Right now everyone is putting the status “Me, Too.” on their Facebook page. I have started to add mine a couple of times and then I have stopped. I am not a fad follower or bandwagon type person and with the mounting avalanche of these posts I have to wonder if everyone that is posting is being honest. Surely there aren’t that many woman who have been harassed! I don’t want to believe it.
And then I think about how many times I have faced harassment in my life. And I think about how I escaped scary situations until the time I didn’t. I think about trying to go to class in a new city away from home for the first time, covered from head to toe in long pants and long sleeved turtlenecks to hide the bruises that eventually faded away. I think about how I felt the inner bruises on my mind and still do.
I think about how I have spent the rest of my life trying to be small, so that no one would see me or bother me or hurt me. I think about how so many things in my life are changed because of that.
I remember one of my voice teachers telling me to take up space, to sing big and be commanding. I had no idea how to do that. All I had wanted was to not be seen. I have worked on that and now I’ve kind of learned how.
I always hope that the world is changing and maybe if we all take up our space, live big and decide we aren’t going to hide anymore, it will change sooner.
I want to think that everyone hasn’t had to go through what I did. But most of us have. It isn’t comforting to know that, it hurts more.
So I will do it in my own way, here in my own space, but yeah- Me, Too.
