The night my son tried to kill himself, I was dreaming of my own life without him.
It was the middle of the night, and my eyelids were so far into REM sleep, they were fluttering in response to a make-believe world in which he did not exist. A world in which I was still entirely myself. A world in which I was carefully listening to every single of piece of music that came my way, giving credence to every poet and author who appeared before me, and a world in which I was still making way for art and growth and experience and wild abandon. A world where I was still beautiful, still relevant, still alive.
And then, something jerked me upwards until suddenly and without any apparent reason, my eyes were forced open, to focus on the one thing that laid before me: My stupid fucking cell phone, previously silenced. It babbled at me with its glaring announcement that I had a missed a call from a girl I cared for who wouldn't ever call me in the middle of the night unless it was serious. But I closed my eyes anyway. I closed them and had the world's stupidest thought, which was: "She's probably just calling because some dramatic thing has happened between herself and a boy or something." And I tried to soothe myself with that thought, until I couldn't soothe it any longer, because I knew her, and I knew something had happened, and that The Thing That Happened was not something that i was allowed to ignore. And so I replied with a text, lazy in my intuitions. She responded immediately. And what came next resulted in me bounding out of bed like everything around me had been set on fire, gone up in engulfing flames in a split second. And then I was at his door, and I wasn't even knocking first, and I was asking him, in a voice that was not my own, "what did you take? How many?" And the answer was quickly interpreted into my own mathematical equation of "60." That solution kept pounding through my skull, like some sort of tribal beat until I could relay it moments later to a 911 operator who seemed bored. "60 pills. 60 of them. 60, 60, 60."
The professionals did even faster calculations, in milligrams, and came upon a number that immediately halted them to a snail-like pace, one that was agonizing to me.
There was no siren. There was no emergency. There were calm voices, men in uniform trudging through my home, pushing away blankets and debris on the floor with their heavy black boots as they sauntered through and all I could think was, "how embarassing that it's such a mess in here."
There were rough men asking "why why why" and all I could think was "Why does it MATTER?"
And then there was movement. Mine, and everyone else's, and I was following closely behind an ambulance, until we had arrived at a hospital that was supposed to give me calm, give me hope, give me something different.
I raced to his room, yelling at people younger than me in administrative positions to "open the fucking door" and then snarling at everyone else to "tell me what room."
And then I got close, and I reminded myself to breathe, and I walked in calmly, with a face and a disguise no one ever taught me how to create. And what greeted me in that tiny room, was my baby. The first one, the one human being in the entire universe that I learned to love more than myself, in a way that has been so fierce that at times, it has frightened me. And when I looked, I could only see that small, tender boy, with a head full of white-blonde hair and clear, soft skin, in a portable bed that he did not belong in.
Today, after months of acute hospitalizations and anti-psychotics and words that I never expected would be part of my vocabulary, I think back to that moment, when I arrived at his room, in a filthy hospital that did not deserve him. And all I can see are his long dark lashes, his big blue eyes, full of pain and anguish, and how they looked at me with the only apology I would ever receive.
And today, I have learned how to be still and quiet and remember that moment, that first glimpse of my baby in the most horrific pain any of us can imagine. And I know now, unequivocally that my life, under any scenario, was never meant to be lived without him. That being graced with his presence has been proof enough to me that God exists. It has been proof to me over the last 18 years that I helped create something amazing, and purposeful, and beautiful. And that dirty hospital? It doesn't get to have him. Not now, not this way, not ever.
It was the middle of the night, and my eyelids were so far into REM sleep, they were fluttering in response to a make-believe world in which he did not exist. A world in which I was still entirely myself. A world in which I was carefully listening to every single of piece of music that came my way, giving credence to every poet and author who appeared before me, and a world in which I was still making way for art and growth and experience and wild abandon. A world where I was still beautiful, still relevant, still alive.
And then, something jerked me upwards until suddenly and without any apparent reason, my eyes were forced open, to focus on the one thing that laid before me: My stupid fucking cell phone, previously silenced. It babbled at me with its glaring announcement that I had a missed a call from a girl I cared for who wouldn't ever call me in the middle of the night unless it was serious. But I closed my eyes anyway. I closed them and had the world's stupidest thought, which was: "She's probably just calling because some dramatic thing has happened between herself and a boy or something." And I tried to soothe myself with that thought, until I couldn't soothe it any longer, because I knew her, and I knew something had happened, and that The Thing That Happened was not something that i was allowed to ignore. And so I replied with a text, lazy in my intuitions. She responded immediately. And what came next resulted in me bounding out of bed like everything around me had been set on fire, gone up in engulfing flames in a split second. And then I was at his door, and I wasn't even knocking first, and I was asking him, in a voice that was not my own, "what did you take? How many?" And the answer was quickly interpreted into my own mathematical equation of "60." That solution kept pounding through my skull, like some sort of tribal beat until I could relay it moments later to a 911 operator who seemed bored. "60 pills. 60 of them. 60, 60, 60."
The professionals did even faster calculations, in milligrams, and came upon a number that immediately halted them to a snail-like pace, one that was agonizing to me.
There was no siren. There was no emergency. There were calm voices, men in uniform trudging through my home, pushing away blankets and debris on the floor with their heavy black boots as they sauntered through and all I could think was, "how embarassing that it's such a mess in here."
There were rough men asking "why why why" and all I could think was "Why does it MATTER?"
And then there was movement. Mine, and everyone else's, and I was following closely behind an ambulance, until we had arrived at a hospital that was supposed to give me calm, give me hope, give me something different.
I raced to his room, yelling at people younger than me in administrative positions to "open the fucking door" and then snarling at everyone else to "tell me what room."
And then I got close, and I reminded myself to breathe, and I walked in calmly, with a face and a disguise no one ever taught me how to create. And what greeted me in that tiny room, was my baby. The first one, the one human being in the entire universe that I learned to love more than myself, in a way that has been so fierce that at times, it has frightened me. And when I looked, I could only see that small, tender boy, with a head full of white-blonde hair and clear, soft skin, in a portable bed that he did not belong in.
Today, after months of acute hospitalizations and anti-psychotics and words that I never expected would be part of my vocabulary, I think back to that moment, when I arrived at his room, in a filthy hospital that did not deserve him. And all I can see are his long dark lashes, his big blue eyes, full of pain and anguish, and how they looked at me with the only apology I would ever receive.
And today, I have learned how to be still and quiet and remember that moment, that first glimpse of my baby in the most horrific pain any of us can imagine. And I know now, unequivocally that my life, under any scenario, was never meant to be lived without him. That being graced with his presence has been proof enough to me that God exists. It has been proof to me over the last 18 years that I helped create something amazing, and purposeful, and beautiful. And that dirty hospital? It doesn't get to have him. Not now, not this way, not ever.
On September 17, 2013, my 13 year old son Tristan, was diagnosed with Stage IV Hodgkins Lymphoma. The doctors told me, on more than one occasion, that if you were forced to choose a type of cancer, you’d want to choose Hodgkins. (This statement still makes me want to punch someone in the face, but I try to balance that feeling out by reminding myself that it wasn’t Leukemia or a Neuroblastoma, and that my child got to live.)
Hodgkins is highly treatable, and after six months of treatment, Tristan walked away, mostly unscathed. He is lucky. I know this, and I repeat it in my head more often than anyone realizes, because I haven’t always felt that we were lucky. I have felt despair and pain and guilt and soul crushing amounts of anger. I did not feel that, like Tristan, I walked away unscathed.
I tell my therapist that I hate cancer. She nods her head, as if it’s a perfectly natural thing for me to say. Except that it doesn’t feel natural to me.
“It isn’t a person, or a living thing, or even an object. It’s a disease. It’s like hating an idea, and having no one to blame, or to direct that hate, that anger.”
It’s abstract, my seething hate, and so is the cancer that spread to nearly every lymph node in my son’s body. And yet, like all things that produce hate, be it a person, or an object, or an idea, cancer taught me something. In fact, it taught me a lot of things. Nothing new or remarkable, but a string of clichés that now have real meaning behind them. They are no longer abstract ideas that we routinely and flatly repeat, but tangible lessons that I learned firsthand. They remind me constantly of the fragility and fleeting nature of life, about the things that matter most, about bravery and survival and grief and paralyzing fear.
Because of cancer, there are more moments in every day that I sit in the middle of a dirty and chaotic house, and feel an intense wave of gratitude wash over me. For this home, for these children, and for the dirt and the mess and the chaos they bring.
Because of cancer, I laugh more often, and at so many things I wouldn’t have previously found funny. I’ve learned not to take myself so seriously, not to take life so seriously. I learned how humor, as inappropriate as it may seem, is the only surefire way, straight through tragedy. It is not the masking of pain. It is grace under fire.
Because of cancer, I learned that so much is temporary, that all things ebb and flow, begin and end. I learned to survive one day at a time, and sometimes, one hour at a time, because nothing is static. Change is inevitable, and fighting against it is as useless as swimming against a riptide. These days, I let go of what I can’t control, and I relax into that feeling, and let life carry me.
Because of cancer, I know that no one gets dealt a good hand every time. Sometimes, we get dealt a shitty hand, every single time, over and over again, and it feels like our bad luck is never ending. Almost nothing is predictable, and almost everything changes. And because of cancer, I’ve learned to live a life of improvisation. Sometimes, every step forward results in two steps back. And when that happens, as it frequently does, I veer off into an unbeaten path. I alter the plan. I find my way. I reinvent myself, because I know that there is only one way for me to find joy in this unpredictable, chaotic, dirty, hilarious, and ever-changing life.
This is life. Improvised.
When I finally discovered that I was a replica of my birth mother, she
read me her favorite quote. It comes from a book entitled Blood Fever by
Karen Marie Moning:
"Where do you put such conflicting feelings? Is this where I’m supposed
to grow up and start compartmentalizing? Is compartmentalizing just
another way of divvying up our sins, apportioning a few here and a few
over there, shoving our internal furniture around to hide some, so we
can go on living with the weight of them individually, because
collectively they’d drown us?"
These are the actions I take on a minute by minute basis. An
overwhelming and exhausting job. I move the furniture from one room
to another. I rearrange and I shuffle. The windows and doors to some are
opened and the room breathes. It inhales and exhales, lets people in to
mostly look, and rarely to touch. In other rooms, the door is only
cracked, an unspoken invitation to "try me." Peek inside and see if you
want to run, or if you choose to walk away without a backwards glance. I
will forgive you, no matter which choice you make.
And then there are the closed rooms, suffocating in darkness and piled
high with dust. These rooms have been boarded up, furniture haphazardly
stacked high against the entrances. No one gets in and no one gets out.
Not even me.
I am a mother, a mistress, a punished child.
A sexual deviant, a siren, and a laughable mystery.
I am my depression, my guilt, my responsibility, my honor.
I move the pieces, an unending shuffle. Taking an item from one room and
merging it into another. The furniture is always changing. Sometimes it
is wrapped tightly in plastic to protect its integrity and inherent
beauty. I fear it's destruction, it's eventual decline from age and
wear. Everything is closely guarded and protected. You are always free
to look, but touching will come with a risk. If I'm kind, I have gifted
you a disclaimer.
You are still forgiven if you decide that the risk is to great.
Come back again sometime and I might invite you in for tea, perhaps in
the Spring. Which room would you like to sit in? The library is nice
this time of year.
It Was Late February
of the new millennium
the paranoia of Y2K already long forgotten
and I had recently turned twenty one.
There was a brand new baby and a toddler
and I didn’t know it then
but I was already pregnant again
with a zygote that had lodged itself
inside my left fallopian tube.
Their little mouths were insistent baby birds
the small hands constantly tugging
the deafening whine of their neediness.
My head was barely above water—and then
it wasn’t.
The walls of our tiny apartment began to close in on me
and I could feel them shrinking with each passing day.
My body had become an unfamiliar place,
soft and round from pregnancy,
my breasts still angry at my refusal to nurse the second baby--
the one I did not learn to love until the following year.
I was supposed to be planning my wedding.
I was brainlessly, faithfully following the rules,
and it was killing me.
He said he was going to leave.
I could hear his thoughts, as they repeated
“She’s just too crazy…something is not quite right.
The dishes piled in the sink...she won’t even hold the baby… “
He was silently tallying up my incapacities, my failures.
