For Mature Audiences Only (Or for those who need to hear they are enough)

This post was originally written July 27th, 2019

It’s been interesting watching myself dance around being as authentic and honest as I wanted to be in my writing. Having made a triumphant announcement in a sort of public way by broadcasting live on Facebook, my intention. 

It was never about being able to say whatever popped out of my mouth unfiltered. God knows, I do plenty of that. It was about an awakening I’ve had through this process of creating my shields series. Awakening to the realization of the number of ways I edit myself. In person and online, in order to present a more pleasing and acceptable version of who I am. 

So with that awakening came conviction. I want, need, must take off the masks, put down the shields. You know the ones, the faces we carefully craft to show the world a polished up version of ourselves, the shields we construct from learned behaviors that have helped protect us for a time. 

Protection seems like a strange choice of words for this particular shield. Adaptation to early conditioning in order to gain approval might help you understand. We grow up in home environments that teach us different lessons throughout early life. 

Other little girls grew up being told they were the apple of their daddy's eye. One strong image of a little girl being tossed in the air and twirled around the room in her daddy's outstretched arms while he looks at her adoringly stays with me. Not a memory of my own experience, but memory as witness to my childhood friend and her father when he returned from work one evening. The kind of reception I craved from mine. 

Shake Your Money Maker-detail, Encaustic Assemblage Shield by Crystal Marie Neubauer

Messages other girls grew up with might have been on their beautiful smile and bright eyes. Perhaps they were told they were beautiful, smart, funny, curious, strong. My messages were always directed toward my body. I was clumsy, awkward, knobby kneed, flat chested. My messaging repeated throughout the years from my father included an encouraging "so lucky you got your ass from my side of the family" and "she doesn't need a bra, she needs a box of bandaids."

Puberty brought unwanted attention from drunken old men, eye's waggling as I trailed behind my father, chortling gleefully after me- "she's such a tease, jail bait, that one is" and "don't worry honey, I'm more of an ass man myself!"  

Shake Your Money Maker, Encaustic Assemblage Shield by Crystal Marie Neubauer

Girls growing up in the 70's and 80's were bombarded with messages about our bodies. Sure, we could bring home the bacon, but we damned well better fry it up in the pan wearing something pleasing. And for god's sakes eat a salad! Look at you, just packing on the pounds! How are you ever going to keep a man like that?

Girls growing up in dysfunctional family systems got the message compounded, mixed thoroughly, shaken, stirred, and offered up on the rocks. We knew what our worth was. We knew what was expected and we knew how to be accepted. Like many women my age, I grew up believing it was only skin deep, needed to be outfitted in short skirts, and flaunted. You caught your man looking sexy, and you kept him by being pure. Be rugged and outdoorsy and learn all the drivers names on the Nascar circuit. Sit entranced with the boys during the boxing match. Fix him his favorite snacks on Super Bowl Sunday.  And be in the mood at the drop of his pants. 

Shake Your Money Maker, Encaustic Assemblage Shield by Crystal Marie Neubauer

Inspired in part by the visually graphic coin purse placed in the center of the shield, (a symbol made iconic by artist Suzanna Scott) Shake Your Money Maker represents all the ways I learned to use my body to find safety in an unsafe world. Safety, I believed, that could only be found within the confines of marriage. The number of shields that I've had to put down before this one could be unearthed was surprising. 

But the biggest surprise in this awakening has been the shift from believing my body was my worth to understanding that my whole being is my worth. That my being is not weakened or missing something vital without a man. That indeed, I am powerful and whole just as I am.