Nature vs. Nurture.

Being raised by a psychoanalyst, I grew up believing pretty strongly in Nurture vs. Nature. I believed adamantly in Tabula Rasa, and that every aspect of my personality was developed in reaction to my environment.

Eventually, even through a Psychology Major (that switched to Minor), I began to admit that perhaps there were a few inborn traits that one has out of the womb, but the majority of a human’s personality was forged out of their experiences before the age of 3.

But, I have to admit that the aggregate of my own lifetime experiences, up to and including a Leukemia diagnosis, has begun to make me admit that perhaps there is something more to the Gattaca within us. Perhaps something like perseverance, courage, and visceral insistence on life has more to do with my wiring as “human” and as “Molly,” in particular.

I would never peg myself as someone brave or bold. I don’t charge into the fray, or head corporations, or tie myself to a tree before a bulldozer. I have few of the outward markings I would associate with leader or change-maker.

But I am compelled to admit that my undertakings as an adult do, in sum, mark me as someone willing to rage, to rail, to fight, to excavate all in the service of healing.

Though perhaps if my formative years hadn’t been what they were, I wouldn’t find the need to heal from much. Perhaps.

I had a therapist a few years ago who said something novel to me: Your dad is not a courageous man. This struck me as apocryphal. My father, the one so quick to temper and anger and rule of iron fist was not brave? Isn’t that what violence is—bravery? Isn’t that what power is—anger?

Yet, her words rang so unbelievably true. Like seeing the Wizard behind the curtain in Oz. I know now that that kind of anger does usually hide and house one who is critically afraid. I mean, I usually wear my black leather jacket when I’m feeling more insecure, as if its made of chainmail instead of leather.

But, I was on the phone with a friend yesterday, answering her question about why I was in Victoria’s Secret the other day. I told her about my upcoming trip to meet my consummate penpal—and she squealed. She thought it was so bold and brave, and adventurous, and ALIVE. She rattled on that this experience is going to help so many other people down the line, help women to see that life is meant to be lived.

It sounded so epic when she mirrored it back like that! And maybe it is. And maybe it’s not.

But, I do know that with every meditation, every alternative healer, every inventory, every striving, every goddamn picking myself up, that I am taking something back. That I am reclaiming something. And if that impulse to charge onward, in light of all that is, is called courage, then I guess the Wizard granted me a heart on the day that I was born.