He told me to forget the marriage, to forget all of it,
and the thought of having to carry on
with the drudgery of this newly enslaved life
alone, was the last straw.
I locked myself in the bathroom with a knife
and sobbed, while he banged on the door to be let in
pleading helplessly
baby, baby, okay, we’ll get married!
Just unlock the door. Please.
Less than a week later, I woke to the pain
the unknown zygote-turned-embryo struggling to grow until,
trapped, it had burst
and ripped apart my insides-
self destructing in its freedom.
I sat in the emergency room for five hours
writhing in pain before they took notice
Hefted me onto a stretcher and spoke about me
as if I wasn’t there
ordering instructions to clear an O.R.
Stat.
There was the prick and sting of morphine
and a gradual fade into nothingness before I woke
hours later, in a hospital bed, to a nurse saying
You had massive internal bleeding.
If you were a woman living a hundred years ago
right now you would be dead.
I glanced to my left and his face
full of concern and guilt and
love that I could never quite return
crushed my heart into a million pieces and I thought
Alright.
Fine.
I give up.
I give in.
the paranoia of Y2K already long forgotten
and I had recently turned twenty one.
There was a brand new baby and a toddler
and I didn’t know it then
but I was already pregnant again
with a zygote that had lodged itself
inside my left fallopian tube.
Their little mouths were insistent baby birds
the small hands constantly tugging
the deafening whine of their neediness.
My head was barely above water—and then
it wasn’t.
The walls of our tiny apartment began to close in on me
and I could feel them shrinking with each passing day.
My body had become an unfamiliar place,
soft and round from pregnancy,
my breasts still angry at my refusal to nurse the second baby--
the one I did not learn to love until the following year.
I was supposed to be planning my wedding.
I was brainlessly, faithfully following the rules,
and it was killing me.
He said he was going to leave.
I could hear his thoughts, as they repeated
“She’s just too crazy…something is not quite right.
The dishes piled in the sink...she won’t even hold the baby… “
He was silently tallying up my incapacities, my failures.
He told me to forget the marriage, to forget all of it,
and the thought of having to carry on
with the drudgery of this newly enslaved life
alone, was the last straw.
I locked myself in the bathroom with a knife
and sobbed, while he banged on the door to be let in
pleading helplessly
baby, baby, okay, we’ll get married!
Just unlock the door. Please.
Less than a week later, I woke to the pain
the unknown zygote-turned-embryo struggling to grow until,
trapped, it had burst
and ripped apart my insides-
self destructing in its freedom.
I sat in the emergency room for five hours
writhing in pain before they took notice
Hefted me onto a stretcher and spoke about me
as if I wasn’t there
ordering instructions to clear an O.R.
Stat.
There was the prick and sting of morphine
and a gradual fade into nothingness before I woke
hours later, in a hospital bed, to a nurse saying
You had massive internal bleeding.
If you were a woman living a hundred years ago
right now you would be dead.
I glanced to my left and his face
full of concern and guilt and
love that I could never quite return
crushed my heart into a million pieces and I thought
Alright.
Fine.
I give up.
I give in.
9/2012
When I was eighteen years old, I met a boy who didn’t belong to me. I was drawn to him, a magnetic
pull I could not ignore. Whether he felt the same pull, I don’t even know anymore. His arms were covered in scars, like mine, and in a rush of drunken courage, I passed him notes at a party until he was well within my grasp.
My memory holds nothing but a skip to the next scene, and we are hidden away, naked in a darkened room. I have no regrets, and no guilt. Not a speck of it, even when the door is opened and I hear the noises coming from her throat, half wail, half sob. It is animal like and full of sorrow and despair and I Just. Don’t. Care. I don’t even care that she is one of my dearest friends, someone who was once a lover. All I know is that he is mine now. He is mine and I will keep him forever.
There is commotion, a rush of confusion, and she is hurting me, and I am chasing her up the stairs, grabbing for her. There are angry voices coming from the people I have been friends with for years. They bare their teeth, protective of her now. Sides have been drawn. “Never show your face in this neighborhood again,” we are told.
And then there is another skip, and I am driving, while he is giving me directions from the passenger seat. My vision is blurred and I am closing one eye as we pass through a tunnel. I am amazed that we make it to our destination in one piece. There is a small house, and we are crawling in a bedroom window. We sleep on the top bunk, wrapped up in each other, exhausted.
Weeks pass, but these memories are sparse and dreamlike. He disappears frequently, tries to kill himself. I chase him through the woods, catch him, try to save him, as we dangle our legs over the river below
and he tells me of his pain. He is always just beyond my reach, in a world I have only had glimpses of.
We tangle ourselves up in the bathtub together, scars to scars. I know, even then, that I cannot save him. I cannot even manage to save myself. I know all of it, just as I know that he is broken beyond repair.
We always fuck like it’s the last time, desperate and needy. We drive to a run down motel and drink two bottles of cough syrup. In the parking lot, I reach my arms into the sky and say “Do you feel it? Do you feel the entire universe right now?”
We try to act normal but neither of us knows how to anymore. I never go back to the old neighborhood. I
have no real home. He is my home, and he is unstable and breakable and can only sometimes be taped together by love or drugs.
I’m moving from one moment to the next, directionless. Something is late, but I don’t notice it at first. It gnaws at me, my body tugging at my mind like a word on the tip of your tongue that you can’t seem to recall. And then the thought forms, appears hazy at first, until I am sitting in a tiny bathroom staring down two pink lines on a store bought test kit.
The entire world becomes a speeding train that has come to a noisy, screeching halt.
I tell him immediately and there are lots of words, rushing towards me. It’s okay. It’s going to be fine.
Don't worry. It’s totally fine.
We are cleaning ourselves up and making our way to the old neighborhood, to sit in the living room of my childhood home and tell my parents something they will cry about. I still refuse to come home.
I am sick in the mornings, in a way that I have never felt before, and it is miserable. I poke him and complain and ask for help, and he drags a bottle of whiskey from underneath the bed and hands it to me.
It is with this single action that clarity appears. My vision becomes clearer each day until the edges are sharp and crisp. My mind is full of a thousand thoughts. I have to. I need to. We have to. We need to. I am panicked, all the time, while he remains ambivalent and unchanged. My surroundings have become increasingly dirty and they become unsuitable and impossible. I am sick inside and outside and I want my mother and these things annoy him, make him angry.
I cannot keep him, and this revelation comes to me with such startling brilliance, it is painful and freeing all at the same time. I stand up. I walk out. I drive away, back to the neighborhood, back to comfort, back to the nurturing arms of sanity and back to the kind of love that doesn’t hurt and doesn’t drive you mad.
I grow a piece of him inside of my body, the only thing I have left to keep. There is an invisible link that can never be broken, even though I will never go back to him, will never love him, will never even see him in the same old way ever again.
I claw my way to the surface, kicking myself free of him. I leave him drowning on the floor of the ocean, alone. I save myself, and I save our child, because we are the only two in this triad that I can rescue.
And when I see our child's face for the very first time, his eyes are big and blue just like his father’s, but they are full of life and they speak of adventure and hope. It is then that I know I have finally found my home. And I have no regrets, and I have no guilt.
Not a speck of it.
pull I could not ignore. Whether he felt the same pull, I don’t even know anymore. His arms were covered in scars, like mine, and in a rush of drunken courage, I passed him notes at a party until he was well within my grasp.
My memory holds nothing but a skip to the next scene, and we are hidden away, naked in a darkened room. I have no regrets, and no guilt. Not a speck of it, even when the door is opened and I hear the noises coming from her throat, half wail, half sob. It is animal like and full of sorrow and despair and I Just. Don’t. Care. I don’t even care that she is one of my dearest friends, someone who was once a lover. All I know is that he is mine now. He is mine and I will keep him forever.
There is commotion, a rush of confusion, and she is hurting me, and I am chasing her up the stairs, grabbing for her. There are angry voices coming from the people I have been friends with for years. They bare their teeth, protective of her now. Sides have been drawn. “Never show your face in this neighborhood again,” we are told.
And then there is another skip, and I am driving, while he is giving me directions from the passenger seat. My vision is blurred and I am closing one eye as we pass through a tunnel. I am amazed that we make it to our destination in one piece. There is a small house, and we are crawling in a bedroom window. We sleep on the top bunk, wrapped up in each other, exhausted.
Weeks pass, but these memories are sparse and dreamlike. He disappears frequently, tries to kill himself. I chase him through the woods, catch him, try to save him, as we dangle our legs over the river below
and he tells me of his pain. He is always just beyond my reach, in a world I have only had glimpses of.
We tangle ourselves up in the bathtub together, scars to scars. I know, even then, that I cannot save him. I cannot even manage to save myself. I know all of it, just as I know that he is broken beyond repair.
We always fuck like it’s the last time, desperate and needy. We drive to a run down motel and drink two bottles of cough syrup. In the parking lot, I reach my arms into the sky and say “Do you feel it? Do you feel the entire universe right now?”
We try to act normal but neither of us knows how to anymore. I never go back to the old neighborhood. I
have no real home. He is my home, and he is unstable and breakable and can only sometimes be taped together by love or drugs.
I’m moving from one moment to the next, directionless. Something is late, but I don’t notice it at first. It gnaws at me, my body tugging at my mind like a word on the tip of your tongue that you can’t seem to recall. And then the thought forms, appears hazy at first, until I am sitting in a tiny bathroom staring down two pink lines on a store bought test kit.
The entire world becomes a speeding train that has come to a noisy, screeching halt.
I tell him immediately and there are lots of words, rushing towards me. It’s okay. It’s going to be fine.
Don't worry. It’s totally fine.
We are cleaning ourselves up and making our way to the old neighborhood, to sit in the living room of my childhood home and tell my parents something they will cry about. I still refuse to come home.
I am sick in the mornings, in a way that I have never felt before, and it is miserable. I poke him and complain and ask for help, and he drags a bottle of whiskey from underneath the bed and hands it to me.
It is with this single action that clarity appears. My vision becomes clearer each day until the edges are sharp and crisp. My mind is full of a thousand thoughts. I have to. I need to. We have to. We need to. I am panicked, all the time, while he remains ambivalent and unchanged. My surroundings have become increasingly dirty and they become unsuitable and impossible. I am sick inside and outside and I want my mother and these things annoy him, make him angry.
I cannot keep him, and this revelation comes to me with such startling brilliance, it is painful and freeing all at the same time. I stand up. I walk out. I drive away, back to the neighborhood, back to comfort, back to the nurturing arms of sanity and back to the kind of love that doesn’t hurt and doesn’t drive you mad.
I grow a piece of him inside of my body, the only thing I have left to keep. There is an invisible link that can never be broken, even though I will never go back to him, will never love him, will never even see him in the same old way ever again.
I claw my way to the surface, kicking myself free of him. I leave him drowning on the floor of the ocean, alone. I save myself, and I save our child, because we are the only two in this triad that I can rescue.
And when I see our child's face for the very first time, his eyes are big and blue just like his father’s, but they are full of life and they speak of adventure and hope. It is then that I know I have finally found my home. And I have no regrets, and I have no guilt.
Not a speck of it.
Broken Pieces
They have all loved me
And there have been so many.
Marching in a single file line
Throughout the years
Falling for a girl
they thought they could save.
Thinking they could finally be
The One
who would open me up
examine my insides,
and put me back together again.
Whole
And
Clean.
What they did not know
is that you had already been there,
Inside my deepest parts.
Had rifled through,
taking souvenirs on your way out.
You carry them inside your own body now
and without them,
I am never whole and
I am never clean.
I can only open slightly--
offer just a glimpse
While they scramble around, giddy,
grabbing at what they can
Before I slam the lid tight
on their curious, greedy fingers,
my fists full of their own broken pieces.
And there have been so many.
Marching in a single file line
Throughout the years
Falling for a girl
they thought they could save.
Thinking they could finally be
The One
who would open me up
examine my insides,
and put me back together again.
Whole
And
Clean.
What they did not know
is that you had already been there,
Inside my deepest parts.
Had rifled through,
taking souvenirs on your way out.
You carry them inside your own body now
and without them,
I am never whole and
I am never clean.
I can only open slightly--
offer just a glimpse
While they scramble around, giddy,
grabbing at what they can
Before I slam the lid tight
on their curious, greedy fingers,
my fists full of their own broken pieces.
