leading by example

i have included hollye dexter’s blog from today. i adore hollye, and what i adore about her is that she is so honest & funny & amazing & puts it all – every bit of it – out there. that’s just really a teeny piece of what it is i love about her. there’s so much… but after reading her blog, i decided to write down a few of my truths, and hopefully, a few others will add their truths, and maybe we can start, you know…
a little revolution.

okay here are (some of) my truths:

i am petrified of ken dying.
i often feel like a sham.
i dropped out of high school.
i feel ashamed by that.
i can drink too much.
i speak my mind too often.
i can be judgmental.
i worry (particulary in the middle of the night) i’ll be forgotten.
i doubt myself almost daily.
i don’t like how i look in photos.
at the end of my mother’s life i was embarrassed by her.
i wish i could forgive myself more.
i stole money and pawned jewelry to buy drugs (when i was young, you know, 14, 15…16).
i miss my family.

okay your turn.

(and here is hollye’s gorgeous blog!!!!!)

My husband and I have a nickname for our friend Erin. We call her the “Anger Handler”. If Erin is your friend and someone has ever done something to hurt you, all you need do is tell her the grievous nature of this attack, and then let go. When I do this with her, she gets ten times angrier that I’d ever allow myself to be, ranting and raving about this horrible person and all the ways she should meet her doom. The funny thing is it polarizes me. Erin is so angry at said perpetrator, there isn’t any room, nor need for me to be angry. My husband Troy and I joke about how we want to make some popcorn, sit back and watch Erin “handle” our anger for us, now and then commenting…”Yeah, yeah, that’s a good one. I should have said that. What else you got?” As if suddenly we are voyeurs into our own crisis. She could do a stand up act. Just let the audience members throw any story at her of how they were done wrong, and then let her at it. I’m telling you, it would sell out! Everyone could use an anger handler!

In my own way, I guess that’s what I’m trying to do with truth. We’ve had a lot of dramarama in our lives the past six months, and my husband? Well, he doesn’t really want to talk to people about it. He’s really kind of embarrassed by it. But me? I hang my dirty laundry out on the line for the whole world to see. Call it a strange obsession, a birth defect maybe. I don’t know. I was born to tell it like it is. I give voice to some dark things. I’m learning through the comments and feedback I get that these are things others might feel, but never say out loud. So I do it for them, much to the chagrin of my husband. I’m in training to be a “Truth Whisperer”. I’ll say the scary ugly stuff you don’t want to say…and you can go make some popcorn. : )

People have commented how brave I am to tell the truth, how hard that must be. But here’s the secret – it’s actually easy. What’s hard is trying to project an image that I have it all together, that I’m not insecure, neurotic, damaged, confused, afraid. It is unbelievably liberating to tell the truth.

So here are a few “truths” for today:

I’m forty six years old.

I’m terrified of aging.

I doubt myself as a parent.

I often feel like a failure.

I worry in the middle of the night, which leads to pacing the house “checking” things…windows, doors, electrical outlets

I’ve struggled with anxiety and depression all throughout my life.

I’m vain.

I’ve been estranged from my mother’s side of the family for seven years, which feels like a colossal failure

I’m cynical and jaded but want to get back to hopeful

I watch reruns of Everybody Loves Raymond.

There, I’ve said it.

(Can I get a witness on any of the above?)

And you know what happens after I release it? I am lighter. I think to myself…yeah so I’m damaged and imperfect….so what. It’s really not that big a deal. I’ve gotten the scary stuff out and made room inside to feel all the good things that want to occupy space in my heart instead. Love, gratitude, joy….

So this is my mission: to be a Truth Whisperer and encourage others to do the same. I’m telling you, it’s not that bad once you get used to it, so jump in – the water’s fine!

Come on…I double dog dare ya!

