The Myth of Withstanding

Today I watched Rothaniel by Jerrod Carmichael, which of course renewed my love for Bo Burnham's direction capabilities. The special is filled with so much wisdom and a strange poignancy that I doubt I'll find in another comedy special soon, but my favorite part was the ending, when Carmichael engaged one-on-one with audience members. 

He had previously revealed that his mother, a devout Christian, couldn't truly accept his being gay, and so when someone asked what her reaction was the first time he came out, he responded with a line about how his mother still talks around the situation to this day. That she had been rewarded for her silence for so long that she didn't know how to express anger. That he almost wishes she had called him a slur or kicked him out of the house, because "at least hate is acknowledgement".

Jerrod's mother had made breakfast for his father the morning after discovering his decades-long infidelity. Jerrod's grandmothers-- on both sides-- stayed with their respective grandfathers as they fathered children-- plural-- outside their marriage. He describes this as life "pre-Destiny's Child", meaning it was before cheating was something women responded to by egging their partner's car. That it was something we just quietly accepted, that we danced around, that we left unspoken. That women were praised by society for just dealing with the cards they were dealt, and brutally shut down for demanding better. 

This particular kind of generational trauma is almost the focal point of the feminine experience-- perhaps women of color, specifically. We sit with our own discomfort until it fades, and it always does, because holding the world together with our bare hands is also intrinsic to the feminine experience, and that requires a lot of time spent in crisis mode. Jerrod's mother's instinctive response to anything that bothers her is silence, because that's all she knows. So, soon, that becomes all she's capable of, even as her own son is begging for anything else. 

This reminded me of my own family. Every time I visit Chennai, I marvel at how my mother's bloodline is so utterly and completely run by women. My grandmother has an ironclad grip on all household activities, even at 85; my aunt is revered the way Meryl Streep is, looked to for every decision, big and small; my cousin and mother are the entertainment, comedic relief, and a modern touch all rolled into one. Yet even here, there are things we don't bring up. I hear whispers of why my aunt left her job at the height of her career and snide remarks against my grandmother's brother who has practically been blacklisted, but know shockingly little of my own family history. Several great aunts refused to show up to my parents' wedding because they disapproved of my father, yet when I ask my mother how she feels about that she says, "I've never really been one to complain, honestly". I wouldn't go so far as to say I have inherited any trauma, but rather just a strange, warped world of passive, reluctant, acceptance.

It reminds me of Malibu Rising by Taylor Jenkins Reid. There's this cathartic scene where Nina, our main character, finds her drunk father at her giant Hollywood summer party, and he begs her for forgiveness for being absent and awful. And she realizes, for the first time in her life, that she doesn't have to forgive him. I believe the exact epiphany she has is something along the lines of: I have always considered my greatest strength to be my ability to withstand. I can accept whatever happens to me, and most of the time, even turn it into something good. But guess what: it's not my job to do that anymore.

Thankfully, my father is worlds better than Mick Riva. But countless times, I've told myself that my greatest strength is my adaptibility, my agreeability, my...ability to withstand. I don't hold grudges, I don't burden others with my problems, I don't cry in public except over Loki dying in Infinity War, which doesn't make anybody uncomfortable because I don't ever want to be inconvenient. After all, wasn't it Eleanor Roosevelt who said women are tea bags-- incredibly strong in hot water? 

I'm learning that maybe it was all a myth. That withstanding is nobody's greatest strength. That being so good in crises that people feel comfortable putting you in more isn't something to be proud of. That, though I disagree with the general concept of being mad that your son is gay, it is devastatingly sad that Jerrod's mother can't scream her anger out in her own house. That the stories of generations of women before me may very well die with them, because though I'm not Christian, I was raised by the purity culture code-- don't talk about anything that's not sterile. Maybe some day I'll share the full diary entry I wrote when my grandmother died, but for now, I'll share the most revealing part:

"We were drifting, or sinking, or being swallowed alive.

But it's not true if it's unspoken. 

I didn't miss a day of class. Two days later, my parents went back to work.

Silence."

More than grief, in the wake of a close family member passing, I felt suffocated by the stiff air and tension you could cut with a knife, but evidently not with a word. Yet I sat there, surrounded by inconvenient truths and difficult conversations that were choking me on their way out my throat. 

It's not all despair: Jerrod admits that no matter what, he knows bone-deep that his mother will watch his special. I know, no matter what, that my mom's family would do anything for me. You only have to read the blogposts I wrote while in India to know that much. But it's an interesting kind of complexity to grapple with-- to unlearn the years of compliance that has been beaten into me, so that my daughters know, no matter what, that just because us women can withstand everything, doesn't mean we should.

I hope they're comfortable being bothersome, disruptive, difficult, and unreasonable whenever they want, because they were not put on this earth to make everyone else's lives easier.