confessions of a closet fan girl

Do you secretly admire someone so much that you know ridiculous amounts of information about them? I’m not talking about your grandmother or sister, but someone you’ve never met? And do you openly admit you have a fan crush?

I’ve never admitted to a fan crush before. Well, maybe that’s not entirely true. I did have a huge crush on John Travolta when I was in middle school. I had a four foot poster taped to my closet door. I kept it there until someone in my family, the culprit never revealing them-self, drew a mustache and horns on him. I was heartbroken about John’s disfigurement and threw the poster away. At that point I went underground with my crushes, not quite trusting anyone to get the power of such a thing.

What is a fan crush after all? Is it someone to look up to, admire, to strive to be like? In middle school I think it was more of a teen crush of a cute boy. So what do you call it when you are an adult and find yourself a huge fan of someone you don’t know?

I’m told that’s a sign I might be a closet fan girl. Is that a thing?

OK, here goes. I’m going to admit my fan crush. It’s Brene’ Brown. I started reading and listening to her about ten years ago. One of her earliest recordings was a live workshop. It was recorded and released under the title “The Power of Vulnerability.” It’s six hours of her talking about her research and telling stories about being a social worker, researcher, professor, wife, daughter, sister, and mother. She grew up in Texas and her family’s motto was “lock and load.” They did not do vulnerable she admitted. She talked about people she came across in her research who told her they also did not do vulnerable because they were a dude, a lawyer, a scientist, or from New York.

And it hit me, I didn’t do vulnerable either because I was from Indiana. Yep, Hoosiers are not vulnerable types I had concluded. We are the stoic, stiff upper lip, if you don’t have anything good to say then say nothing at all kind of people. We are tough, hardy, having grown up on a diet of corn, meatloaf, and mashed potatoes. My mom’s family were farmers and worked all the land around us for miles. They raised cows, pigs, and chickens. Every spring my uncle would come over to our house in his John Deere tractor and plow our quarter acre garden to get it ready for spring planting. We grew rows and rows of vegetables to eat, can, and freeze.

We were not completely self-reliant, or off the electrical grid. Nothing quite that extreme, but we we did feed ourselves year-round with what we grew. My dad was a hunter and liked to bring home his own meat. I became a vegetarian at an early age, thanks to this, but I will save that story for another time. My dad at that time worked for TWA, a once thriving airline with many flights to and from Indianapolis International Airport. TWA no longer exists, and in its final days in the early 1980’s my dad was laid off from his job and our family survived by adding five pound packages of government cheese (think Velveeta) to our food supply. He lost his job, we ate cheap cheese, yet…

I did not do vulnerable.

I thought vulnerability meant weakness. It was something I would stoically not admit to. I thought pretending you were not vulnerable protected yourself and your family from being taken advantage of. Leaning into help was trouble: a trip down a path we would never return. When my dad lost his job, my stoicism increased, and I pretended we were just fine. We survived, and my parents did a really good job keeping things going, feeding us, providing a home, and love. But my original independence grew stronger during that time. And vulnerability became an unpleasant word, one that I refused to acknowledge.

So, as an adult, I’m listening to Brene’ talk about her research on people who live wholeheartedly and the “inclusion criteria” for wholeheartedness which is a social science way of saying “if you have these things then you are one.” Vulnerability was right there at the top of the list. Well, crap.

That was really bad news. Apparently, it was bad news for Brene’ too, who was also not a fan of vulnerability. She explained how pissed off this made her because she thought the criteria for wholeheartedness would be those who studied it. So, she put away her research, literally stuffed it under her bed, and got a therapist. She made a list of the things she wanted to work on, along with a timeline, and told her therapist they had limited time, needed to get to it, and there would be none of that “family history” stuff.

I laughed so hard at this point in her talk. Have you ever heard something that felt so true it stopped you in your tracks? Well, that did it for me. I realized in a single moment, that I had been stuffing vulnerability under MY bed for over thirty years. I won’t count the first five years of life, because I was probably a pretty average wide-open kid. But, from probably about five years old I started learning lessons about playing safe, being cool, protecting my heart and even my thoughts. And here’s the kick in the pants, I didn’t know I had made that choice all those years ago and was living like that every day.

I knew I was stoic of course. I had a friend tell me one day I was not “interested” in other people. She said I was “clinically” interested in them, but not interested. I pushed back. “No way, that can’t be right” I protested. “I love people! People talk to me all the time!” She replied, “Yeah, they do like you, and talk to you, but you see them as a puzzle to solve. You don’t just BE with them, you don’t get vulnerable and share yourself.”

And now Brene’ is telling me that vulnerability is actually a GOOD thing, it’s a super power for ourselves and others. It allows us to connect deeply, to feel what there is to feel, and to gain STRENGTH not weakness. I had it wrong all along. Yesterday, while watching CNN I heard newsman Chris Cuomo, who is at home battling the Coronavirus, tell his brother, the Governor of New York that he loved him, and needed him. He was pleading with him to be safe.

This happened on CNN PRIME TIME TELEVISION!

My stomach clinched, my eyes filled with tears, and I thought man, this is it, he’s being incredibly vulnerable on national TV and it’s not only good, it’s GREAT. I could feel the love between the brothers, both highly successful people with demanding jobs where they could both easily convince themselves they needed to act with stoicism all the time. But they didn’t. And their bravery, and all I have learned these last ten years from studying Brene’ and a few other wise, vulnerable people has turned my heart on high.

Vulnerability is a super power.

I get it. And, yes, I am a fan girl, no longer in the closet. You can expect more of this kind of heart-centered, open, and vulnerable storytelling from me. It’s time for me to be BIGGER and that means being more vulnerable. I am gong to post stories every day for the rest of April on the theme of “How I’m Learning to Be BIGGER” which is my way of showing how I am choosing to be vulnerable with myself and others. This is me in process so I won’t have all the answers. I will share what I’m learning with you, in the hope it connects with you. I am grateful to be a fan girl, and so thankful that Brene’ dusted off the research under her bed and told the story. I love you for that so much. Thank you.

See, this Fan Girl just expressed LOVE on social media for someone she has never met. I think I just GREW a little bit.

Until tomorrow…