I Am Not a Victim
And so, wanting to be very agreeable to my new boyfriend...
It’s time for this month’s essay, but first! Thank you for all of the very supportive and encouraging feedback about my new book Monochromatic Heart: on grief and love and still being here.
My book is now available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and most other online bookstores.
When I first began dating TJ, he was not a reader. I, however, was a reader of just about anything and everything. I’ve been known to read the backs of shampoo bottles, very boring magazines when stuck in very boring places (think local magazines in which the pages are filled with more local ads than anything else), and I will absolutely pour over cookbooks, if given the chance.
And books, of course.
Books have been some of my dearest friends—starting with Cinderella. As a child, whenever I’d feel overwhelmed or upset, I’d go in my room and take out my dog-eared copy of Disney’s Cinderella. The one with mice named Gus-Gus and Jack, a Fairy Godmother, a pumpkin-that-becomes-a-carriage, all the animals that somehow know how to sew an incredibly baller gown, and the evil stepmother and step sister, you know the drill. I’d read the familiar pages, and, by the end, when everything was happily-ever-after, I’d feel better. It was very imaginative and simple theology, in a way. Everything comes to peace. Goodness and mercy pursue us. No more tears, pain, crying, death. In short, we will be okay.
Then I was introduced to Anne of Green Gables, the heartbreak of Matthew, her one soft spot to land dying (when a book has been out for over ONE HUNDRED YEARS, with a first print date of 1908, do not come at me complaining of spoilers. This is a classic, Matthew dies before the end of the book (so it’s not even something you find out on the last page; you could read only two-thirds of the book and still know this), and you’ve had OVER ONE HUNDRED YEARS to read it (assuming, of course, you’re a very very old person. And I assume all my readers are very old). If you still haven’t read it (and you should), then your best shot in knowing any of the plot is probably this essay, you’re welcome), and discovering Gilbert was her one true love, after all.
From Anne, I jumped to Emily of New Moon, the far less famous Canadian heroine from the pen of L.M. Montgomery who quickly become my favorite. She was a writer. She didn’t have a beautiful face, per se, but made people think of beautiful things when they saw her (this was very relatable, as I had many friends who had legit beautiful faces, whereas I would scour every inch of my face in the mirror, trying to figure out what, exactly, made it odd looking. Perhaps the too-big forehead. Or the scar on my one eyebrow. Probably the stringy hair that nobody brushed, certainly not me. Anyway, reading about Emily gave me hope that perhaps I, too, could one day write stories, and, even if I didn’t have a classically beautiful face, maybe it could be the kind of face that makes people think of beautiful things. A girl can dream).
Emily of New Moon knew she was a writer at a very young age, and the only one who supported her in this was her Uncle Jimmy, who wasn’t quite right (probably an undiagnosed something that would take him all of ten seconds to diagnose on Tiktok today). Uncle Jimmy supplied Emily with innumerable blank journals, a place for Emily to make good on her declaration to all her classmates, who, on the first day of school, when asked by them what she’s into, replied, “I like to write. I am a writer.” They all laughed and she did exactly what she said she would, eventually writing books.
And I don’t have time to mention the way I drank up the stories found in Barbara Kingsolver’s books, or hungrily devoured all of the pages Chaim Potok ever wrote (that I know of). And countless more. Seriously. Stories about demons, romance, and wars (The Killer Angels is another FAVORITE book. Also Confederates in the Attic is so good). Aliens, memoirs, and theology. Suffering, surviving, and resilience. Fiction, non-fiction, historical fiction. I cannot list them all (I really can’t: I don’t have the list and I can’t remember all the books I’ve ever read. I wish I had kept a running list; how interesting that would be to look over. But, since I learned to read, there has never been a time in my life when I wasn’t reading a book.).
Anyway, suffice it to say, I am a reader. I absolutely love to read. It is one of my favorite things about being a human: we get to read. And when I started dating TJ, who wasn’t a reader (yet. His time was coming and has now come! Join me in celebrating that he who once was not a reader now is!), he highly recommended the one book he’d read in his adult life, The Success Principles (written by Jack Canfield, of Chicken Soup for the Soul fame).
