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Biddy is a woman of some years: a GenX'er, Riot Grrrl, survivor, traveler, tattoo collector, senior pet owner, music lover, former public school embattled public school retiree and amatuer vegan chef. Biddy Sounds Off is a thinking woman's bildungsroman and pirate radio station some thirty years in the making: featuring episodic writings and eclectic musical selections.
Welcome to Biddy Sounds Off. A place for episodic writing and music I love. I'm Biddy. Deciding to allow people the privilege of access to your time can be a daunting process. It is important to stay connected with interacting, but interacting with people is not my first choice.
Biddy:There can be miscommunication, misdirection, or most likely, an exhaustion of your precious time and energy. It makes sense that when we've been hurt by people, we would begin to avoid them. People who come from dysfunctional families are already used to isolation to varying degrees. So this seems to me an extension of an attempt at coping that likely worked at one point or another. And can I just say, no matter how obsolete of the coping mechanism may now be, as outdated as it may have become, no longer needed, still, we should put some respect on its name as it may have gotten you through something difficult?
Biddy:We survived it no matter how dark it got. How many repeated assaults crept up on me and somehow surprising me every time. No matter how similarly repeated the dysfunctional dance steps I followed to get back there, no matter how many times we were assaulted, no matter how much we blame ourselves before, during, after, and even if we think we waited too long to deal with it, we still deserve the chance to improve ourselves and to improve the progress we're making through this world. No one deserves to be judged for surviving, and least of all by ourselves. Can't your survival alone be proof that you deserve to be here?
Biddy:However a person copes to make it to the next day is their business. Not hurting anyone, not hurting ourselves. This is the goal. And to keep me out of that headspace, reanimating long dead images, sounds, sensations, I've noticed that a balance of social time and uninterrupted personal time feels best, keeps me above ground. One of the greatest pleasures of my new life is spending time alone.
Biddy:I treasure it. Not alone within a lonely marriage, family, or dynamics that lock us up away in rooms inside of rooms inside of rooms. In my previous life, I didn't have much privacy, And I've always loved to draw and write and create stories, so personal time is also important for my creative expression. Of course, I can overdo it just like anything else I enjoy, and consequently, my mental health will begin to suffer. In order to keep seeking that balance, I have to keep my social practice up, interact with others, other people, you know.
Biddy:But after my father passed, there was a lot of legal action that occurred because he had passed without a will or any estate planning whatsoever. So dealing with lawyers didn't end up being any kind of social interaction I liked. Then there was the bureaucracy of trying to locate lost county documents and vehicle titles, all of which I thought I'd tidied up before leaving the country, but this red tape kept unspooling and followed me here. I can assure you that trying to fax documents from a beach village in Mexico to a small town in Colorado, that neither side of that fax will be technologically updated. The word fax says so much.
Biddy:And so you can imagine this takes a lot of patience to begin with. My social interaction energy was sucked up with all of that. So I remained an observer, an outsider, a familiar place. But luckily, the people of Mexico have shown me such warmth and compassion and willingness to help and an enthusiasm for life, really. Eventually, the estate will be sorted and in the meantime, my social anxiety here is fraught with less anxiety.
Biddy:This is promising because although social mixing can fill me with dread, I've resolved and will no longer be ruled by fear. Not anymore. It isn't even real. Ultimately, by facing my social aversions, I stand to benefit my health and wellness in much the same as working out. Not always my first choice, but health and wellness will benefit.
Biddy:I'm a Libra, so I'm always trying to find that balance. This time I've spent down here hasn't been so much finding myself or learning who I am as much as making an intentional effort to accept myself as the slightly misshapen, chewed up thing I am. Self love is the goal, but when you come from such a deep place of self hate, like so many of us childhood sex assault victims do, Victims of trauma of all kinds. It may seem to be missing a step in between. I wasn't able to just leapfrog one side the next on the path to trauma recovery.
Biddy:Isn't it linear? No. It is whatever we need it to be, even a spiral, so long as we can be patient enough with ourselves to keep looking. Personally, I had to discover self esteem first. This was the sort of gateway I was looking for and I had to find it before I could truly accept and love myself.
Biddy:I had to feel worthy. In studying educational science, I've become a good researcher. I've learned that while the world may seem untrustworthy, data is not. I have consistently proven to my harshest critic myself that I can take care of myself when things start to seem unsteady. And if my vision starts to wobble because I may hyper ventilate and my heart rate increases and my blood pressure increases.
Biddy:I actually don't know if my blood pressure increases, but it feels like it. And when I panic, I look to the data. It physically calms me to realize that I'm safe. I'm healthy. My pets are well looked after.
Biddy:I must be doing something right. This calms me, allowing me to take a beat, breathe, and proceed. Keeping my mental health in balance means keeping an eye on the scales. Do my fucks outweigh the amount of shit I am taking? Is it the reverse?
Biddy:I tend to feel an inner panic when my worries or fucks are overloaded. I was worried all the time when I got here. Verdict panic constantly. Couldn't speak the language well enough yet. Didn't have the customs down.
