How to be a Karen

Someone asked me if my sister got any sort of prize for being the top fundraiser for Ray’s cycle (having donated $1,000 herself and then raised another thousand from her friends & family). I said she didn’t get a prize. “Well, she got a t-shirt at least.” Uh, no, she didn’t get a t-shirt either, despite having hosted Ray along his route, driven from Mississauga to Kingston to drive the cyclists home, having a banner made, etc.

Karens have gotten a bad rap in recent years, with the name being used to refer to a particular type of middle-class white woman who calls the police for minor infractions or who berates service staff and asks to speak to the manager, often with racist undertones.

So, in defence of my Karen, I’d like to redefine what it means to be a ‘Karen’.

The expression “we’re like sisters” presumes that all sisters are close, which is certainly not the case, but it’s always been that way with us. We’re like two sides of the same coin – different, but the same.

• She cries at Disney movies. I’m part Vulcan.
• She can speak in front of hundreds of people. I get palpitations just thinking about it.
• I rarely leave a crossword puzzle unfinished. She…tries her very best.
• She’s a natural leader. I am not.
• She likes air conditioning and fans and blowing wind, and I like being in a warm and stuffy cocoon.

Other than that, though, we’re practically the same person and I can’t imagine life without her.

When I turned 30, I was living with my parents in Georgetown after returning from Stockholm University’s International Graduate School. I’d been out of the country for over three years, and hadn’t lived in Georgetown in over a decade. My friends were scattered around the globe. I didn’t have a driver’s license. I had a huge student loan to pay off. Canada’s unemployment rate was over 11% and the only job I could find, despite having just completed a Masters degree, was helping a guy who ran a home-based business out of his garage. In short, it wasn’t a high point in my life. (On the plus side, I’d just started dating the neighbours’ son, a guy name Ray who lived in Ottawa.)

For my birthday that year, Karen surprised me with an album full of photos, birthday wishes, memories and poems from my friends and family. In those days, email wasn’t yet a thing, so she had to find my address book, write out addresses, stuff envelopes, buy stamps and mail out her request to dozens of people across five continents months before my birthday, then do it all again to remind people closer to the day. This was also a time when people still communicated in long-form, rather than in tweets and status updates, and the album captures so many wonderful memories, from my childhood, my undergrad years and grad school (it conveniently skips right past my high school years).

It was the best gift I’ve ever received and it’s one of the first things I’d grab if our house was on fire.

[On a side note, pulling out the album spurred me to look up what those friends from the International Graduate School are doing now. Three are professors (University of Sydney in Australia, University of Reading in England, York University in Toronto); two are Ambassadors (Swedish Ambassador to Canada, US Ambassador to Guinea), one is the former Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs in Colombia, one is Head of Arms Control for the Norwegian Armed Forces, and then there are four teachers, a financial journalist, and an investment portfolio manager. I think I was the under-achiever of the group.]

And that’s just one example. She’s always doing thoughtful stuff like that. So, ‘being a Karen’ also means doing everything you can to make people’s lives easier, whether that’s supporting refugee families, volunteering at the food bank, spoiling other people’s kids, or going all out for your friends and family. Next time you’re tempted to call someone a ‘Karen’, think twice. Be more like Karen.

September just flew by, but what an awesome month it was. We got a bonus month of summer. We attended our first Applefest, a big annual event in Brighton, with over 150 vendors set up on Main Street, a pancake breakfast, live music, a car show, a dance and lots of stuff for kids. The town basically doubles in size for the day.

Ray didn’t get much kayaking in this summer, but now that his cycle training is done, he got out paddling with a kayaking buddy for a gorgeous day of paddling around Indian River / Rice Lake.

Nick and Megan also took advantage of the great weather and spent the weekend camping with friends at Crotch Lake (much prettier than the name would suggest).

I’m back into my fall routine, volunteering at the school three mornings a week, and weight training twice a week, but at the moment I’m hanging out in a hotel in Ottawa with Karen.