Group show tonight.
Patty: Wait, he's going to the Blue Man Group show? The one that may never come through town again? Mary, your boyfriend isn't being selfish - he helped you with your homework last night, which was really nice, so that tonight he can go build a great memory with his brother. It's a good thing that he likes to spend time with his family, and it doesn't mean that he loves them more than he loves you. He chose you last night, and chose them tonight. It's even. Honestly, it sounds to me like he made the right choice.
See how the story can change when you know more information?
Patty's advice from the beginning turned out not to be the best advice once she knew the whole story. What Patty could have done to have better was to ask more questions instead of offering advice. For example, she could have asked at first, "Do you know why he can't come over?" instead of saying "You should ask him why he can't come over."
It is wise to ask questions if you do not know the whole story, before offering opinions.
Wisdom is Understanding that Opinions Come from Values
In almost every situation, there are many possible choices that a person can make. In the example above, Mary could choose to tell her boyfriend that she thinks he's selfish, or she could choose to try to get tickets to the show to surprise him, or she could choose to ask someone else for help with math, or she could choose to spend her evening eating popcorn and watching TV and blame it on being so mad at him.
For every choice everyone makes, someone can explain why that was a great choice, and someone else can explain why it was a horrible choice. The truth is that it depends on what is most important to you, also called your values.
Let's say Mary gets tickets and goes to the show to surprise her boyfriend. Her friend Sally says that was a great choice because it was sweet and romantic surprise, it showed that she's not mad at him, and it was a way for them to experience something fun together. Sally values romance and fun. Her friend Kim says it was a horrible choice because Mary needs to study for her test, and because Mary is being kind of creepy by not letting her boyfriend out of her sight for one night, and she should learn to trust her boyfriend more. Kim values good grades and independence.
Both Sally and Kim have perfectly fine opinions. Their opinions are different, and so their advice is different, because their values are different. Neither one is better than the other, they are both valid opinions, and valid values.
Everyone has to choose what you value most in life. It may be family. It may be God. It may be money, fame, beauty, health, nature, learning... but usually it is a combination of many things, with some things valued more than other things.
A wise person understands the values of the person giving them advice, so they can decide whether the advice is right for them or not. If Mary is wise, she will decide whether she values romance and fun more than good grades and independence. What kind of person does she most want to be? What is most important to her? And that will help her decide whose advice to take.
If someone is giving you advice that just does not seem right, that person probably has very different values than you do. For example, if someone tells me to cover up a mistake by lying, it is very unlikely that I will take that advice, because I value honesty a lot more than I mind being embarrassed by being caught making a mistake. You can ask my coworkers - I think everyone I have ever worked with knows of at least five big mistakes I have made, which is a little embarrassing, but they would all trust me to tell the truth if I have done something wrong.
Wisdom is Supporting Others, Even When They Are Different
What would be best for you would not always be best for everyone. Trying out for the advanced choir is a great idea for someone with a good singing voice who likes to be in front of people, but it is a bad idea for someone who cannot stay on pitch and does not like to perform.
Very often, we give advice to other people based on what would be good for ourselves. This is perfectly natural, but it means that sometimes advice does not fit.
If you think that a friend of yours should make a certain decision, instead of saying, "You should do this," it is more wise to say, "If it were me, I would choose this, because..." The reason that is more wise is because you are admitting that you may be different than the other person. And you are letting them choose for themselves instead of telling them what to do, which is great.
And someday, a friend of yours will make a choice that you disagree with. You will have told your friend to do something totally different than what they did. In the Mary/Sally/Kim example, Mary is either going to follow Sally's advice, or Kim's. The wise friend will be the one who will still support Mary even if she chooses the other advice.
Let's say that Mary goes to the concert, has a great time, and her boyfriend was happy to see her. Then Kim, if she is wise, would say, "Mary, I'm glad you had so much fun!" And if Mary ends up not doing very well on her math test, Kim should not say "I told you so," but instead should ask if there is anything she can do to help Mary study for the next test.
Wisdom is Sharing Your Opinions, Not Making Choices for Others
Everyone chooses their own life. And you may see every choice someone makes as right or wrong, depending on your values. So it is wise to offer your opinions to people as your opinions, not as if they were facts.
It is helpful and wise to say, "I think this is good, and this is what I think you should do." But it is kind of pushy to say, "This is good, and this is what you should do." Can you see the difference? The first one is friendly advice, and sounds like you would be open to hearing someone else's opinion that is different than yours. The second is a command, and it sounds like you think you know everything in the world and that you think you're always right. Who would you consider wiser?
Those two little words, "I think" can make all the difference in helping you to sound wise.
Wisdom is Having Reasons for Your Opinions
After you say, "I think this is good," it is helpful to say why. "I think this is good because I think it will help your relationship with your cousin" is more helpful than just "I think this is good." Explaining why you think what you think, in a brief way, helps people understand your values, and helps them decide if your advice fits them or not.
