Just Some Thoughts

I recently read a story by Tillie Olsen entitled "I Stand Here Ironing" for my American Literature class. It is about a mother discussing her daughter to someone who maybe works at the school the daughter is attending . . . it never really does specify. Through the whole conversation the mother is ironing. The person who came to speak to the mother was concerned about the young girl, so she wanted to find out more information about her. The mother tells the young girls life story. Throughout parts of the story I feel as though I can relate to the young girl . . . maybe not in such a dramatic way, but similar feelings just the same. I believe that the things this young girl felt is pretty much the way every young girl feels at some point . . . jealous, insecure, maybe a bit depressed -- and for some . . . like myself -- shy.

"I stand here ironing, and what you asked me moves tormented back and forth with the iron."

"I wish you would manage the time to come in and talk with me about your daughter. I'm sure you can help me understand her. She's a youngster who needs help and whom I'm deeply interested in helping."

In some ways it seemed that Emily, the daughter in the story, struggled with depression and just life in general at times. She sometimes didn't respond to love or the gentle comfort her mother tried to offer her. Depression can be noticed though different acts or lack of. Emily seemed to show it through the way she reacted toward her mother and others. It seemed she had a hard time letting people in.

"I used to try to hold and love her after she came back, but her body would stay stiff, and after a while she'd push away. She ate little. Food sickened her, and I think much of life too. Oh she had physical lightness and brightness, twinkling by on skates, bouncing like a ball up and down over the jump rope, skimming over the hill; but these were momentary."

Through a section of the story I could see the jealousy Emily had towards her younger sister Susan. It reminded me of the jealousy I have often felt towards my little sister. I love my sister to death. It's just that at times I feel like she is better than me . . . I feel like she got all the good looks, talent, and personality. She has the type of personality that everyone loves . . . bubbly and outgoing. While I'm quiet and shy. It can be hard sometimes not to compare yourself to others . . . I find it especially true when it comes to sisters. I don't even know why.

"Oh there are conflicts between the others too, each one human, needing, demanding, hurting taking -- but only between Emily and Susan, no, Emily toward Susan that corroding resentment. It seems so obvious on the surface, yet it is not obvious. Susan, the second child, Susan, golden- and curly-haired and chubby, quick and articulate and assured, everything in appearance and manner Emily was not . . . "

Just like every girl out there, Emily was insecure -- unsure of herself. There is always the feeling of "what if I do something stupid or make a fool out of myself" or the feeling of thinking that the person next to you is better than you in some way -- more pretty or talented. My whole life I have been insecure, but unlike many other girls . . . I lived by that -- everyone knew of my insecurities, I couldn't hide them.

"She was too vulnerable for that terrible world of youthful competition, of preening and parading, of constant measuring of yourself against every other, of envy, 'if I had that copper hair,' 'if I had that skin. . . .' she tormented herself enough about not looking like the others, there was enough of that unsureness, the having to be conscious of words before you speak, the constant caring -- what are they thinking of me?"

"She kept too much in herself, her life was such she had to keep too much in herself. My wisdom came too late. She has much to her and probably nothing will come of it. She is a child of her age, of depression, of war, of fear."

It was such an encouragement to me when I reached the end because many of us may have these feelings of depression, jealousy, and unsureness at some point -- but it doesn't have to be that way forever. There may be that one thing in your life that makes you "somebody". That one thing that brings the character within to life.

"Mother, I did it. I won; they gave me first prize; they clapped and clapped and wouldn't let me go."

"Now suddenly she was Somebody, and as imprisoned in her difference as she has been in anonymity."

After I finished reading this story and shared my notes with my professor, he went through the story just to make sure I fully understood it. He read aloud a few parts, and when he reached these lines towards the very end of the story I was very near tears. I will be okay . . . I will find my way.

"She is so lovely. Why did you want me to come at all? Why were you concerned? She will find her way."

"Let her be. So all that is in her will bloom -- but how many does it? . . . Only help her to know -- help to make it so there is cause for her to know -- that she is more than this dress on the ironing board, helpless before the iron."

I don't only feel depression, fear, jealousy, insecure or shy . . . that is who I am. I hate to admit it, but I let these feelings rule over me -- they imprison me and keep me from living my life to its fullest. But I'm not as helpless as I have believed myself to be -- I don't have to live by these feelings. I can overcome and triumph just as Emily did. She may be a fictional character, but this is a good example of what it is to overcome.