Body
My hair is long and untended, it reaches down my back. It is weathered, the ends frayed and broken. It is the result of decades of abuse. It has been dyed black and blue and red and brown and has been countlessly bleached into submission. It has been curled and flat ironed and twisted into buns and braids and swept back into a daily ponytail and tucked behind my ears and pulled by baby hands.
My forehead revealed the first lines. They speak of marital strife and making ends meet and of sick children. The laugh lines came next, creases around my mouth after years of hysterical, maniacal laughter. The crow's feet followed, revealing my age.
My neck is long and elegant. My shoulders are graceful, even as they curl forward from my consistent lack of attention to posture. My biceps are strong, toned from years of picking up sturdy little boys and carrying groceries. The hair on my arms is just peach fuzz, so blonde it's almost white.
My hands show the most wear. They are almost unrecognizable now, cracked and dry from laundry and dishes. The rest of my skin is soft and fair, a trait I carry over from my girlhood.
My breasts look swollen, slung low from pregnancy and nursing. The skin on my chest has been stretched so tight and thin that I can see the bright blue veins underneath the surface, pumping thick, rich blood.
My belly is round, heavy, soft like bread dough that has been pulled and kneaded. My babies lived here.
Stretch marks begin just under my ribs. They encircle my waist, run wild down into the space between my legs. They are shiny now, pearl-like, shimmery.
My legs are thick and powerful. They have carried the weight of pregnancy. They have climbed stairs, paced hallways and squatted to allow the baby's head to break through.
This body, it has never failed me. It has rewarded me, four times, with new life, healthy and pure.
I cannot hate a body that has served me well.
There is nothing here to regret.
My forehead revealed the first lines. They speak of marital strife and making ends meet and of sick children. The laugh lines came next, creases around my mouth after years of hysterical, maniacal laughter. The crow's feet followed, revealing my age.
My neck is long and elegant. My shoulders are graceful, even as they curl forward from my consistent lack of attention to posture. My biceps are strong, toned from years of picking up sturdy little boys and carrying groceries. The hair on my arms is just peach fuzz, so blonde it's almost white.
My hands show the most wear. They are almost unrecognizable now, cracked and dry from laundry and dishes. The rest of my skin is soft and fair, a trait I carry over from my girlhood.
My breasts look swollen, slung low from pregnancy and nursing. The skin on my chest has been stretched so tight and thin that I can see the bright blue veins underneath the surface, pumping thick, rich blood.
My belly is round, heavy, soft like bread dough that has been pulled and kneaded. My babies lived here.
Stretch marks begin just under my ribs. They encircle my waist, run wild down into the space between my legs. They are shiny now, pearl-like, shimmery.
My legs are thick and powerful. They have carried the weight of pregnancy. They have climbed stairs, paced hallways and squatted to allow the baby's head to break through.
This body, it has never failed me. It has rewarded me, four times, with new life, healthy and pure.
I cannot hate a body that has served me well.
There is nothing here to regret.
Behr's shade of "Warm Muffin"
When I come to pick up the kids after a weekend away, I stand at the same old weathered door and I hesitate. “Do I knock now, or do I just let myself in?” Most of the time I knock. It still feels wrong.
One foot in the door and I feel an immediate sharp pain in my chest, as if the wind has been knocked out of me.
The walls are still a creamy yellow, the color I painstakingly chose to brighten up a room that once felt so dark. There are the curtain rods I purchased, the long flowing curtains that took me months to pick out. There’s our television, the one that we spent years paying off. The old piano passed down to us as a family heirloom. My dry erase board is still tacked onto the fridge. There are photos taped up that I placed there last year. I left almost all of it, nearly every earthly possession untouched as I walked away, refusing to look behind me.
The vegetable garden out back is overgrown, untended and ignored. The place is a wreck. He has let it go, between a grueling work schedule, his alcoholism, the pain and loneliness of divorce and his new found bachelorhood. There is a roomate living in my son’s bedroom. Sometimes, there is a large dog that barks at me. I am a stranger here now. Wasn’t it just yesterday that I was faxing paperwork back and forth between the bank and the real estate agent, as I juggled a newborn baby in my arms? What happened here? How did it all go so wrong? How did we go from finally achieving our dream of our very first home to this…a life that became severed and separated by our exhaustion, the tedious demands of life that wormed their way into our love and sucked out every last drop of hope.
He embraces me, because it feels right, and because we are committed to our friendship, but there is still that same old feeling of home, of everything I have ever known and the comfortable silence between us. We have survived something together, war or famine perhaps. We have come out the other side but we’ve not made it out unscathed. As we let go of each other, I silently repeat the words in my head “I have moved on.” It is my mantra, and I hold onto it tightly, partly to convince myself, but also to keep him at an arm’s length.
You have done awful things to me. I have done awful things to you. We have ruined our life together and we nearly killed each other in the process. I have moved on. You do the same. You can start by repainting the walls.
One foot in the door and I feel an immediate sharp pain in my chest, as if the wind has been knocked out of me.
The walls are still a creamy yellow, the color I painstakingly chose to brighten up a room that once felt so dark. There are the curtain rods I purchased, the long flowing curtains that took me months to pick out. There’s our television, the one that we spent years paying off. The old piano passed down to us as a family heirloom. My dry erase board is still tacked onto the fridge. There are photos taped up that I placed there last year. I left almost all of it, nearly every earthly possession untouched as I walked away, refusing to look behind me.
The vegetable garden out back is overgrown, untended and ignored. The place is a wreck. He has let it go, between a grueling work schedule, his alcoholism, the pain and loneliness of divorce and his new found bachelorhood. There is a roomate living in my son’s bedroom. Sometimes, there is a large dog that barks at me. I am a stranger here now. Wasn’t it just yesterday that I was faxing paperwork back and forth between the bank and the real estate agent, as I juggled a newborn baby in my arms? What happened here? How did it all go so wrong? How did we go from finally achieving our dream of our very first home to this…a life that became severed and separated by our exhaustion, the tedious demands of life that wormed their way into our love and sucked out every last drop of hope.
He embraces me, because it feels right, and because we are committed to our friendship, but there is still that same old feeling of home, of everything I have ever known and the comfortable silence between us. We have survived something together, war or famine perhaps. We have come out the other side but we’ve not made it out unscathed. As we let go of each other, I silently repeat the words in my head “I have moved on.” It is my mantra, and I hold onto it tightly, partly to convince myself, but also to keep him at an arm’s length.
You have done awful things to me. I have done awful things to you. We have ruined our life together and we nearly killed each other in the process. I have moved on. You do the same. You can start by repainting the walls.
A Mother & A Mom
My mother was 19 years old when she gave birth to me. Her parents had told her that if she wanted to keep me, she should marry my father. She tried. She really did. The day of the “wedding”, he came to her door after traveling across a few states to get to her. She couldn’t follow through and she sent him away.
She handpicked my parents when she attended a church service where my father was preaching and told the story of their infertility.
The hospital where I was born had never done an adoption before. As soon as my mother had pushed me out, they tried to joyously hand me off to her. They continued to make these kinds of mistakes, bringing me in to her room for feedings. For two days I stayed in the nursery, until my parents were able to pick me up and bring me home.
My parents were 25 years old. It was just the beginning of their life as parents. My mother was given a shot to dry up her milk, and was sent home to resume her normal life. Soon thereafter, she would get married to her lifelong mate, and three years after my birth, my sister was born.
From that day onward, I was constantly told the story of my adoption. I would ask my parents again and again to tell me the story of my birth. They would tell me how my mother loved me so much that she gave me to someone who could take better care of me. Throughout my childhood, I would feel empty. There was so much I needed to know. Curiosity got the better of me and I snuck into my parents files to find my mother’s full name, and a polaroid of her. I thought she was absolutely beautiful. At thirteen, I begged my parents to find her for me. They refused. Eventually, I was allowed to send correspondence, but by the time I had hit full blown adolescence, I had nothing but anger. I told her so in a letter. I wanted her to know what she had done to me, that there was a wound that would never be healed. I wanted to tell her how alienated and different and alone and rejected I felt. She was devastated by my letter.
At eighteen, I found myself pregnant. I was almost exactly the same age as she was when she became pregnant with me. I was determined to keep the baby, to show her and everyone else that it could be done. When my son was still a newborn, I boarded an airplane to meet my mother. It was my Mom’s turn to be devastated. When I was little, she would become paranoid leaving me at the church nursery or with a babysitter. She entertained crippling fears of my biological mother coming to take me back. These same fears played out, even as I made my way into adulthood.
When I arrived at the airport, I walked off the ramp and immediately found my mother. She was standing with my little sister. Her hair was long and braided and she was wearing a flowery dress. The world shrank, tunnel vision with only my mother encased in a small pinpoint of white light.
During the visit, as we sat in the living room chatting, my sister curled up into my mother’s lap. I felt an intense need to do the same, to revert back to infancy and be held and to smell her scent.
In public, strangers would stop us and remark on how similar we looked. It was the first time in my life when someone would say “you look like your mother” and I could believe it.
When the trip was over and we said goodbye at the gate, she said she wouldn’t cry, but she did. We both did. It was incredibly painful for me. I thought about the last time we had been separated, nineteen years previous. Thus began my life with a mother and a mom.
From my mom, I learned how to clean house in a hurried frenzy. I learned how to make and eat the most delicious snacks, and then I learned about dieting and body image. I learned about stress and sensitivity and unselfishness. At the same time, I learned about devotion and marriage and faith in God. I learned etiquette and obedience and how to walk the straight and narrow.
From my mother, I inherited dishwater blonde hair and eyes that crinkle into little rainbow shapes when I smile. I inherited a curse of the awkward family nose, funny feet and long toes. I also inherited a chainsmoking addiction, a thirst for alcohol, and a tendency towards bluntness. From my mother, I learned to be tough and strong and rebellious–to read voraciously and to be clever and cunning.
These two women, these polar opposites, simultaneously offered me each end of the spectrum. Somewhere in the middle, I found poetry and art and my own interpretation of spirituality. Somewhere in the middle, with and without them, I found myself.
She handpicked my parents when she attended a church service where my father was preaching and told the story of their infertility.
The hospital where I was born had never done an adoption before. As soon as my mother had pushed me out, they tried to joyously hand me off to her. They continued to make these kinds of mistakes, bringing me in to her room for feedings. For two days I stayed in the nursery, until my parents were able to pick me up and bring me home.
My parents were 25 years old. It was just the beginning of their life as parents. My mother was given a shot to dry up her milk, and was sent home to resume her normal life. Soon thereafter, she would get married to her lifelong mate, and three years after my birth, my sister was born.
From that day onward, I was constantly told the story of my adoption. I would ask my parents again and again to tell me the story of my birth. They would tell me how my mother loved me so much that she gave me to someone who could take better care of me. Throughout my childhood, I would feel empty. There was so much I needed to know. Curiosity got the better of me and I snuck into my parents files to find my mother’s full name, and a polaroid of her. I thought she was absolutely beautiful. At thirteen, I begged my parents to find her for me. They refused. Eventually, I was allowed to send correspondence, but by the time I had hit full blown adolescence, I had nothing but anger. I told her so in a letter. I wanted her to know what she had done to me, that there was a wound that would never be healed. I wanted to tell her how alienated and different and alone and rejected I felt. She was devastated by my letter.
At eighteen, I found myself pregnant. I was almost exactly the same age as she was when she became pregnant with me. I was determined to keep the baby, to show her and everyone else that it could be done. When my son was still a newborn, I boarded an airplane to meet my mother. It was my Mom’s turn to be devastated. When I was little, she would become paranoid leaving me at the church nursery or with a babysitter. She entertained crippling fears of my biological mother coming to take me back. These same fears played out, even as I made my way into adulthood.
When I arrived at the airport, I walked off the ramp and immediately found my mother. She was standing with my little sister. Her hair was long and braided and she was wearing a flowery dress. The world shrank, tunnel vision with only my mother encased in a small pinpoint of white light.
During the visit, as we sat in the living room chatting, my sister curled up into my mother’s lap. I felt an intense need to do the same, to revert back to infancy and be held and to smell her scent.
In public, strangers would stop us and remark on how similar we looked. It was the first time in my life when someone would say “you look like your mother” and I could believe it.