Wisdom is Making Up Your Own Mind
You have to decide what is right for you. You have to decide what you think is wise and good and right and true. People who follow every piece of advice that is given to them, without taking time to decide if it's right for them, those people end up very confused and unable to decide by themselves. That is not wise. Being wise means that you know what you value, and you know why you have chosen what you have chosen.
It's up to you to decide whether or not things seem wise to you. Except, of course, this letter, which clearly is the wisest thing anyone has every written. Hehehe.
Love,
Aunt Angie
Saturday, June 20, 2009
to katie: about faith: believing, thinking, feeling, and choosing
Faith is a huge topic. Many people spend their entire lives studying their faith, usually it is their religious beliefs, but often it is faith in other things that are not religious. Most people do not dedicate their entire lives to their faith, but the dedicate part of every single week to their faith by going to their place of worship (like churches or temples or mosques). One letter from me will not clear up all the questions that you will ever have about faith, but what I hope is that this letter will help you understand that faith is made up of four parts: believing, thinking, feeling, and choosing. All four of those things go into faith.
What is faith? My favorite dictionary definition is "confidence or trust in a person or thing." You have faith in someone when you believe that they are good for you. And you faith in an idea or a thing when you believe that idea or thing is good for you. If you believe that something exists but it is harmful, then you may believe in it, but you do not have faith in it.
My favorite non-dictionary explanation of faith comes from the Bible. Hebrews 11 says a lot of things about faith, but verse 6 is my favorite part: it says that having faith in God means that you believe that God is, and that seeking God will be rewarded by God. I think that is a a great definition of faith in God, of course, but I think it applies to faith in other things as well.
Believing:
The first part of the Hebrews explanation of faith talks about believing: you believe that the thing is. That it exists. This is believing. You believe that it is not something you made up out of your imagination, but that it has reality outside your imagination too. You cannot say, "I have faith in this thing" if you do not believe that it exists. Saying, "I believe in fairies" does not explain whether you believe that fairies are good or bad, right or wrong, fun or scary, but it does say that in the part of you that believes, you know that fairies are real. Saying, "I have faith in fairies" means that you believe they exist, and that you believe they are good for you.
I call that part of me that believes my "believer", or my "heart of hearts". What you believe does not live in a physical part of your body, but it is a big part of who you are. What you truly believe may be because of what you have thought, or because of what you have felt, or because of what you have experienced from choosing, but you know deep down inside yourself what you believe is true and what you do not believe is true.
Some people say that you can choose what you believe. I do not agree. I know I can choose what I think, and I know sometimes I can choose how I feel, and I know I can always choose what I do. But when I look at what I believe, I don't think I chose those things. I think they just are. They're just part of who I am.
I believe that God exists. I believe that your Gramma, and your Mom, and your Uncle Kevin all love me a lot. I believe that dancing is a wonderful way to express emotions. I believe that spending time looking at something beautiful, like a sunset, is good for you. Why do I believe those things? Maybe I have logical reasons, but when it comes down to it: I just believe them. Whatever it is in me that believes, it's convinced. No matter how much you would try to convince me, it would not matter, because those are a few things that I just believe.
Thinking:
Your brain, or as I like to call it, your "thinker," is a necessary part of faith, too. What you think is based on what you have seen, what you have experienced, and what you have learned.
You can control your thinker, which makes it different from your believer. If someone tells you a scary story and you get a picture in your head that you don't like, you can start thinking of the names of all 50 states, or the names of all the colors in the Crayola box, or singing a happy song. You can almost always change what you think about, which means you can choose how to think about something.
Some people think that if you have faith in something, you only think about things that help your faith, and you never think about things that may cause you to doubt. I could not disagree more. I think that true faith is not afraid to be challenged. I think that a strong faith is one that understands what other people think, too, and yet still has faith.
A good scientist will examine all the possibilities, test all the theories, before coming to a conclusion. I think that having a strong thinker-faith is like being a good scientist: you examine other possibilities, too. After all, there are very smart people who believe completely different things. So you may be able to learn something really helpful from someone who has different faith than you.
Let's go back to the fairy example. Let's say that you start to believe in fairies, so then you start reading about fairies. You ask people you know what they think about fairies. You watching movies about fairies. I think it is important to understand why other people do not believe in fairies as much as it important to understand why people believe what you believe.
Here is what I would not want for you: I would not want you to spend your life avoiding anti-fairy people out of fear. In fact, I would not want you to spend your life doing anything just because of fear. Fear is not the best reason to choose how to live your life. If you keep choosing because you are afraid, you tend to just get more afraid, and then you end up with more and more things that you have to avoid.
