It’s 6am, my swimsuit is saturated in chlorinated water and I’m yelling at a man twice my age with a chest tattoo.
Less than a minute ago, we amicably shared a medium-pace lap swim lane with two other women.
Two hours before that, a dreadful feeling of anger bled through my body, waking me up. I’ve been recovering from therapy this week, but not as well as usual. We’ve been running EMDR (eye movement desensitization and reprocessing) on past sexual abuse. I feel invaded with memories and pain I want to violently shake off of me, but I know that won’t work because the feelings are inside of me. I decide exercise might help integrate this mess.
In the morning darkness I drive to the pool and pick the medium swim lane so I can keep a good pace and find my rhythm. Lifeguards patrol ten over-filled lanes of swimmers. It’s not the peace I hoped for, but under the water is quiet and each stroke punching the water helps me process the anger and unfairness of what happened to me.
That’s when a man in his sixties attempts to swim over me as we near the end of the lane. Because I refuse to allow this, he barks at me “FAST SWIMMERS GO FIRST”. I stop swimming and stand up. “HEY BIG GUY, WHY DON’T YOU TRY THE FAST LANE!” I yell. My hand shoots up involuntarily and points at the lifeguard, then the man. “THIS MAN IS AN ASSHOLE, SWIMMING OVER ME!”. His body physically asserting itself into my space shot a missile of anger through my body that exploded. I know swim lane etiquette, and what this man pulled ain’t it.
At the end of the lane, the lifeguard and manager watch the man and I argue, interjecting to de-escaulate when possible. We’re arguing about pool etiquette semantics but what I’m really telling him is he will not asset power over me here, not with his body or his words. His ego-trip is undoubtedly telling him it’s a sensible thing to swim on top of someone in the medium swim lane. He refers to me in third person, telling the lifeguard I’m too slow for the lane. I look at him directly and demand he “NOT REFER TO ME IN THIRD PERSON!”. Eventually he swims away. The manager affirms me, and I make a mental decision to refuse to leave the lane. I continue my laps until my goggles fill with salty tears, raw from confrontation.
A universal truth of being a woman is that it is a matter of when, not if, we realize we are prey to men. Not all men, but many. Girls will become women, and soon find themselves aware of the men who roam freely and see them as an object to be controlled, conquered, or used for amusement, within a society that refuses to call out this pervasive sickness. A minor example of this, as an engineer my assigned mentor, a male in his fourties, accidentally opened a folder of nude photos of a woman on his computer during our 1:1 meeting while giving me a tutorial. When I told my boss how uncomfortable this made me feel, the mentor accused me of lying. I wasn’t believed. He was given a new female mentee after me. Two close girlfriends have both received unwanted sexual advances from male bosses or colleagues. Are we expected to think of these as a coincidences?
“I never get angry.” I told Tony a few years before I turned thirty. Back then I could count on one hand how many times I’d been mad. I told the same thing to my therapist when we started to work together. “Oh you will”, he said without a beat. I wondered then what he meant.
When my anger did begin its resurrection, I made a playlist. I listened to it on repeat through my over-ear headphones as I pounded the sidewalk, practically growling at innocent dog walkers. I wrote rageful journal entries. I beat pillows and lifted heavy weights. The anger is still there today, and more of it keeps coming. It’s helping me find my voice, one that proclaims its boundaries. I wonder why we don’t talk about the health of anger, of its power and its goodness… a protective force, designed to kill in our ancestors, and in modern times a motivating fuel to propel us into action and protection?
There is a difference in exercising your anger and exorcizing your anger. The former feels good in the short term, but is an unproductive drain of energy. The latter heals. Where does the anger go when it’s unprocessed? Unspoken? Un-exorcised? Into our bodies, our hips, our pelvis. A bracing, one undoubtably felt by our daughters as we pass them into this world through birth. The stories of what we as women have endured.
My pool example is a blur of the two, exercising and exorcizing. I aspire to anger integrated enough I don’t find myself yelling at a stranger over minor frustrations, but when the anger comes from that deep, my 12 year old self, I exorcise it. In the pool my anger said “do not cross my boundaries.” I would rather over index on anger than let myself be taken advantage of again. I blare “The Man” by Taylor Swift all the way home from the pool and cry loudly. I laugh too, at the absurdity of yelling at someone in a public pool before 7am.
I write this all out and again wonder where the anger goes, but this time when it’s integrated, when we move it through our bodies and transform it into something else. I answer my own question when I think of the women I admire. Whitney Wolfe, who was ousted from Tinder after calling out the sexual harassment she received from a co-founder. Whitney went onto build Bumble, the dating app where women make the first move, turning her into the youngest female billionaire. After Taylor Swift’s master rights were sold away from her, she’s recorded what was always meant to be hers. This calculated, determined, fierce self protection inspires me. Turning anger and victimhood into power, one where for me this means a company gets built. And in doing so, a micro-environment, a universe of sorts, where fairness and equality can be enforced. Until I’m leading that company, I’ll speak up here.
Caitlin - Your writing is SO engaging and compelling. Thank you for expressing in words what many women including myself find difficult to articulate. Sending positive energy to you on your healing journey and thank you for standing up for yourself at the pool. You’re an inspiration!
I am so very proud of you for sticking up for yourself! You have every right to say exactly how you will be honored and disrespected!! You don't ever have to let a man dictate that for you! You are strong!! ❤️❤️