The Beautiful Intersection: Independence and Vulnerability
BY ELLEN COY
Ellen Coy is a writer, student of the King’s College, and recently minted New Yorker. She enjoys poetry, photography, strong tea, and writing all manners of short fiction. You can find more of her writing at www.dearwestcoast.com.
The New York Times published an opinion piece by Meghan McCain, daughter of the late senator John McCain, midway through July. While I’m not personally one to follow politics, this article is not about politics. Instead, McCain used this avenue to discuss her miscarriage in a strikingly honest way.
As co-host of The View, Meghan McCain is a regular career woman. To most of her audience, she is a single-minded, strong, independent woman. She writes on her recent heartache: “I blamed myself. Perhaps it was wrong of me to choose to be a professional woman, working in a high-pressure, high-visibility, high-stress field, still bearing the burden of the recent loss of my father . . .This is not a complaint. This is reality. I blamed my age, I blamed my personality. I blamed everything and anything a person could think of, and what followed was a deep opening of shame.”
By nature of her position, Meghan knew that once the article was published, she couldn’t take it back. From this point forward, her story would be public. There would be chances for follow-up interviews, possibly invasive questions from colleagues, and a heightened risk that even total strangers would bring up her past trauma — but she chose to publish it anyway.
Many only knew to react with surprise when the article was published, announcing her failed pregnancy before any news outlets could announce it for her. Others, especially women who have had similar experiences related to miscarriage, have begun to discuss how important and healing it can be to speak openly about their experience, and that they are glad Meghan had the ability and the desire to write so honestly about her struggles. The article itself is wracked with grief. It is compelling not because it is the story of a picture-perfect, awe-inspiring professional woman healing momentarily from a medical emergency; it is compelling because it comes from a place of deep hurt and vulnerability.
Our world, whether it means to or not, has a tendency to place strength and independence at odds with vulnerability, as if we can only have one or the other. Women must either be snappy, professional, and independent as they speed down the sidewalk in their heels or they must curl up in their cashmere sweater to talk about their feelings with their partner. Men must continually be strong and independent, as they aren’t socially expected to have an avenue in which to be vulnerable.
To step back from Megan McCain for a moment: One of my favorite professors in college was a woman who led the most engaging life. Over the course of one summer she graduated with her doctoral degree in June, gave birth to her first baby in July, and moved across the country in late August to take a new job as a professor for a tiny college on the southern tip of Manhattan.
I find her inspiring not only because we share interests, but also because she has always been incredibly honest about her experience during that summer. She has never let the story of those three major life transitions in quick succession be just the success story of a strong, capable individual. Rather, she has chosen to open up to her students (myself included) about the genuine struggles that come with each of those transitions individually. In this, she strikes a beautiful balance between the strong, professional woman that I see in myself alongside the honest, vulnerable, and unafraid person that she has always been.
It is stories like these that made me realize that this life is not about choosing a route. There is no turning point, pre or post-grad, during which you have to look at yourself and decide between strength or vulnerability. There is no decision between between career and family, between city and country, or between heels or cashmere. You are a dynamic human being even though you live in a world that does not want you to know it.
Vulnerability and independence will look different for everyone. For Megan McCain, it meant publishing an opinion piece about her miscarriage in one of the country’s biggest newspapers. For my professor, it means hundreds of little conversations with students, staff, family, and friends about what was happening in her life. For me, it means learning to be honest when people ask me how I’m doing and to listen when they do the same. For you, it may simply mean that you must learn to mix your professional face with the face you only show around your closest friends.
We are on this planet, living and breathing together, for a staggeringly finite number of years. We have very little say in how many years we get, but we do get some agency over how we carry ourselves. May we carry ourselves with strength, independence, vulnerability, and honesty all at the same time.