Blooming: Finding Gifts in the Shit of Life

Contents

Author’s Note

Why I Wrote This Book

CHAPTER ONE

Finding My Voice

CHAPTER TWO

Family Legacy

CHAPTER THREE

Daddy Issues

CHAPTER FOUR

Comparison Kills

CHAPTER FIVE

Family Rejection

CHAPTER SIX

Money, Men & Marriage

CHAPTER SEVEN

Divorce

CHAPTER EIGHT

Career

CHAPTER NINE

Stepping into the Light

CHAPTER TEN

Prophet or Spiritual Assassin?

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Dementia & Death

CHAPTER TWELVE

Losing My Best Friend to Cancer

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Recognizing Evil

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

When Life Gives You Lemons

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

My Body Is Not Normal

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Is He Out There?

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Defining Moments

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Midlife Redirection

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Blooming

Acknowledgments

Appendix

Book Group Questions

Blooming

Finding Gifts in the Shit of Life

Carrington Smith

Copyright © 2021 Carrington Smith

All rights reserved.

Blooming

Finding Gifts in the Shit of Life

ISBN  978-1-5445-2380-4 Hardcover

             978-1-5445-2378-1 Paperback

             978-1-5445-2379-8 Ebook

             978-1-5445-2381-1 Audiobook

For my mother, who told me I was braver than she was. For Stephanie Woodard, because I’m still here.For my boys: you taught me how to love unconditionally.And for those of you fighting to love yourself: I am you.

Author’s Note

You own everything that happened to you. Tell your stories. If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should have behaved better.

—Anne Lamott

These are my stories. I share them to the best of my recollection. Others may remember or perceive them differently, for we each bring our own perceptions, mindsets, and filters to every memory. My purpose in writing this book is to discover the gifts in life, not to call out people or hurt anyone. With that in mind, I’ve changed the names and identifying details of many of the people in this book. Dialogue may not be exact, but it reflects the substance of a conversation as I recall it. Each of these stories describes a moment in time and not the entirety of a person, so I ask that the reader not damn an individual for a moment in time when he or she behaved badly. We all behave badly from time to time, myself included. I choose to forgive those who caused me pain. And I hope that they will do the same.

Why I Wrote This Book

Memoir is about handing over your life to someone and saying, this is what I went through, this is who I am, and maybe you can learn something from it.

—Jeannette Walls

This book was birthed during the pandemic. During the shitstorm of a lifetime, I felt compelled to share how life has taught me to view times like these as full of growth and opportunity. You see, shit is quite literally fertilizer. It provides the nutrients needed for life to flourish and grow. It is in life’s messes, the failures, the difficulties—the shit—that we find what we need to grow and bloom into our greatness.

As I write, millions of people have lost their jobs because of the pandemic. Hundreds of thousands have lost their lives. Everywhere people are struggling with the existential questions: Do I matter? Without a job, what do I base my self-worth on? If I die tomorrow, what will I be remembered for?

Over the twenty years of my career as an executive search professional, I’ve interviewed thousands of candidates. I’ve been blessed with an incredible track record. Most candidates stay in their jobs for years and regularly get promoted. What’s the secret sauce? I focus on character and values. My favorite question to ask to understand who someone is and what they value is: We all have moments that define us; can you tell me about a moment that shaped you and how?

The answers to this question tell me more about a candidate than almost any other. Based on their answers, I discover things like emotional resilience, authenticity, grit, courage, empathy, persistence, wisdom, creativity, integrity, curiosity, passion, self-discipline, perseverance, resourcefulness, reframing, hope, leadership, collaboration, positive attitude, strategic thinking, and problem-solving.

For years, I’ve lived in fear that someone would turn the question around on me. How would I answer? There have been so many defining moments—many of them raw and ugly. But, after decades of prying into the lives of others, I needed to uncover the answer for myself. Life-altering events, like a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic, have a way of pushing you to face those deep truths. This book is my answer to that question.

Thank you to the individuals who have trusted me with their stories. I honor you and your courage to share them with me. To those of you pondering these existential questions, it is my hope that through sharing my story, it will help you to discover your gifts in the shit of life.

CHAPTER ONE

Finding My Voice

Owning our story and loving ourselves through that process is the bravest thing that we will ever do.

