Life is Hard

Day 13 of the 150 Best Self Edison Deck Challenge looks at the past: Hard moments in your life where you made it through. Again, ten minutes for the first ten moments that come to mind. A gentle reminder, my list below has been curated for publishing and not all moments that came to mind were appropriate to broadcast. The main focus is the second part of the prompt: where you made it through. I sincerely hope this is a reminder that as dark as the moment may seem, there is a path forward.

1. The death of a child. For me, it was my first-born and her death shattered the naivete of what we think motherhood looks like. Nothing prepares a mother, father, or a family for this loss. There is no magic potion to get through. It is an arduous, painful, and a deeply personal journey that forever changes who you are and how you view the world. It makes you cherish the parent/child relationship in moments not in achievements. And it makes you love deeply those moments whether they be ugly, mundane or joyful.

2. Surviving sexual abuse. This is the tabu subject that girls, boys, teens, women, and men still may feel a deep shame in acknowledging. My moment of healing began first by saying "no" to power regardless of the realization that it would tumble my world, threaten my sense of right and wrong, and make me that uncomfortable person in the room. Yet, in that moment I saw myself as a warrior and that fighter has never left me or steered me wrong. Victims of sexual abuse are not weak, or broken, or less than -- we are the strongest, most protective and compassionate survivors you may have the privilege to know. We know the power of taking our life back is not in a single moment, but in every moment.

3. Breaking up is hard to do. We all have had those relationships that either crush us due to unrequited love or through betrayal or simply by growing apart. I think about poet Pablo Neruda's line "Love is so short. Forgetting is so long." As a parent, that burning pain of breaking up returned by watching my daughter go through the pain of ending a relationship. It made me remember that my go-to method was, and still is, to make a "mix tape" or today we call it a playlist that puts all the emotions into a whirling musical dirge, rant, release. I listen to it until it is warped and worn, and no longer tugs at the heartstrings. Relationships come in many forms, not only romantic; they are careers, friendships, and partnerships. I find myself using the "mix tape" as one of my go-to releases for all those messy break ups. When I tire of the playlist, it is time to move on.

4. Hitting the physical limits. Some know that I became a marathon runner at age 49 and found myself with a skill I never knew I had. The hardest moment was the 2012 Boston Marathon, where temperatures soared and it became one of the 10 hottest marathon days in the 116-year race history. Over 4,000 entrants didn't start the race and another 1,000 didn't finish. I started, I let go of my expectations of the previous two years of finishing with a re-qualifying time, and I finished. I relied on the kindness of the spectators who provided ice, sprinklers, verbal encouragement, and saw the effort as the surmounting moment, not the time. My finishing time was not spectacular but a moment of grace. It kept me out of the 2013 Boston Marathon, notorious for the bombing. I know what my pace would have been, my starting corral and where I likely would have been if I would have qualified. I am thankful for the moments that change your path, the moments that seem like disappointments and the moments that end up as serendipity.

5. The ugly face of social media. Shortly after the murder of George Floyd, the senseless deaths of Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Tony McDade, Dion Johnson, I received a letter addressed to the organization I had recently joined with demands for change dating back decades. It also called for my resignation as a white, privileged woman. The anonymous group took to Instagram and attacked not the organization, but me as the leader, my family, and the BIPOC leader I had hired to address necessary and systemic racism in the institution and the organizational culture. I made it through by relying on the truth, leading with humility, and for knowing that actions will always say more than words.

6. The pandemic. This list has to include the COVID-19 pandemic that is still unfolding. As a leader, with hundreds of lives in the balance, I chose to ignore the call to save the financial integrity of the institution and lay-off artists, faculty members, and support staff. Instead I advocated to invest in keeping people safe, healthy, and with health insurance. We asked those with means to invest, we leveraged every publicly available rescue/recovery source, we lent our building to causes to serve the community and we didn't sit with our hands over our eyes waiting for it to be over. We learned to stay in the creative mode and push hard for art. Embracing the fear and doing it anyway, not for me, but for the people that relied on me is what got me through the first, second, and third wave. For the fourth wave, I am resolved to focus on me, my family, and the people that gave me space to invest in others. It's time that companies and organizations invest in the personal lives of the leaders that sacrificed so much during the early days, and for the leaders to take a step back and invest in the people that had their backs at the hardest moments. For me that is family, friends, and courageous colleagues.

7. Misogyny. As a woman leader, there is no other way to describe the female leadership path than with this one word. We cannot be ambitously competent, we must be likable. We must defer to the older male and the system they created with all their experience, privilege and prejudice (conscious or unconscious). I've been told the following: "You clean up well." "Just shut up and listen." "We don't care what you have to say." "Don't you dare walk out of this room until I'm done speaking to you." "We hired a left-hand pitcher and now we want a right-hand pitcher. (I was the first woman leader hired in over two decades)" "Don't you dare tell me about women leaders. I've done more for women than they could ever do for themselves." I made it through by connecting with other women, by refusing to play the duplicity game that requires looking the other way, by calling out unethical tatics, by advocating for gender equity, and by adhering to my personal guiding principles even when it means stepping away. And I feel that I must make the point that when it comes to women as leaders, the practice of misogyny is gender-neutral. I've experienced prejudice from men and women alike that have adopted a male-centric idea of leadership. At my lowest moments, I look to the next generation who are eager to take the baton, and I see hope.

8. Personal mistakes. We all make them. In our personal lives, professional lives, and that gray area in between. I've invested in the institution at times when I should have invested in the individual. I've disappointed a loved one with words, actions, blog posts, or lack of action. I've agonized with what I should have done, could have done. At the end of the day, the only way I have been able to make it through those moments is to apologize, atone, and be willing to take whatever that action brings. Sometimes it brings forgiveness, sometimes understanding, and in rare occasions it makes things more complicated. But in all cases, it changes the path forward and that is what making it through looks like -- choosing a path forward even if it means encountering a gorilla.

9. Trauma. I would hope that most lives minimize trauma. Trauma are those moments that hit unexpectedly with such force that it is doubtful you will survive, lest emerge. For me, it was the unexpected death of my mother, that began with the incoherent phone call from someone I barely knew and culminated with police officers arriving at my home 3,000 miles away to give me official notice. It was informing siblings, it was the phone call with my mother that I cut short the day before because of a flight and job interview. And it was all the moments that could never be realized. I try to stay in the present as the Buddhist belief reminds us: yesterday is behind us, tomorrow hasn't happened, so today is all we have. I get through by reminding myself to make the most of the moment I am in.

10. Sixth Grade. In an attempt to end on a lighter note, I share this story. Prior to sixth grade I was the small, smart, shy girl that hid behind long blonde hair that would fall forward as I bent my head at my desk and create a shield against all the things that threatened me in the classroom. Here's to reminding you that shy doesn't mean timid, or that shy means lonely without social skills. Shy means not having the opportunity or resolve to use one's voice. In that vein, my teacher caught me passing a note to a friend during "movie time." I was instructed to stand in front of the class and read the note out loud. Instead, I found that "resolve" that I didn't know I had, and I found my voice. I stood up, turned to face my classmates and shouted, "I hate you Mr. ________!" Strong words for a shy girl, but I hated what he asked me to do and humiliation had reached its limits. A trip to the principal's office, instructions to tell my mother what I had done, and her laughter at the situation was the moment that I learned that using my voice at the right time, in the right situation, is golden. Our voices are worth listening to, it is what gets us through, stays with us, and has the ability to fuel our journey for a lifetime.