Will You Do Me a Kindness?

During Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone's impromptu date in "Crazy, Stupid Love," the film cuts to the characters sprawled across a massive bed covered in what must be 1000 count sheets.  Their complete ease with one another is highlighted with a series of charming moments where they share informercial obsessions and Lauren Bacall impersonations, but the moment that stayed with me was when Ryan Gosling very simply asks "Will you do me a kindness?  Will you ask something personal about myself?"

What struck me about my reaction to that clip was that I wasn't experiencing envy that Emma Stone was the lucky recipient of those questions--what struck me was that I was actually jealous of Ryan Gosling's character:  that for all his supposed worldliness, he had the honesty to not only admit his own vulnerabilities but also to address them by understanding what he needed emotionally to even be able to ask Emma Stone to listen to--and thus assuage--them.

As a girl who was raised in the generation that valiantly tried to break the traditional male/female stereotypes, I was taught by family, teachers, and peers that we could be just as tough as boys.  Maybe I took these social cues a little too close to heart and overcompensated, or maybe I was already reticent by nature but I somehow wound up more comfortable keeping my emotions at bay--especially if those emotions stand the slightest chance of making me (gasp) vulnerable.  To be brutally honest, I tend not to admit to any type of pain unless it's along the lines of breaking my foot walking down the stairs or mysteriously losing all mobility in my arm after having a cup of tea.  What else would you expect from someone who was raised on overachieving female heroines who pretended to be boy knights and saved kingdoms (Tamora Pierce), or who were gifted with powers to slay the most rank and vile dragons (Robin McKinley)?  Even now we're bombarded by women who have more bravado and intelligence than their male friends (Jillian from Workaholics) or lovers (Lana Kane from Archer).  Since the media kept bombarding me with images of strong females who don't let their emotions rule their actions, I never saw any reason why I should do otherwise.  (Yes, I'm rather susceptible to the media.)

But then I finished Claire Bidwell Smith's dazzling new memoir, THE RULES OF INHERITANCE, which Hudson Street Press is publishing in February.  Now, because I have a habit of running away from emotions I usually also avoid sad memoirs, especially if they drag me through something so intensely personal as someone's worst days, as Smith so bravely does.  But even a young Smith--thrown for a loop when both her parents are diagnosed with cancer when she is 14, heartbroken after her mother passes away when Smith is 18, and emotionally shattered once her father also passes away when she is 25--is capable of emotional depths that Dickens would appreciate.  She doesn't spare us any of the gritty, painful moments that lead her to where she is now, nor does she sugarcoat her life after she finds an inner peace.    

What Smith so gently, but oh so adroitly showed my reluctant self is that instead of continuously trying to make myself tougher, maybe what I should be working on is listening to myself to unearth just what it is that I really need, even though it would also mean confronting that raw squirmy mess of emotions that I've squashed away.  Wouldn't it be better to see what makes me vulnerable, and learn not to be ashamed of it, but to accept it as part of who I am?

So many people now (okay, myself included) are driven to find a work-life balance.  But while my pursuit of "life" has been focused on more movie nights with my friends, actually going to see that museum exhibit, or jumping on all the leaves scattered on the sidewalks during my walk to the train, I've never considered listening long enough to be able to figure out what that inner voice has been saying all along.  Who knows what that'll bring?  And maybe then I can stop being jealous of Ryan Gosling, and move on to being jealous of Emma Stone the way the rest of the world is.