Category: Uncategorized 6 comments »

6 Responses to “leading by example”

Hollye Dexter
August 8th, 2010 at 2:53 pm
Love this Amy!
Okay, just a few things I have to say about your “truths” :
– You could never speak your mind too much, because we’re all out here waiting to hear it!!!!
– You will NEVER be forgotten
– You dropped out of High School, but you WROTE TWO MOVIES AND TWO AMAZING BOOKS! A High School diploma can’t begin to compare to that!

And here’s my additional confessions, I’m “doubling down” on my truth today:

– I too am judgmental and working on that every day.
– I too fear losing Troy and in fact every time he’s ten minutes late coming home I’ve already written the eulogy in my head. (sick!)
– I doubt myself daily
– I HATE seeing my age in photos…I want to be in denial. If there were no mirrors or photos, I could still believe I was thirty. Oh how I miss my jawline.

I love you for writing this twin sister blog.
xo
the truth teller « Matters That Matter
August 8th, 2010 at 3:32 pm
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Madge Woods
August 8th, 2010 at 6:39 pm
I am almost 62. I can interrupt to get my point across. I am not sure why I am in the relationship I am in. I love my life almost daily. I would like to share my life with someone who could understand my need to be by myself and love me anyway.
I constantly throw away paintings that I don’t like anymore and wonder why I painted them.
Jane
August 9th, 2010 at 3:27 pm
I don’t like my sister. And I feel guilty about that. And then I get pissed off that I feel guilty about it.
I have impure thoughts about my boss…a lot…and think I would act on them given the chance.
I hate people standing next to me with a cardboard sign asking for money when I am stuck at a red light. I feel zero compassion.
And now that I have written these things and read them I want to delete them because I feel like an awful person…
but in the name of “truth”, I will click submit comment instead.
Donald. Sanders
August 10th, 2010 at 1:22 pm
You share I share. People think I’m crazy telling true but private things in a public manner also. I wish everyone would do it.
Donald

25 THINGS ABOUT DONALD
1.I love my family.
2.I didn’t have a family until I met Therese (wife).
3.I can tell my life story to a stranger in less than 10 mins.
4.I was over fifty years old before I knew the importance of a family. I call them the “Freaky Family”
5.I enjoy watching Joey (son) grow up but I think that I embarrass him.
6. I didn’t want Joey to move out.
7. I hate it when I fart and no one is around to smell it.
8. I am a lesbian in a man’s body.
9. I love to read but I never finish a book before I start another and another.
10. I have a low attention span.
11. I am mental. (deranged) (not dangerous)
12. I care about the health of the Earth. (that’s for my Neice, Ella)
13. I hate people that start wars.
14. I think violence is associated with low intelligence.
15. When I was young, a doctor told me that I had the worst case of worms he had ever seen.
16. I hate the fact that I can’t cheat at chess on the Gameknot web page.
17. I like small town life.
18. I always knock, knock on the chest of the dead person at funerals to make sure they have been embalmed, that’s why I rarely go to funerals. People don’t understand that I do this out of respect.
19. I never trust a Priest or a Nun around kids.
20. The older I get the dumber I get.
21. I don’t think the VA psychiatrist can ever help me but I appreciate their trying.
22. I cry all the time and I cannot control when and where.
23. I cannot get out of Vietnam and neither can my brother.
24. Both my brother and I attempted suicide before the age of 12.
25. Both my brother and I can never do anything right.
25 1/2. I absolutely love what you have to say and how you say it. I must have more.
Donald
Sivan
August 10th, 2010 at 3:51 pm
It’s nice to get to know you through your writing, thanks to our little iPinion family. Here are some of my truths for the day:

I feel guilty for not caring for my ill father. I have chosen to make myself happy instead of him, for which I feel doubly guilty.

I hate that I don’t have a functional relationship with my brother. I hate that my tainted relationship with my brother complicates my relationship with my parents. I fear what will go down between the two of us when my parents are gone.

Losing my parents is my biggest fear.

I left for a two-month trip to NY and now that I’m here I don’t plan to come home. I am too terrified to say that out loud to anyone back home who awaits my return.