For the last two days, I have had my soul stirred.
Those of you who truly know me will attest that truth is above all things most cherished to me. I so appreciate the honesty with which Glennon approaches her life! She is the most open person, and it is refreshing. I feel like I haven't met anyone that open and honest and forthright in so long, and I just wanted to run up to her and say, "will you please be my best friend?"
But alas, she is Glennon Doyle Melton and she doesn't even live here, and she also shared that she is an introvert who has a hard time letting people in. At the same time, she was so gregarious and beautiful and seemed so extroverted, and I realized that's how a lot of people see me when I tell them that I feel dark, and introverted, and I have trust issues and I don't like to let people in, and there are times when I'm having a great conversation and I just feel like ending it right then and there and walking out of the room. People look at me funny and tell me they don't believe me when I say that. When she expressed those things today on that stage, I was like, "YES!!! THAT'S ME TOO!"
The talk with Glennon was conducted like an inteview, with Momentous E.D. Michelle Kinder asking the questions. Michelle asked Glennon how we can use what Glennon has learned from her own life struggles with mental illness, to help our children.
"Some people are CANARIES. They are more sensitive to the toxins in the air, and they react.
Sometimes they shut down. They stop singing. Sometimes they freak out, and they cry.
In the past, our reaction was to lock them away.
To shut them up. To label them as different,
or crazy, or strange, or 'other.'
But now we are starting to recognize them as 'canaries.' They are the ones who sense the toxins in the air and alert us to something that is actually damaging to all of us;
it's just they're the only ones that know it."
I am a canary. I love this analogy. I think I have been looking for a description that could capture this extreme sensitivity I feel, which leaves me feeling like a constantly open wound, for a very long time. It's interesting, because my dad calls me "songbird" and that's a great reference, because I feel that my song has often been silenced, and more than once by him. There is also a Dixie Chicks song titled "Top of the World" that refers to a songbird, written from the perspective of a father, that I have always loved.
I think I have an idea for my next tattoo.
One of the last things Glennon said - and it's a conclusion I've come to recently as well - is that she is kind of glad that she has the mental illness she has, because the sensitivity she has is a GIFT. I am very glad I have the sensitivity I have. It drives me to WANT to do what I do every day. It fuels me to work with the children I work with, and not want to work with privileged kids who don't really need me as much. When I go home and cry and fret over the state of a child's life, or the way his mother treats him, I know that I will find a way to make that child's life better. And I know that I will have compassion for the child who comes to class angry as hell and throwing a fit...