It is the Thursday (my Friday) evening before I take some time off of work. I am in a frenzy trying to write a sermon and prepare slides for an hour long presentation. The presentation needs to include a semester's worth of history, I sit flip flopping between what is most important. Grey's Anatomy premiers in an hour and a half, I was hoping to be done before then. I still haven't gotten dinner on the table. All that stands between me and a much needed vacation are these projects and Sunday.
Yet as I sit here I cannot focus. My mind is swirling with memories of every time he touched me. The cold shivers down my spine and the way my throat closed leaving me voiceless. For years I told myself, it was just a generational difference, or a cultural difference. Even though he was twice my age he just simply didn't know better. I made excuses, for him. Then came the comments about my body, disguised as compliments. It took me mentioning it to a therapist before I understood what I was experiencing was in fact sexual harassment. A lot of time has passed since it first happened, I felt helpless, I should have fought through my throat closing and stopped it then and there.
This is the first time news stories have made me on edge and made my feelings swirl with my own baggage. As I watch Dr. Ford face all this backlash, I have nothing but compassion and admiration for her. Today she did what I still have not been able to do, she brought her story into the light. I feel some sort of small solidarity with her, even though our experiences were vastly different. My harasser was beloved and held in high esteem in the community we shared. I was in my early thirties, well beyond my teenage years. I tried to address the situation when it started to get to me but I had very few people who would listen to me. I am so very grateful for the ones who did in fact listen and share my outrage. It was the ones who could have helped that chose reputation and wrote me off as sensitive that bothered me. Actually, it still bothers me.
I have been gone from that community for quite awhile now. It was a down right relief to leave and for a long time I have felt like it was all behind me. Yet, here I sit raw with emotion, unable to watch the live coverage of a special hearing. I am angry, I am sad, I am trying to figure out how I can lend my voice to the larger conversation in a way that makes the world a place where my daughter doesn't have to learn how to strategically carry a large bag and place it over her thighs. As I watch people defend a perfect stranger because it was a long time ago, I want to vomit. I am years removed and I can tell you my very mild experience has left me scared and scarred.
Today I am grateful for those initial people who listened and believed me. I am grateful for women who are brave enough to speak up, even face unimaginable threats. I am grateful for the male friends on social media who have spoken up to be clear they believe survivors. I am praying I won't be so caught up in noticing those who didn't speak up.
