OPTIONS

or how I learned that violence is optional but accountability is not

noun
plural noun: options
a thing that is or may be chosen

I fully believe my obsession with having options comes from the lack of them I had as a child. When I look back, I realize my childhood was the most unstructured yet structured childhood I have ever known. Think chaos with a schedule. I knew I technically had options, yet my choices had been checked off for me long before I could even choose what I actually wanted.

For a long time, I blamed it on my parents being young and dumb. And sure, that is part of it. But eventually I realized that what I labeled dumb was really their version of doing their best. Which is humbling and annoying at the same time.

I knew the life I was living was nothing I would ever choose to repeat. But I also know that had I not grown up under those conditions and limited options, I would not be where I am today. I was the first in my family to do a lot of things without other people’s feelings being hurt or traumatized at their expense. Given the circumstances, I always knew I had a choice. And early on, I learned to pick myself. I just had to learn how to do that in a way that felt completely foreign to how I was raised.

PASSIVE AGGRESSIVE IS A FAMILY HEIRLOOM I DID NOT CLAIM

Both sides of my family are the textbook definition of passive aggressive. They will talk about each other for years but will never say to the actual person, hey, you are a dick. Unfortunately for them, I did not inherit that gene.

I live for confrontation. Not chaos. Confrontation. I genuinely believe that going everywhere except the source is like cancer. The longer you leave it untreated, the more it spreads and starts affecting everything around it.

I was about ten years old when things started making sense, and not in a cute coming of age way. I would get labeled bitchy for saying I did not like something. Looking back, I was a ten year old being called a bitch, and honestly, it did not bother me. I liked knowing the adults around me knew I understood exactly what was happening. They knew they would have to get smarter if they wanted me to comply. Unfortunately for them, even when they did, I stayed three steps ahead.

At that point, I realized I had options. I could be passive, or I could confront. And I always chose war.

THE FBI COULD NEVER BUT I COULD

My dad was a very secretive person, as all Virgos tend to be, and I took a personal interest in his business. I learned his passwords by ear hustling. When I was bored in computer class, I hacked into his email. When he left his phone unattended, I read his messages.

Did my feelings get hurt in the process? Absolutely. But I enjoyed knowing that at the end of the day, I always held the upper hand. No matter what he thought he knew, I knew more about him than he knew about me. Which is probably not healthy, but it was informative.

This behavior laid the foundation for a very important decision. I was never going to be like the women in my family. I was not going to be desperate for a man. I was not going to be passive aggressive. And I was absolutely not going to play dumb. If men were allowed to choose themselves, then so was I.

WORKPLACE VIOLENCE BUT MAKE IT RETAIL

My first job was at Michaels. I hated it immediately. My manager was a total C U Next Tuesday. She was a middle aged white woman with zero control over her personal life, so she exercised power trips over high schoolers for four hours, three times a week.

On the first day of orientation, she embarrassed a kid for being two minutes late. His mom drove him. If you have ever been to Atlanta, you know traffic is personally sponsored by Satan. I watched her speak to him like he was dirt beneath her shoe and decided right then and there that nobody would ever talk to me like that.

I eventually got fired for telling her to shut the fuck up while she was criticizing my shorts. My dad had seen those shorts. They were below my knees. I smirked, quit before she could fire me, and played dumb when my dad joked that maybe I got fired since I was not on the schedule. The joke was that I had been fired a full week before he noticed.

FLIGHT ATTENDANT TRAINING AND THE ART OF CHOOSING VIOLENCE

Flight attendant training ended similarly. Another middle aged white woman with an unhealthy obsession with me. She complained about me scribbling in my notebook even though I had perfect scores. She complained that I did not do my makeup every day.

Mind you, she looked like a washed up 1970s trailer park beauty queen who never emotionally recovered from being prom adjacent. But who was I to comment, and who was she to comment on me.

When I had the chance to leave with grace, I chose violence. I told her her makeup made her look cheap, that her fixation on my appearance should be redirected to herself and the gym, and that I would not apologize for being half her age and still intimidating her. Despite her decades of life experience and privilege, I still ran laps around her, literally and figuratively.

I was sent home immediately.

MEETING KIND WOMEN AND BEING SUSPICIOUS ABOUT IT

After many workplace encounters where violence was my default setting, I finally met normal women. Incredible women. Two women I babysit for changed everything. One is an artist. One is corporate. One is Midwestern. One is Southern. Both are absurdly kind.

I genuinely thought I was being punked. Nobody is that nice for no reason. But they were. And that is when it hit me. Just like I always had the option of violence, I always had the option of kindness. They chose it. Watching what came from that choice changed my life.

ENDING A FRIENDSHIP WITHOUT BURNING THE HOUSE DOWN

Late last year, I had to end a friendship. I was beyond angry. Not just hurt. Furious. It was not even the action itself but the principle. A repeated pattern of behavior I would never do to them.

I thought about how I could destroy them. Truly. But that would have left me vulnerable, and while I am comfortable with my skeletons, I was not interested in a mutual destruction pact. Instead, I chose to leave with love.

I never reached out again. And I never felt the urge to. I knew I ended things honestly. Not from impulse, but from truth. If anything were to ever happen to them, my last words were real. I loved them. I just was not willing to be loved at the expense of being taken for a fool.

That choice changed everything.

PRACTICING PEACE LIKE IT IS A MUSCLE

From men with secret girlfriends to celibacy failures that involved leg warmers and false confidence, I learned something important. I always had other options. Silence. Grace. Humor. Peace.

I stopped punishing myself. I stopped reacting. I started choosing responses that allowed my nervous system to survive the day.

Missing trains. Sidewalk collisions. Rejections. Disappointments. I stopped assuming malice and started choosing neutrality. Or compassion. Or laughter. Life became lighter.

BEING A WOMAN OF MANY OPTIONS

Being a woman of many options internally is hard. It is exhausting. It requires accountability. Emotional maturity. Self confrontation.

But it is also the most loving thing you can do for yourself. And once you choose it, nobody can ever take it away from you.