Women

2018; A Map

~ Ileana Degas ~ Leave a comment

2018 rang in for me last year on a large stage in front of 100,000+ patrons, surrounded by performers from around the world. I was working, I was sober, I was happier and felt more settled in who I was becoming than I had in a long time.

I was in a relationship with a sweet boy in NYC, I was fully confident I would return to this stage for the next year, I saw much of my anxiety, self-doubt, and depression melting away, I was growing in the person I had planned to be, I saw the linear path in front of me and I was confident in where it would lead.

Less than a week from 2019 and not one of these things are true anymore.

A month later I would find myself fighting with the sweet boy in NYC, avoiding the truth that I no longer loved him, that our lives did not fit, maybe never fit the way we thought they did. I have not returned to the stage, I’m managing a new circus team for the same company but nothing to do with that giant stage this year. I unexpectedly fell in love with a Bollywood dancer. He was like no one and nothing I had ever experienced. We still referred to each other as soul mates in our recent goodbyes, despite his impending marriage to an Indian Muslim girl of his parents’ choosing this spring.

My path is no longer so linear. The destination has veered left. The confidence with it.

My city, my home the last five years no longer feels like a comforting base, but a safety net, a golden cage or security blanket I need to pry out of my fingers. The reasons I have to stay are mostly people, but people who I won’t lose even if I leave, my travels have already proven this. So maybe it’s fear.

But if not there, where?

And my anxiety is back. And depression. Not as strong as they have been, but they come to rear their ugly heads off and on since June. There’s nothing so paralytic as that combination. You’re too anxious to start any project or work or job or productive thing you know you need to and then crippled with the doubt that it will be any good, that anyone will care, that it will make a difference, that you won’t completely screw up your attempts, that anyone will want to work with you a second time, that you won’t live up to that interview/first job, and the list goes on…

So among other bits and pieces, I have a half begun training course for the fully planned and prepped business I have designs, URLs, Social handles, and business cards for at the ready. I even have people ready to write testimonials when I get my act together. But staring at the blank pages in front of me has proven to be too much and I find myself unable to push through the wall telling me ‘why bother’. I’ll fall behind or fail in the work once I launch anyway. Haven’t I already shown that I can’t be trusted to follow through? I’m too full of self-doubt to keep up a regular creative blog, do I really think I can keep up my own business when I’m the only one depending on me?

I hate letting down anyone else, I will lose sleep, stay in bad relationships, ignore my boundaries, and work too hard to avoid letting anyone down, and beat myself up when there’s even an inkling of a hint that I failed in being there to support someone.

But when it’s just me? Suddenly it doesn’t matter so much.

And that’s what is going to change in 2019.

I recently entertained a boy after a few bad dates because he needed someone to be there. I finally snapped after the 5th blatant act of disrespect (I’m a terrible feminist when it’s me in the relationship) and now he still tries to message me to ruin what small happy choices I make for myself.

Today I blocked him. Because the only reason I hadn’t was my consideration of his feelings.

I changed my profile picture on WhatsApp as well today. To not include my ex. Which I hadn’t done for 2 months because I was worried about what he would feel in Mumbai when he saw I had changed it. I didn’t want him to be hurting more. When it was him who told me we needed to forget each other. That we had no future. I still hesitate to do what would be better for me, because of what he needs.

Hands up if we see the destructive pattern here.

And what about what I need?

I realized recently I don’t actually know anymore.

I am not the same person I was last year, nevermind the person I was before I started dating anyone.

So I’ve started to make lists.

I need alone time, I need tea, I need yoga, and I need my books.

I need shared meals, someone to hold once in a while, someone who can let me be both the boss and a woman, and let me, help me, keep those identities separate. Someone who keeps me learning, and wanting to learn new things.

I need to grow. I need to keep reaching towards whatever destination I’m heading towards, I need to figure out what that looks like, and someone willing to call me on my own bullshit and give me the kick in the ass I need to stare down my paralyzing fear and say “Yes. Yes I can do this”

I don’t want someone to tell me I can do this, I just need them to remind me that I already know.

But I need to find most of this outside of someone else.

I need the discipline to find it in myself and cultivate it. And not lose it when I find someone I do decide is worthy to share my life again.

And I need to decide that I am worthy of this life that I want. For all my mistakes, fears, missed deadlines, lost opportunities, cheat weeks, procrastination, and half-started dreams, I am still worthy of the life that I want. Even if I don’t fully know or understand what that is yet.

Because I am. I just need to remember to believe it.

And guess what? You are too.

xoxo

Respect

~ Ileana Degas ~ Leave a comment

This piece was originally written for and published by TheCnnekt. You can see the original post here.

“We need to talk about how she disrespected me.”

The large man who does social media at my company has run over and cut off the productive discussion between myself, the marketing director, company manager, and the entertainment director, my boss.

“You need to learn respect.”

I have been living and working in Dubai for nearly a month. In a country ranked by the UN in the bottom 5 as “not free”, I am a young, foreign, female stage manager leading a team of male technicians, surrounded by men on all sides. The only American in a sea of expats from the UK and the Middle East.

Despite a bit of boundary testing my first few days, I have yet to experience any blatant sexism from my crew or superiors. We are a team and they trust my judgment. It is the most supportive work environment I have found in a long time. If it weren’t for the desert sand coating my stage, I’d forget I was in the Middle East, I’d forget there’s a reason I cover my shoulders and knees when I leave my apartment, I’d forget that my sex matters at all.

Until this man arrives.

He’s done this before. Come on stage without warning and demanded on photos and access. He was denied, I kicked him offstage for his attitude problem. He tried a bit harder to follow my rules this time. He stayed offstage, but was insistent and pulled me away from my work, messed up my schedule, and cornered my cast because his deadline was immediate. I owed him my full attention now, my own responsibilities would have to wait.

