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Archives from 2002-2006

Several years ago an acquaintance passionately informed me he’d never seen any footage of the planes hitting the World Trade Center towers on September 11th. The way he phrased it felt almost like he was bragging, like he’d been so incredibly values-driven when he quickly turned away from the news or websites before he saw a single solitary image of the destruction, the debris, the smoke, and like maybe everyone should have done the same so as to send a message to the media that we didn’t need to see their grief porn.

I’ve seen this mentality expressed since, although not quite so eye-rollingly (seriously, I call 100% bullshit on someone never seeing any images from 9/11. I just don’t think it’s physically possible unless you live in a cave): some folks seem to think there’s something a little wrong with seeing the images that come from a tragedy.

I recently saw someone’s explanation for why she chose to view that elevator footage of Ray Rice viciously punching his then-fiancee. “To bear witness,” she wrote. I’m paraphrasing, she probably said something more eloquent, but that was the gist of it. I agree with that, overall. For me personally, I sometimes feel the need to see something to understand it, to empathize, and in some cases, to share the pain in some tiny way. It was like how I felt about Wave, the book that so thoroughly broke my heart — I felt there was value in the fact that I could absorb her story. So I could … I don’t know. It’s like, they had to experience it, the least I can do is listen/read/look.

Of course, not everything needs to be seen. (That beheading video. I’d like a do-over on my decision to click play on that.) Some tragedies are completely private and should always remain that way. And it’s intensely personal, the choice to bear witness in whatever way you feel is appropriate. I don’t think you get points for turning away, nor do you for staying present. It certainly doesn’t change the fact that it happened in the first place.

I’ve been thinking about this tangly topic lately because I started training for a volunteer job with a local program. Their mission, as described in their literature, is to help lessen the trauma experienced by child victims of abuse who are going through the judicial process. As a victim advocate, I’ll be helping support the children and families when they come into the center, and provide them with information and referrals to agencies that can help them legally, financially, mentally, and/or physically.

I imagine this is going to be a really tough job that is all about bearing witness to things I’d rather not think about. During training last week, we saw photos and videos that made me inch backwards in my chair and rub my forehead. I don’t want to be faced with the reality of what happens to these kids (700 per year just in our county), but it feels important. It feels like something I can do, and maybe even (hopefully) eventually be good at doing it.

But I wonder about the weight of it, over time. Maybe not even so much the things that crack you open with sadness and empathy, but the things that make you despairing and jaded. Will I begin to believe there is more awful than good in this world? Or will I find solace in the many people who work so hard to help?

Remember that Mr. Rogers quote that people tend to share during times of national tragedy: “When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping”? I feel like this job will teach me to focus on seeing — and being — the helper. But I worry a little that it may also teach me to see the scary, everywhere I look.

Are you the kind of person where your shit is either completely in order, or it’s all a disaster and you’re basically one step from living in a van down by the river while shoveling a steady stream of Bugles into your poor-me-hole? I don’t mean your literal shit (is it backed up and kind of squeak-farty with bad breaks, or is it a nice solid loaf of — no), I mean your row of ducks, your overall life situation. I’m a special fractal snowflake of rigid commitment and overindulgence, basically, where I swing from one extreme to the other when it comes to exercise, housekeeping, diet, personal enrichment, self-care, and so on. I’m proactively scheduling flu shots months in advance or I’m waiting in the line of pallid Walking Dead extras in Rite Aid on January 20th. I’m making my bed first thing in the morning and cooking a nutritious breakfast or I’m emerging from a cat-hair-coated pile of discarded pillows to nab a stale donut. I’m doing crunches and folding the laundry or I’m crunching through a bag of cinnamon-sugar Pita Crisps while justifying the visible cobwebs on the ceiling as startlingly realistic Halloween decorations. Etc.

I’ve been enjoying the firing-on-all-cylinders side of my personal productivity cycle lately, which is a good feeling. I lost most of the weight I allowed to creep back on over the summer (damn you, Jeni’s ice cream, for being incomprehensibly delicious AND having a brand name that looks like “penis” in a URL bar), I scheduled the first dentist appointment I’ve made in *loud distracting cough* years, I have all my millions of soccer practices and games carefully and redundantly entered into both a paper and digital calendar. I start training for an enormously intimidating new volunteer job this week, and I’ve even been forcing myself to step outside of my hermit comfort zone and actually talk to the other parents I see each week at my kids’ activities.

It’s all awesome stuff, but I can never escape the belief that no matter how well I’m doing, it’s all temporary. Like, the woman who’s currently juggling several things with what appears to be a decent amount of discipline and capability, she’s just a facade. The real me is waiting in the wings, and she’s wearing chocolate-stained sweatpants and an expression of self-doubt. She’s ready to take over when Mrs. Doing-It-All runs out of steam, and she’s got the ass-dent in the couch all pre-warmed for me.

Do you ever feel this way too? How do you convince yourself that there’s no good you or bad you, there’s just you, and it’s okay to be proud when you’re doing well and be gentle with yourself when you’re not?

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