Instead, I would want you to live a life of confidence, full of strong faith, where you can say, "I understand why some people do not believe in fairies, but I still do." For me, I love to talk with people who do not believe that God exists about why they believe what they believe. Almost everyone has really interesting reasons for what they think and believe about God. I am not afraid or threatened by what other people believe or do not believe. In fact, very often, I learn interesting things by talking with them.
You can believe something with your believer, and have many thoughts about it in your thinker. For example, you can believe that fairies exist, but understand that most people have never seen a fairy, and that you will probably never see a fairy. You can understand all the reasons why other people do not believe in fairies. What can think all that, and still it may not change what you believe.
Those are the reasons why it is important to think about things that challenge your faith, but there are also great reasons to think about things that strengthen your faith. If you want to build your faith in something, it is important to feed your thinker. Learn everything you can. Read, ask questions, see movies, sing songs, memorize stuff. Fill your mind with thoughts of the thing you have faith in, and your faith will grow. It's neat, actually, when you learn something and you realize that it made your faith stronger. It makes your thinker and your believer feel good.
Feeling:
There was a popular book in the 70's called Faith is Not a Feeling. It was about having faith in God, and the book explained how important it is to act on your faith instead of just feeling good about it. I agree and disagree with that. I agree that actions are an important part of faith - absolutely. But I disagree, too, because I think that what you feel can inform your faith, and strengthen it or weaken it. So I guess my book about faith would be titled Faith is Not Just a Feeling.
Some people think that you can control your feelings completely. I disagree. I think you can control some of your feelings some of the time, but many feelings come and go whether you want them there or not. But all your feelings, whether you chose them or whether they came in on their own, give you information.
For example, if your sister suddenly walked up to you and punched you in the face with no warning, you would have feelings about it. Not only would you feel in your body (pain), but you would also feel emotions (probably angry, hurt, and confused all at the same time). That rush of feelings would come to you without you choosing them - you would just feel all those things right away. Now, you can help your feelings, certainly. For example, watching your favorite movie or reading your favorite book or listening to your favorite song can certainly help put you in a better mood.
You could control your reaction to getting punched in the face by practicing getting punched in the face. Some people do. The idea is that the more times you've done something, the better you are able to control your emotions. But most of us do not practice getting punched in the face, so if someone punched us in the face, we would just have big feelings that we did not choose to have.
So what is the relationship between your faith and your feelings? Can your feelings help your faith get stronger, or make it weaker? Sure. It happens in the same way that your feelings help you know what you like. You know you like certain music if you feel happy or full of love when you hear it, and you know you don't like it if makes you feel bored or angry.
Going back to the fairy faith example, if learning about fairies usually makes you feel happy and confident, then it will cause your faith in fairies to grow. And if you feel afraid and confused whenever you think about fairies, you will probably end up having less faith.
Feelings alone are not a good reason to have faith in something, because your feelings can change from day to day, and because you cannot always control what you feel. Fear is an especially dangerous feeling to trust, because people who always do what their fear tells them to do miss out on a lot of fun adventures. Fear is good to help you be cautious and be safe, but it can get overly strong and keep us from doing fun things if we let it.
But feelings are good information when combined with thoughts and beliefs. If you believe fairies exist, and you learn about fairies, and you usually feel good when you think about fairies, together, those make up very good reasons to have faith in fairies.
Choosing:
You can believe that something that exists and it is good for you, think about it a lot, and feel happy about it, and yet not put your faith in it. Putting your faith in something means that you choose to behave differently because of your faith. Some people call this, "walking the walk, not just talking the talk."
The second part of the Hebrews 11:6 explanation puts this well: believe that seeking God will be rewarded by God. For me, I have faith that God rewards seekers, so I have done a lot of things in my life to seek God. I have read about God, I have gone to camps and retreats to learn more about God, and I even went on a trip halfway around the world to help people because I believed that it would teach me more about God. That's what seeking means: look for it as hard as you can.
Think about if your sister lost her favorite stuffed animal, Lammie. She would not just look for Lammie for a few minutes and then give up. She would seek for Lammie by looking everywhere she could think of. She would ask everyone else to help her look. She would talk about finding Lammie, and think about finding Lammie, until she found Lammie. That is what it means to seek.
If you have faith in fairies, you will choose to ask fairies to help you. You will choose to celebrate fairies, maybe by decorating your room with fairies. You will choose to spend your time doing things that help you understand fairies and be closer to them.
The choices you make to live by what you have faith in, these are the choices that make you what you are. One of my mottos again: Who you are is what you choose. You can say all day that you believe roller coasters are fun, that you think roller coasters are safe, and that you feel like roller coasters are fun, but until you choose to get on a roller coaster, you can't call yourself a roller coaster rider.
