A deadline has been missed. It is the right thing. Let’s talk about that.
Last night Tawn Krakowski (AKA Empress at Tawnlandia) reached out to me to tell me she was having trouble with recording this week’s episode of Fem Friday. For those who may not know, Gen X Watch and Tawnlandia have gone into a joint venture connected with Barnstorm Publishing to convert our Fem Friday Features to audio while I write a YA book series based on some of the women we have featured in Fem Friday.
What was the problem? Technical? Did the PC crash? No. The emotions were too raw on this particular one.
Our conversation is not for the masses, but it was two trauma ridden creatives and creators in their 50’s dealing with powerful material I have written that hit too close to home because it happened. For the same reason so many women have fallen in love with this series, it is hard to write about.
What I will share is that Tawn asked me a question, “How do I express this to your followers that are anticipating it today?”
I have worked for a few newspapers and magazines over the years. I know what many editors and editor in chief’s would say to me. It would not be very nice. But before we are collaborators, we are friends who have known each other since high school. My answer was simple:
“Just say that. I will add more to that tomorrow in a special edition piece on the trauma triggers and healing I found while writing these articles. It will help readership if we lean into the truth. I got your back.”
The Statement Tawn Issued Online
Hey, my homesnakes!
I’m having a hard time with today’s Fem Friday audio–the subject matter (attempted suicide, loss, grief, and shame) is triggering for me at the moment. I definitely want to work through it and publish the audio, but I need more time. I thought I could handle it, but it’s harder than I expected.
I spoke with the author, Patrick Green, and we agreed to postpone the episode until next week, and will instead publish a Special Edition piece on the trauma triggers and healing he found while writing the Fem Friday articles.
These stories…they heal, they challenge, and maybe, just maybe, illuminate a path through the darkness for those who need it most.
Thank you for reading, listening, following and for your understanding.
When Fem Friday Meant Something to Women
Fem Friday was a new feature. I was writing about pop figures that were women who made a difference that Gen X would know about. It was off to a good and modest start until I featured Tina Turner. It bombed and I could not figure out why, until I got feedback from not one, but two white women about my age who told me they did not like the subject matter. When giving feedback, any time someone starts a sentence with I am not racist or I have black friends, know that what follows next is gonna be racist. I was also told that she was too “in your face” by a male progressive pastor.
I was angry! So I wrote about Joan Jett and Sarah! People did not want a powerful black women who was too in your face and survived abuse? I was going to end Fem Friday with the most in your face punk and rock and riot grrrl woman I could think of and then throw in a woman I met at a Joan Jett concert that turned into an intense few days of two people having drugs, sex, and sublime honesty as we explored as many sins as we could in the early 90’s. But she was also a powerful woman who survived an abusive father who was a pastor in the same denomination I was in.
I never spoke about Sarah. I buried her in my heart along with other memories and moments. She came out from an angry space and as weird as this may sound, it almost felt like her spirit and the piece of her deep inside me saw my anger and hurt and worked through it to finally be recognized as part of my life. It fucked me up and was also cathartic.
And the readers loved it…and her. It was not Joan Jett they commented about, it was Sarah.
So this started a journey.
Almost Beautiful
There is a period of my life that I have buried. 1988-1995 are a period of my life I never spoke about because it was almost beautiful. The two churches I went to were as close to a cult as one can get while being in a mainstream denomination. Teenagers were hurt in these two churches.
I lived in two worlds, there was the world with my friends from high school and church, and there was the other world. It existed when I got a job at Fox Valley Mall in Aurora Illinois. I made friends there and also got to know other people adjacent to my other world who exposed me to wondrous things like the Rocky Horror Picture Show.
In this world I had gay friends and women were peersI did not have to pretend to be something I was not. In this mystical land I could fall in love and not have to get my youth pastor’s approval on the relationship as we discovered all the things young people are meant to discover. In this world I could be anything I wanted for a living. I wanted to be a photojournalist and fall in love with a strong woman.
Instead the other world won and I studied to be a minister because that was the god approved job that I was “called” to do based on the manipulation and opinions of youth leaders.
My world was almost beautiful. In the name of a god I no longer believe in I left the world that had love. Untreated trauma and co dependency could not understand acceptance as I was. It only knew conditions and manipulation. I walked away from all these beautiful people and espoused values that betrayed the love they gave to me and who they were at their core. They gave me love and hope and acceptance and I gave them a Bible and sin and shame and abandoned them.
Beautiful truth was replaced by a life that was a lie and I was a prisoner to this life I led. Trapped in a cycle of continual abuse in my adult life.
Recovery and Discovery
Week after week I wrote about these people, their stories, and the traumas they fought. Week after week women and LGBTQIA+ people and other precious souls were moved by them, related, and shared their own stories in the comments. In short time I reached out to the people I was writing about and reconnected with them. Some became friends again, others did not want that, my years of having left them to become a minister espousing horrific values that diminished them was seen as a betrayal. And a few…a few have passed away.
And in this came a core of my recovery in therapy. I had to unpack new insights from memories I had buried for decades in my therapy sessions as a suicide attempt survivor with PTSD/complex trauma. The writing of this series was more difficult than I can ever express, but it was also more healing than I can express.
When Tawn and I decided to join forces in the audio project, I was at a place where hearing her give a voice to these people who saved my life in my 50’s by existing in my teens and twenties was beautiful. These women deserved a voice and needed it and Tawn has given it. But these women and I lived through hell together. Hell served at the hands of religion and misogyny. For people who have lived through what me and the women whose stories we tell can be healing, but it is also hard.
When you write about them or interpret them to voice, it is a different experience than reading about them.
Belated Legacy
The belated legacy of these women is powerful. Their stories of their lives have helped and inspired people. It is why I have assembled a team to help me create a YA series based on the stories. There is an opportunity for all of us to help light a path for the next generations to know that they are not crazy, the oppression is real and they are right to see themselves as beautiful and good no matter what a predator or preacher says.
It is also a moment of bonding. We have so many generational and social divides based on trauma, but what if we shared that trauma and healed together? Could that lead to a bond? Perhaps even lasting change? I hope so.
Give Tawn the space she needs to tell the stories right. Give her the time to process the impact and common ground she has with Cassie.
I would prefer a missed deadline that leads to a more beautiful story that heals us together. Cassie is no longer here, but Tawn is giving her, and others, a voice. That is heroic and brave. It is also difficult, because of all the Fem Friday women we have featured, Cassie was the bravest of them all and had the most to teach us. She saved my life in 2024 and helped others heal simply by hearing her stories.
As far as bonding? I have having conversations with Cassie’s 23 year old daughter and giving her an insight to the young woman her mother was, and that is helping her heal from the loss of her mother to suicide and addiction. Cassie’s mom died from suicide. The cycle ends with her daughter and I am a part of that road, as is the younger version of Cass inside my heart. That is a story for another day.
Stay totally awesome!
Stay true to you!
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