Stop Being Mean to Yourself: A Story About Finding the True Meaning of Self-Love (13 page)

"Take me, for example," I said. "For ten years, I was locked in a box . . ."

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chapter 8

Locked in the Box

Sunset was the sacred signal that broke the daily fast. At dusk, the quiet village of Giza came to life.

This day was no exception. The men and boys scurried about the sandlot with a vitality obscured during daylight hours by hunger and the sheer strain of abstinence.

Three camels knelt on the far end of the lot, smiling mysteriously as if they possessed a secret unknown to any other creature or being. I followed Essam past the perfume shop and down the dirt path leading to his home. In his

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hand he held a white cardboard box of treasured delicacies from the village bakery—half a dozen lemon bars made with flaky, golden pastry and a dozen datefilled Egyptian cookies.

We had already eaten a scrumptious meal. Now we were going to his house to eat dessert and take tea with the women.

"So how old are the women when they get locked in the box?" I asked.

Essam stopped short.

"The box?" he asked.

"Yes," I said. "How old are they when they have to get in the box?" I pointed to the house.

He smiled in recognition. "Oh, you mean when do they have to begin staying at home."

I nodded.

"When a girl turns fourteen, she is expected to stay at home. It is the women's job to cook, clean, and raise the children," he said.

"Do they have to stay in the house for the rest of their lives?" I asked.

He nodded.

"Are they
ever
allowed out?"

"Sometimes to go to market," he said.

"How boring," I said. "I hope you put music in the box to make it better for them."

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Essam looked at me as if he didn't completely understand. How would this gentle man understand? I thought. He's not been locked in the box.

He held the door open for me. I entered, then waited to follow his lead. We walked through the room where I had first met the women, the room with all the rugs and pillows on the floor. He led me around the corner to the left, into a more formal living room. This room was small. It contained a sofa, a chair, and an end table.

Two of the women I had met yesterday stood waiting to greet me. Essam introduced me to the older of the women, his aunt, and the younger woman, his sister. The women looked frail and tired. His aunt looked especially weary. Essam's nephew, a thin, fairhaired boy about nine years old, sat on the sofa amidst school books and papers. He clutched the nub of a pencil in his hand and sat poring over his homework. With the shyness of a young boy, he barely looked at me when we were introduced. Later I saw him peeking. A vibrant teenage girl with blazing eyes and shiny dark hair walked boldly up to me. She held my hand in a warm hello that didn't need words. She was stunningly beautiful. Her radiance instantly reminded me of my daughter, Nichole.

No one in the room spoke English except for Essam, so he translated for us. The teenage girl was his niece. She was seventeen and very glad to meet me. All the women were honored to have me in their home.

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I told them I was pleased and honored to be there.

The two women sat on the floor. One lit the flame on a small stove that looked like a camping stove, then began boiling water for tea. Essam gestured for me to sit next to his nephew on the small sofa, which I did. His niece immediately squeezed in next to me on the other side.

Essam opened the box of pastries and began passing them around. His nephew, after much urging, took a lemon bar out of the white box and began munching on it.

His niece held my hand in hers, touching my painted nails. The women peered at me, refusing any dessert. And the faint stirring I had felt so many times here in this ancient village now turned into a whirling maelstrom taking me someplace far back in time.

The year was 1975
.
I was twenty
eight years old
,
a newlywed
,
eager to explore my dreams of being a wife and mother
.
Slowly over the ensuing months and
years
,
a combination of forces made it harshly clear that my dreams were fantasies
—
mere illusions
.
By then
,
I had two children
.
I loved them deeply
.
I
loved being their mother
.
But poverty
,
my husband
'
s alcoholism
,
and my response to his alcoholism
—
which I would later label codependency
—
had slowly
ground me down to almost nothing
.
Although there were years when I had no car
,
no telephone
,
and little food
,
money was the least of what I lacked
.
I had
no self no self
identity
,
and no life
.
I had become embittered
,
drained
,
and weary
.
I rarely left the house
.
I had
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little contact with other people
.
I had even less contact with myself
—
my emotions
,
thoughts
,
or power
.
I spun off other people
'
s expectations of me
,
or
what I believed they expected
.
I no longer knew what I wanted from life
,
and I certainly didn
'
t expect much from myself or from anyone else
.

I was locked in a box
.

I had been in boxes before
.
As a child
,
I had felt miserably trapped
.
At age twelve I began crossing off days on the calendar
,
counting to the hour how
much time I had to put in before I would be set free
.
My release date was age eighteen
.
I had few choices then
,
except to wait for the passage of time
.
I did
just that
.
But in the process of waiting for my freedom
,
I turned my rage and bitterness against myself
By the time I was let out of that childhood box
,
I had already put myself in another I was addicted to alcohol and drugs
.
Then
,
after getting out of that trap
,

I walked smack into another box
.
I found my self married to an alcoholic and locked into my futile attempts to make him stop drinking
.
I told my self I had
no choices then
.
There didn
'
t seem to be any way out
.

Over the years
,
I gradually began to understand some things about codependency and about my self
nullifying response to other people
.
I found an old
Royal typewriter
,
one with the
"
n
"
key missing
.
I began communicating with the world around me by telling my stories
.
I also began communicating with
myself
.
I found a way out of that box
,
a way out for my children and me
.
That would not be the last box I
'
d walk
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into
,
but it was the last time I would believe I was trapped
.

