Breaking Boards

How watching my niece earn her black belt inspires me to keep fighting.

My niece is seven years old - almost eight - and she can kick your ass.

A few weeks ago, while I was leading a yoga retreat in Mexico, she was completing her junior black belt in tae kwon do, in a ceremony for her and a handful of other little kids who’d hit the milestone together. To say that I’m proud is an understatement, but it’s more than that. I’m wildly impressed. I’m stunned, really. I’m inspired. And, if I’m being honest, I’m so, so deeply jealous.

From a roasting hot beach (that would be hit by a category four hurricane several days later), I watched a video on my iPhone of Emily breaking a series of boards to complete her training. The first one, she kicked with her foot. The second one, she punched with her fist. The third one, she cracked with an upward jab with her knee. And the last one, she sliced with the edge of her hand.

I can’t break a single board with any part of my forty-three-year-old body, and my not-quite-eight-year-old niece broke four in the span of a few seconds.

I don’t know how my sister has survived these years of parenting with her heart still intact, because when I saw this video of Emily smashing one board after the next, with poise and confidence and patience, I thought my heart was going to spontaneously combust with love and pride. But I also really, really noticed that jealousy bit. What was that? Where did that come from? As I watched her instructor tie her black belt around her waist, I felt so envious of my little niece, because she’s got something I didn’t have at her age - and that’s the confidence of knowing how to protect herself.

I spend a lot of time thinking about raising kids, which is interesting since I opted out of parenting. But I was almost a parent - I was pregnant once, and after I miscarried, I had to make a decision about whether or not to try again. I chose not to, and I have not ever regretted that choice. But one of the things you miss out on when you opt out of parenting is the re-parenting process that everyone raising kids has to go through. Inevitably, as you care for little humans and raise them into Future Adults, it brings up stuff from your past that you have to confront and think about and work through. When you don’t have kids, there’s not the same catalyst for this, and you have to wait for life to show you the things you’ve forgotten about yourself.

I’m in therapy, and have been for the better part of the last decade, and so I’m well practiced in tackling my own demons and sorting out the things in my life that need to be examined a little bit more closely. So when I noticed these feelings of jealousy, watching Emily perform, I knew it was something I’d need to look more deeply into. And I’ve been sort of chewing on those emotions ever since I felt them that day, on that hot and pre-stormy beach in Mexico.

When I was Emily’s age, I was wildly sensitive and empathetic. People in my family still tell stories about how any time we took a trip to visit our far-away family members, I would start crying about two days before it was time to say goodbye, and cry all the way home. At school, when I got picked on by other kids for doing well in class, or reading a book instead of playing on the playground at recess, I cried (which only made the kids tease me more). I just remember feeling like my emotions were so big, like it was so hard to contain them in my little body. Anytime I felt something, it felt so massive and impossible to hold.

I went from being a super sensitive kid to a deeply empathetic and hypersensitive teenager. At that time, in the early 90s, we were just starting to get gay characters on television, but coming out as bisexual was not something that was on my radar. I had no idea that I was bisexual. I didn’t really know all that much about myself at all. I started dating boys because they were paying attention to me, and I liked them back. But from the jump, I dated boys I felt sorry for. That was a trend that would stick with me, and it’s not to say that none of the boys I dated were good people. But some of them weren’t, and the first serious boyfriend I ever had did me a lot of harm. I was so focused on him, what he’d been through and how he felt, that I didn’t protect myself, let alone stand up for myself.

And my therapist says, that’s normal. As a child (because 13 and 14 year olds are in fact still children), it’s normal to prioritize feeling socially accepted, and to want to please your peers, and to please your peers even if it makes you feel unsafe or unseen. All of the choices I made were normal and make perfect sense from a psychological standpoint. There’s no reason for me to blame myself or feel bad about anything that I did as a child or a teenager.

But then I see Emily, not even eight years old, and she can break boards with her hands.

And I think, maybe, just maybe, this little girl is never going to put someone else’s needs above her own. Maybe this little girl won’t let a boy, or a girl, or anyone push her around, not physically, and not emotionally. Maybe this little girl will protect herself instead of prioritizing others, especially boys. Maybe, if this little girl finds herself in physical danger, she won’t freeze like I did - she’ll kick some serious ass.

And it fills me with pride, and with hope, to think about that. To think that a cycle could be coming to an end with my niece, a cycle of putting men and their needs first, of not listening to ourselves and our intuition, of not trusting our own ability to choose and then to stay the course.

But it also breaks my heart, for little me. Little Sarie, who didn’t know how to break boards, and who absolutely didn’t know how to stand up for herself. Little Sarie who didn’t know that it was okay to cry at the drop of a hat, or that the same person who feels empathy and cries easily can also learn to kick ass and take names.

The thing about a broken heart is, it mends. It takes time and care and hard work, but it can heal. Mine is healing, slowly but surely. I’m changing, I’m growing, every single day of my life. I’m learning to set boundaries - and doing it more frequently and with greater ease. I’m standing up for myself. I’m saying no when things don’t align, or even if I just don’t wanna. I don’t take shit from men, or anyone else, anymore. I no longer see my softness as weakness, but rather, the complete and total opposite.

The work never stops. Just like my niece trained week after week, year after year of her little life to learn how to break those boards, I’m in training, too. And in my own way, I can see that I’ve learned to break a few boards of my own.

xo,