One, Two, Buckle my Soup: Conversing with ‘Conversations with Hank’

Hank, Everyone...

Conversations with Hank is written by Joy Hanford, who lives in Guimarães, Portugal with her husband and two children. Described as an “accidental parenting blog,” Conversations with Hank is a glimpse into Hanford’s life as a quite-intentional mother, European immigrant of midwest US stock, and author of children’s books. The following was written after her post “Finding a Better Way to Vent.” As a general note, I hope use of such words as “Mãe”—the Portuguese word for “Mom” won’t throw the reader. The letter is posted because its content is pertinent to Under the Influence. Ultimately, the intended audience is Hank, who’s awesome enough to speak both languages. I’m confident y’all will deal with it.



Dear Hank,


My name is Josh. I went to high school with your Mãe. We weren’t in touch for a while, because we both went to college, and while she was meeting your Pai, I went off to live in a monastery. After a while I left the monastery—internet access was limited there, but that's not why I left—and it was a great joy to be able to get back in touch with her over Facebook. Being able to read a bit about your life in Guimarães has been just as fun.

I don't have the time to sit down with Conversations with Hank as often as I'd like, but your Mãe’s blog is always rewarding when I can check in with it. That was the case recently, when I read “Finding a Better Way to Vent.”

I like Conversations with Hank because it makes so clear the love your Mãe has for you, and the fascination she feels and watching you grow. You may think that I'm writing this post on my own blog simply because I went to high school with her, but that's not the case. I empathize with you quite a lot, Hank. “Finding a better Way to Vent” expressed a struggle with living up to standards and being social that I could relate to. It’s a struggle I’ve never liked, but that I’m unfortunately really familiar with.

So I'm writing this post in my own blog for two reasons:

First, because life comes with no instruction manual, and I’ve always hated that. The older me wishes that when I was your age someone had given me practical, usable advice. So I am writing this as “a letter to my younger self.”

Second, I'm writing this letter because, on the way to work this morning, I had to stop fast. The container of soup that I had packed for lunch flew out of my passenger seat and exploded—in puddles soupy deliciousness— all over my car.  Speeding down the highway, too occupied with driving to fix the fact that soup was all over my car, I had the idea to write this letter.

I was an awkward child (very, very awkward) from the start, Hank. I don't know how it is in Portugal, but in America, boys become men believing that they have to be successful athletically and financially, and that all the cute girls have to have little crushes on them, or else they’re not good at being men. I accepted this message without knowing it was there, and without thinking. In short, life was telling me to be awesome and confident and I would often feel nothing more than awkward. It left me a bit of an outcast from the start.

I was born with a mild disability, Cerebral Palsy. My muscles tighten faster than most people’s. This doesn’t mean a lot, but does mean that, if I want to run, or walk up stairs, or skip, I’m likely to fall more than others would. Most people trip because something’s in their way. I grew up tripping because I was walking in the first place. It made me feel unsafe in my own body.

I can dance, Hank, but because of my disability it has always taken me longer to learn. And so, when dancing with the ladies became an issue, I was hopelessly lost. I wanted to be popular and loved, but I would have settled for being accepted for who I was.

Since I was different, I was a bit of an outcast. I couldn’t compete physically, so I developed my mind. I had great ideas about how to do things, and no one listened. So I was at odds, not only with my own body, but with others as well.

The fact is, when life didn’t meet my needs, I felt sad. And if my older self could give my younger self advice, he would say: feel that sadness. Feel every bit of it. Do all the emotional things: listen to sad songs, fill notebooks with painful scribblings. All of that. And do it hugely. I would give my younger self that advice because, in the end, that’s not what I did.

It's not cool to feel sad, so I denied it. But I still had needs that people around me weren’t meeting. I would try to get people to meet my needs, and then if they didn't I would get mad. Again, American society says that you can be anything if you try hard enough. That may apply to something you're already talent at, but it certainly doesn't apply to being accepted, being secure, or being in control. When the right people didn't come to my birthday parties, when I would fall down (again), when I had good ideas about how to do things but nobody listened—these weren’t things I could change, but I spent too many years trying to change them anyway.