When my cast consented to work with him, I let them go. I ran back onstage to catch up my schedule and shouted back to him to please stay after. We need to talk about this. It cannot happen again.

This is my mistake. This is my disrespect. I raised my voice at him as I ran back.

My boss has gotten wind of this. In the time it takes me to launch my next show, there’s a group of my superiors waiting in the common area. We’re having an easy, productive conversation. Let’s figure out what was missed this time and how to fix it. That’s when this man bursts into our conversation, cuts me off, and demands that I be reprimanded and taught respect.

I know this fight very well and I know I’m alone in it. I am not a stranger to these comments. Nor am I a stranger to watching every man in the room look away with their mouths shut tight as I get reprimanded for the grave error of being female.

But I will not be quiet and I will not take it, not now and not ever again.

He starts to talk again, wagging a finger in my face. I take a breath and prepare to rip him apart when my boss puts a hand out forcing the finger-wagger backward.

“Whoa whoa whoa, mate. Stop. Do you know who you are talking to? You do know who she is, right? That here, where we stand, we all answer to her, right?”

I don’t know who is more stunned. Me, or the man who thought he had every man in the room on his side.

This is the first time in my decade in this field that I have not gone to bat alone.

“If we’re going to talk about disrespect, let’s talk about your disrespect for this stage, the cast, the schedule, and protocol. Let’s talk about your blatant disregard for the people managing this space. You’re done here. Get the photos you need and go.”

And that ends the conversation. My boss changes the subject while the finger-wagger slinks away. Not once does he try again to get backstage for the remaining 5 months of the season.

It’s four months later when I find myself talking to the marketing director over coffee. He spent the weeks following the incident with his photographer tiptoeing around me and driving me crazy with his trepidation.  It’s as much a surprise to us as to our colleagues that despite our rocky start, we have become friends. When my mother visited, he complimented her on “raising a lovely daughter, but she’s a beast. Lovely. But really. A beast.” He also informed my boyfriend that he was brave for sleeping next to a terror.

But here we are drinking coffee on a Sunday afternoon talking about culture and our lives. We have discovered more similarities than differences which shocks us both.

He interrupts a comfortable silence to tell me “I wouldn’t have been able to do it. What you did.”

“I know what the west thinks of the Middle East, especially Americans. The stereotypes, the rumors, and the expectations. You’re a tiny, American woman used to a different environment. You knew absolutely no one, had no idea what to expect from us or from this job, and had no escape hatch if things went south. And I bet people were telling you all sorts of terrible things to expect here too. And still, you left New York City to live here in the Middle East for 6 months.

“And I admit, I go back and forth on thinking whether you are incredibly brave or absolutely insane.”

I think about our first confrontations, the challenges, the hard work, the growth, and learning we’ve all done these last 5 months and grin at him over my coffee.

“Most definitely both.”

My Inheritance

~ Ileana Degas ~ Leave a comment

Spread before me,

What I stand to gain.

Passed down by blood and through death

from the family line.

The pearls glow grey

amidst the WASP-ish silence

my grandmother raised us in. And her mother before

and my father after.

Fix your hair, wear your pearls, line your lips,

and keep them closed.

The diamonds sparkle in the light,

the price of a blind eye, of forgiveness,

Without apology. Forgiveness where none is due.

For peace and reputation worth more than

The studded earrings he brought you when you found

Her.

And the ruby solitaire.

The ring that popped the question and

sealed the deal. Sealed her fate.

And mine.

It glows large and red. A promise of security,

wealth, a future.

At the cost of a temper to match

that flares red hot to burn. To strike.

Wounds open and hearts are broken,

Stitched up in the quiet of the kitchen.

The gems sparkle against the document

that calls them mine. The final will and testament.

It lists the jewels and their value,

but not the cost.

Not the inheritance that blood has already

promised me.

Do they seal my fate or merely reflect what

I have no power to refuse?

My family made their choices, caused and took

their pain, broke hearts and lives around them.

Generations later,

I am gifted with the gems the outside saw,

but am I also cursed with the pain they hid?

Don’t Tell Me I’m Beautiful

~ Ileana Degas ~ Leave a comment

Don’t tell me I’m beautiful

I don’t care.

Tell me I’m brilliant,

Tell me I frighten you,

Tell me something about my

eyes that isn’t lovely.

Or better yet,

Don’t.

Tell me how you notice that I notice

everything.

Tell me you love watching me work,

watching my mind untangle the knots

and people I wrangle daily.

Don’t tell me I’m sexy in cargo shorts,

That my headset hair is hot.

Haven’t you noticed?

I don’t care.

I don’t want to be beautiful.

I don’t care about pretty.

Anyone can be pretty.

Beauty is not a thing to achieve,

is not what I have worked so hard for,

it is not what I want.

And the more you tell me I’m

beautiful,

before you tell me I’m

brave,

The less I want it.

The less I want you.

I Am the Woman You Should Fear

~ Ileana Degas ~ Leave a comment

Yo soy la mujer, que debe temer.

I am the woman, you should fear.

 

A frightening thing to behold.

A woman in charge.

Unafraid of the challenge.

Unafraid of you.

 

Not another trophy for your case.

No placeholder.

No prize.

I know all your games,

And I play better.

Winner take all.

 

Make no mistake.

Woman I am, but

Meek I am not.

Not your doormat, scapegoat, or pawn.

This is my world, my time.

Bow down to your queen.

 

You saw only the roses,

Let’s show you the thorns.

I gave you fair warning.

We play by my rules here.

 

You just didn’t believe me.

I am the woman you should fear.