So whether you have faith in God to strengthen your soul, or faith in organic foods and natural remedies to strengthen your body, or faith in the power of recycling to strengthen the earth, it is important to make choices according to your faith. Choose to ask God to comfort you when you feel down, choose to eat healthy natural foods, choose to put your cans in the recycling bin instead of just throwing them away. These choices make you a person of strong faith.
Faith Gives Rewards:
So you believe that something exists, you think good thoughts about it, you feel good feelings about it, and you choose to seek it. The reason you do all that is because you believe that faith gives rewards, just like Hebrews 11:6 says. People of strong faith experience benefits, or else they wouldn't keep having faith.
The benefits are usually not things you can pick up and carry with you, or things you could sell for money. The are usually things like less loneliness, less fear, more confidence, more peace, and more joy. Faith will not take away all your unpleasant emotions, of course, but faith can fill the overall journey of your life with a little more hope and a little more wonder. And, I think, a little more gratitude, because if you are expecting rewards from your faith, then when good things happen, you know who to thank.
Thursday, June 18, 2009
to katie: about texting
Hey Katie - now that you have a phone (congrats again!), here are some things about texting that might be handy to know.
People tend to use different forms of communication for different purposes, and every form of communication ends up being a little bit different.
Texting tends to be a form of communication that people use to tell each other short bursts of information, but it's not necessarily urgent that you get a response right away.
WHY DON'T PEOPLE USE TEXT FOR URGENT MESSAGES? (important to get a response immediately):
There are a few reasons why people don't use text for messages that are really important to get a response instantly:
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
to katie: about forgiveness
Forgiveness is a big, complicated topic. There are many books, sermons, articles, lectures, and stories about forgiveness. I cannot possibly write one little letter about every way that people think about forgiveness, but I can let you know how I think of it.
Forgiveness is what we're supposed to give when people hurt us. It's also what Christians believe that God gives us when we do things that aren't right.
So, what do you do exactly when you forgive someone?
I think that forgiving someone is (1) choosing not to take revenge, and (2) wanting the best for them, while (3) taking away their ability to hurt you again in the future if possible.
It's more complicated than it sounds.
Choosing Not To Take Revenge
Let's say that someone hurts you by telling an embarrassing lie about you. Let's say that a boy in your class, named Mortimer, has started telling people that you punch your sister in the face every morning before school. I know, it's a ridiculous and crazy example, but I was trying to think of something that you would just never do, so go along with me on this one.
How should you respond?
Your first thought might be to tell an equally crazy lie about him. You may think, "well, fine, then, I'm going to tell people that he drinks from the potty like a dog," even though you have no reason to think that he does that. But if you did tell people that goofy lie, you would be doing it with the goal of hurting someone else. That would not be accidentally hurting someone - that would be hurting someone on purpose because he hurt you, which is called "taking revenge."
For Christians and Jews, taking revenge is a big no-no - in Deuteronomy 32:35, God says, "Revenge is mine; I will repay." That means that, as a matter of faith, you have to trust that God will do any punishing that is needed, and that God does not need your help to punish someone who hurt you. Personally, I am very comfortable letting God decide how much punishment is fair, because I believe that God knows the whole story, and I almost never do.
But even for people who are not Christian or Jewish, taking revenge is a dangerous thing to do. The moment you choose to take revenge, the person who hurt you will probably come back again with something else to hurt you again. Because now, in their mind, you deserve it because you hurt them! So when they strike back with their second hurt, it can easily start nasty, nasty pattern of you-hurt-me-so-I'll-hurt-you-so-you-hurt-me-so-I'll-hurt-you... and so on and so on. And after a few back and forths like that, it does not matter anymore who started it; at that point, you have both hurt each other on purpose, and everybody has a right to be mad.
Not only is it a bad idea to take revenge because it could easily start a never-ending-hurt-each-other-loop, but also it is a bad idea because people will see you being hurtful and mean on purpose, and there is a good chance they will ask themselves whether or not it is a good idea to be your friend. After all, if I see Betty willing to hurt Bobby over and over, what will happen if Betty gets mad at me? Probably she will try to hurt me. That makes me trust Betty a lot less. And, frankly, it makes me not want to be Betty's friend. The world is full of people who do not enjoy hurting each other, and I can be friends with them instead of Betty.
Wanting the Best for Someone Who Has Hurt You
Everyone wants the best for people they love, people they are not angry with. If you find out that a friend of yours did really well on a test she studied hard for, you would be happy for her and celebrate with her. Wanting the best for someone is to want them to be happy, and to want them to have the richest, fullest life they can have.
For people where prayer is an important part of their religion (most religions have prayer), a great thing to do to show that you want the best for someone is to pray for them. Pray that God will give them good things. Pray that God will give them things that will help them be better people, and will help them live the life that God wants them to live.
