Short chapters of things that I have rejected.

Chapter 1: “Life Isn’t Fair” 

I have always been considered stubborn. I often know what I want, how I want it and where. I don’t consider myself incapable of compromise, in fact, I encourage it! I am happiest when, and only when, everyone is happy. This meant that birthday parties were pretty stressful for me as a kid. I would try to make sure that everyone had a friend. Everyone had a snack. Everyone was having a fun time and felt included. This formula of stubbornness is mixed in well with a deeply ingrained argumentative nature that makes for an interesting cocktail anytime I run into something that feels unjust. 

This arguing proved to be nothing short of a nuisance for my poor parents, who were doing anything to get me just to listen to a simple command without asking the dreaded “why?!” These fits of questions, followed often by a fit of tantrums, would prove to be the result of many timeouts, lectures and groundings. After a particular argumentative fit where I questioned why I had to be the one to help my dad in the garage when that is normally my brother’s job, my D.S was taken from my hands and I was both grounded and subjected to the worst job there is for a young child, holding the flashlight for my dad. This was the deepest sense of injustice for an 8 year old Hailey. Not only could I not play Nintendogs for three whole days, but I was subjected to the lowest rung of garage jobs. The only thing worse than this was having to pick up the dog poop in the yard. I whined, deep and loud. 

My mom and I. I am probably pouting.

I watched mom place my D.S on top of the kitchen shelf. A place I could only reach by dragging the heavy kitchen counter chairs over and standing on my tippy toes. To complete a feat such as this without making noise, and putting it back before they noticed often proved too hard for me, as I was barely standing at 4 feet and 5 inches. So I did what I knew best. I argued. 

“Mom, this isn’t fair!” I insisted. You know what comes next to this response. 

“Life isn’t fair, Hailey,” my mom breathed out while pointing to the garage door as she walked away. This didn’t make sense to me as a child. I wanted to shout. Mother, don’t you understand? You make these rules surrounding my life. You have the power to make it fair, and I have the power to try to make people see when things aren’t! I have very little autonomy. As a mother, you set the boundaries of where I can go and when. My bedtime and screen time, my meals and my schedule, it is all determined by you. Please, see mother! See that in your hands you hold the faculty to make this situation just! Tilt the scales of justice and make it so the world is balanced! But I didn’t get to say any of this because my mom had already started vacuuming. 

I ended up holding the flashlight for about 20 minutes and got my D.S back the next day. Nothing was ever as bad as my imagination when I was kid. 

My deep dissatisfaction with injustice is one of the traits I never really grew out of. I have a lot of autonomy now as I stand on this stage at 21 years old, but still the lack of understanding behind the phrase, “life isn’t fair”. True, things out of our control can happen to us. Things that we didn’t ask for, or things we didn’t deserve. I try not to ruminate on these things, chalking them up to chance. I definitely didn’t deserve how some people took to treating me over the years. Laughs and whispers at the lunch table. Empty promises and unfilled relationships. 

However, I don’t think we are powerless. We have a lot of power. I knew that when I fought tooth and nail for five more minutes of TV time. I knew that when I had to fight to be heard in newsrooms. I know that now as I enter into the world of unanswered emails and the rat race of pushing my resume into the hands of anyone who will take it. I have to believe that my life is in my hands and that I have the power to change things that are unfair. I can’t feel like a child with no autonomy in my life. This post graduate life has been a whirlwind of picking up bartender shifts and going to bed at 4:00 am. I have more autonomy than I have ever had, very little demands or schedules to control me, and yet, I have been sitting in the passenger seat in my life. I have worked hard since highschool to try and find a place and a career I love. It feels really unfair that I haven’t. But I won’t say die. I know it isn’t fair, but it doesn’t matter. It’s hard being a kid and being told life isn’t fair, you’re being told no. But now, as an adult I reject that feeling. Life is unfair, but I have a lot of power in that process now. I am not Lady Justice, I do not hold the scales. However, I will be damned if I don’t yell and shout and stomp and climb up to try my best to tip them in the way that feels fair. This summer, I have an internship with WBEZ. It took months. It took screaming and yelling and ranting. It took dozens of follow up emails and many tears shed. But I couldn’t be happier. In the fall, I will be heading to Northwestern for grad school. I am desperately trying to bend things slightly in my favor. Just like I did when I was 8 and inevitably would try to move the kitchen chairs to try and reach for that Nintendo DS on the top of that shelf. 

