Speak: Cornell University

January, 2019

I am Linda Campbell Rehmann, Class of 1992. I am so grateful for the opportunity to speak here tonight…if anyone was able to attend the 45th reunion a couple of summers ago (and I know some of you were), you know that I do love to stand up in front of a crowd. I hate talking on the phone, I can’t call for pizza, but public speaking…I love it.

I’m originally from Munster, Ontario, but live in southern New Jersey now. My high school team in Ottawa made annual trips to the States to play American University teams, which led Kim Ratushny and I to dream of coming to an Ivy League school and playing together. We were so lucky that it came true.

While here I was in the college of engineering…first mechanical engineering, then I gave my parents a heart attack at the beginning of junior year when I called to tell them that I was changing my major. They were so relieved when I told them it was civil engineering rather than German philosophy (my mom’s major) or something like that. It was very important to my dad, with a doctorate degree in geology, that I be in math and science. Lucky for him I loved it.

And while I was here I played hockey…I played center most of the time, except when Kim was playing center, during which time I played wing. We played together for 8 years and so it was like playing with another part of myself…we were lucky enough to be have Mindy and Melissa mixed inJ. Senior year I lived in a house on Catherine Street in Collegetown with Kim and six other people – four of whom were also teammates. These people were my life. I read a lot of your “Meet the Freshmen” posts and so I was so glad to read that not much has changed in that regard. A bunch of weirdos, bad dancers, funny people who happen to also play hockey.

After graduating, I went on to get my Master’s at Stanford and then my PhD at Drexel. I love being a student, and if there were more degrees that I wouldn’t have had to pay for I probably would have kept on going.

So Alison cued me up with, “In my work and in my experiences there are areas that Canadian women need to pay special attention to”…when I first read that I wondered what I could possibly say…Canadian women? Maybe something about green cards? Finding a place other than LaSenza to buy your underwear?

But my husband Rich (who is American) didn’t even blink an eye. “You’re so polite, so apologetic.” That’s typical “Canadian” behavior which may or may not be true of the other Canadians here, but is definitely true of me. And so when I find myself in the male-dominated field of engineering apologizing for not only any mistakes I might make but also for any successes I have, for the things I know that my clients or colleagues do not, I have to constantly stop myself. Sorry, but there is no need to apologize.

Just this past Thursday I was the only woman at a municipal committee meeting. Gathered around a conference room table full of men, loud, boisterous, large men, to be honest, all of Italian descent and all of whom feel like they have to talk at the same time over each other. And so when I had something to say, I found myself speaking very softly, enunciating very clearly. I found that speaking that way forced them to SHUT UP AND LISTEN for 20 seconds. It actually worked…rather than trying to out-yell them, I went the other way. And I was not speaking that way because I was unsure or apologetic about what I had to say but the exact opposite: I was speaking that way because I don’t have to be loud to be right. And so this is what I have to say to Canadian women…all women: be confident in your voice. You can speak softly and politely, but you can also be right and be strong. All at the same time.

Which brings me to my next topic: being confident and strong while speaking softly and politely is NOT a problem. What can be a problem - for me - is balancing work and family, feeling like you don’t quite belong in either the country in which you live or the country in which you were raised…the country where your heart lives. Feeling like no matter what you do, where you are, there is always something else that you should be doing or somewhere else where you should be. THAT has been a problem for me.

They said in the 70’s and 80’s, finally, women could have it all, be it all! A successful professional, a perfect partner and mother, a Martha Stewart homemaker, in great physical shape, coaching youth sports and on several foundations... Also we would be happy and fulfilled and not exhausted and never overwhelmed because why would we: this is what women had been after for years! We were the big winners!

But for me…sometimes it was all too much. And while I looked balanced on the outside with my multiple degrees, good job, two great kids, coaching positions, great husband and home and even a nice car, in my own head it was not at all so. So this is what I’m going to tell you about “balance”…what I wish someone had told me at 22, or I’d been smart enough to figure out on my own:

The only balance that really matters is the balance that you have inside. That sounds cheesy, I know. But I suffer from obsessive personality disorder. So while on the outside I looked like I had it all together, like I was balancing all of these balls at the same time, my inside world was a red hot mess. Every waking minute of every day was not a minute to be lived but a minute to be mastered. It was exhausting…it often still is.

Then at 45 I started seeing a wonderful therapist and meditating and after just two or three years of constant hard work I was in fact able to find a way just to be, to feel balanced, inside my own head. It only took me 48 years, and I’m not done yet. Every day I repeat over and over a couple of phrases of wisdom I’ve picked up that can help me out of my whirling, spinning thoughts and I am happy to pass those on:

Just because you think something doesn’t mean it’s true.

And thoughts are just thoughts, they aren’t real.

So that is my advice to you. Find a way now to find peace on the inside, to feel balance within yourself. And because you are who you are and you are here, I know that the rest will take care of itself.