It's tempting to pray like this, "God, please show Mortimer that he was wrong to lie about me, and make him feel really bad about lying about me, because then he will be a better person." In a way, that's an okay starting place, because yes, if he stopped lying, he would be a better person. But it would be even better to pray something like this, "God, please give Mortimer everything good to help him have the very best life that you have in mind for him." That is leaving it up to God to determine what "the best" is.
The hard part, of course, of praying for people who have hurt you, is that it's hard to mean it. It's hard to want the best, to pray that way, and to mean it in your heart. Usually, when you're mad at someone, you want bad things to happen to them, not good things. So if you can't pray for the best for them and mean it, then you can at least pray this, "God, please help me to want the best for him, even though he hurt me."
For people who do not believe in prayer, affirmations can work the same way. "I want Mortimer to have a great life. I want Mortimer to be a good person. I want Mortimer to have good friends." Those kinds of affirmations can be a way to change your mind from being hurt to being generous and kind.
Regardless of how you get there, there is a huge benefit to wanting the best for someone after they have hurt you: if you spend time thinking about all the bad things you hope happen to someone, then you have just spent a lot of time thinking about bad things, and it makes it harder to enjoy the good things that you have. But if you spend time thinking about the good things you want for someone else, it is much easier to be grateful for the good things you have.
Our brains are funny - they tend to get stuck in patterns. So if you spend your time thinking about good things, you're more likely to find good things to think about. But if you spend your time wishing bad things on people, then you're more likely to see bad things all around you, and find more bad things to think about. You cannot always control what you think, but when you can, try to think of the good things you want for yourself, for those you love, and for those who have hurt you.
Also, the more we think about our anger and hurt, the more angry and hurt we can get. Very often, the best way to recover from anger and hurt is to think of good things. Make a list of things we are thankful for. Read a favorite book. Listen to a favorite song. As quickly as you can, take back control of your thoughts and turn them to things you love. After all, the person already hurt you, why let them take away all your good thoughts too?
I'm not saying to pretend that you're not hurt. You may need to cry, or yell into a pillow, or be sad for a while. Of course. And the bigger the hurt, the longer it will take to recover from. But as quickly as you can, bring back your good thoughts. Don't let that other person completely ruin your good day, or your good week. You go have a good time anyway, despite their best efforts to ruin it.
Sometimes, it can be hard to want good things to happen to hurtful people because sometimes we think, "If he gets good things, then there will be fewer good things left for me," but that is not true. Goodness is not like a pie. When someone gets a slice of goodness, there is not less goodness left over for everyone else. Nobody gets left out without their slice of goodness because other people took too much good.
Instead, goodness is like laughter - it can spread quickly from one person to another, so that one little giggle can spread and multiple, and create a whole room full of laughing people. That's how goodness is - contagious and quick to multiply. So don't worry about someone else getting all your good things when you want good things for other people.
Taking Away Their Ability to Hurt You Again (If Possible).
This is the hardest part to understand about forgiveness. Forgiveness is not the same as forgetting.
Let's say for example that a girl named Elizabeth trips you on purpose as you walk by her in the lunch room and then laughs at you because you spilled your food. You can forgive her, but choose not to walk by her in the lunch room again. Forgiveness does not mean that you have to put yourself in harm's way once you know that someone can be harmful.
I have several grown-up friends whose parents were not good parents to them when they were kids. Some parents hit their kids instead of explaining things to them. For those friends, they have to choose: if my parents may hit me at any moment, is it worth it for me to see them, or should I just stay away to protect myself? The important thing to remember is that you can forgive someone, but if they have hurt you very badly, you can still choose not to be around them anymore because you believe they will hurt you again.
Let's say that I have a friend Isabella whose parents hit her a lot when she was growing up, and they still believe that hitting kids is the best way to discipline them. And now Isabella has a daughter Liza, so Isabella's parents are Liza's grandparents. It is not "forgiveness" to let the grandparents take care of Liza and let them hit her - that is just endangering a child by pretending that her grandparents are magically going to change, and that is not okay. It might be ok to be around them, but if it were me, I would say, "If you ever hit Liza, you never get to see her again. It's up to you."
That is not taking revenge - that is protecting yourself, and protecting your children. They are very very different. Taking revenge is not okay because revenge is hurting someone just to hurt them. Protecting yourself, even if it hurts someone else's feelings, is perfectly okay - you have the responsibility to protect yourself first.
It is not only the right thing to do to want the best for someone else: it is also the right thing to do to want the best for yourself. Letting someone hurt you over and over is not what is best for you. Period.
A lot of people get this wrong about forgiveness. They think that once you forgive someone, you have to pretend like they never hurt you, or pretend to forget. It is just not true. You do not have to forget. You do not have to allow someone to keep hurting you. You do have to avoid taking revenge, and you do have to keep trying to replace your hurt and anger with wanting the best for that person.