When the trip was over and we said goodbye at the gate, she said she wouldn’t cry, but she did. We both did. It was incredibly painful for me. I thought about the last time we had been separated, nineteen years previous. Thus began my life with a mother and a mom.
From my mom, I learned how to clean house in a hurried frenzy. I learned how to make and eat the most delicious snacks, and then I learned about dieting and body image. I learned about stress and sensitivity and unselfishness. At the same time, I learned about devotion and marriage and faith in God. I learned etiquette and obedience and how to walk the straight and narrow.
From my mother, I inherited dishwater blonde hair and eyes that crinkle into little rainbow shapes when I smile. I inherited a curse of the awkward family nose, funny feet and long toes. I also inherited a chainsmoking addiction, a thirst for alcohol, and a tendency towards bluntness. From my mother, I learned to be tough and strong and rebellious–to read voraciously and to be clever and cunning.
These two women, these polar opposites, simultaneously offered me each end of the spectrum. Somewhere in the middle, I found poetry and art and my own interpretation of spirituality. Somewhere in the middle, with and without them, I found myself.
Alone
My mother said that when I was an infant, as soon as I had the physical dexterity and appropriate motor skills to push someone away when they tried to hold or cuddle me, I began to push. I would cry to be let down. As a teenager, my father told me that hugging me was like “hugging a porcupine.” I wonder, did I develop this in the womb? My birth mother has told me that she felt no connection to the pregnancy, no bond with me before or after my birth. I was placed in the nursery for two days until my adoptive parents could pick me up. Did the lack of physical touch and the inability to develop a deep bond with my natural mother make me this way? Or did I simply inherit her personality–the refusal to let anyone too close, too deeply wounded by some unknown force that we have both allowed our hearts to be on lockdown? Was it my parents and my strict upbringing within the church that cemented the idea in my head that I would always be bad, that no one would or could or should love me because I didn’t deserve it?
I crave physical affection and yet at the same time, it repulses me. In moments of weakness, or perhaps courage, I will let you in and then I will slam the lid tight on your fingers and push you away before you can reject me first. At times, I will give in to love and let it move me this way and that, and then the feeling of free floating without control will make me sick and uncomfortable until I root myself into the ground and stand firm. You will never fully know me. I wish that you would, and I wish that you had the tenacity and the patience to keep on prying me open, but I fear that it’s useless. I won’t ever blame you for walking away, and I won’t ever expect anyone to take on the challenge of unconditionally loving me. You are all forgiven, every last one of you who has had the unfortunate experience of falling for me. Keep walking because baby, it’s hopeless.
“The world is my oyster, ya know, the road is my home–and I know that I’m better, I’m better off alone.” -Ani Difranco
I crave physical affection and yet at the same time, it repulses me. In moments of weakness, or perhaps courage, I will let you in and then I will slam the lid tight on your fingers and push you away before you can reject me first. At times, I will give in to love and let it move me this way and that, and then the feeling of free floating without control will make me sick and uncomfortable until I root myself into the ground and stand firm. You will never fully know me. I wish that you would, and I wish that you had the tenacity and the patience to keep on prying me open, but I fear that it’s useless. I won’t ever blame you for walking away, and I won’t ever expect anyone to take on the challenge of unconditionally loving me. You are all forgiven, every last one of you who has had the unfortunate experience of falling for me. Keep walking because baby, it’s hopeless.
“The world is my oyster, ya know, the road is my home–and I know that I’m better, I’m better off alone.” -Ani Difranco
Lessons
When she was five years old, he taught her how to shoot a gun. It was shiny and heavy in her small hands and she could barely lift it. He stood behind her to steady her body from the impact of the blast. He showed her how to close on eye and look straight down the barrel, how to pull the trigger and pierce the heart of an aluminum can with one clean shot.
When she was seven, he taught her to never fear the ocean--to walk directly into the waves without flinching. He carried her into the breakers, her arms and legs flailing in protest. He showed her how to let her body go limp and give in to the power of the sea, the bitter taste of salt on her tongue, and its sting burning in her nostrils.
When she was eleven, he taught her to walk the city streets with her head high, always moving and anticipating possible danger. He showed her how to avert her eyes from beggars and thieves, and how to use her voice if she were threatened.
He taught her to always ask questions, to expect no easy answers. He told her the story of Jesus, the prophecies and the miracles and death by crucifixion. He read her passes from the Holy Book, and the lump in her throat would not swallow all of the commandments she knew she would break.
When she turned fifteen, he taught her how to drive, to push the gas and let the clutch out slow. He taught her to drive on ice, testing the brakes and turning towards the skid.
He taught her to say "please" and "thank you" and to address her elders as "sir" and "ma'am."
He taught her about manipulation, and what a man will do to use a woman.
He taught her that love was sacred, and to think more with her head than with her heart.
He taught her to be forgiving and peaceful-to turn the other cheek and to be humble and kind.
He showed her a father's love and promised her that one day, she'd understand.
And when she grew into a woman, she refused to touch a gun, for she had learned that something as small as a bullet could blow a grown man to the ground and stop his heart in an instant.
She became terrified of the ocean when she realized how easy it could turn on her.
She learned that beggars and thieves were only people in need, and she pulled dollar bills and cigarettes from her pockets at every opportunity. She quickly learned that God had betrayed her, and her faith in Jesus dwindled.
She drove recklessly, discovering that chance and risk were more exciting than caution and care.
She learned that her elders did not always deserve to be addressed with respect, and she studied them carefully before treating them with any regard.
She allowed herself to be used, and in turn, learned the art of manipulation. She was bitter and resentful, and her cheek would never turn.
And when she was lying in a hospital bed, awaiting the arrival of her firstborn son, she thought of all the things she would teach him--all the things her father hadn't.
She would tell him about the horror of war, and guns, and hate, and how kindness had the power to smother violence.
She would teach him to live passionately, to be human enough to make foolish mistakes for the sake of love.
She would tell him he might not find God in the pages of the Bible, or in a brick building filled with pews and hymnals. He may never find him at all.
And when she finally pushed him into the world, she saw his small pink body spitting and gasping for his first breath. She knew then, that nothing she could tell him or teach him would ever compare to the love she had to show him. It was bursting inside of her, and she could feel it everywhere, and she promised him that one day, he would understand.
When she was seven, he taught her to never fear the ocean--to walk directly into the waves without flinching. He carried her into the breakers, her arms and legs flailing in protest. He showed her how to let her body go limp and give in to the power of the sea, the bitter taste of salt on her tongue, and its sting burning in her nostrils.
When she was eleven, he taught her to walk the city streets with her head high, always moving and anticipating possible danger. He showed her how to avert her eyes from beggars and thieves, and how to use her voice if she were threatened.
He taught her to always ask questions, to expect no easy answers. He told her the story of Jesus, the prophecies and the miracles and death by crucifixion. He read her passes from the Holy Book, and the lump in her throat would not swallow all of the commandments she knew she would break.
When she turned fifteen, he taught her how to drive, to push the gas and let the clutch out slow. He taught her to drive on ice, testing the brakes and turning towards the skid.
He taught her to say "please" and "thank you" and to address her elders as "sir" and "ma'am."
He taught her about manipulation, and what a man will do to use a woman.
He taught her that love was sacred, and to think more with her head than with her heart.
He taught her to be forgiving and peaceful-to turn the other cheek and to be humble and kind.
He showed her a father's love and promised her that one day, she'd understand.
And when she grew into a woman, she refused to touch a gun, for she had learned that something as small as a bullet could blow a grown man to the ground and stop his heart in an instant.
She became terrified of the ocean when she realized how easy it could turn on her.
She learned that beggars and thieves were only people in need, and she pulled dollar bills and cigarettes from her pockets at every opportunity. She quickly learned that God had betrayed her, and her faith in Jesus dwindled.
She drove recklessly, discovering that chance and risk were more exciting than caution and care.
She learned that her elders did not always deserve to be addressed with respect, and she studied them carefully before treating them with any regard.
She allowed herself to be used, and in turn, learned the art of manipulation. She was bitter and resentful, and her cheek would never turn.
And when she was lying in a hospital bed, awaiting the arrival of her firstborn son, she thought of all the things she would teach him--all the things her father hadn't.
She would tell him about the horror of war, and guns, and hate, and how kindness had the power to smother violence.
She would teach him to live passionately, to be human enough to make foolish mistakes for the sake of love.
She would tell him he might not find God in the pages of the Bible, or in a brick building filled with pews and hymnals. He may never find him at all.
And when she finally pushed him into the world, she saw his small pink body spitting and gasping for his first breath. She knew then, that nothing she could tell him or teach him would ever compare to the love she had to show him. It was bursting inside of her, and she could feel it everywhere, and she promised him that one day, he would understand.
Anger
When I was an adolescent, I stared my father in the face, blinking as I watched him mouth the words “You selfish, ungrateful brat. You care nothing for others, only for yourself.” I remember flinching as he came close to me, so full of anger and love that it frightened me.
Not long after, when I fell in love for the very first time, I can clearly remember his hazel eyes flashing as he reprimanded me. “Stoner girls suck dick, you know” as he pushed my head down and made me into everything he wanted me to be. I gave in quietly and desperately and hated every moment that I was subject to his rage.
The next was worse, far worse. On Valentine’s Day I awoke to a car full of balloons, a needle taped to the steering wheel. A note read “Reasons why I love Rae” and each balloon held a scrap of paper with statements inside such as “the way her eyes crinkle when she smiles.” Time had barely passed before the day he held my throat and whispered the ways in which he wanted to kill me. My eyes were wide, disbelieving, as I struggled and kicked and ran from him, barefoot and confused.
There was the boy who was so nice, too nice it seemed, and the eventual way he smashed a framed photograph of us, his hands bloodied and his face flushed with anger. I never saw it coming.
And then the husband, the man I pledged my entire future to, who woke me with a sharp kick on our honeymoon. I opened my eyes, disoriented as he quickly pulled me up by an arm and shoved me out of our hotel room. I stood there outside the door, bewildered and shocked, my mind busy with a thousand possible explanations for his actions.
I spent so much time with my head full o f questions, punishing myself for what I did or did not say or do that could incite such powerful emotions in others. Was it my fault? Did I deserve it? Or was it merely a series of bad choices? The wrong man, the wrong time, the wrong place, the slip of words and the inability to catch them before they escaped from my lips?
I’ve never understood anger the way others do. At times I feel blinding fits of rage and the desire for revenge overwhelms me. And yet, as quickly as it appears, it dissipates. I have never possessed the ability to hold a grudge. Some call it a bad memory, others call it a fortunate aspect of my temperment. I now know it as a relentless desire to forgive and I refuse to see it as a personality flaw.
But when the words that I say can bring forth such an intense reaction, one that won’t easily be calmed, I will forever see the girl who flinches, the girl with her hair forcibly held tight, the girl with a strong hand at her throat, the girl with shards of glass at her feet, and the girl who spent over a decade of her life hiding from irrational and displaced anger. And I can guarantee you, I will be afraid.
“The very worst part of you is me.” -Linkin Park
Not long after, when I fell in love for the very first time, I can clearly remember his hazel eyes flashing as he reprimanded me. “Stoner girls suck dick, you know” as he pushed my head down and made me into everything he wanted me to be. I gave in quietly and desperately and hated every moment that I was subject to his rage.
The next was worse, far worse. On Valentine’s Day I awoke to a car full of balloons, a needle taped to the steering wheel. A note read “Reasons why I love Rae” and each balloon held a scrap of paper with statements inside such as “the way her eyes crinkle when she smiles.” Time had barely passed before the day he held my throat and whispered the ways in which he wanted to kill me. My eyes were wide, disbelieving, as I struggled and kicked and ran from him, barefoot and confused.
There was the boy who was so nice, too nice it seemed, and the eventual way he smashed a framed photograph of us, his hands bloodied and his face flushed with anger. I never saw it coming.
And then the husband, the man I pledged my entire future to, who woke me with a sharp kick on our honeymoon. I opened my eyes, disoriented as he quickly pulled me up by an arm and shoved me out of our hotel room. I stood there outside the door, bewildered and shocked, my mind busy with a thousand possible explanations for his actions.
I spent so much time with my head full o f questions, punishing myself for what I did or did not say or do that could incite such powerful emotions in others. Was it my fault? Did I deserve it? Or was it merely a series of bad choices? The wrong man, the wrong time, the wrong place, the slip of words and the inability to catch them before they escaped from my lips?