Chapter 2 & 3: Criticism and Help 

Being a journalist and a people pleaser are two things that don’t always fit well on a venn diagram. While the world expects perfection out of journalists, the pursuit of perfection takes a lot of editing in the meantime. I have grown a lot in the last couple of years, welcoming constructive and sometimes even harsh criticism with open arms. Ok, so my arms might be a little less open, but I really am trying! I look forward to critiques on my writing, and I want to hear how I can improve for myself and for the people who I love. But I am still not perfect. My entire life I took criticism as a personal attack to my abilities and character instead of an effort to make something perhaps good, great.  My walls are certainly up. In fact, my walls, forged of tungsten and steel, backed by a militia of men ready to defend my ideas and performances. They scream in unison. 

“She is capable and all her ideas are fantastic and great and perfect !” they scream with sharpened spears and swords. 

Except there is no well regulated militia ready to defend my honor. It’s just me blurring out how others couldn’t possibly understand what I create, or how hard I had worked. 

I had two specific requirements for giving me criticism. 

1. They must be layered in compliments. And I mean laying them down heavy. I want everything you liked about what I did and how it was basically perfect except maybe one thing. The admiration has got to be palpable. 
2. The critiques have to be reasonable. I shouldn’t have to work too hard to fix the thing that’s wrong. Honestly if it takes five minutes or less that’s preferred. 

I like to think I have gotten better, in my time leading 14 East , I have had to balance a whole lot of opinions and critiques. I have really appreciated what being in a collaborative atmosphere has done for my creative process, as well as my slow but steady progress towards accepting critiques. 

However, there have been times that this acceptance has turned into complicity, and even quitting. There are times when I wish I had the courage to reject criticism. There are conversations and stories that I wish I had stucken up for more. Actions that I wish I defended instead of trying to avoid conflict or the fear of looking stupid or wrong. 

I am always open to hearing a different viewpoint, I think that it’s an important trait to have as a journalist. In the past month, my morals have been questioned in a way I didn’t think was possible. What does it mean to serve a community? Is neutrality a stance that serves my reporting? What does neutrality mean in 2024? It’s the same as sitting in a swivel chair when you’re little. Your brother takes the back of the chair and runs as fast as he can in a circle. The distinguishable figures and items in the room start to blur into just shapes and colors. These questions in my mind, do the same. They mix and fuse with each other until it feels like I knew less than when I started. Your head feels light, then dizzy and then nauseating. You sit there after, trying to gain your bearings. I’m dizzy, left with no answers and still through it all, my brother laughs. I miss him. 

My brother and I on Halloween 2009. I hold my sister, the ladybug. This is my moms favorite costume of mine from my childhood. I am always missing them.

Here is what I do know. 

• The sun rises everyday, so should you. (Even if that’s at 2 p.m.) 
• You owe the people around you the best possible version of yourself. We are not singular in this world, and we all owe each other 
• If you walk away from a situation knowing you did the best you could with what you knew at the time, you will die with little regrets. 
• People will disappoint you, and you will disappoint them. Neither of these things are indicative of a good or bad person. 
• Call your mom. Your mom misses you. 
• You and I should probably get rid of Tiktok. 

My slow acceptance of criticism has gone with my slow acceptance of accepting help. I have often rejected help. I was always complimented about my independence as a child. I was quick to walk, to read and most certainly quick to talk. My parents figured it was easier to leave me alone than to face my wrath. It was better to leave me to my fractions and figure it out then be yelled at for trying to tell me how to do anything at all. 