Practicing Forgiveness
Most of the time, when people hurt us, it is accidental, and it is little. Someone interrupts us while we're telling a story. Someone knocks into us at the grocery store. Someone accidentally embarrasses us. These are things we can recover from in moments.
When these little things happen, we can practice forgiveness. We'll need the practice, because some day, someone will do something bigger to hurt us. It just happens. And if we've practiced forgiving on the little things, then we are better and forgiving when the big things happen.
And the better you are at forgiving, the faster you can get back to living the life you enjoy, no matter someone else does to you.
Love,
Aunt Angie
Sunday, June 14, 2009
to katie: about santa and fiction and reality
I love stories. I was raised by two of the greatest storytellers the world has ever known. My Mom, your Gramma, almost always has the perfect story, in any situation, and her stories always help me understand things a little better than I did before. My Dad, who you never got to meet, would not always tell helpful stories like Gramma, but his stories were always told with so much energy and humor that everyone in the room would gather around to listen.
Usually their stories were based on things that actually happened, real events. For example, one of Gramma's favorite stories is about being at a party for a couple's 50th wedding anniversary. Someone asked the couple, "Didn't you ever want to leave each other in 50 years?" and the husband answered, "Well, sure we did. But thank the Lord, never on the same day." That was a real couple, and a real party, and they really said those things (or something very close to that - a storyteller always has the right to put in an extra word or two to help make the story a little better). So that story is called "reality-based" because it is based on real stuff that nobody made up.
But sometimes stories are about people, places, things, or activities that are made up, pretend. For example, do you remember when Kevin and I told you and your sister the story of Star Wars? And every time we said "Darth Vader" you guys said "Dun Dun DUHHHHH!" (That still makes both of us laugh when we think about that). Well, Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia and Han Solo and everything in Star Wars is not based on real events - someone made up those characters and those stories. That makes them fiction, not reality-based.
Now here's the part that gets a little confusing: I think that fictional characters are a little bit real, in their own special way.
Do you remember the story The Velveteen Rabbit? A child had a stuffed bunny rabbit, and the child loved the rabbit so much that the rabbit became real. I loved that story, and I always knew that my very own P.S. Bunny and Papa Bear were real, in their own way. And I had an imaginary friend, Casper the Friendly Ghost, who was very wise, and always cheered me up when I was sad. I knew what P.S. and Papa and Casper would say if they could talk to me for real, and I knew that they all loved me, even though I knew that I was just pretending all of the conversations.
For example, Santa Claus. Yes, someone made up Santa Claus. No, a guy in a red suit does not actually come down chimneys at Christmas time and leave presents. Yes, your parents and your Aunt Angie and Uncle Kevin and Gramma are actually the ones who stuff stockings and arrange presents under the tree (which you already know because last year you stayed up to help us).
I found that "Santa isn't real" because another kid got mad at me, and she knew I still believed in Santa Claus, so she yelled, "Oh yeah? Well, Santa isn't real!" At that point, I started crying and went to my room and picked up a picture of me with Santa and asked her, "Well, then, who is this?" My Mom had a long talk with me about it, and I remember sitting on the couch with my Grandmommy Jane reading an article in the paper where famous people talked about how they found out Santa wasn't real. All day, everyone tried to make me feel better and explain it all. And when I went to bed that night, before I drifted off to sleep, I remember thinking, "They're all wrong."
And here's why I still they were all wrong: I think Santa Claus has some reality to him, too. It's not the same kind of reality that you have - you are not fiction, you are all real. But I think Santa is mostly fiction, and a little bit real. After all, real people dress up as Santa Claus. Real people go get their pictures taken with people dressed up as Santa Claus. Real people, lots of them, all have the same idea about what Santa does and does not do. If someone said to you, "Santa kicked my dog on the way out of our house" you would respond, "No, Santa would never do that" just as if he were a real person. Real people write stories and sing songs and film movies about Santa. So there is something about Santa which exists inside of real people, and that is the part of Santa which I think is real.
It's the same part of the Velveteen Rabbit or Snoopy or Hannah Montana that is real: the part that is real to me, or real to you, or real to all the millions of kids who know about them. The part that's real is the part where you learn real things from the stories about their lives, or take real comfort by pretending to be with them, or have real happiness when you think about them. Or, best of all, when you really make better decisions about your own real life because of what they taught you.
So when people tell me that Santa Claus isn't real, or the Easter Bunny, or the Tooth Fairy, or Snoopy, or Lilly and her purple plastic purse, or Harry Potter and Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley, or Buffy, or Princess Leia, or any of the other fictional characters I love with all my heart, you know what I say? I say, "I'm sorry, but you're all wrong. They're a little bit real in me."
