In the seventh grade, I had a giant, all-consuming crush on Caleb Anders[1]. It was the eighties, so, perhaps predictably, he was a skater, which in my very boundaried world made him a member of the counterculture. This was at once terrifying and wildly attractive. In all of the pictures I have of him, he’s sticking out his tongue or flipping off the camera.
In the eighth grade, I got up enough courage to ask him on a date. Not a real date—my mom had determined that real dates could only happen in the ninth grade—but I asked if he would meet me at my house on a Friday night and walk with me to get frozen yogurt. He said yes, which I think surprised me a bit.
The plan was that he would come by at 6:30, which would give me time to walk home from my piano lesson with Miss Jennie and make sure my hair looked ok. I wore as close to a carbon copy of an outfit worn by the main character in the movie “Can’t Buy Me Love” as I could manage. I was missing her beautiful, white, fringed suede jacket, but I had found a silver embossed chain belt at a secondhand store that looked just like hers. I put on all the makeup my mom would allow me to wear—which consisted of CoverGirl Lipslicks Lipgloss—and sat on my bed waiting for Caleb to knock on our door.
6:30 quickly came and went. And then 7 and then 7:30. The phone rang at 7:45. It was my best friend, Susan, calling from the payphone at Berkeley Iceland, where most of my friends went to skate on Friday nights. Caleb is here, she said. Isn’t he supposed to be at your house?
My heart caught in my throat, and I felt the hot sting of tears well up in my eyes. I hung up the phone and cried—gasping, heaving, desperate sobs—the kind of crying that empties you completely. I buried myself in my bed, not bothering to undress, and didn’t leave my room until the next day. Thirty-five years later, I cannot think of a time that I have cried harder than I did that night.
Monday morning arrived, as it does every week, and I walked the three blocks to school. Caleb never acknowledged that he had stood me up. Instead of asking for an explanation, I began cataloging all the ways in which I had failed to embody a person worthy of showing up for: too plain, too flat-chested, too quiet, too boring. I suddenly became aware that I was taller than most of the other boys in my grade, that I raised my hand more often in class, that I preferred to read rather than go to a sleepover with friends.
And then I started to look for ways I could make up for these oddities, to adjust in anticipation of the backlash my standing out would cause. I wore flats to school dances, even though I liked the way high heels clicked against the floor, and fawned over others’ academic success, downplaying my own.
It’s unfair of me to blame Caleb for this, and I don’t. I imagine that many of us began to take up less space in middle school. That many of us became aware that our bodies, ideas, or preferences didn’t fit neatly anywhere and that it was just easier to fold in on ourselves than it was to ask to be accommodated.
Looking back, I realize that this marked my discovery of the key to success in life as a woman. Soon, the accolades began pouring in…perfect daughter, good citizenship awardee, scholar-athlete, Phi Beta Kappa, AOA member, innovator, professional. I became expert at assessing what people needed from me and being that. Maybe that’s why I feel so comfortable in the ER...going from room to room, shapeshifting to become the physician that family needs me to be...sitting, standing, assertive, apologetic; compassionate even in the face of outright anger or frustration or frank disdain.
And yet…and yet. As the years go by and I become more sure of what I value, what I love and will fight for, the accolades have quieted, and I can’t help but think that all these awards and designations were created for those of us who accommodate, not those who ask for accommodations. For those who agree to compress ourselves down into a “single convenient entity” (Miranda July, All Fours). All of a sudden, people seem unsure what to do with me. Suddenly, I’m overly dramatic, difficult, unwilling to tow the line. And as much as I want to don this new mantle with pride and a middle finger up in the air, I can’t quite give up the comfort of being contained, and knowable, and approved of.
All of this leaves me wondering what I would tell my 13-year-old self—the one sobbing in her bed, still wearing her secondhand, silver embossed chain belt. Would I tell her to take up the space her body required? Would I tell her to resist internalizing responsibility for others’ comfort?
And if I did, and my 13-year-old self heeded that advice, would I be where I am now, in this building, with these titles, standing in front of all of you?
[1] Names have been changed to protect the pre-pubescent.
what a beautifully brave and difficult question to ask at the end. i sat with it and realized that being a physician is not the only way you could have made your incredible impact on the world. its just the way our culture tells us is "the best, most important way", so not being where you are today could also mean that you are at the front of a different room leading and impacting different people with possibly more ease and alignment. Maybe it could have been better, even? Just something else to noodle on for the 13 yo girl crying her eyes out and then deciding to NOT accommodate.
Thanks for sharing Cassie. I just finished teaching a Fierce Self-Compassion Course to a group of women. It takes so much courage to allow ourselves to take up space and speak up, which you just did with your story. Thank you!