I’ve never understood anger the way others do. At times I feel blinding fits of rage and the desire for revenge overwhelms me. And yet, as quickly as it appears, it dissipates. I have never possessed the ability to hold a grudge. Some call it a bad memory, others call it a fortunate aspect of my temperment. I now know it as a relentless desire to forgive and I refuse to see it as a personality flaw.
But when the words that I say can bring forth such an intense reaction, one that won’t easily be calmed, I will forever see the girl who flinches, the girl with her hair forcibly held tight, the girl with a strong hand at her throat, the girl with shards of glass at her feet, and the girl who spent over a decade of her life hiding from irrational and displaced anger. And I can guarantee you, I will be afraid.
“The very worst part of you is me.” -Linkin Park
Dear Mom and Dad,
When I think back to my earliest memories, this is what I see: A fine tooth comb with a sharp, pointed end, and Mom combing my bangs into absolute perfection, before church, or before a photograph. I see long hair, down my back and my screaming wails as she would untangle all of the knots. I see dresses and nightgowns and culottes and my eyes wandering to the girls in jeans on horseback. I see Mom licking her thumb and dabbing the corners of my mouth. I see constant evenings with strangers, our home or theirs and the warnings beforehand that I should be on my best behavior. I see the first grade, when I'd get A's and finish my work before everyone else. They'd just give me extra work. I see certificates and report cards and awards. I memorized Bible verses and the books of the Bible and I recited them with precision. It never felt like it was enough. I see me in the 2nd grade, homeschooled, sitting at the dining room table, trying to perfectly form each letter, each word, each sentence. I was a typical firstborn, with an innate desire to succeed, but I was something else as well. I was a pastor's daughter. Throughout my childhood and adolescence, I felt, acutely, that all eyes were on me. All of the time. I felt an entire congregation watching every move I made, judging me, clucking their tongues, whispering amongst each other. It might not have been that way, but this is the way it felt. Being a born introvert, the spotlight terrified me. I learned to shake hands and to smile politely and address my elders as "sir" and "ma'am." I spent years and years trying to get everything right--because I wanted to be perfect, but also because I wanted to make you proud. At the same time, I saw myself alienated from the rest of the world. I saw everyone outside of church regard me as a weirdo. In the early days there was no Halloween costumes, no pants, no secular music, no rated PG movies. I felt as if I resided in between two worlds, neither of which completely accepted me.
With time, I began to see the truth of the situation: I would never be perfect. I could be perfect sometimes, but eventually, I would fail. Someone would disapprove. Someone would be disappointed. I felt faulty, broken, stupid, incapable. Now that I'm an adult, I realize that it is truly impossible to achieve perfection. You can never please everyone. But back then, I just saw myself as a complete failure. I felt voices inside of my head, scolding me. "You should have done this. You could have done that. You shouldn't have done this. You could have done that instead." It was exhausting and it was neverending. Add religion on top of this and the whole thing just gets worse and worse. Religion gives you a different set of voices. "You are a sinner. You will always be a sinner. No matter how hard you try, you will sin and you will do it again and again. God knows that you are going to sin before the thought even crosses your mind. He knows every mistake you'll ever make in your entire life. He expects every misstep. There is nothing you can do to change that situation." It felt bleak and hopeless. Nothing I did was ever going to be good enough. And so, during my adolescence, I stopped trying. If I couldn't be perfect, and I couldn't please everyone, I'd just go in the opposite direction. If everyone was just holding their breath, waiting for me to fail, I'd hurry up and get it over with.
I remember Dad telling me, "You have intentionally rejected everything that your mother and I believe or care about." And it was true, I had, but it wasn't just because I was trying to. I had always been a skeptical child. I remember asking Dad, "What do you mean that God has always been...that He has no beginning and no end?... How did Noah fit two animals of every species on a boat?... How do we know that our religion is the right one, when everyone else believes that THEIRS is the right one?" The truth of the matter is that I had never felt God, felt his presence, felt him working in my life. I had simply just stopped pretending that I had.
I rebelled against you and against Christianity and against most of the civilized world. To you, it was terrible and heartbreaking, but what you didn't see is that, behind the scenes, I was always keeping myself in check. You had given me a moral compass and had instilled a sense of responsibility. I never took things too far. I had not completely given up on myself, or my need to please you. I kept my grades just high enough. I chose to take Honors classes. I told my friends "no way." I followed the important rules. I stood up for others when no one else would. It was rare for me to flat out defy authority figures. Instead, what you saw, was a package of birth control in the bathroom. I had lost my virginity in a way that I didn't want, or expect, but afterwards, I had called up a friend with a car and made an appointment at Planned Parenthood and obtained a prescription just in case I ever found myself in a similar situation. I would be protected. In my mind, it was an enormous act of bravery and responsibility. In your mind, it was another sign that I was becoming someone you didn't want me to be. It wasn't the future you had planned for me.
What I know now, is that teenagers must reject their parents in order to find their own sense of identity. It is a normal phase of development and it is absolutely necessary. Everything must be rejected and discarded in order for rebuilding to occur. You took it all personally, and you didn't need to. It wasn't all about you. I loved you, which should have been all that mattered, but I needed to find my own way in the world. There were things I believed that opposed your own beliefs, but it did not happen that way because I wanted to hurt you. It just happened that way because I am who I am and I believe what I believe. Just like you do.
Dad got sick and he was hospitalized and you told me it was because of the enormous amount of stress he was under, worrying about me. I don't know why you told me that. I wonder if you thought that guilt would instantly change me into a different person--a person who tried harder to shape up and be who you needed me to be.
Later, when I got pregnant at eighteen, you told me that Dad could get kicked off of the elder board. I don't know why you told me that, as if there was a way that I could go back in time and fix it. My guilt intensified and it weighed heavily on me, all of the time.
Now that I'm a parent, I realize that no matter how hard I try, I have made mistakes and I have done things and said things to my children that I regret. I have done the best that I can, but there will inevitably be things that I wish I could go back and change. I know, without a doubt, that you were doing the best that you could. All that really matters, in the end, is that we love our children. And I never once questioned your love.
I wonder sometimes, what it feels like to believe that your child is going to Hell. I can't even begin to imagine it. It is unfathomable. It must be terrifying and consuming. This is the thought I keep in my head when I don't allow you into my life as fully as I want you to be. I have friends who say, "My mother is my best friend. I tell her everything." My mother is my best friend, but even in my thirties, I carefully choose what I reveal to you. I have to. I feel a responsibility to protect you from aspects of my life because I still don't want you to worry. I don't want you to believe that I've gone completely astray, that I am a wreckage, a sinner, a person who is doomed to an eternity of torture and pain.
And so, although I know you will love me unconditionally, no matter what I say or do or what I believe in or who I am, you have been shielded from the innerworkings of my life simply because I love you back. I wish I could tell you everything, but I believe that it will not strengthen our relationship.
You should know that I am okay. I am a responsible adult with morals, even though some of those morals are vastly different than yours. I try to always make decisions that are wise. I am kind and my heart is big and I am happy. And I have you to thank for all of that.
Lots of love,
Rae
With time, I began to see the truth of the situation: I would never be perfect. I could be perfect sometimes, but eventually, I would fail. Someone would disapprove. Someone would be disappointed. I felt faulty, broken, stupid, incapable. Now that I'm an adult, I realize that it is truly impossible to achieve perfection. You can never please everyone. But back then, I just saw myself as a complete failure. I felt voices inside of my head, scolding me. "You should have done this. You could have done that. You shouldn't have done this. You could have done that instead." It was exhausting and it was neverending. Add religion on top of this and the whole thing just gets worse and worse. Religion gives you a different set of voices. "You are a sinner. You will always be a sinner. No matter how hard you try, you will sin and you will do it again and again. God knows that you are going to sin before the thought even crosses your mind. He knows every mistake you'll ever make in your entire life. He expects every misstep. There is nothing you can do to change that situation." It felt bleak and hopeless. Nothing I did was ever going to be good enough. And so, during my adolescence, I stopped trying. If I couldn't be perfect, and I couldn't please everyone, I'd just go in the opposite direction. If everyone was just holding their breath, waiting for me to fail, I'd hurry up and get it over with.
I remember Dad telling me, "You have intentionally rejected everything that your mother and I believe or care about." And it was true, I had, but it wasn't just because I was trying to. I had always been a skeptical child. I remember asking Dad, "What do you mean that God has always been...that He has no beginning and no end?... How did Noah fit two animals of every species on a boat?... How do we know that our religion is the right one, when everyone else believes that THEIRS is the right one?" The truth of the matter is that I had never felt God, felt his presence, felt him working in my life. I had simply just stopped pretending that I had.
I rebelled against you and against Christianity and against most of the civilized world. To you, it was terrible and heartbreaking, but what you didn't see is that, behind the scenes, I was always keeping myself in check. You had given me a moral compass and had instilled a sense of responsibility. I never took things too far. I had not completely given up on myself, or my need to please you. I kept my grades just high enough. I chose to take Honors classes. I told my friends "no way." I followed the important rules. I stood up for others when no one else would. It was rare for me to flat out defy authority figures. Instead, what you saw, was a package of birth control in the bathroom. I had lost my virginity in a way that I didn't want, or expect, but afterwards, I had called up a friend with a car and made an appointment at Planned Parenthood and obtained a prescription just in case I ever found myself in a similar situation. I would be protected. In my mind, it was an enormous act of bravery and responsibility. In your mind, it was another sign that I was becoming someone you didn't want me to be. It wasn't the future you had planned for me.
What I know now, is that teenagers must reject their parents in order to find their own sense of identity. It is a normal phase of development and it is absolutely necessary. Everything must be rejected and discarded in order for rebuilding to occur. You took it all personally, and you didn't need to. It wasn't all about you. I loved you, which should have been all that mattered, but I needed to find my own way in the world. There were things I believed that opposed your own beliefs, but it did not happen that way because I wanted to hurt you. It just happened that way because I am who I am and I believe what I believe. Just like you do.
Dad got sick and he was hospitalized and you told me it was because of the enormous amount of stress he was under, worrying about me. I don't know why you told me that. I wonder if you thought that guilt would instantly change me into a different person--a person who tried harder to shape up and be who you needed me to be.
Later, when I got pregnant at eighteen, you told me that Dad could get kicked off of the elder board. I don't know why you told me that, as if there was a way that I could go back in time and fix it. My guilt intensified and it weighed heavily on me, all of the time.
Now that I'm a parent, I realize that no matter how hard I try, I have made mistakes and I have done things and said things to my children that I regret. I have done the best that I can, but there will inevitably be things that I wish I could go back and change. I know, without a doubt, that you were doing the best that you could. All that really matters, in the end, is that we love our children. And I never once questioned your love.
I wonder sometimes, what it feels like to believe that your child is going to Hell. I can't even begin to imagine it. It is unfathomable. It must be terrifying and consuming. This is the thought I keep in my head when I don't allow you into my life as fully as I want you to be. I have friends who say, "My mother is my best friend. I tell her everything." My mother is my best friend, but even in my thirties, I carefully choose what I reveal to you. I have to. I feel a responsibility to protect you from aspects of my life because I still don't want you to worry. I don't want you to believe that I've gone completely astray, that I am a wreckage, a sinner, a person who is doomed to an eternity of torture and pain.
And so, although I know you will love me unconditionally, no matter what I say or do or what I believe in or who I am, you have been shielded from the innerworkings of my life simply because I love you back. I wish I could tell you everything, but I believe that it will not strengthen our relationship.
You should know that I am okay. I am a responsible adult with morals, even though some of those morals are vastly different than yours. I try to always make decisions that are wise. I am kind and my heart is big and I am happy. And I have you to thank for all of that.