And so, wanting to be very agreeable to my new boyfriend, as well as being willing to read almost anything, I opened it up. I came upon a statement that said something to the effect that none of us are victims. And then the author expounded. I am summarizing from memory, but he made the point that if you think you’re a victim, you’re stuck where you are, with no agency to create the life you want. You are not a victim. And every situation, considering you have a sentient mind, and can decide, at least, what you do with your mind—even if you have no choice of action, though most of us here in the West do have this—then you are not a victim.
I read that and thought about the most victim-ey situation I’d been in to date. A marriage to a man that was just terrible at being married. When I mention it to people, the details of the affair he had make a lot of them say something like, “WHAT?!” And here’s the thing. At the time, he did do things that were victimizing to me and that sucked. Sucked is a dumb word, too casual, too often used for spraining your ankle or getting stuck behind a conscientious driver and therefore not being able to speed. My first husband did cruel things to me—especially when you consider the way he’d told me he loved me and the vows he’d made.
I read that statement from this book a non-reader had recommended to a very reader-positive person and blinked. Then I read it again. I was in TJ’s living room, trying to fit my life, my experience into this narrative. Could such terrible things have happened to me, and yet, I remain not a victim?
I thought about how I chose to marry him (we will use the name Drake, for clarity’s sake). Nobody forced me to marry Drake. He proposed and I said yes. I shopped for a white dress, filled out a registry, and planned a honeymoon. Nobody had a gun to my back when I walked down the aisle towards him (I will never forget when I first glimpsed him, my groom. There I was, his bride, ensconced in white with silver thread embroidered throughout. On top of that dress, was my face—one that I was hoping today of all days makes people think long and hard about beautiful things. And when my eyes sought him out, he wasn’t looking at me. I was the Main Event. The only bride in the building walking down the only aisle in the building to music I had written myself (so very Enneagram 4 of me; now I find it embarrassing. Like there wasn’t other incredible music I could play while doing something as important as marrying someone. Music written by masters, by tried and true composers and poets. No, I had to use something an early 20-something had written, complete with lyrics printed on the back of the program in which the word “sow” had been misspelled as “sew,” making me cringe. It should have been a sign, I say to friends, laughing, because hindsight allows me to see everything as a sign of the fall that was coming). Anyway, while the rest of the room was looking at me, the Bride, the star of the show—Drake was not. Another sign to accompany the hindsight that is always 20/20. And I know the next obvious question is: what was he looking at? To this day, I do not know. Perhaps the woman he eventually had an affair with, though I don’t think so. Drake was just generally hardly ever doing what he should, and this instance was no exception, I guess.
I took a deep breath and said the words aloud: I chose to marry him.
I am not a victim.
Then I said, And after he did some terrible things and broke some big promises, I chose to divorce him.
Again: I am not a victim.
I couldn’t believe that the one book that my new non-reader boyfriend had read in his adult life had just handed me a key that unlocked a little prison I hadn’t even recognized was a prison. After all, I had read so many books, I couldn’t even remember them all—but none had said so simply what I needed to hear in this moment. I am not a victim. Sure, I was victimized at one point, but then I took my agency and changed the situation. I realized my ability to do this, my power, if you will, and changed my situation. The terrible marriage was no more, because I went to the courthouse and paid what—a hundred and fifty bucks?—to actively exercise my rights as a person with agency, as someone who is not a victim. Then, I chose what to do next. I kept doing that. In fact, I am still doing this right now. Sometimes this bears great fruit, and sometimes I choose wrong. But the responsibility for my own life lays solely with me. This is great news, as I am the only one I can really control (and even this is a lifelong work). And eventually, I was so free, that I ended up in the lower manhattan apartment of just about the cutest non-reader you ever did see, reading the one book he could even recommend, as it was the only one he’d ever read.
And it changed my life.
I am not a victim. And my guess is that you’re not either. The way to prove this is to look at your life and decide what to do next. If you get to decide this, then you, too, are not a victim. Maybe you were at one point, but not anymore. (That victim train doesn’t take any of us to where we want to go, anyway.)
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