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By Shane Gilreath
The television series Love Story, chronicling the lives of Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy and John F. Kennedy Jr., recently hit on something personal – the helplessness of being public property. Recent episodes have shown Carolyn Kennedy’s struggle to deal with the incessant press intrusion and strangers commenting on her life. While she endured this on a very different scale, the struggle to deal with exposure – even when you don’t ask for it – struck a chord.
For years in my hometown, I led a very public existence. Even then, I often felt the irony of it all. I’ve called myself an ambivert, which is true, but even more truthfully, I lean hard toward the introvert, and a public life is difficult. Suddenly your life is not your own. You’re not just a person anymore, but a commodity. You’re a name. You’re a title. You’re a face and a voice that people want to use. Eventually, it’s easy to start believing your own press. It can consume you.
Looking back, I put duty before privacy, conviction before comfort, and other people’s needs before my own. My maternal grandmother once said, “People expect certain things from this family and we’re going to give it to them.” She said it with such finality that, I suppose, I didn’t even question it. All four of my grandparents served their communities, but my mother’s parents made it their life’s calling. They helped children. They helped the poor. They helped anyone who dared ask. They turned large chunks of real estate into low-income housing. It was all admirable. I tried by best to follow suit, convinced it was the right thing, and that I was setting an example for future generations. I believe that’s a positive thing to do and I tried my best. St Luke’s words were, as ever, my guide – “To whom much is given, much is expected.” I clung to those words, even when doubt whispered – and it did whisper. Often.
Somewhere along the way, I realized I was in too deep. I was losing myself in the tide. Service is noble, but surrender is not. I had idly watched people be destroyed and slandered for threatening the status quo. A people pleaser by nature, I accepted it as part of the bigger deal. Until I suppose it turned to me, a living embodiment of the poem “First They Came” by German pastor Martin Niemoller. It got so severe I had to consult a lawyer. His response? “Well, you asked to be a public figure.” No, I thought. I asked to do the right thing. I asked to serve a community, to offer whatever talents I have for its betterment. I never asked to be, as the song says, “famous in a small town,” but I suppose it comes with two sides. You can get things done when people recognize your name, but you can also be stabbed repeatedly and by people you don’t even know. There’s a yin and a yang.
It can invade everything. Sometimes in the most unexpected moments. Even when my brother died, it was front page news. People point. People stare. People gossip. People ask questions, as if you’re a robot not entitled to emotion or privacy.
Those experiences left me sympathetic to “celebrities” who live under a permanent spotlight. Watching those scenes of Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy trying to slip in and out of her home while cameras exploded around her, I found myself thinking, “Of course she struggled. People aren’t built for constant observation and to be hunted as prey.” And you definitely can’t please everybody.
Even in saying that, I know what many of you are thinking. Maybe you think that people do ask for the criticism, the scrutiny, the surrender of privacy. That they ask to give up a piece of themselves and their lives – maybe not in small towns but on the big screen and elsewhere. I can only say that, in my experience, access should be a choice, not a cage. I’ve had to realize that saying no doesn’t make me so much weak as it makes me human. So, I’ve intentionally taken a step back. I’ve tried to give myself room to breathe. Despite the belief of some who crave the sycophant, service isn’t measured in applause or how many times your name appears in the paper. Publicity can be good for your cause, but not so good for you. I’ve had to learn to step into the quiet. I’m still learning to do what needed done for years – make myself a priority. After all, if the world can survive without knowing my Starbucks order, I probably can survive too.