Lots of love,
Rae
Red
When I was 12 years old, my menstrual cycle began. My family was aboard a flight from Seattle to Orlando. I clearly remember stepping into that tiny lavatory, the sounds of the engines roaring and vibrating all around me. I can still see the dark red stains on my underwear, the expression on my face as I caught my reflection in the small, warped mirror. I was still unsure, so I exited the lavatory cautiously. I walked down the narrow aisle, feeling unsteady as I tapped my mother's shoulder and asked her if she could come "look at something for me in the bathroom." Puzzled, she followed me to the back of the plane and together, we crowded into the lavatory. "Yes!" she exclaimed "That's it, alright!" She opened the door and called the flight attendant, who directed us to a stash of maxi pads underneath the sink. The bulk of it was uncomfortable and foreign. I felt it between my legs as I walked and I fidgeted in my seat at the new sensation there. I wondered if anyone could tell that there was something womanly in my cotton briefs. Maybe they could tell just from looking at me. I snuck glances at the other passengers out of the corner of my eye. My mother lowered my tray table and set her pocket calendar down, opened to the month. She drew a red pen from her purse and spoke. "You will need to keep track of your periods, to make sure that they are normal and regular. You will be able to anticipate when the next one will begin." In bold red strokes, she wrote the letters "MP" inside the box indicating the current date. I stared at the ink, red like the blood that would flow for me each month, the blood that would never fail to appear. Blood like clockwork every 28 days. For the next six years I would ignore my mother's advice about the calendar, the charts, the red pen. The blood would always surprise me, just as it had that first time, in the skies somewhere above the Midwest. I would curse it as it ran down my legs, diluted from the water of my shower. I would curl up in a ball in my mother's bed as my uterus tightened and cramped. I would beg and pray and wish for the ending, the absence of color on the tissue paper. And then, in my eighteenth year, I fell in love and the color of red took on a whole new meaning for me. It was the color of his hungry lips as he took me and consumed me. It was the flush of my cheeks afterwards, aglow with satisfied passion. I almost didn't notice when the blood did not come. It was the first time I had ever willed it to arrive. I would cross my fingers every time I walked into the restroom. Days turned into weeks and still, it remained absent. And yet, for the next nine months, that deep dark crimson red formed an escape route and began to seep through the surface of my skin. The flow of blood was replaced by glistening streaks that appeared on my breasts and my abdomen. My body was stretching, making room for him, for the unborn child that turned my hatred of menstruation into gratitude and love.
His entrance into the world marked the return of blood. It flowed as furious as a river. There was too much, they said. It was everywhere, pooled beneath the birthing bed in an enormous puddle of scarlet. It had poured from within me, draining my skin of it's color and rendering me weak and lifeless. None of that mattered to me, I was oblivious to it all. My eyelids fluttered and fought to remain open, as I intently focused my gaze on the only thing in that hospital room that mattered. His tiny face, new and red and his mouth open wide, screaming. He was bathed in my blood, still attached to my body. The cord was severed and the blood was wiped clean. I brought him to my breast, where he would suckle me raw, the red now blossoming from my nipples where he found nourishment and comfort. We would always be connected. He was mine and I was his and I would forever remember his beginning, in the cycle of red that made me a mother.
His entrance into the world marked the return of blood. It flowed as furious as a river. There was too much, they said. It was everywhere, pooled beneath the birthing bed in an enormous puddle of scarlet. It had poured from within me, draining my skin of it's color and rendering me weak and lifeless. None of that mattered to me, I was oblivious to it all. My eyelids fluttered and fought to remain open, as I intently focused my gaze on the only thing in that hospital room that mattered. His tiny face, new and red and his mouth open wide, screaming. He was bathed in my blood, still attached to my body. The cord was severed and the blood was wiped clean. I brought him to my breast, where he would suckle me raw, the red now blossoming from my nipples where he found nourishment and comfort. We would always be connected. He was mine and I was his and I would forever remember his beginning, in the cycle of red that made me a mother.
Brother
In my fourth year of life, I knelt by my bedside each night before bed. I clasped my tiny hands together, squeezing my eyes shut tight while I begged God for a little brother. Not a puppy or a kitten or a pony or a new Barbie, but a real live baby. I prayed for him to be unlike me in every physical trait possible. He should have dark hair, an olive complexion, and deep brown eyes. A year later, God would grant my wish. There was a mother, poor and helpless. There was a phone call, a long drive to the hospital, and a swaddled newborn placed in my own mother's arms. We unwrapped him slowly and delicately. I marveled at his size, his thin, translucent fingernails, and his skin slightly wrinkled and pink from birth. His future was full of hope and promise.
He grew chubby and round, his large brown eyes twinkling and his cheeks full and dimpled. I would cart him around in my arms and show him off. I dictated his babyhood.
As he moved into toddlerhood, I served him imaginary tea and hid him under the dining room table where we would play house.
He became a preschooler and we would create elaborate stories, fresh from our collaborative imagination as we lined up toy trucks and rocked baby dolls.
He entered school and I would stand with my hands on my hips at recess, when I was summoned to be a protector against a schoolyard bully.
As a teenager, I would confide in him, telling secrets that he was far too young to comprehend. Later, I would lock myself in my room and he would plead to be let in. He would follow behind me like a puppy, admire me, respect me, and wait for my fickle adoration.
He would always be my favorite person in the entire world.
Today, my brother is twenty three years old. He has the body of a grown man, the hair on his face stiff and dark. His mind has never caught up. He has been frozen in time.
Three years ago, a diagnosis would come that would shatter our world.
My brother will never drive an automobile. He will never live independently. He will never have a career. He will never marry or have children. In ten years or less, he will be dead.
His nails are bitten to the quick. His dark hair has been worn thin by his own incessant rubbing and smacking. Soon, his cheeks will hollow out from the inability to swallow.
He is tortured by insomnia, 48 hours of wakefulness followed by 24 hours of heavy sleep in which he cannot be roused. He is plagued by depression, finding only moments of happiness in the crack of a baseball against a bat or the dimming of the lights in a crowded cinema.
He sits for hours with a notebook, scrawling baseball scores and batting averages and facts about directors and films.
At the dinner table, he chokes and coughs through each bite. His arms flail uncontrollably. Water glasses are knocked over, glass is shattered. Forks are dropped.
He mumbles when he speaks, low and soft. I can hardly understand him at all anymore. Occasionally, I tell a joke and his laughter bubbles up and I am reminded of our childhood together.
There are no medications, no cure, only questions that Science cannot answer.
My mother pushes forward and my father heaves racking sobs that did not exist before the diagnosis. He kneels by his own bed each night, and he asks God for a miracle. He still believes that anything is possible. He maintains hope that God can do anything. I, on the other hand, never let my knees touch the ground. I remain bitter and silent. He giveth and He taketh away. I repeat it like a mantra while resentment rises in my throat as each year passes us all by.
He grew chubby and round, his large brown eyes twinkling and his cheeks full and dimpled. I would cart him around in my arms and show him off. I dictated his babyhood.
As he moved into toddlerhood, I served him imaginary tea and hid him under the dining room table where we would play house.
He became a preschooler and we would create elaborate stories, fresh from our collaborative imagination as we lined up toy trucks and rocked baby dolls.
He entered school and I would stand with my hands on my hips at recess, when I was summoned to be a protector against a schoolyard bully.
As a teenager, I would confide in him, telling secrets that he was far too young to comprehend. Later, I would lock myself in my room and he would plead to be let in. He would follow behind me like a puppy, admire me, respect me, and wait for my fickle adoration.
He would always be my favorite person in the entire world.
Today, my brother is twenty three years old. He has the body of a grown man, the hair on his face stiff and dark. His mind has never caught up. He has been frozen in time.
Three years ago, a diagnosis would come that would shatter our world.
My brother will never drive an automobile. He will never live independently. He will never have a career. He will never marry or have children. In ten years or less, he will be dead.
His nails are bitten to the quick. His dark hair has been worn thin by his own incessant rubbing and smacking. Soon, his cheeks will hollow out from the inability to swallow.
He is tortured by insomnia, 48 hours of wakefulness followed by 24 hours of heavy sleep in which he cannot be roused. He is plagued by depression, finding only moments of happiness in the crack of a baseball against a bat or the dimming of the lights in a crowded cinema.
He sits for hours with a notebook, scrawling baseball scores and batting averages and facts about directors and films.
At the dinner table, he chokes and coughs through each bite. His arms flail uncontrollably. Water glasses are knocked over, glass is shattered. Forks are dropped.
He mumbles when he speaks, low and soft. I can hardly understand him at all anymore. Occasionally, I tell a joke and his laughter bubbles up and I am reminded of our childhood together.
There are no medications, no cure, only questions that Science cannot answer.
My mother pushes forward and my father heaves racking sobs that did not exist before the diagnosis. He kneels by his own bed each night, and he asks God for a miracle. He still believes that anything is possible. He maintains hope that God can do anything. I, on the other hand, never let my knees touch the ground. I remain bitter and silent. He giveth and He taketh away. I repeat it like a mantra while resentment rises in my throat as each year passes us all by.
Sometimes Love Just Aint Enough
Do you remember when you were young, when love seemed so all powerful and consuming and miraculous that it most certainly was all you needed? Who cares about practical details? Who cares about complicated situations? Who cares about money, or distance, or disapproving friends and family members? Love can do anything. Love can make the unworkable, work out. Can’t it? Shouldn’t it?
Do you remember when you grew up, into your grown up life, and you realized that this wasn’t true? Did it hit you suddenly, or did it come to you gradually? Did it make you feel hopeless and desperate? Did it make you wonder what life was really about? Did you feel angry and stupid and fucking deceived? Do you watch romance movies and see the boy catching a plane to run after the girl he loves? Do you watch him risk everything and then win her heart in the end? Do you scream at your television? Do you bitterly sit there, stewing in the fantasy of the glossed over, Hollywood bullshit that is spewed forth until we’re all completely brainwashed into believing that love is some sort of wonder drug that will save the world?
Are you pissed? Are you cynical? Have you given up? Or do you still feel the stinking seeds of Hope, like bits of gravel rolling around underneath your skin?
I do and I am and I want nothing to do with any of it anymore.
Do you remember when you grew up, into your grown up life, and you realized that this wasn’t true? Did it hit you suddenly, or did it come to you gradually? Did it make you feel hopeless and desperate? Did it make you wonder what life was really about? Did you feel angry and stupid and fucking deceived? Do you watch romance movies and see the boy catching a plane to run after the girl he loves? Do you watch him risk everything and then win her heart in the end? Do you scream at your television? Do you bitterly sit there, stewing in the fantasy of the glossed over, Hollywood bullshit that is spewed forth until we’re all completely brainwashed into believing that love is some sort of wonder drug that will save the world?
Are you pissed? Are you cynical? Have you given up? Or do you still feel the stinking seeds of Hope, like bits of gravel rolling around underneath your skin?
I do and I am and I want nothing to do with any of it anymore.
The Words
I’m betting a lot of women have one crystal clear moment in their marriage when the light bulb flips on and they have this ultimate “aha” moment. This almighty revelation comes crashing down and they realize, once and for all, that they are with the wrong man. Mine came on Halloween night of 2009. We had mutually decided to divorce months earlier, but the both of us, tired and spent, were procrastinating on the work this would entail, stepping over the elephant in the room as each day passed.
I was sitting in front of the television, watching Hannibal (having seen it in the theaters a decade previous, I was too stoned at the time to follow the plot line.) He came in from trick-or-treating with the boys, sat down next to me and casually remarked, “I loved Silence of the Lambs. I think it’s the only book I ever got through.”
I kid you not, I heard an actual, thunderous noise in my ears. Now that I think about it, it must have been the noise of the thousands of books I have hungrily devoured, falling to the floor. The Reader’s Digests I read on the toilet at age 4, the Babysitter Club series that I pored over on Saturday afternoons when everyone else was outside playing. The thick hardbacks on feminism that I slipped into my 9th grade backpack on my way out of the library. Books that were assigned to me in high school. Animal Farm. 1984. Brave New World. Collections of short stories and poetry books that I copied by hand onto lined notebook paper to re-read again and again. The entire Kurt Vonnegut collection. The countless novels read a paragraph at a time while stirring soup on the stove. Every parenting, birth, and breastfeeding book I could get my hands on. The dozen or so books I had urged him to try out, a few of them I grudgingly found on CD to further convince him. And then the obvious absence of the books I should have read. The classics, literary works of art that I was never introduced to because there was no time for college. There was a husband to care for, children to tend to and work to be done.
There were nights he was angry when I pushed his hands away in bed, needing to finish that next chapter or the next few pages. Days he couldn’t understand why I’d wasted my day curled up in the chair while he worked in the yard. There were so many times I had laughed aloud or been moved to tears and then stared at his blank face after reading him the passage, only to mutter “nevermind” as he walked away.