Many situations and circumstances in life can box us in with expectations that are not ours, limitations that diminish our freedom and dim the light in our golden ball of power. It's so easy to allow others to infringe on our lives, wishes, emotions, and choices. The edges protecting free will are thin.

I had been working for years to break out of all the obvious boxes. But at each new level, the boxes—the traps—became more subtle. Slowly I began to see that many of the boxes I found myself in were of my own making. I tended to construct them, crawl in, then wonder whom I could blame for putting me there. Who did this to me? I would wonder and sometimes ask aloud. That's when I'd hear the answer:
You did
,
Melody. You put yourself in this box.
Now it
'
s up to you to get out
.

There are enough situations in life we can't change, control, or do anything about. We don't need to complicate an already intricate and complex life by limiting our choices and putting ourselves in a box.

Yet, over the years, that's what I had done.

Recently, I had begun to suspect that some deep part of me reveled, at least for a while, in the safety and comfort of being confined, limited, and controlled. I had also begun to suspect that what Nelson Mandela and others have said is true. It is not our darkness, our capability to create Page 119

mayhem and madness, that we fear. What frightens us is our greatness and our tremendous inherent potential for brilliance.

Now, sitting in the living room in Essam's mansion in the village of Giza, I felt all the emotions that accompany being locked in the box—a deep, burning rage and bitterness, fatigue, weariness, hopelessness, and such a strong aversion to confinement that I could barely sit still. I took a bite of my delicious lemon bar, wondering how deep and ancient these emotional memories were.

I really didn't like being locked in a box.

Essam's niece handed me a family photo album. I leafed through the pictures. Not speaking the language made visiting difficult. Small talk normally fills many silent voids, but when small talk has to be translated it's often not worth mentioning. I sipped my tea. Suddenly, I couldn't restrain myself anymore.

I turned to Essam's niece. ''Tell her, Essam. Tell her she doesn't have to stay in the box.''

His eyes got wide.

"Tell her," I said. "She's beautiful. She radiates life. She could do anything, be anything she wants . . ."

Essam smiled, then began translating my words into Arabic. His niece listened intently. Then her radiant face glowed more brightly. She wanted to hear more.

"You could be a model," I said. "A movie star. Work in

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an office. You don't have to stay in the box all your life. I have a daughter. She's your age. She's beautiful, too. She's on the cutting edge of her life. So are you. Live it!"

Essam translated. The young girl smiled. I could have talked all night. A fleeting thought crossed my mind, quieting my voice: an Arab nation under Islamic rule is not the place to do a
Codependent No More
tour.

I was crossing that invisible yet real line between helping and becoming excessively involved in affairs that weren't mine. I could feel it. I remembered the words my friend's daughter had written on her hand as a reminder not to become entangled in a girlfriend's romantic dilemma: "DON'T HELP." I didn't have to control the world.

There was a greater plan. This plan could be trusted. I didn't have to
make
anything happen. I could
let
destiny evolve.

I sat back on the sofa. "Please pass the lemon bars," I said to Essam.

We sat in the living room drinking tea, conversing the best that we could. After a while, Essam stood up. "The women have a gift for you," he said. "Please come with me."

I followed him into a room that looked like a dining room, except there was no table in it. Framed photos of men in military uniforms covered one long wall. I stared at the pictures while I waited for the women. Soon they

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entered the room carrying armfuls of long gowns, each in a solid, vibrant color—red, yellow, purple, green, blue, white.

"They want you to choose two dresses," Essam said. "It's a gift from them."

I held each dress up in front of me, one at a time, trying to decide which two looked best on me. They were all so beautiful.

"They want you to try them on," Essam translated. "They want to see what you look like in an Egyptian gown."

Essam left the room. I modeled each of the exotic, beautiful dresses for the women. We oohed, aahed, and giggled. Finally, after much debate and several repeat performances, we decided that the scarlet dress with the sequined star and the peacock green dress were the right ones for me.

I thanked the women. Essam's sister patted my arm. His aunt smiled. It was the first time I had seen her smile all night.

Essam came back into the room. I showed him the dresses I had chosen. Then his aunt took my arm, guiding me to the wall with the photos. She pointed to a picture of a dashing man dressed in full military garb.

"She wants you to know that's her husband," Essam said. "He was killed in the war."

I looked at Essam's aunt. That's what I had sensed in

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her—that deep grief from losing someone we love. I looked at her, wishing I could do something for her. She has lost so much, I thought. Essam then told her I had lost my son. She touched her hand to her chest, the universal sign communicating that a person understands a broken heart.

Essam translated, and his aunt and I talked for a while about grief and about death. We had something in common. We both felt betrayed by life. Then Essam asked if I was ready to go. I said yes.

"Tell them thank you very much," I said. "I had a wonderful evening."

Essam and the women talked in Arabic for a while, then Essam turned to me. "They enjoyed your visit very much," he said. "They are sad you have to go. They want you to come back soon."

"Tell them I will," I said. "I promise."

That's when Essam taught me the meaning of
Insha
'
a Allah
.

"Never say 'I will do this' or 'I will do that,'" Essam said. "Instead say, 'I will do that
Insha
'
aAllah
.'"