And I suppose this leads to the second thing that older me wants to say to younger me. In short, trying to solve sadness, (or trying to fix the ways life falls short) will only lead to anger. Looking back, older me sees that, when I denied sadness, I caused myself a lot of anger. I’ve spent way too much of my daily life being mad and perfectionist, way too much of my life needing to control things.  Looking back, I wish it had been different.

My Girlfriend's
Sadface is
particularly Cute

These days I have a wonderful girlfriend. Living our lives together and working stressful jobs sometimes makes us sad. Maybe it's because I'll always be a little bit goofy: but when we’re sad, I will often look at her and ask “Do you think we should make the sad face?” The sad face is the biggest, most deliberate, whiniest frown that either of us are capable of. When we make the sad face, everything stops. We do nothing else. We just sit there looking sad, and staring each other in the face. And then a funny thing happens: one of us laughs. “Who laughs first” has kind of become a game we play. I win most of the time. My sad-face skills are unparalleled. The point is, there's a third lesson in that: acknowledging my sadness is awkward at first, but ultimately it's both satisfying and funny.

What I'm not trying to say, Hank, is to be hurt and sad all over the world because it's how you feel at the moment. Unfortunately, while I was growing up, the “popular kids” would often become more popular by teasing me. I could never have admitted how sad they made me feel, and I definitely couldn’t have cried, without risking getting made fun of by the kids at school.

It's never good to be defensive without being aware of it. I became defensive by denying my sadness too much, and Older Me has spent a lot of my life trying to reverse that. The fourth piece of advice I’d give myself, though, is to be more guarded. I should've tested people more to see if I could express myself fully without being rejected. It’s often useful to be intentionally guarded. I’ve had to be careful to do two things: for one thing, I’ve to be careful not to become a bully myself—because sometimes young bullies become older bullies--because bullying others doesn’t fix sadness, and it can lead to anger. Additionally, I’ve had to learn to defend myself from people who put me down.

I am a Sadness Ninja.

I do that by not running from the “bad things” people want to pin on me. When people say I’m sad, (and mean it as an insult,) I smile and remind them that it’s more like constant, low-grade depression, and that they forgot “awkward and insecure.” I don’t take on things that aren’t true—no one could call me a bad father, because I don’t have kids- but if someone called me that, I’d say “That’s not true, but I am a terrible boyfriend. And I do a world-class ‘depression’ act.” People expect me to want to live up to their ideal, so they can use it against me. By showing that I don’t want that, I take away their way of messing with me.

I guess, in short, what my older self would say to my younger self is: there’s no way to get around how frustrating it is to need (and not to receive) acceptance, security and control. I hope that my younger self would recognize he can spend less time with anger by allowing himself to feel sad. He can be guarded instead of being defensive.

To put a fine point on it: When I spilled my soup, I realized that, though I want to control things, that's not realistic about a lot of things in my life.  Young and old, people are sometimes bullies, and sometimes I have to stop fast on the highway. I can learn to buckle my soup. Buckling my soup is something I can do to prepare for life's unpredictable stuff.  My younger self could have wished for acceptance, could have wished people were nicer. And my older self could spend time wishing people weren’t crazy drivers. But, just like I shouldn't fix my sadness with anger, I can't fix others' conduct.  So I might as well buckle my soup and get on with changing what it's possible for me to change. I’m starting to learn I can feel my feelings, that I can be purposeful in maintaining only a small group to express them with, and that I have a few things I can do to defend myself against life’s jerks.

When I got to work, and set myself to wiping up spilled soup, the things I’ve said in this letter all started to come to me.

Hank, I just want to thank you for finding safe spaces to let your real life show. I’m thinking particularly of your Mãe’s blog. Having the strength to “just be myself” is something that I’m still working on. Your willingness to struggle with that too, and then to let someone write about it—it helps a good bit. And because of you, I have said some things today that I needed to hear myself saying. Older me, and younger me, think you’re a good bloke.


Keep it real, man.

Peace,


Josh