It became clear to me then, in the days following Halloween, that contrary to what I had believed for years, he was not the one holding me back. I had held myself back. How many years I had wasted trying to nudge him towards the words that I love, to convince him that there was a big world out there full of people whose interests paralleled mine. I think that in reality, the person I was trying to convince was myself. I was safe with him, too safe, cocooned from intellectuals who would surely prove that I was nothing but a poor housewife with too many children. The safety net he had provided me became a trap– a sticky web, and I had chosen to stop struggling for escape. I knew then, that the surface issue of the wrong man, the failed marriage, the impending divorce, was more about battling my own demons than anything else. And so, like a newborn fawn, weak and wobbly on brand new legs, I began untangling myself from the web of my own insecurities.
I was sitting in front of the television, watching Hannibal (having seen it in the theaters a decade previous, I was too stoned at the time to follow the plot line.) He came in from trick-or-treating with the boys, sat down next to me and casually remarked, “I loved Silence of the Lambs. I think it’s the only book I ever got through.”
I kid you not, I heard an actual, thunderous noise in my ears. Now that I think about it, it must have been the noise of the thousands of books I have hungrily devoured, falling to the floor. The Reader’s Digests I read on the toilet at age 4, the Babysitter Club series that I pored over on Saturday afternoons when everyone else was outside playing. The thick hardbacks on feminism that I slipped into my 9th grade backpack on my way out of the library. Books that were assigned to me in high school. Animal Farm. 1984. Brave New World. Collections of short stories and poetry books that I copied by hand onto lined notebook paper to re-read again and again. The entire Kurt Vonnegut collection. The countless novels read a paragraph at a time while stirring soup on the stove. Every parenting, birth, and breastfeeding book I could get my hands on. The dozen or so books I had urged him to try out, a few of them I grudgingly found on CD to further convince him. And then the obvious absence of the books I should have read. The classics, literary works of art that I was never introduced to because there was no time for college. There was a husband to care for, children to tend to and work to be done.
There were nights he was angry when I pushed his hands away in bed, needing to finish that next chapter or the next few pages. Days he couldn’t understand why I’d wasted my day curled up in the chair while he worked in the yard. There were so many times I had laughed aloud or been moved to tears and then stared at his blank face after reading him the passage, only to mutter “nevermind” as he walked away.
It became clear to me then, in the days following Halloween, that contrary to what I had believed for years, he was not the one holding me back. I had held myself back. How many years I had wasted trying to nudge him towards the words that I love, to convince him that there was a big world out there full of people whose interests paralleled mine. I think that in reality, the person I was trying to convince was myself. I was safe with him, too safe, cocooned from intellectuals who would surely prove that I was nothing but a poor housewife with too many children. The safety net he had provided me became a trap– a sticky web, and I had chosen to stop struggling for escape. I knew then, that the surface issue of the wrong man, the failed marriage, the impending divorce, was more about battling my own demons than anything else. And so, like a newborn fawn, weak and wobbly on brand new legs, I began untangling myself from the web of my own insecurities.
Please? Come.
Here I am, and here he is, and I have come simply because he has asked me to. No questions asked, the comfortable silence between us, save for the roar of the engine as he shifts gears. I am intoxicated as usual and I cannot remember a time when I have been stone cold sober in his presence. It numbs the edges, obliterates the emotional exhaustion I have experienced today, makes me feel whole and right and lets my tongue loose as the winding country road spreads before us. “I understand it now,” I say. “The way you told me that you ‘couldn’t take anyone on’”, how you said that you “needed to learn how to love yourself before you could love someone else.’” This realization for me has been somewhat startling and has made me feel broken and ugly and hopeless. At the same time, we have now found our middle ground and I am no longer the woman full of unrequited love for a man who can never promise me a future. We are now just two broken people, hurt by our past and too afraid to open our hearts again. We come together in the moments when the blinding ache of loneliness cannot be soothed away. For one night, I nestle underneath his arm and he strokes my hair. In the dark, his mouth finds mine. He tells me I am beautiful and interesting and I know his words aren’t empty or forced. This is not love, it will never be love, but it is something based on a mutual understanding and respect for one another’s agonizing depression. He never asks me to be anything but me. I no longer ask anything of him. And when the first rays of morning sunlight filter through the window, the embrace is broken. We blink away sleep and our tenderness and not once do we mention the next meeting. It is expected that it will happen, but it is never planned nor promised. I walk back to my life, we throw each other away, we forget what we’ve done until it all creeps up again and one of us says “Please come.”
Without Him.
It’s been almost seven months since I left him. Seven months, a few days before Christmas, when I packed up my stuff and walked away from him and thus, my entire life.
We’ve been here before, too many times to count. It’s always around this time that we start to miss each other. I pick the kids up from his house (our house) and sit on the couch next to him to nurse the baby before we head out. You can see it in the eyes of our children–their delight at having us together, even if only for a few moments. He gets up and begins to pile food into my car, a generous trait he inherited from his mother. We do whatever we can to avoid eye contact. There is pain there, and regret and memories of half of our lives together that neither of us wants to see.
When I go to leave, our embrace is long and tight and when it is broken, I can tell that he is fighting off the old familiar urge to kiss me. He confirms this later in a text message. I ask him why we do this to ourselves, why we would ever miss each other after everything awful that we put each other through. He says that it’s because after awhile, we begin to forget the bad parts. I think it’s wrong to constantly focus on the bad, but he tells me that its necessary for self preservation and to keep the walls around our hearts built up and permanent. He reminds me that I don’t want to be with an alcoholic. He promptly follows that up with “I wish I could change.” I’ve lost hope that he ever will. And so, I do what he tells me, and I sit myself down and close my eyes tight and remember the bad.
Debit card transactions from the liquor store when we didn’t even have enough money to cover the bills, the clink of ice hitting a glass late at night when I wished I was asleep so that I didn’t have to know how many times that glass was refilled. Rum and whiskey permanently seeping their way out of his pores, the constant smell of alcohol on his breath, the disgust with sex and intimacy. The arguments fueled by liquor, his unnatural meanness, the blame he placed on me for his drinking and for his unhappiness. The inability to have an intelligent conversation without it immediately turning into a drunken philosophical rant that I would be incapable or unwilling to follow. The disinterest in my writing. The loss of my identity, of friends, of a life, of my passions, of everything I thought I was or wanted to be. Sleeping on the couch for weeks on end. Just waiting for an inevitable DUI and the ramifications of that on our family. His demands for sex, words spewing out of his mouth that I never thought I’d hear from him. His black-outs and the way I became his memory keeper. His tears of frustration, times he would admit to his problem and then the next morning he would brush it off, embarassed.
He stole my life from me, unintentionally or not. I took care of him for as long as I could, for much longer than most would have been willing to. It’s my turn now. To live, to be cared for, to deserve more, to find myself again. Without him.
We’ve been here before, too many times to count. It’s always around this time that we start to miss each other. I pick the kids up from his house (our house) and sit on the couch next to him to nurse the baby before we head out. You can see it in the eyes of our children–their delight at having us together, even if only for a few moments. He gets up and begins to pile food into my car, a generous trait he inherited from his mother. We do whatever we can to avoid eye contact. There is pain there, and regret and memories of half of our lives together that neither of us wants to see.
When I go to leave, our embrace is long and tight and when it is broken, I can tell that he is fighting off the old familiar urge to kiss me. He confirms this later in a text message. I ask him why we do this to ourselves, why we would ever miss each other after everything awful that we put each other through. He says that it’s because after awhile, we begin to forget the bad parts. I think it’s wrong to constantly focus on the bad, but he tells me that its necessary for self preservation and to keep the walls around our hearts built up and permanent. He reminds me that I don’t want to be with an alcoholic. He promptly follows that up with “I wish I could change.” I’ve lost hope that he ever will. And so, I do what he tells me, and I sit myself down and close my eyes tight and remember the bad.
Debit card transactions from the liquor store when we didn’t even have enough money to cover the bills, the clink of ice hitting a glass late at night when I wished I was asleep so that I didn’t have to know how many times that glass was refilled. Rum and whiskey permanently seeping their way out of his pores, the constant smell of alcohol on his breath, the disgust with sex and intimacy. The arguments fueled by liquor, his unnatural meanness, the blame he placed on me for his drinking and for his unhappiness. The inability to have an intelligent conversation without it immediately turning into a drunken philosophical rant that I would be incapable or unwilling to follow. The disinterest in my writing. The loss of my identity, of friends, of a life, of my passions, of everything I thought I was or wanted to be. Sleeping on the couch for weeks on end. Just waiting for an inevitable DUI and the ramifications of that on our family. His demands for sex, words spewing out of his mouth that I never thought I’d hear from him. His black-outs and the way I became his memory keeper. His tears of frustration, times he would admit to his problem and then the next morning he would brush it off, embarassed.
He stole my life from me, unintentionally or not. I took care of him for as long as I could, for much longer than most would have been willing to. It’s my turn now. To live, to be cared for, to deserve more, to find myself again. Without him.
Full
After seven months apart, he invited me to his house to spend the night and to enjoy some quality family time together. Are we even a family anymore?
There were things I missed, but surprisingly, or not surprisingly enough, they revolved around my house. I made his bed and I washed his clothes and I swept the floor and wiped down the counters and cleaned the toilet. I stood at the sliding glass door for a long time and looked out at the yard, overgrown with weeds so tall that the kids couldn’t reach the swing set anymore.
There are other things I miss, but those things are long gone. I miss the boy who passed me notes in the 9th grade. The boy who showed me how to smoke pot in his parent’s garage. The boy who drove 95 mph down the freeway for the fuck of it, blasting The Doors and wearing a Jimi Hendrix t-shirt. The boy who drew and who painted. The boy who gave me my first tattoo. That boy grew into a man and he sold the Camaro for a sensible sedan that would house a few carseats. He hid a sparkling diamond ring at the bottom of an ice cream sundae and proposed to me when my belly was ripe with his child. I would tell him to jump and he’d ask how high. I demanded we move and he just kept following. Apartment to duplex to house to island to house to mainland to escrow. I asked for another baby and promised it would be the last. He submitted and fell in love, hard love, but wanted no more and still I pressed him for another. I left him and came back and left and returned so many times I can’t even count and he kept opening his door and taking me in. I pushed him into a career he grew to hate, one that he remains trapped in. I aged him, reeled him in only to spit him back out and I took advantage of his weaknesses.
He’s not driving a Camaro, he’s driving a truck suited for a redneck lifestyle he ridiculed when we were young. He’s not listening to music, it’s as if he’s forgotten it even exists. His phone isn’t ringing, our friends have stopped calling. He’s not smoking weed, he’s settled in with rum and coke. He’s not drawing or painting or making art in any way at all. He’s hardly even laughing. He’s just a weathered man, sitting in the recliner, glass in hand, staring at the television. He’s lost his soul to a woman who sucked it away from him, little by little until she had every last drop and could walk away, satisfied and full of it.
There were things I missed, but surprisingly, or not surprisingly enough, they revolved around my house. I made his bed and I washed his clothes and I swept the floor and wiped down the counters and cleaned the toilet. I stood at the sliding glass door for a long time and looked out at the yard, overgrown with weeds so tall that the kids couldn’t reach the swing set anymore.
There are other things I miss, but those things are long gone. I miss the boy who passed me notes in the 9th grade. The boy who showed me how to smoke pot in his parent’s garage. The boy who drove 95 mph down the freeway for the fuck of it, blasting The Doors and wearing a Jimi Hendrix t-shirt. The boy who drew and who painted. The boy who gave me my first tattoo. That boy grew into a man and he sold the Camaro for a sensible sedan that would house a few carseats. He hid a sparkling diamond ring at the bottom of an ice cream sundae and proposed to me when my belly was ripe with his child. I would tell him to jump and he’d ask how high. I demanded we move and he just kept following. Apartment to duplex to house to island to house to mainland to escrow. I asked for another baby and promised it would be the last. He submitted and fell in love, hard love, but wanted no more and still I pressed him for another. I left him and came back and left and returned so many times I can’t even count and he kept opening his door and taking me in. I pushed him into a career he grew to hate, one that he remains trapped in. I aged him, reeled him in only to spit him back out and I took advantage of his weaknesses.
