Kate Bornstein, Healer

I saw Kate Bornstein speak tonight for the 3rd time in my lifetime and she blew my mind, yet again. She has a way about her that is so genuine and so loving that I feel myself want to run to her like a young child into a loving parents’ arms. That is just how Kate is and I love her so much for being her. This is a letter that I hope she will somehow find and read one day when she is feeling low, frustrated or hurt and I pray that it brings her light, love and healing. For she has brought me all those things, and more.

 

 

Dear Kate,

You are an agent of healing. I don’t know if you know this, but it seemed quite true for the young woman Sara who fell apart in your presence tonight and it is quite true for ME. I know it might seem like the rest of us are feel totally like women or totally like men, but I’m not convinced this is the case. It was certainly NEVER the case for me. On the surface, one might not see this because I communicate “woman” pretty clearly with my big breast and my big hips/butt. There’s really no getting around those, even in baggy jeans and a baggy sweatshirt. I never felt like a real woman. I always felt like I fell short of “woman” and I hated myself for YEARS because of this. I wasn’t petite, I wasn’t graceful, I didn’t wear makeup or style my hair with hot tools. I was just me and this made me feel un-womanly and inadequate.

Then, I met you. I first met you through my women’s and gender studies intro class at my university through “My Gender Workbook” and my mind was BLOWN. It was like the house of “woman” came crashing down around me and I got to build it back together however I wanted! It took a long time to get to the building it back up, though. There were many painful years as I worked through my self-hate, my internalized fat hatred (by the way, I don’t know WHERE you would get 40 lbs to loose off of you!!! You are beautiful and, from my perspective, quite skinny!!!) But when I finally got to the rebuilding, it was so healing. Taking ownership of my gender and gender expression and knowing there was no “woman” category that I had to fit into healed a lot of my self-hate and loathing.

Kate, your form of healing I have found no where else. No one but you can heal like you do. I have met you three times now and every time I feel that the words I speak to you are never enough. They are never enough to explain to you the way that your books and speaking engagements have opened up my door to myself so that I can now LET LOVE IN. And with love, comes healing. And with healing, comes peace. You inspire and you set people FREE to love themselves and to love each other. Fully. Whole-ly. You allow for the whole person to be loved and that is rare indeed.

Thank you for existing. Thank you for being compassionate. Thank you for setting your people FREE.

Your fan gurrrl forever,

Diana