I live in an apartment with high cabinets. Like really tall. I am also the shortest out of the little four man band I have found myself living in. My roommates, all towering from 5 ’10 to 6′ 3, fetch out the finest china (target plastic cups), with ease. My task is no easy feat. I open the bottom cabinets, step inside them, then climb onto the counter. I grab onto the bottom of the top cabinets and reach up. I will carefully get back down. 

“Let us help you Hailey,” my roommates will plead. 

“No!” I insist, chin sticking up proudly. Look how brave I am, glory to the ever brave Hailey, for never needing help! 

Here I am, measuring up slightly to my roommates in my platform boots!

I  think in the process, I might have martyred myself. It would be easy for my roommates to help with a cup when they are there. I’m not brave. I am just bruised. My Everest climbs for cups often result in a bruise or two from time to time. In my martyrdom, I suffer from grievances of my design. Like many eldest sisters do, I would pick up too much and have a hard time putting it all down. I then would complain how heavy it all was, without ever asking for a hand. I’ll just convince myself that it’s easier if I do it. It’ll be better if I just complete it myself. These people don’t appreciate the work I do. They would never understand. I can’t stand that they do nothing. Why don’t they do anything? I hate these people. 

I don’t hate these people. I desperately want to be the one they depend on, their  phone-a-friend for “Who Wants To be a Millionaire”. My worth, often attached to how helpful I can be, fuels me. I don’t hate these people.  I love the people in my life, I just hate my self- sacrificial nature that fuels a sense of narcissism and superiority that trickles into a nasty well of resentment. Working for 14 East one of the first things I realized was that I was really bad at task delegation. I didn’t know when it was fair to ask for help, and I still struggle with it. It was my job to tell people what to do. There have been plenty of tasks others could have done. Instead, I did them. Over the last two quarters, I would like to think I have gotten a little better at this. I have figured out when I have too much on my plate. When I start going back for second and third, I start to try and share with those at my table. My loved ones love to help. Just as much as I love to help them. I am learning to let go of the martyr. I still climb the counters, but every once in a while, I’ll let my roomate grab the cup. 

Chapter 4: Love 

My life has been one surrounded with love. Outward, abundant, unconditional and determined love. How could I reject love? It was the soil that I grew in! I think it’s fair to say that my attitude can make me a conundrum of contradictions. “Life isn’t fair” except  yes it is and I can make it. I cringe at the google suggestions and critiques on my decisions. But I also want to be perfect. I was raised in a home full of love, but it seemed like I could never get a grasp of it. 

There is a really hard-to understand and hard to speak about and hard to write about hatred within myself. I mean, I have never liked anyone who is in love with themselves, lets get that straight. But I don’t think you should hate yourself. Maybe you don’t have to love yourself either. Maybe you can just be? I am not really sure. I have many questions about love. I have many questions in general. What pajamas does the pope wear? Why does Desantis wear shoe lifts? I’ll never know. However, I am growing a lot. I am learning a lot. But I am determined to know more about love. For myself. For others.  

There’s a couple of ways I pushed away love that I should have wrapped myself around. I would go on first dates, like a lot of first dates. Way too many to count. On all these first dates, I decided that I was gonna let the other person do all the talking. Like all of it. My thought process is that people like to talk about themselves. They would like talking to me, because they would like talking about their life. These dates were more like traps to get people to fall in love with me. That was the goal. I needed people to love me, but more importantly, like me. By the fourth date, if it ever got that far, I would drop it. I would figure that we just weren’t clicking. I just kept trying and I was screaming to myself in dirty mirrors, “WHY IS NOTHING FUCKING CLICKING”. Why have my peers all had their highschool heartbreaks and college cahoots while I was there  psychoanalyzing if the lesbians across from me were gonna pay for the coffee or if I was gonna play masc.  I realized pretty late that I was just trying to get people to fall in love with me, and not focus on if I even liked them. I was far too scared to crack open. To let people pry their thumbs or a quarter maybe into the particularly odd pistachio shell that is myself. You’ve gotta let people see you to be loved. I get that. But I didn’t want to be seen, I wanted to scoff at stupid pet-names and make my roommates who were in love feel stupid. Young and stupid and performative fake love. I rejected the notion of love because I felt like it had rejected me. 