—Brené Brown

It was an October night in 1986. He had been raping me for hours. He left the room to take a break, locking me inside. I did my best to redress myself, but the buttons had been ripped from my shirt. I pulled it tight around me and climbed the ladder to the upper bunk bed. Moving to the farthest corner, I pulled my knees in, wrapping my arms around them and pressing them into my chest. I wanted to disappear. My body hurt. I felt numb—except for the tears I could feel running down my face. The bunk bed was up against a window, giving me a view of the night sky and the yard two stories below. I knew he would come back eventually, and pondered leaping out of the window. I would likely break some bones, but it would be a relief from this. As I considered this option, I heard the door unlock. Fear ran through my body like ice. I felt my pulse quicken.

I’m not done with you yet, he said. He must have taken something while he was out of the room. His eyes were crazy. He looked hungry—for me. I pushed myself farther back into the corner, pulling my knees in closer, trying to disappear completely. He climbed the ladder, picked me up, and carried me down. He ripped my clothes off again. I felt myself tear as he took his pleasure without lubrication. As he penetrated me again and again, I left my body. I dissociated. Later, I learned this was the body’s way of protecting itself during trauma.

A few hours later, he was done. He handed me my clothes and told me I could go. He watched me as I dressed myself. I had large, angry rug burns on the tops of my feet, lower back, and elbows. I left his room and heard him close the door behind me, then lock it. I crept down the hallway to the massive central staircase, hugging the wall as I held my shirt closed. It was dark in the house now and everyone was in bed. I opened the massive front door and stepped into the night. I remember the walk home to my sorority house feeling cold and painful. It hurt to walk. I let myself into the sorority house, quietly climbing the stairs to my room. I stripped naked and made my way to the shower room. Everyone was asleep so I had the shower to myself. I stood under the shower, wincing from pain as the water hit torn skin. I put my pj’s on and found a daybed to curl up on. I didn’t want to risk waking anyone, so I didn’t go into the sleeping dorm (a large room full of bunk beds where all the girls slept). I lay there in the fetal position, tears running down my face, not sure how to comprehend what just happened. My body was in shock. I didn’t sleep. I couldn’t.

The next morning, I sought out a sorority sister, Courtney, for advice. I was terrified of getting pregnant and I was terrified someone would find out what had happened to me. You see, two years prior, another girl in a campus sorority, Abigail, had been gang-raped at another fraternity. When she told her story, no one believed her. Instead, she was vilified. She was labeled a slut and got kicked out of her sorority at Washington State University.

I confided in Courtney what had happened. The Tri Deltas and Sigma Nus were doing homecoming together. At WSU, homecoming was a massive celebration. Sororities paired off with fraternities to design and build yard decorations. The best ones won a prize and bragging rights. We participated in our own version of Olympic-type games and attended a series of parties leading up to the big football game. One afternoon, I went over to the Sigma Nu house with a group of Tri Delts to work on the yard decorations. I met a boy I’ll call Gregory when I arrived. After working outside for a couple of hours, a few of my sorority sisters and I were invited inside to have a beer. The keg was upstairs, so we climbed the massive wood staircase to the second floor. I was handed a cup of beer and Gregory pulled me into his room. The next thing I remember is the thunderous sound of his door being kicked open. We had an audience now. I could hear shouts and catcalls from a group of guys jostling to see in the room. I realized that I was naked, and that Gregory was on top of me, inside of me. I tried to hide my face. Gregory pulled himself off me, yelling at his fraternity brothers to get the fuck out. The door had multiple dead bolts, some which required keys. He locked them all before returning to me. He had raped me for hours, leaving that one time and returning to rape me again. I shared all of this with Courtney. She scrunched up her nose at me. Are you sure you didn’t want him to have sex with you? I tried again to explain to her that this wasn’t consensual sex. This was rape. But Abigail’s legacy weighed on her. Just be really sure, she warned. Be careful how you handle this—remember what happened to Abigail. I felt myself descend into darkness. She hadn’t provided the support that I had hoped for. I was on my own.

I wandered down to the Student Health Center and had them examine me. Observing my torn skin, rug burns, and bruises, the doctor asked me if there was anything I wanted to tell him. I was afraid he would report it to the police, and I would end up like Abigail. So, instead of telling him the truth, I insisted it was just rough sex. I had recently watched a Phil Donahue show where they had discussed a medical breakthrough which they were calling the morning after pill, and I asked the doctor if he had heard of it. I didn’t know much about it except that it was intended to be taken shortly after intercourse to prevent pregnancy when no contraception had been used. Pregnancy was my biggest concern. My parents were vehemently pro-life. So much so that I was forced to watch graphic videos of actual abortions, including ultrasound views of different types of abortions as they occurred, and the disposal of the fetuses. Their version of a family movie night. Lucky for me, the doctor at the Student Health Center was familiar. While he didn’t have the actual morning after pill because it had not yet been approved by the FDA (it wasn’t until 2001—I was very lucky to have seen that Donahue episode), the doctor said that it was essentially the equivalent of taking about eight birth control pills all at once. The idea was to push your estrogen level way up and then drop it, causing a period. He said that this was such new science that he had no idea if it could cause cancer or what the adverse reactions might be, other than that it would probably cause nausea. I took the eight birth control pills and swallowed them all at once. It wasn’t long before I was puking nonstop.