He’s not driving a Camaro, he’s driving a truck suited for a redneck lifestyle he ridiculed when we were young. He’s not listening to music, it’s as if he’s forgotten it even exists. His phone isn’t ringing, our friends have stopped calling. He’s not smoking weed, he’s settled in with rum and coke. He’s not drawing or painting or making art in any way at all. He’s hardly even laughing. He’s just a weathered man, sitting in the recliner, glass in hand, staring at the television. He’s lost his soul to a woman who sucked it away from him, little by little until she had every last drop and could walk away, satisfied and full of it.
KJR 3/28/10
It’s taken me awhile to write this letter. You’ve been gone for four months now. I wish that last fall, for Jack’s first birthday party, I would have told you then to march yourself straight to the doctor after the very first time I heard that hacking, chronic cough. I wish that the last time I spoke to you, I would have known then that in less than a month, you would be dead. I wouldn’t have been able to warn you then, to save you, but perhaps I could have said the things I am ready to say right now.
You were the quintessential grandmother, and my kids are lucky to have had you. As a mother in law, you were overbearing and it took me years to understand that your intentions were always good. You tried to bond with me then, taking me on weekend trips and trying to catch a flicker of an interest I might have in common with you. You heard that I liked butterflies and on every special occasion I would receive a beautiful wrapped, butterfly themed gift. You were more generous than anyone I have ever known. When you visited, your arms were never empty. Vegetables from the garden, fresh fruit, clothes for the kids, homemade blackberry jam, new towels or sheets and you always justified it by saying “it was on sale” or “we won’t ever be able to eat all of this”, but in time, I knew better. You gave for the sheer joy that it brought you. I remember the days of complaining. “Why couldn’t she ask me what I need and then bring that? Why does she only bring what she thinks we need?” I always saw you pushing your advice into every crevice of our life, whether we wanted it or not. I realize now that you were only trying to help, in the only way you knew how.
I left your son, multiple times, and during those times of separation, you never contacted me. I griped about it then, at how easily I thought your love could fade, but what I didn’t see was that every time we reconciled, you welcomed me back with open arms. You didn’t speak about the past; you treated me as if nothing had ever happened, and you picked up exactly where we had left off. I was never judged for my decisions.
There were times I heard you quickly say “I love you” as we parted and I would brush it off as a slip of the tongue. I never said it back, too embarassed by that kind of display of emotion. Today, I wish I would have reciprocated.
You were ceaseless, amazing, never tiring of standing in the kitchen or serving food or caring for us in a way that I fear I’ll never learn. I wonder now if you knew there was something terribly wrong, if you could sense disease spreading inside of you. I wonder if you knew it was coming, but kept it to yourself until the last possible moment, when it couldn’t be hidden away anymore. You never would have wanted to burden us with your illness.
Over time, I grew to admire you, to respect you, to find excuses to call you and linger on the phone until the conversation dwindled.
You raised a good man, one with faults and demons like the rest of us, but a good, hardworking, loyal man who loved the hell out of his family just like you did.
I was there, at the memorial. They wanted me to sit in the front row with the rest of the family, but the divorce was impending and I felt like an intruder. I sat to the side, with my own mother, and she clutched my hand as the lump in my throat grew large and unmanageable and I felt the tears bubble up inside me so fiercely that my chest finally gave in and I sobbed from the weight of it all.
I miss you, and even though they don’t ever vocalize it, the children miss you too. You are still in the air around us, all the time. I think of you as I pour boiling water over a fruit juice stain on a child size t-shirt. I see you hunched over the sewing machine as I fold the quilts. I open the box of Jack’s clothes, the next season’s size, and I find items you purchased, things you’ll never see him wear.
Thank you for your life, for unconditional love, for giving me so many things my own family did not exemplify. Our world is a little less beautiful without you in it, but I know we are blessed to have been given the time that we had with you. I will forever be changed by the mark you left on my life, and in many ways, I will always be striving to give my children what you gave your own. One fruit juice stained t-shirt at a time.
You were the quintessential grandmother, and my kids are lucky to have had you. As a mother in law, you were overbearing and it took me years to understand that your intentions were always good. You tried to bond with me then, taking me on weekend trips and trying to catch a flicker of an interest I might have in common with you. You heard that I liked butterflies and on every special occasion I would receive a beautiful wrapped, butterfly themed gift. You were more generous than anyone I have ever known. When you visited, your arms were never empty. Vegetables from the garden, fresh fruit, clothes for the kids, homemade blackberry jam, new towels or sheets and you always justified it by saying “it was on sale” or “we won’t ever be able to eat all of this”, but in time, I knew better. You gave for the sheer joy that it brought you. I remember the days of complaining. “Why couldn’t she ask me what I need and then bring that? Why does she only bring what she thinks we need?” I always saw you pushing your advice into every crevice of our life, whether we wanted it or not. I realize now that you were only trying to help, in the only way you knew how.
I left your son, multiple times, and during those times of separation, you never contacted me. I griped about it then, at how easily I thought your love could fade, but what I didn’t see was that every time we reconciled, you welcomed me back with open arms. You didn’t speak about the past; you treated me as if nothing had ever happened, and you picked up exactly where we had left off. I was never judged for my decisions.
There were times I heard you quickly say “I love you” as we parted and I would brush it off as a slip of the tongue. I never said it back, too embarassed by that kind of display of emotion. Today, I wish I would have reciprocated.
You were ceaseless, amazing, never tiring of standing in the kitchen or serving food or caring for us in a way that I fear I’ll never learn. I wonder now if you knew there was something terribly wrong, if you could sense disease spreading inside of you. I wonder if you knew it was coming, but kept it to yourself until the last possible moment, when it couldn’t be hidden away anymore. You never would have wanted to burden us with your illness.
Over time, I grew to admire you, to respect you, to find excuses to call you and linger on the phone until the conversation dwindled.
You raised a good man, one with faults and demons like the rest of us, but a good, hardworking, loyal man who loved the hell out of his family just like you did.
I was there, at the memorial. They wanted me to sit in the front row with the rest of the family, but the divorce was impending and I felt like an intruder. I sat to the side, with my own mother, and she clutched my hand as the lump in my throat grew large and unmanageable and I felt the tears bubble up inside me so fiercely that my chest finally gave in and I sobbed from the weight of it all.
I miss you, and even though they don’t ever vocalize it, the children miss you too. You are still in the air around us, all the time. I think of you as I pour boiling water over a fruit juice stain on a child size t-shirt. I see you hunched over the sewing machine as I fold the quilts. I open the box of Jack’s clothes, the next season’s size, and I find items you purchased, things you’ll never see him wear.
Thank you for your life, for unconditional love, for giving me so many things my own family did not exemplify. Our world is a little less beautiful without you in it, but I know we are blessed to have been given the time that we had with you. I will forever be changed by the mark you left on my life, and in many ways, I will always be striving to give my children what you gave your own. One fruit juice stained t-shirt at a time.
Get This.
There are things in life that are likely never going to make me happy, despite everyone else’s insistence that they will.
I will probably not be happy forever in a monogamous relationship. I don’t find it healthy and I don’t find it natural. I find it to be suffocating and growth restricting and torturous. Maybe I’d be happy for a few months, a few years, maybe even half a lifetime. But certainly not forever. Which brings me to my next point.
I will probably not be happy forever in the same relationship, monogamous or not. I may be happy in a relationship that lasts a few months, a few years, of even half a lifetime. I do not expect that it will last forever. This isn’t pessimism or negativity. This is what I believe to be realistic. Although I believe that maybe 1% of the population can remain truly, mutually content in a lifelong relationship, I think it’s the very rare exception to the rule. I think that relationships are meant to end, and I believe that most people stay in them much longer than is healthy. Breakups suck, and they are painful, but they are inevitable and part of life. I may have many, many more partners and many more men that I love and I think this is perfectly fine.
I will never live a life free of alcohol. I have walked the straight and narrow line of sobriety, I have spent countless hours in rehab and therapy and I have no desire to completely abstain, or to practice extreme moderation. I can see myself at 70, still downing a few shots of whiskey to warm me up.
I will probably never be the kind of girl that “takes a break” by getting a pedicure and having lunch with a friend. I’m not saying that’s not something I’ll do. It just isn’t the way I cut loose. If by the end of the night, my head is in the toilet, I can still assure you that at some point, I was having the most wondrous break from my monotonous reality. I don’t need to hear your psycho babble bullshit about escapism or even your lectures on healthy living. You can knit your day away and release all of your stress. I’ll do it by pretending that for one night, I am completely free of all responsibility.
I will never rediscover God, you will never find me reaching rock bottom and admitting that I need salvation or religion or a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. You may waste your breath and pray as much as your little heart desires, but it will get you nowhere. I have never felt so secure and content in my absence of belief and I will never be fooled again.
I will quite likely never be the woman slaving over a hot stove on Thanksgiving morning. I will not be crafty, I will never quite know how to use an iron, my house will never smell like freshly baked apple pie and your Christmas presents will always be wrapped funny.
My mouth shall always be dirty, and sometimes it will even slip in front of the children. I will certainly one day be living in my old folk’s home and still cursing like a sailor.
I will possibly never wear a dress. I may wear a skirt, once a year, when it is absolutely mandatory that I break from jeans. But a dress? Doubtful.
None of these things are happening, or will ever happen. And I will be happy regardless. I will be perfectly okay without being even a tiny smidgen of the woman you think I should be, or the person you think I have hidden inside myself, or the vision you see in your dreams, or even what you believe that I deserve. Get that and get back to just doing what I want you to do. Just loving me.
“All I want to do is be more like me and be less like you.” -Linkin Park
I will probably not be happy forever in a monogamous relationship. I don’t find it healthy and I don’t find it natural. I find it to be suffocating and growth restricting and torturous. Maybe I’d be happy for a few months, a few years, maybe even half a lifetime. But certainly not forever. Which brings me to my next point.
I will probably not be happy forever in the same relationship, monogamous or not. I may be happy in a relationship that lasts a few months, a few years, of even half a lifetime. I do not expect that it will last forever. This isn’t pessimism or negativity. This is what I believe to be realistic. Although I believe that maybe 1% of the population can remain truly, mutually content in a lifelong relationship, I think it’s the very rare exception to the rule. I think that relationships are meant to end, and I believe that most people stay in them much longer than is healthy. Breakups suck, and they are painful, but they are inevitable and part of life. I may have many, many more partners and many more men that I love and I think this is perfectly fine.
I will never live a life free of alcohol. I have walked the straight and narrow line of sobriety, I have spent countless hours in rehab and therapy and I have no desire to completely abstain, or to practice extreme moderation. I can see myself at 70, still downing a few shots of whiskey to warm me up.
I will probably never be the kind of girl that “takes a break” by getting a pedicure and having lunch with a friend. I’m not saying that’s not something I’ll do. It just isn’t the way I cut loose. If by the end of the night, my head is in the toilet, I can still assure you that at some point, I was having the most wondrous break from my monotonous reality. I don’t need to hear your psycho babble bullshit about escapism or even your lectures on healthy living. You can knit your day away and release all of your stress. I’ll do it by pretending that for one night, I am completely free of all responsibility.
I will never rediscover God, you will never find me reaching rock bottom and admitting that I need salvation or religion or a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. You may waste your breath and pray as much as your little heart desires, but it will get you nowhere. I have never felt so secure and content in my absence of belief and I will never be fooled again.
I will quite likely never be the woman slaving over a hot stove on Thanksgiving morning. I will not be crafty, I will never quite know how to use an iron, my house will never smell like freshly baked apple pie and your Christmas presents will always be wrapped funny.
My mouth shall always be dirty, and sometimes it will even slip in front of the children. I will certainly one day be living in my old folk’s home and still cursing like a sailor.
I will possibly never wear a dress. I may wear a skirt, once a year, when it is absolutely mandatory that I break from jeans. But a dress? Doubtful.
None of these things are happening, or will ever happen. And I will be happy regardless. I will be perfectly okay without being even a tiny smidgen of the woman you think I should be, or the person you think I have hidden inside myself, or the vision you see in your dreams, or even what you believe that I deserve. Get that and get back to just doing what I want you to do. Just loving me.
“All I want to do is be more like me and be less like you.” -Linkin Park