I met Maggie Mae when she was visiting her childhood best friend for the week in Chicago. She, stern and attentive, had opened herself up to romantic love. Her walls were impenetrable to her friends and family. But Maggie, ever the romantic, had fallen and hit the ground too many times to count. She chased love, pinned it down and tried to defeat it. It wasn’t up to me, she had her sights and started to chase me. I didn’t mind being chased. There’s very little ego left in me to deny that she has completely ensnared me. She is so observant. She remembers everything I tell her, my likes and dislikes, my loves and my hates. She craves to show her devotion in every matter. It also doesn’t hurt that she is beautiful. She is tall and has these inquisitive green eyes. I can always tell what she is thinking. She is so full of passion. It fuels her love and lights fire to the burst of anger she has at any injustice. I love it all.  I have never questioned her love for me. It was shockingly apparent, even before the many flights from Dallas to Chicago she took to see me for short days almost each month. After a short couple of months, she moved from Dallas to Chicago. She has taken this city by storm and has taken me by surprise. Her ability to adapt. Her bravery. I swear I could marry her. Young love. I hope I am not stupid, not that I would care anyway. Opening up to love has lifted the weight I wasn’t aware I was bearing. 

Maggie and I on the 22 bus.

However, it wasn’t until recently I realized I rejected other love in my life. I closed myself off to my family. A lot of my family accepted my sexuality. My mom’s side has been nothing but proud to show me off. They were even more happy when I got to show Miss Maggie Mae off to everybody. She was my show horse, and she sat through every introduction. However, I still had yet to show her off to my dad’s side of the family. I had written them off. They were conservatives who loved Trump and had starkly different views to my established democrat mother. I had also written off all of their capacity for love. My Aunt Diane was a planner, focused deeply on making sure that everyone was content. We always had a second Christmas at her house. She wanted to have time to give us her gifts. She was careful to plan the exact right pizza orders. Not too many cheese pizzas, but enough sausages too. Carefully placed meat and cheese boards were all over the house. Too much food for our small band to eat. 

My Aunt Diane and my mom.

Life cares very little for these plans that we have. My Aunt Diana’s funeral was in February. Sitting in the front row of the funeral home chapel, I watched my father cry in a way I had never seen. My grandfather hugged me in a way that for the first time, felt real. How was I supposed to mourn someone? How do I mourn someone that I didn’t get to know to their full extent? This had never been taught to me. What had I missed by moving away and never telling her about who I loved? 

 I wasn’t sneaky about Maggie. My Instagram had little pockets of her everywhere. My Aunt Diane and her daughter Vicki happened to do some sleuthing and figured it out. They spoke and planned together how they could make the process of coming out as smooth as it could be. Vicki told my mom after the funeral. 

“My mom played softball for years, you think she isn’t cool with lesbians?” Vicki laughed to my mom. My mom told me over the phone about this conversation she had. 

“Vicki wanted you to know that Aunt Diane died so happy that you were happy,” 

I cried on the Brown Line. Not my first transit cry and not my last. 

I told Maggie very drunkenly on a rocky uber ride up Lakeshore Drive. I told her what Vicki had told my mom. That Aunt Diane died happy for us.  Maggie started to cry just a little. She apologized. 

“It’s just sad,” she said. 

“Isn’t it!” I slightly laughed. We held the rest of the way with silent and slightly drunk tears staining our cheeks. 

Maggie with Vicki’s son, Theo, picking cicadas off a tree.

I came out on Mothers day this year. I took Maggie to a fish fry at my grandparents. Country music filled the air as I watched my grandparents give Maggie a big hug. She pointed out cicadas to Vicki’s son Theo. The vegetable oil bubbled up, surrounding the freshly caught fish. My feelings too, bubbled up. How can I reconcile that love looks many different ways? How can I make up for lost time with my family? How can I continue to love my family from miles away? 

I am rejecting the swirl of questions. I am gonna eat my fish and live a life full of love. For myself, and for others. 

Header by Emily Bradley