Take Back the Night

Take Back the Night was not something I had even heard of until I was walking home from the cafeteria one evening while attending Florida Southern College.  There was a small group of college students, mostly women, gathered around with candles and one woman was speaking aloud.  It caught my attention, and I stayed for a bit, and then the small crowd dispersed and I headed back to my sorority house.  I didn't give it a ton of thought at the time except to think how I could never speak out loud like that in front of a group of students.  I would later find out that the Take Back the Night Foundation was started by Katie Koestner, the female that I heard speak my first week at college that forever changed me.  You can read more about her and the foundation on the link above. 

Fast forward many, many years.  I would never attend or even hear of a Take Back the Night event for a long time.  Maybe because it wasn't on my radar.  Maybe because it was something I was ignoring and choosing to believe that I'd dealt with, and I preferred not to think about it anymore.  I'm not sure, but it would be so many years later once I was married, living in Iowa, a mother, and working at a small private college, and I saw the event advertised.  It sparked something inside me.  Faculty and staff were encouraged to show their support.  I showed up probably a half hour into the event.  It was much larger than the small gathering I'd seen at my own college so many years prior, but yet overall pretty small scale.  We lit candles, walked the campus, spread awareness, and many people took to the microphone to share their stories.  I snuck out somewhere at that point.  It was so hard to hear.  My heart was heavy.  Perhaps still not ready.  I would never attend again, however; year after year after year I would look up the Take Back the Night events in the areas in which we lived.  Always held during April or October, always at college campuses, always put on by a college group and community involvement encouraged.  Never did I attend.  I'd put it on my calendar, think about going, feel like I could muster up the courage, and talk myself out of it time and time again.  It felt like a bit of a personal failure.  I felt like I needed to prove to myself I could do this.  Mental note tucked away that I WOULD do this eventually. 

I felt like it was no coincidence that I found an event this year without hardly looking.  It would be held just 3 days before my 40th birthday.  If this wasn't a sign of overcoming a personal goal and falling into line with my whole silly #pricelessby40 mantra, I don't know what was.  So, on a Wednesday evening after work, a baby shower, and all of life's normal "stuff", my parents had offered to take the kids to a movie that night, and so it worked out perfectly for Mat and I to attend UNF's Take Back the Night. There was no one I'd rather have had by my side.  He often knows me better than I know myself.  He knows when to just be there and doesn't have to say much at all.  This was one of those times.   We arrived in time to have a cup of coffee and enjoy the beautiful evening a little bit before it got started.  I couldn't help but get a picture with my beloved Greek letters out in the lawn.  ;)
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Zeta Tau Alpha

 The event began with students and the drumline walking across campus.  They were met at the Student Union Center by Jacksonville Women's Center (a community group which has a support group I once tried), campus officials and community members.   The drumline performed, and then people took the stage.  The history of Take Back the Night was shared, the student president and other leaders spoke, the University President spoke, and then the microphone was opened up to anyone who wished to share their "survivor story."  This is the typical format for Take Back the Night, and I wasn't sure if I'd feel led to share or not, but I jotted something in the notes section of my phone right before I left just in case I did.  I knew if I did get up to speak I'd be so insanely nervous that I would need to read something.  My plan was to just feel it out and see what felt natural.  The timing didn't end up feeling right for me that evening, and I'm totally at peace with that, but had I spoken aloud, here's what I would have said/read....

"I stumbled upon my first Take Back the Night event purely by accident at my own college campus nearly 20 years ago.  I stood quietly amidst lit candles and soft voices and didn't dare say a word.  It would be many, many more years before I would say much of anything, and tonight I stand here as a personal goal to myself at this Take Back the Night event.  You see, I turn 40 in just a few days and with milestone birthdays often come a sense of goal setting and reaching a certain stage in life.  My goal to myself is to no loner let any shame or fear control me, but to use my experience for good and my voice as power.  You see, I wasn't assaulted by a stranger in a dark alley, something wasn't slipped into my drink at a party.  I always thought that's what rape was.  No, I actually invited the person over myself.  I had gotten myself into a poor situation one evening at a party, and I knew I was out of my comfort zone.  I was guilty for making poor decisions that evening and I will fully admit that.  I called upon a person I admittedly had a crush on, and a person I thought was a much safer choice than the situation I had gotten myself into.  Not only did I invite him over, but I even was okay with hooking up with him at first when he made a move.  The shame I've carried for my willingness and the role I played on the whole situation kept me from denying what really happened to me that night, but I can now finally admit and say that I was raped, and I didn't ever deserve to lose control of my body.  You see, no matter if you liked the person, never met the person, said yes for a moment, said no from the get go, or maybe changed your mind somewhere in between, no means no means no.  There is no way around it and no sugar coating it.  It took me hearing a speaker at my own college campus to fully realize what had happened to me and recognize it as rape.  She was the one that founded Take Back the Night, and her story was the voice I needed to hear at that time and was the first step in my telling someone.  My own journey has had ups and downs, but my hope is that my voice tonight may be what someone else needs to hear to know they are not alone, it's not their fault, and it's never too late to begin the process of healing."

Perhaps one day I will attend again, and I will stand in front of others and read this.  But also, maybe I won't...I'm really not sure yet.  My personal hurdle feels accomplished in just attending.  I put it on my calendar and I actually went.  My parents knew I went, my husband was by my side, and I wasn't hiding anything.  I was me, I was loved, and I was showing my support for the many women and men who were in the crowd that night that did share and those that didn't.  And although this teeny tiny blog is just a little piece of my heart, it never fails that each time I share a piece of my heart, another person I know reaches out to me to tell me their story.  The shock should have worn off by now, but it doesn't.  It brings me to tears and to prayer and yet somehow also this feeling of my voice being used for a reason  of something way more powerful than myself.  For whether it's in my written word or my spoken word, I have no doubt that as much as I wish sometimes I could "take back the night", God will use me for comfort of someone else who needs to know they are not alone. 

Candles lit by Mat and I