The following day, the Tri Delts were invited to a mixer with the Sigma Nus at their house. I had been walking around like a zombie, going through the motions of sorority life. As afraid as I was of seeing Gregory again, I was equally afraid that someone would find out what happened to me, and I would get kicked out of my sorority. I was desperate to fit in and didn’t want to draw attention to myself by staying behind, so I went with about seventy girls to the Sigma Nu house. The party was in the basement, and as I rounded the corner to enter the room where the party was being held, Gregory was leaning against the wall waiting for me. I stopped cold. I was frozen. He approached me and grabbed my hand. Opening it, he placed my earrings into my hand. Bent and broken, they must have come off during the rape. Stepping back, with his eyes looking at the floor, he said, I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. Those words saved my life. He knew what he had done.

I escaped from the party back to the sorority house as soon as I could. Lying awake in the sleeping dorm, tears flowing freely, I tried to process all that had happened.

The numbness overwhelmed me. Unable to speak to anyone about what had happened, I felt myself slip into darkness. I stopped going to class. I started sleeping all the time. I wasn’t bathing. I started calling home and begging them to let me come home. The cost of a flight at that time was fifty dollars. My parents told me that they couldn’t afford it and that I would have to wait until Thanksgiving to come home. Didn’t they understand? I was so depressed, I was contemplating suicide. My life wasn’t worth fifty dollars? My father insisted that they couldn’t afford it and I would have to wait. My depression became so severe, I was called in front of our chapter’s Standards Board. This was a group of the chapter’s officers who dealt with people who broke the rules or hurt the sorority’s reputation. The Standards Board informed me that I was getting everyone down, and that I needed to stop being so depressed and should work on being happier. I was devastated. Their intervention had the exact opposite effect. They communicated that it was more important to appear happy than to deal with the underlying problem. This only made me more depressed.

Somehow, I survived the period from mid-October to Thanksgiving break—I was in a steady decline and an ever-deepening depression. As was our usual form, three of my pledge sisters and I piled into my Honda Civic sedan and headed west from Pullman on Highway 26 toward Seattle. The highway was crowded with all the other kids headed home for break, so we set out early to avoid heavy traffic. The weather wasn’t good, so we took note when we saw four Sigma Phi Epsilons speed past us. One of the girls in my car, Kathy, was dating a Sig Ep. She recognized some of the boys, waving at them as they passed. We were rocking out to ABC’s Look of Love when we began to notice things askew across the highway. Papers were flying by, and then we saw a typewriter in the road. As the Sig Ep’s sedan came into view, Kathy started to scream. I turned off the music and slowed the car to a creep. Their car was on the wrong side of the road. There were shards of glass and car parts everywhere. The rear driver’s side door was open, and books and papers were strewn across the highway. As we got closer, we could see the driver’s body ejected through the windshield and lying on the hood. Another body was lying outside the car, and a head was partially protruding from the smashed-out rear passenger window. There were several cars stopped, and people were running to and fro. We need to stop and help, I said. No, Kathy screamed, I can’t look! I can’t look! I know him!! Sonya and Allison argued that there were other people stopped. I hesitated. Scanning the bloody scene, I knew almost everyone was dead. Ok, we will go call for help, I acquiesced. (This being before cell phones, calling for help was as important as stopping.) As we drove off, we passed an ambulance headed in their direction about ten miles down the road.

Snow began to fall with increasing intensity as we got closer to Snoqualmie Pass. We were all sobbing and shaking, but we had to get through the mountain pass to get home. My nerves were fried. The roads were unsafe. I wanted to find a place to stop. The girls all just wanted to get home. A chorus of voices commanded that I keep driving. The snow was so thick that I could barely see; a blanket of fluffy white flakes obscured the road from view. The road now matched the surrounding landscape, and we could no longer see where the road and the sky separated. We were experiencing a total whiteout.

We were in the mountain pass now, but the road had become undrivable. We had to stop to put chains on my tires. Four sorority girls trying to put chains on tires in a snowstorm. How many sorority girls did it take? Zero. After about twenty minutes of total confusion, tears, swearing, and