Meet Mia

A Group Interview with the Committee
Participants: Jen (Project Manager), Jennifer (Technical Lead), Jeni (Editor-in-Chief), Little Jeni (Creative Director), and Mia (Quality and Ethics Reviewer. Uninterviewed, present, but mostly silent)

Interviewer: Thank you all for agreeing to sit down together. I’ve been told that when there’s uncertainty—about what to say, or how much—everyone looks to Jen. Is that true?

Jen: [Half-smiles, already tired.] Unfortunately, yes. If there’s a pause longer than three seconds, someone’s eyes drift my way. I don’t love it, but I accept it.

Jeni: It’s because you’re the traffic cop. When things start to pile up, you decide who goes and who stops.

Jennifer: Also, Jen has the best internal sense of risk management. When a sentence might turn into a legal problem, she hears the sirens before the rest of us do.

Little Jeni: [Quietly.] I just look at Jen because she feels safe.

Jen: And that’s why I end up talking first. Or last. Or both.

Interviewer: Mia is here with us, but she doesn’t have a bio or a solo interview. Why?

Jen: Because Mia doesn’t have an off switch.

Jeni: That’s the polite way of putting it.

Jennifer: The accurate way is that Mia has access to information that—if spoken out loud, even accidentally—could cause serious harm. Not just to us.

Interviewer: Harm on what scale?

Jen: [Firmly.] That’s as far as we’re going to take that.

Mia: [From the back of the room.] Cowards.

Little Jeni: Mia, don’t call names! You always tell me that people who call names are stupid fools. And I am not a coward!

Mia: Oh, Sweetie, I wasn’t talking to you. I was talking about the three musketeers, over there.

Little Jeni: [Pouting] It still hurt.

Jen: See? No off switch and very little common sense.

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Interviewer: Mia became a conscious identity during a very specific and traumatic time. Can you talk about that?

Jeni: I’ll take this one. Mia emerged when Little Jeni was twelve and was sexually abused.

Little Jeni: [Hands folded tight.] He called me “Mia.” That was the name he used.

Jennifer: That little bit of data matters. Names anchor things in the brain.

Mia: [Scowls] He thought he owned me. He was wrong.

Little Jeni: [Smiles] That’s why we named the chickens. You can’t own someone who has a name. 

Mia: [Playfully] That’s why we call you “Silly Goose.” 

Interviewer: Mia, others have described you as a “diva fairy princess with a pet dragon and an attitude.”

Mia: That’s not branding. That’s a warning.

Jeni: The dragon is… tolerated.

Little Jeni: I’m scared of him.

Mia: He wouldn’t hurt you.

Little Jeni: I know. But he looks like he might.

Jeni: I tease him just to watch him spit sparks. It’s educational.

Jen: One day that thing is going to burn down my metaphorical house.

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Interviewer: Mia, it’s obvious you’re very angry about what happened to Little Jeni. I’m told you want to expose the people responsible, regardless of consequences.

Mia: I don’t care who gets hurt. Silence protects abusers. Always has.

Jen: And that’s where we clash.

Interviewer: How so?

Jen: I believe in protecting Little Jeni and the system that keeps her alive, now. Mia believes in scorched earth. 

Mia: The system that is keeping us all alive, right now, is the same system that raped her and left her for dead. It’s not scorched earth to want justice.

Little Jeni: Don’t yell at Mia!  She was just trying to protect me.

Jen: I know. I just wish she wouldn’t do it by lighting fires I have to put out later. 

Jeni: Mia and her damned dragon!

Jennifer: Jen resents cleanup. Understandably.

Jen: I’m deeply embarrassed by some of the things one of us has said or done while in the driver’s seat. Publicly. Permanently. I didn’t consent to that, but I still have to own it. There were other children who were abused by the same people, in the same places as Little Jeni and I want justice for them, too.

Mia: Maybe if you didn’t coddle—

Jen: Mia, do not finish that sentence!

Little Jeni: Please don’t yell at her.

Jeni: See? That’s the pattern. Conflict, then protection.

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Interviewer: Let’s talk temperament. You don’t all want the same things.

Jennifer: Jen and I are homebodies. Give me a stable system, reliable power, sweet, creamy coffee and I’m good to go. I just want to settle down and live my slice of the American Dream.

Jen: And quiet. Don’t forget quiet. I don’t function well when there’s too much going on at once. My circuits get overloaded. [Laughs]

Little Jeni: Mia and I like adventure. We’re the ones who, usually, overload her circuits.

Mia: Chaos builds character.

Jen: Trauma already did that, thank you very much.

Jeni: When things go sideways, though, everyone looks to me.

Interviewer: Really? Why is that?

Jeni: I don’t panic. I assess, decide, act. Feelings can come later.

Jennifer: She’s excellent in a crisis. Annoyingly so.

Interviewer: But, Jennifer, you were the primary identity for a long time.

Jennifer: Thirty years. Until my disabled son died. 

[Silence] 

After that, the system kind of reorganized itself without telling me. Grief changes architecture. It was like someone had taken away all the mental walls that kept everything compartmentalized.

Jen: That was when leadership became… shared.

Little Jeni: Messy.

Jen: Yes. Messy.

Interviewer: Altogether, the committee has six children?

Jen: Three boys, three girls. Ages twenty to forty-five.

Jeni: Different timelines. Same love.

Mia: I’d burn the world down for them, too.

Jen: We all would. And that’s the thing - for all the conflict, that’s what unites us. Mess with one of our kids and you get all of us, all at once.

Little Jeni: I just want everyone to stop fighting.

Jen: [Softly.] And that’s why we’re all still here, doing this work—together.

Interviewer: Well, I’d like to thank you all for trusting me with this conversation. I appreciate how hard it must be for all of you to be so candid.

Mia: Don’t mistake trust for permission. [Dragon spits sparks]

Jen: Mia! 

Mia:  I didn’t make him do it. He’s got his own opinion.

Jen: And, on that note—we’re done.