Moments of Peace

I was hunting ducks or geese sometime around the turn of the century (can we make those jokes again? Because I'm making those jokes again). I remember looking up into the treetops and birds flying over  us. We were fairly close to their landing zone so they weren't in their formations. I could feel the breeze, the sun was nice and warm but the air was cold. I sat on the hill for a set of train tracks and just watched. It was... nice.

I haven't felt peace often in my life. The hit of growing up in violence and living in a dysfunctional family made my brain used to stress, anxiety and constant Flee, Fight or Flight reflex. Even when things are going relatively well, I need to find a way to channel that energy. It makes me hyperactive and a bit of an adrenaline junkie.

People make very telling assumptions. Like assuming that my energy was always "nervous" energy, as if I wasn't comfortable where I was. It's usually the opposite- I'm bored let's crank it to eleventy, people! What we are doing would make a narcoleptic sleepy! Or if they were narcissists, they assumed I was intimidated by them. When in reality they bored the piss out of me or I simply was not impressed and didn't feel they were worth associating with.

My energy is basically tied to other people not being smart enough, not talking fast enough, not being interesting enough. Which means they irritate me, because they want to talk to ME and it is just a chore for me. I'm an extrovert, but that doesn't mean I want to associate with mundane people all day.

Let me tell you what it's like to be an interesting, intelligent, kickass woman. At work, I spend the entire day having to convince everyone that a woman can do a technical job. It is like every day is a job interview. Then I go hang out with friends and I spend the entire night being told how I'm "not like real girls." Of course they need to interrogate me, to MAKE SURE I'm not just pretending to be... uh, me. In the geek world we call it "Gatekeeping," where men feel the need to make sure women aren't just there to get attention. And who else to test their geekness than male geeks? The fact that they do it at all is telling, because the very first assumption is that they know more than me. All. Day. Long. When at the first question they have identified themselves as someone I don't care to associate with.

It was like when I applied for a server administrator (i.e. I'm a big computer nerd) job at the Minneapolis Public Schools. I had been doing the very same job at another school but with less hours, and was hoping to pick up hours at this other school. The Principal's first words as he laid eyes on me were that he didn't have time to deal with diversity interviews, he needed to hire someone ASAP. He turned on his heel and made a phone call, after which he grudgingly let me into his office as if someone told him that he was required to interview me. My dumb butt still sat down to the interview with this misogynist man that knew next-to-nothing about computers, but because he was a man he assumed he knew more than me. At one point he turned to his computer and told me to prove I was capable of administering his school's servers by... changing his desktop picture.

Why did I have a lot of energy around him? Was I nervous that I wasn't qualified? Did I want to run away because he was intimidating? No, I wanted to punch through his face.

I don't have a lot of peaceful moments in life.