Love,
Aunt Angie
Saturday, June 13, 2009
to katie: about teasing
At some point, most kids get teased about one thing or another. It seems like almost everyone gets teased in middle school eventually. Here is my idea about why that is: middle school is a good time to figure out what you like and don't like about friends, clothes, music, all kinds of stuff. And sometimes, if you don't know what you like and don't like, one fast way to tell is to make fun of something and see if other people join in making fun of it, or if they say "Hey, I like that, don't make fun of it."
The problem is, everyone in middle school is figuring out what they like and don't like, and sometimes people join in teasing because it's easier than standing up to your friends, so kids sometimes end up making fun of things that they actually like later when they stop to think about it. It can certainly be confusing and upsetting.
I know, because there were two groups of kids who made fun of me in middle school. But the good news is that I made some great friends, people who are still my friends today, more than 20 years later. And I have some wonderful memories of my middle school years. But those stories are for another letter.
This letter is about my stories of getting teased in middle school. Names have been changed so I won't accidentally embarrass their kids if they happen to read this someday.
Alex and the Grab
Alex was a kid who grew up to be a talented musician. When we were in high school, we were friends and went to parties together. But when we were in sixth grade together, he teased me and embarrassed me. This is the story of Alex and the Grab.
Alex was a kid that some other kids picked on, because he was a little different. His family was very artistic, and they let him dress however he wanted. In his case, that meant that he wore clothes that were a little bit more colorful than what the rest of us wore, and he painted his fingernails black sometimes. And he was very very good in music and art classes.
From my perspective, here's what happened: Alex came up out of nowhere and grabbed my rear end. I got very upset. A teacher asked me why I was upset. I told the teacher that Alex had grabbed my rear end. Alex got in trouble. End of story.
About five years later, when we were in high school, Alex told me his side of the story.
Back when I went to middle school, kids would make fun of you if you were a boy who liked boys or a girl who liked girls. I don't know if kids still make fun of other kids for that reason - I certainly hope not, but they probably still do.
Anyway, Alex was a boy who liked girls. In fact, Alex was a boy who liked me. A lot. He would write songs about me, and write poems for me, and draw paintings that he thought I would like. But he never had the courage to tell me that he liked me.
So one day, some "friends" of Alex's were teasing him by saying that Alex liked boys. I don't know why. Alex said they were wrong, that he liked girls, not boys. Then one of the boys teasing Alex said, "Prove you like girls by grabbing some girl's butt." This idea did not make Alex very happy, because he was pretty sure he would get in trouble.
Sadly for Alex, one of the kids in that group also knew that Alex liked me, so he said, "No, Alex, you should prove that you like Angie by grabbing Angie's butt."
Poor Alex. At that point, either his friends would think he liked boys, or he would do something bad to the girl he liked. Either choice was not a good choice for him, so he ran up to me and grabbed my rear end.
Of course, then I made it worse for him by being upset, and then by telling on him. He felt horrible. And he still liked me, but he decided then that I would probably never like him, so he did not tell me until years later.
When he did finally tell me his side of the story, it was our junior year in high school. He signed my yearbook and picked a page way on the inside with a lot of white space on it, and he filled up with the story. It ended with, "I thought for sure that you would hate me, but you never did. Sure, you stayed away from me for a couple of weeks, but after that, you always treated me normal. I had a big crush on you, but I was too scared to talk to you, for four whole years. Then this year, I have a girlfriend so I was not in love with you anymore, and we became friends in choir. And the nicest surprise was that you were just as nice and funny as I had always imagined you would be. I'm just sad we didn't get to be friends earlier."
I read it and gave him a big hug and we laughed about the whole thing. Our senior year, he played one of the songs that he had written for me, in front of a bunch of our friends who knew the whole story, and it was a beautiful song. We all loved it, even his girlfriend.
Billy and the Weeks of Teasing
But much worse than Alex and The Grab was Billy and the Weeks of Teasing.
From my point of view, here's what happened: When Billy and I were in fourth grade together, our teacher used to choose the two of us to go run special errands for her, and we both got teased for being the teacher's pets. When we were in seventh grade, out of nowhere, he and his friends started teasing me about being a good-two-shoes (which meant that I always followed all the rules and somehow that was supposed to be bad). It seemed like Billy was leading the group.
At first, I did not let it get to me much. Sure, I was annoyed that he was making fun of me, but I was not too upset. But it kept going on - for weeks and weeks. Usually he would find me right after school and make fun of me in front of his friends and my friends, so I would go home mad and upset. My friends were great - they would tell me that he was being dumb and not to pay attention to him, but after a while, it just made me upset. After about four weeks, I started just going straight to my room and crying after school.
