Dear Reader: On Strength and Vulnerability

Reflections on Feeling Seen by You

Hi friends and future friends!

Dear Reader,

A few weeks ago, I mentioned in a story — Go Watch Caitlin Clark Play Basketball in Person? — that, after the game, I fell.

Several of you responded, “Are you okay?”

Which surprised me.

The story is a lighthearted essay about a game that delighted all 20,711 fans. Strutting around in sneakers, smiling knowingly at other giraffic women, I felt athletic and strong. But after the game, I slipped on a puddle. Fans “gasped and ran to my aid.” It was humbling.

“How quickly I had fallen, literally, from tall, proud, former player to vulnerable, white-haired elder who might need an ambulance.”

I had assured you: “Fortunately, nothing was broken or even bruised.” Still, you reached out – which I found touching, as if you were among the fans who had raced to help me. I’ve been thinking about our exchange ever since.

Most of you know my story: I played basketball in the prehistoric 1970s. Now I’m 68. Like many oldish women, I have osteoporosis. My first thought, upon landing on the floor, was, “Thank goodness I didn’t break my hip.”

When you checked to see if I was okay, it felt as if you were reaching across a fourth wall that normally separates readers and writers. You knew I was unbruised and unbroken, but you also know that falling at 68 is not the same as falling at, say, Caitlin Clark’s age (22).

Perhaps I’m the one who started dismantling barriers between us. I write candid, personal essays. I tell you my feelings, opinions, beliefs – even when they’re controversial. Over time, as our relationship deepens, I’m trusting and confiding in you more.

Vulnerability has become fashionable thanks to Brené Brown. She defines it as risk, uncertainty, and emotional exposure. She calls it the “birthplace of love, belonging, joy, courage, empathy, and creativity.”¹ What’s not to like?

But vulnerability does not come easily for most women, especially athletes and feminists. We’ve worked hard to develop strength instead, as if the two are opposites.

Yet I propose that cultivating both of those traits – strength and vulnerability – comprises the key developmental task of oldish people.

Psychologist Erik Erikson described eight psychosocial stages of life, each characterized by a central conflict that requires resolution if one hopes to avoid such pitfalls as low self-esteem and depression. Trust vs. Mistrust for babies. Intimacy vs. Isolation for 18-40-year-olds. And finally: Integrity vs. Despair (65 to death).

Since Freud and Piaget focused only on children, as if development stopped with the onset of adulthood, Erikson has been praised for including older adults. But he lumped sixty-somethings in with people over 90.

In my own developmental theory, which I’m sharing to see how you like it, oldish people (perhaps those in our sixties and seventies)² need to grapple with questions of Strength and Vulnerability. But they’re not either/or. They’re both/and.

For some of us, strength is the easy part. We exude competence and confidence.

I have a feeling you might relate. After all, we connect here at Stronger Women, not More Vulnerable Women. If so, good — because we as approach old age, we’ll need all the individual and collective strength we can summon: psychological, physical, mental, spiritual.

But when we become invested in our self-concept as achievers, vulnerability can feel more challenging. I know it is for me. Yet Brené Brown is right: Emotional risk and exposure are indeed the birthplace of love, belonging, joy, courage, empathy, and creativity.

Here’s a thought: What if we could achieve something new? Maybe a balance between self-assurance about our strengths (whatever they may be) and self-acceptance of our vulnerabilities (emotional needs, personal flaws, physical frailties)? Wouldn’t that also be an achievement worth celebrating?

Now that I’ve named it, Strength and Vulnerability appeals to me as a motto, a north star to help me navigate through this life stage. How might I maintain and build strength while acknowledging and expressing my vulnerabilities?

How might you?

Is Strength and Vulnerability a meaningful concept to you?

I’d love to know.

Good chatting with you as always,

with love (yes, really), Mariah

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Speaking of Strength and Vulnerability, check out my new graphic short story: A Wild Swim: Why Do We Take Foolish Risks? It’s about the folly of denying inevitable age-related physical declines as illustrated by my perilous plunge into the icy North Atlantic a few years ago, where I risked joining the Titanic on the sea floor while trying to prove that I’m still youthful and brave. In print and e-book.

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I explore related themes in previous essays, including:

• Recovery: A Love Story: Swimming Through Rough Waters with a Lifelong Friend

  A lifeguard saw us as two old, frail women. We knew better.

• Do I Look Like a Water Aerobics Person? &
  A Funny Thing Happened When I Stopped Resisting
  A two-part story of my athletic identity crisis at the pool.

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Know others who might like this story?

1. Brené Brown, Daring Greatly, New York: Avery, 2012.

2. People with disabilities often confront this conundrum earlier in life.