Biddy:Constantly terrified I'm offending the locals. I'm wandering like an idiot into cartel activity. Activity. These are all of the fucks I gave, spewed. So I constantly tried to make myself smaller, over smiled and ingratiated myself, bowing and scraping everywhere I went.
Biddy:This goes in the shit taking column. Finally, I learned that what was true in the US is true here as well. Perhaps even more so. No one is as closely tuned into your bullshit as you are. This is what I tell myself.
Biddy:Whether I'm out to sea in a turbulent anxiety storm or not, the exchange of information or goods and services or pleasantries is going on. And in reality, nothing is amiss. No one is laughing, pointing, raging, huffing and puffing and shuffling because I'm causing their time to be wasted. Especially here in Mexico, I believe owing to the slower pace of life overall. Feeling rushed in the US to get out of the way, especially if you're a woman of a certain age, isn't the norm here.
Biddy:Everyone is automatically paid the respect of being human, or so it seems in my experience. Rather than expecting you to show why you, prove why you are deserving of taking up the time of others, taking up space, taking up the resources that you need to survive. Living here peacefully, showing respect to the local customs and local people and improving my Spanish language skills and contributing to the local system of economy has all allowed me to feel respected on a fundamentally human level, in a way I hadn't been feeling before. Social exchange now feels more in balance. As a result, my ships and my fucks are in balance, if you excuse me saying so.
Biddy:The golden ratio, a zero zero balance, allows me to spend more time in the doing my best category where my health and wellness is both nurtured by my private time and nourished by positive social relationships First was the one and only Santagold with Ain't Ready, reminding us that it could come in hard, kick in one side of your heart. Yes. And then Brazilian girls with pirates. Sabrina Shuba, giving us her brand of effortless, cool, so hard, in your face the house down. Singer and actress because of course, she starred in Baskets.
Biddy:The wonderful program which gave us that Louis Anderson performance of Christine Baskets. Rest in peace, one of the greats. Before the break, I was talking about how valuable it is to our overall health and well-being to include positive social interaction. For me, running at a deficit makes it even harder to get back into the swing of things. As I said, many of the pressures I brought with me from the United States have loosened up and don't have such a grip on me down here.
Biddy:People are friendly, but not with a forced feeling to it. So it feels natural. In the US, I felt like there was a lot more performative apologizing and just pretense. Oh, I wouldn't wanna trouble you, but would you mind? Not necessarily.
Biddy:And when you have a moment and this and that, just wasted language, you know. I don't have the Spanish language skills to waste on being overly polite and I'm really enjoying speaking more directly as a result. It just takes so much energy putting all that social artifice into the world. Energy taken from our precious life force. Removing most of that has actually kind of made me want to engage a little more, you know.
Biddy:I'm intrigued, but making small movements to start. No flannel shirted stumbles this time, falling ass backwards into old behavior patterns. But not to worry. No harm done in the long run. Just another slight regression with a lesson.
Biddy:Becoming more settled into our lives and our routines here and finding my feet financially again. Although the lawyer's saga still hasn't totally concluded. Time for a heavier sound now. Let's take a break. Do Started with Skin A Rat by Sasami from her brilliant 2002 album, Squeeze.
Biddy:Followed by Blue Bell from Babes in Toyland. From their Fontanelle album. And I wish there was a better word to use to describe that album than seminal. I hate using that word. It's so disgusting.
Biddy:Groundbreaking and iconic. That's what that album was for me. But I love the lyrics. I know you're right. Everything you do is right.
Biddy:Everything I do is true. Humility is always safer ground, I expect. It's like that fluffy episode where she and a vampire psychology student, I think, were discussing her having a superiority and inferiority complex at the same time. Anxiety is kind of like that. You know?
Biddy:And fuck you, Joss Whedon, sexual predator ass. We can worry all the time about what other people think about us. But in reality, no one gives a shit. No one cares. This is one of those truths that is both terrifyingly bleak while being simultaneously comforting.
Biddy:No one cares about how worried you are about the way you talk or present yourself in public or anything like that because most people are too preoccupied with their own worries. My career in teaching has taught me, no one is even paying attention. No one's problems are important to those outside of themselves but because none of us is more important than anyone else. Another core truth, inspiring existential dread. No?
Biddy:For me, accepting this means that I am allowed the same respect as anyone else I pass on the street. Pathetic? In the eye of the beholder. But for me this was a come up. It elevates my baseline.
Biddy:Once I became more comfortable and relaxed in my routines here, I realized people treated me with the same respect I gave. This is the kind of baseline that sets me up for success in life and elevates my health and well-being. Another way I need to elevate my health is to invest into physical exercise, and the best way I knew how to do that is with another kind of baseline. Now. Sudan archive, selfish soul.
Biddy:I don't want no struggle. I don't want no fear. Finding the strength to reject the ridiculous standards others set for us, beauty standards, appearance, behavioral standards, limitations is what these are. Finding the strength to express your own standard of beauty and grace might just fuel your selfish error and more power to you. A little format twist, which I hope you won't mind.
Biddy:Ending with a bit of talk rather than closing with the final song. This has been Biddyy Sounds Off. Thank you for listening.