I am often asked to speak to student groups, usually having to do with human rights or civil society. This week the International Affairs Society invited me to speak jointly with my dearest friend and colleague, who is also named Denise–much to our amusement, students and colleagues alike refer to us as “the Denises.”   I asked the organizer what she would like us to speak about and she replied “oh, you know, life, teaching…whatever.”

Denise and I decided to do exactly that. With pictures.

We decided to describe to our students how our relationships, our lives, our mutual interests and our work all form a seamless whole. We decided to tell them stories of wonderful times together, but to also tell them of some our personal pain–the breakup of my 15-year relationship, the recent loss of Denise’s former fiance in a tragic plane crash, the death of her dog–and how our friendship got us through it. Denise mapped out our stories to show where we had carried each other through the tough times and where we had celebrated the best times, describing our academic triumphs as well as our personal joys: how she met her husband, how my broken heart healed during a magical year in Thailand, our love for dinner parties, the publication of our books.  We talked about some of our favorite former students and described the wonderful things they were accomplishing; we showed pictures of ourselves at the beach, being silly.

I realize this was a risky thing to do. We are always negotiating the space between our personal and professional lives–what not to say in a Facebook status, for example, or whether to discuss one’s personal life in class.  For us, I think, this is even more difficult than it is in other professions: everything about being an academic is deeply personal, from dealing with students’ attacks in evaluations, critiques of our work, the self-esteem issues tied up in tenure track, and the need to selfishly guard one’s writing time from even pleasant intrusions.  It’s hard to know how much we should reveal about ourselves, because we are constantly being watched; consequently we tend to guard our privacy jealously. As women academics, we are conditioned to believe that we have to make everything look easy, to generate an air of confidence–and even cockiness–that belies the constant terror of being declared a fraud.

But for this one evening, the Denises intentionally crossed the line. We wanted the students to know that life can be difficult and messy and that even women like us, who are usually pretty good at making things look easy, have sometimes walked rocky paths.

The students packed the room. They listened to us speak for two hours–we made them laugh, and some even shed a few tears.  We were self-deprecating, we teased each other, we answered personal questions. We stood at the front of the room with our arms around each other and testified to the strength of our friendship.

In the end, a smiling young woman came up to us and simply said “thank you for being human.”

I’m going to hold on to that, because it may be awhile before it happens again.

Denise Horn