Just Another Friday
How a casual night out becomes a traumatic ordeal.
How do you tell someone “NO” when there are girls dancing on platforms in booty shorts and fishnet leggings, with rocking bodies that serve as sexy silhouettes against the flashing lights and morphing visuals orchestrated specifically to command your undivided attention?
I’m not denying their beauty or their radiance. It takes a special kind of woman to have the courage and the talent and the physical prowess to steal the attention of every person around them.
I say that because I used to do it, too.
As a former entertainment manager (karaoke and trivia host), I understand. I know the amount of commitment it takes to lift and carry the energy of an entire room. I did it six nights a week for three years. It’s addicting. And toxic. And you deny wanting to be the center of attention, but God it feels good to know something as simple as your voice (or your body) turns every head occupying that same space.
And the music plays on. And you have another round per the mysterious entity in the back. And you feel yourself drift. And everyone smiles. And their enthusiasm carries you into the early hours of the morning when you can finally rest your aching bones. And tomorrow you wake up in whatever condition, never fully ready to do it over again.
It’s chaotic and overwhelming. Fulfilling and equally draining. But we do it. Because we love it. There’s nothing quite like it. There never will be.
But what about those of us who can’t help but recoil from another’s touch? What about those of us who have been drugged and taken advantage of and dare I say, raped? What do you do when a man grabs your ass under the cover of the light moving away from where you both stand or holds you by the shoulder longer than you’d liked to be touched or slurs into your ear as your boyfriend literally stands within screaming distance?
What do you do? What do WE do?
We smile politely. Because that’s how our elders taught us to respond. We have another beer (or shot or double) because succumbing to the inebriating effects is better than whatever it is we’re currently feeling. We go home and crawl into our beds and out of our skin and we try to shed the shame of every unsolicited and unwelcome encounter. We cry the following week unaware that our well-intentioned night out with people we love and trust was the trigger that sent us unraveling.
We try. We try and we try and we try.
To fake the normalcy. To put up a facade of strength. We pretend we’re not phased. We carry on. To the best of our best abilities. And we save face. Until next time, that is. We disappear into the week, burdened by our troubled minds, drowning in the weight of our heavy hearts. We emerge ready to take on the next encounter. We don’t particularly have a choice being blessed with this physique, after all.
I know first hand. Danger lurks within harmlessness. I know first hand. The person who next approaches you may be the cause of future post traumatic stress episodes. I know the moment his hands breach my physical space, I am going to feel them tighten around my neck as I scream for help, but no words can escape because this can’t. really. be. happening.
I know. And I have no idea what the fuck to do.
So I step in for the woman who can barely hold her head up. And I step between the forward momentum of a man approaching her from behind as she moves singularly around the dance floor. And I ask the woman on the curb if she has a safe ride home before I get into a car of my own.
I ask. I intervene. I try to help.
God, do I fucking try.
Because I wish someone had done that for me. If only someone had stepped in when I needed them to. Maybe then I wouldn’t want to seep into a vat of acid every time a pair of curious eyes scans the length of my exposed skin. Maybe then I could let my significant other touch me in tender and affectionate ways without screaming inside from psychological pain. Maybe then I could have a normal night’s rest and wake up the next day feeling worthy of all that has yet to unfold. Worthy of success. Worthy of life. Worthy of unconditional love. Worthy of something greater than the trauma that plagues my entire being.
Maybe one day.
Maybe one day.
