Untamed

I was recently listening to an Armchair Expert podcast in my car and Dax Shepard had Glennon Doyle on as a guest. I didn’t know who she was, but decided to listen anyway, because quite frankly I loved watching Parenthood so intensely that if I had a third child, I would name them Crosby. So I am listening to Glennon Doyle and I learn that she is quite the successful author. The bulk of her success comes from writing her truth about her struggles with addiction, marriage and living an unconventional life. After listening to the podcast, I instantly ordered this book and I am not finished with it yet, but it is one of THE best books I have ever read and I nerd out A LOT, I read a lot of books. The honesty with which she writes is so refreshing, I just couldn’t stop reading.

Doyle’s opening chapters begin as a little girl, where she writes about being tamed and taught to be quiet, meek and predictable. She writes about wanting to please other people and not herself, about what is expected of girls and boys and how this led to a very unhappy marriage. I know a thing or too about wanting to tick the boxes of peoples expectations, so the beginning chapters really resonated with me.

What I have read so far, mostly centers around what goodness means and what it means to be good for a boy and what it means to be good for a girl. During all of my school years, I really wanted good to be the main descriptor in any of my teacher comments. I remember being in fourth grade and watching the puberty videos. The girls went one way and the boys went the other. We spent 35 minutes watching a video on wearing deodorant, fallopian tubes, maxi pads and traveling sperm. At the end of the video, the gals and guys joined back together at our group table and began immediately divulging the secrets of the videos we had just watched. I was sitting in a metal chair wondering if I should trade my Barbies for a bar of dove deodorant when my teacher at the time, told us to stop discussing the puberty videos and to separate our adjoined desks. She stated quite firmly, that watching the video was good but talking about it was bad. Wanting to please her and fit the mold, I opened up my Lisa Frank notebook and began to work on the next writing assignment, but I remember thinking why don’t you let people ask questions? Why do you show this video of changing bodies and then expect kids not to make connections to themselves. I think Miss Doyle would have considered me a “tamed” student and so a few weeks later when I was having difficulty with a test on telling time to the minute, she would have definitely sympathized with me and offered a few tips when the following happened.

When it was time for recess, the rest of the class suited up with their ski pants and went outside while I was asked to remain inside. I nervously went up to her desk to see a pile of freshly graded math assessments with mine at the top covered in red x marks. My teacher told me she couldn’t understand how I had failed this test when I ALWAYS did all the other tasks that she asked me too and that I always perservered and succeeded. She told me that I was a good student and typically did what was asked of me and she was perplexed as to why I couldn’t that day. I began to nervously wipe my palms on my denim overalls. What did the long hand mean again? What was the red hand for? It is memories like this that make you think ahhh, Glennon Doyle has it right. This is the imprint we leave on young girls. That being good and being right are one in the same. That being quiet and not asking questions is preferable. If I had raised my hand in math, and asked for clarification, I might not have been sitting there during recess, just about peeing my pants in terror.

Doyle also goes on to discuss her daughter Tish who is the feeler of all things, wanting to save the polar bears, unable to let go of discontent or hurt or injustice in the way that others can. Doyle sees how her daughter Tish doesn’t fit into the tamed mold and can therefore be a burden to others with her heavy feelings and her sensitivity. I am reading along sipping my coffee and thinking good God, Tish is me and I am Tish. My whole life, I have been told I am sensitive. Stop being sensitive, stop making a big deal, go with the flow, don’t get bent out of shape. Every job interview I have ever had, I have highlighted my sensitivity as my character flaw, even though I am so in tune with it, I could never really keep it at bay even if I wanted too. Then I come to page 15.

I am reading this book, it is holding my attention, even in the beginning which is a hard job to do and then on page 15, I read something that pretty much affirms my whole life and I want to highlight it and cut it out of the book and blow it up and tape it to the side of my car and put it on a bulletin board in my classroom and put it off in fireworks on the Fourth of July. Doyle writes:

“The opposite of sensitive is not brave. It’s not brave to refuse to pay attention, to refuse to notice, to refuse to feel and know and imagine. The opposite of sensitive is insensitive and that’s no badge of honor.”

What a powerful thing for her to write and what a powerful thing for me to read. It was such a moment of clarity for me to read that my sensitivity is a super power and that trying to stifle it, is shutting off all the important parts of myself, especially when it comes to being brave and really paying attention.

In reading the book, and living my life I can see some of the ways I have grown and evolved as a woman, but that I am still deeply concerned with being good and filling expectations in most every setting. For example, I recently attended a cook out at a friends of ours and people began playing corn hole. To say that I am not good at corn hole is an understatement, not to mention I hadn’t played in four or five years so any residual corn hole skill that I once held, had left me in that time. In the mean time, competition began and teams were formed. People began listing rules and naming points. I was trying to listen along, wait what is 17 for? or are we going for 21? Oh yes don’t step beyond the wooden thing ? Oh whoops what color am I? Instantly, I began to sweat, not because I knew I would lose at this game, but because everyone else seemed so amped about it and I would lose the points for them. In my confusion, I also didn’t realize that my husband was my partner in the game. I thought our mutual friend standing next to me was my partner. I won’t say her name, but she is one of the most beautiful people I have ever seen up close, tall, athletic, gorgeous, but also kind, just super sweet, and now holding these cloth bags in my sweaty hands, I began to stress. Stress! Over a game, at the age of 34. But you see these feelings of being good, and people pleasing run so deep, that I kept thinking get the bag in the damn hole Taryn, you are standing next to this model of a woman who is getting the bag in the hole and you are throwing like someone just spun you around four times for a pin the tail on the something contest. Of course, I didn’t hit one bean bag in the hole, or on the board, or in the vicinity, so I started to feel a little in my head for a moment. The next morning, I told my husband how bad I felt about myself during that game and how worried I was in the moment, letting down what I thought was my gorgeous teammate (even though the only person who lost was my husband). And he said no one cares that you were terrible at that game, because you are funny as hell to watch trying. You were the only person bothered by how bad you were playing. And so there you have it, I still need to work on growing as an untamed gal of the world, not being consumed by doing what is good, what is expected, but instead just feeling joy in all the smaller moments of life.

I found I had to point out this awesome hardcover masterpiece that I am reading, even if you might open it and think this is a piece of garbage and a waste of money, because you too might be still be super concerned with being a tamed girl yourself or teaching a girl how to be tamed, when you both know that being wild and exactly yourself is the only way to be in this jungle.