BOO!

“Vestal virgins must be accompanied by knights or clergy, or come at their own risk,” the Halloween party invitation said. Ed and I lived in Jackson, Mississippi then, and had been a couple for about a year. We decided to go to the party as vestal virgin and clergy, only gender-reversed.

My mother dressed Ed in one of her silk nightgowns, bedroom slippers with floppy bows on top, and a curly, dark blonde wig. I rubbed foundation and blush on his face (he was beardless then). He looked adorably awful. I wore his long, black clerical robe with a stole around my neck and an horrifically ugly mask (see photo) we found at a costume shop. We posed in the hall mirror at his apartment and cracked up at our reflections.

The party, at an apartment in North Jackson, was big and boisterous. The rooms were dark, candles and pumpkins everywhere, plastic spiders hanging from the ceilings. Lots of orange and black food and wine and beer and bourbon and scotch and gin. Creative costumes and ho-hum ones. People milling around the rooms and out on the small concrete deck. Ed and I milled about too, and, at one point, a Dolly Parton lookalike asked me if I was male or female. I realized, then, that no one could tell a thing about me if I didn’t speak, and I decided to stay mute. For the rest of the evening, I spoke not one word.

People didn’t know what to do with me. They’d laugh at first when I hung around them, but as I stayed quiet, they’d grow increasingly uncomfortable, a little suspicious, sometimes visibly pulling back and walking away. I felt strange and lonely, but mostly, I recognized the familiar pain of being mis-seen.

Being mis-seen was the theme of my growing up life. My father couldn’t see past his own misery. I’d look into his eyes when he talked at me, and I couldn’t find myself anywhere. My good, caring mother, who couldn’t see through the “should” stance she wore like a blindfold, told me in all seriousness when I was thirty, that I’d be wonderful at running a “charm school” to teach youngsters good manners and social skills. I cannot tell you how much that particular vocation was Never Ever Me.

My false self ran wild in high school and college, exuding a toughness that masked my insecurity. Since then, I’ve spent a ton of time and energy developing my “true self,” the self I’m meant to live from and to honor. But, now that I’m in my seventies and officially old, I want something else—I want not to give a rip what people think of me.

I’m not sure what this will look like. I like to be liked. I’ll fight with Ed like nobody’s business, but I don’t like conflict with friends nor with people I don’t know well. But I’m speaking up more now, when my true self needs exposure. I’m finding this hard but refreshing, and way better than skulking mutely inside some ill-fitting mask. I want to show up and not care how people see my beliefs, my attitude, my life. I want not to care if my statements on social media are berated. And, if I choose not to respond to some venomous attack, I want not to care that I might be seen as “backing down”. I want what rises up out of me to be purposeful and kind, and then to not give a rip how I’m perceived. So there.

“She wouldn’t say ‘Boo!’ to a goose,” I’ve heard said about folks who are overly careful.

Boo!

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