Losing My Voice

This post is #14 in my September Writing Project. Details are here.

Prompt: Share a formative experience.

My path to choosing this particular experience was a winding one. After church today, I signed my daughter up for Girl Scouts. I saved all my badges from the eight years I was in the program and she has been mesmerized by them for years. We keep them in a bag on top of the fridge (because why not?) and every so often she asks to look at them. She spreads them out on the kitchen table, organizing them by shape or design or color, asking me what this or that was for. I usually don’t remember.

This year, she’s finally old enough to join the GS Daisy program at her elementary school. She’s so excited. While we were signing up, the program coordinator mentioned that they were looking for troop leaders and I jumped all over that. I loved my Girl Scout leaders as a child and am thrilled by the idea of serving in the same role for Bean and her friends.

As we drove home, I considered my newest possible commitment: Girl Scout Leader. I’m also Room Mom. Junior Achievement Presenter. PTO member. All of these are recent developments. I feel like for the first time in years, I’m willing to come out of my shell a bit. But there was a time when I had no shell—when I was eager to get involved in as many things as possible. When I believed in my leadership capabilities. 

What caused me to retreat? I know after my mom’s death, I retreated in some ways. Nothing felt more important than spending every second with my family because now I understood how quickly they could be gone. Stepping up at work moved to the back burner. I never once shirked a responsibility, but I stopped seeking out the “above and beyond” type things. 

But calling this retreat a “focus on family” isn’t entirely accurate. It was also a “crisis of confidence” that had been simmering for years.

I had been scared to go into my first interview at my company and might’ve bailed if T hadn’t driven me there and metaphorically (and physically, though it was gentle) pushed me out of the car.

In college, I was asked to be the student representative on a Service Learning Board because I had done a ton of volunteering in recent years. And yet, at those meetings, where I had been asked to participate because I was considered an expert on the volunteer experience, I kept quiet. I couldn’t get up the nerve to share my thoughts.

During my high school years, I wanted desperately to be on Student Council. But I never even campaigned. I was convinced there was no path to winning. 

Elementary school was different. I tried out for everything, signed up for it all. I received a scholarship to high school for demonstrating kind leadership. I spoke up. What had happened?

All of this brings me back to Girl Scouts, because I think I’ve pinpointed the formative experience that changed me and it was on a Girl Scout trip.

The kind of troop I was in was rare because nearly every girl in the grade was a member and nearly all of us stuck it out for all eight years of elementary school. I think there were still more than 30 of us by eighth grade. We’d had the same leaders that entire time too. While conflict was at times inevitable, most people were kind most of the time. Although we all had our own little groups we preferred to be with, we all were comfortable with each other.

After eighth grade, we planned a troop trip north to Cedar Point in Cleveland. I was so excited. I’d never been to Cedar Point before and was at a point in my life where 10 hours of roller coasters didn’t make me sick. My grandma got me info on the park through her AAA membership and I spent weeks planning out all the rides I wanted to try out. Always a model of efficiency, I’d also memorized the locations of these rides so that we could hit them in an order that didn’t have us sprinting back and forth all over the park. 

(Growing up with an amusement park just up I-71 had given me years of practice at mapping routes to maximize time spent on rides. Thanks, Kings Island.)

I was THRILLED to be in an amusement park with my friends. Our group of 10 was ready. We entered the park… and just stood there. No one else knew what they wanted to do or where they wanted to go. I suggested where to start and we headed that direction.

After riding the Raptor… we stood there again. So I consulted my list and directed us to the next ride on my map. A few girls weren’t interested in that one but they stood around and waited for the rest of us.

This continued pretty much all day. Another friend, who I’ll call F, was also good at directing our group to different activities. F was louder and more bold than I was, but I was glad to have someone else who didn’t see the point in standing around. I honestly felt like without the two of us, we’d have made it on three rides and spent the rest of the day saying “what do you want to do?” “I don’t know, what do you want to do?” On and on forever.

The day was exhausting. We were in Cedar Point from open to close; however, we managed to get to everything on my list. By about 7:00, no one had anything else they wanted to do, so we hit a few rides for the second time before meeting up with our troop leaders and heading back to the hotel.

My group of friends was split between two connecting rooms. I was envisioning a night of snacking, watching movies, maybe painting our nails—all the stuff 13-year-olds like to do. It did not go like that.

Back at the hotel, the coup started. Ok, coup is an exaggeration.

I got a quick shower and when I got out, everyone was in the other room. When I walked in, one of the girls began telling me what a bully I had been all day in the park. No one wanted me to be the leader, I had no right to be the leader, and I had ruined the trip for everyone. I was blindsided. 

F defended me. Another friend stayed neutral. The others pretty much took turns telling me that I was a horrible person who had no right to have planned their days for them.

I told them no one had forced them to do anything and that I had planned what I wanted to do out of excitement. I only offered up my ideas when it seemed that no one else was going to do so. I asked why no one had said anything while we were in the park; no one had an answer to that.

I ended up crying myself to sleep, alone in the other room.

The next day, we had a few more hours in Cedar Point before we had to board the bus back to Cincinnati. Everyone was cordial and I kept my mouth shut. I kept my headphones in the entire bus ride home, long after my discman’s battery had died. 

I let it pass and never talked about it with any of them again. We were heading into high school and half of the girls were going to a different school. It wasn’t worth it to hash things out or let them know how deeply I was hurt. Life went on. I stayed friends with one of the girls but for the most part, the group drifted apart.

The damage was done though.

I had been bold, opinionated, and yes, I’m sure bossy at times. It all changed that summer. I started keeping my thoughts to myself, afraid of being judged if someone didn’t like them. I became a “go along to get along” type person. A “don’t ruffle feathers” person. A “not going to run for Student Government/speak in the Service Learning meeting/advocate for myself at work” kind of person.

I’ve carried that story with me for more than 20 years, unconsciously letting it dictate how I choose to get involved and believing myself to be unqualified as a leader. Thankfully/hopefully, I think I’m starting to come out the other side of these thoughts. I started volunteering in Bean’s school last year and loved it. I was enthusiastic about it and was told how great I am with the kids. Her teacher encouraged me to keep getting involved. Those kind words spiraled into signing up to be Room Mom and PTO member and Junior Achievement presenter.

And now, if I’m lucky, Girl Scout leader. 

You can bet that if I get to be a troop leader, I’m going to help those girls understand that it’s good to use their voice. Hopefully I’ll learn to use mine too.