My mom, your gramma, usually did not worry too much about teasing. She would just say, "Oh, honey, why do you think someone would be mean like that?" and we would talk about it and I would usually feel better. But Billy's teasing had gotten very mean - he was saying that nobody would ever like me because I was too much of a Christian and too much of a goodie goodie, and so nobody would ever like me (Now remember, at that time, I did not know that Alex had a big secret crush on me). And when I started coming home and crying every day, she started to get worried, so she asked me to tell her exactly what Billy was saying to me. I told her, and she decided that enough was enough and it was time to call Billy's parents and let them know.
Now here's the thing about Billy's parents: Billy's dad was a minister. Billy, in fact, helped out with church services on Sundays - he would sometimes get to read scripture from the front and stuff like that. Billy and his dad talked about God and Christianity all the time, and Billy's dad thought that Billy liked Christianity.
Now here's the other thing about Billy's parents, and this part is really, really cool. When they were really mad at their kids, instead of yelling at them, Billy's parents would make up a questionnaire, like a test, and send them to their rooms to fill it out. Well, Billy's dad was super-mad about what Billy had said to me, because he didn't want Billy to be mean, and he didn't want Billy to be saying bad things about Christianity, so his parents made up a questionnaire and sent him to his room.
Here were the questions Billy had to answer: (1) What does it mean to treat people with respect? (2) What does it look like to be mean to someone? (3) How are men supposed to behave toward women? (4) If your friends are picking on someone or teasing them, how are you supposed to behave? (5) Why have you been so mean to Angie Reeves? (6) What do you think is the right way to treat Angie Reeves?
Well, he sure knew what he was in trouble for! By the time he finished filling out the answers to the questions, he felt very bad about what he had done. He told his parents that when we were in fourth grade, we were both teacher's pets, and we both did everything right at school. But then when we got into middle school, classwork got harder for Billy, and he started getting B's and C's, but I was still getting A's, and it seemed to Billy that school was easy for me.
Right before Billy started being mean to me, he found out that he was not going to be able to be in the Honors Math classes anymore, that he was going to be in the Regular Math classes from now on, and he was very angry about that. He started taking his anger out on me, even though I had not done anything to him at all. He felt guilty about it, but he kept doing it because his friends expected him to, but he did not think it was funny anymore.
Billy's parents told him that I had been going home crying every day after school, and Billy felt very very bad and said that he wanted to tell me that he was sorry. Then Billy's very smart parents did a very smart thing: they let him choose how to apologize to me. Either he could write me a letter, or he could call me on the phone, or he could tell me in person.
And then Billy did something very brave: he chose to tell me he was sorry in person, at school, in front of all of my friends, and also in front of all of his friends too. In fact, he made sure that all his friends were there when he came over to me. What he said to me was, "I've been really mean to you lately. It's because I was jealous that you make A's and I don't. I'm really sorry." I had already heard from Mom about the questions that Billy's parents had made him answer, so I knew the story, so I was not surprised that he apologized, but I was very surprised that he apologized in front of everyone. I said, "It's ok, Billy, thanks," and he was always very nice to me after that.
Billy and I also became friends when we were in high school. In fact, one summer, we saw each other when I was out riding bikes, and neither of us had anything to do that afternoon, so he came over to swim, and we kissed! We kind of kissed because we were bored more than we kissed because we were really attracted to each other, but it was nice for both of us. Everybody had forgiven everybody for everything.
Billy went from being a very nice teenager to being a very nice man, and in fact, he is now a minister too, like his dad was! And I bet he teaches his kids not to tease.
The Moral of the Stories
Most people don't ever know why someone is teasing them - I am very very lucky that I know Alex's side of the story, and that I know Billy's side of the story. Both of those situations could have ended up where I never knew why they were mean to me.
I think everyone got picked on in middle school. My group of friends, girls who didn't have boyfriends until high school, were called goodie-goodies. Girls who had boyfriends were called boy-crazy. Kids who did sports were called dumb jocks. Kids who were popular were called snobs. Kids who played chess or dungeons & dragons or liked computers were called nerds. Kids who liked punk music or Prince were called freaks. So I think, at one point or another, everybody had to learn to deal with it.
When people tease you for no reason, it is almost always because of something bad going on in their life, instead of being something about you. They are probably hurt or upset, or being teased themselves.
The important thing to remember is that it does no good to be mean back. That just starts a bad circle - they're mean to you, so you're mean to them, so they're mean back to you... That can go on forever, and you are both just mean, and you run the risk that your friends will stop liking you because you're not a nice person. That's no good.
Usually, the right response to someone who is teasing you is to try to stay away from them, and to feel kind of sorry for them. It's sad that someone would be so insecure or angry or hurt that they would be mean to other people just to feel okay about themselves. Of course, if it goes on for a while and becomes upsetting, tell your parents or a teacher you trust.
Or, you can always call me, and I'll tell you the stories of Alex and Billy, and we can wonder together whether or not the person picking on you really has a secret crush on you.
Love,
Aunt Angie