Through the Mountain

I'm not looking back at 2015. I refuse. I lived 2015 in a dizzy, present, terrified state. I let the winter, incidents of perceived failure, and regret lure me into a tunnel of depression I hope never to see again. It's a tall order. I know. But that is my resolution for 2016. Let me explain.

We can probably all agree that caves are really cool. I remember properly learning of the existence of caves in Coach Dixon's Earth Science class in 8th grade; although, I was always aware of their existence. We watched a National Geographic video in class (a pretty typical occurrence) that presented not only the scientific information but also the historical information on caves in America.

Long after I passed Coach Dixon's class with flying colors, I went caving in Cumberland Caverns with some friends. We ate pot brownies and made shadow puppets on the stone walls after crawling through the cave's hidden tunnels and rooms. For one minute as I lay on my back looking up at the rocks above me, I was seized with the terror that the rocks might come crashing down upon us at any slight movement of the earth we rested upon (paranoia, a pesky side effect of brownies). My brain jumped in quickly and reminded me that, "no, these thoughts are useless," and I let the terror float off into the cavernous darkness. I slept on the floor of the cave that night, dreaming of pink clouds and snoring like a rhinoceros...or an adorable pug.

A few years later, I stumbled upon a cave in the woods in Dahlonega, Georgia (over by the old distillery, you know the one if you live there). I want to know how many terrifying stories one needs to hear about the dangers of going into a cave alone to remove the inherent desire to do just that when one finds a cave in real life. This cave wasn't exactly uncharted or anything, but I did not have the right shoes for the kind of wading an exploration would have required. I still thought about it for a moment.

Floyd Collins

The National Geographic video we watched in Coach Dixon's class featured a brief summary of the story of Floyd Collins through narration, old newspapers, photographs, and sketches of the drama of his imprisonment and death at the hands of our cavernous earth. I hate sketches of past events. Sketch artists are always given license to intensify the drama of situations...especially in National Geographic movies. I saw the terrified face of Floyd Collins intricately sketched every night when I closed my eyes. That's all I knew of Collins, that he explored the darkest corners of earth and that he died, terrified, at the hands of his own lust for a full and glorious life.

While living in Dahlonega and teaching at the university, I tried to convince my theatre students to do the musical version of Floyd Collins' story because it would be an easy set and gorgeous music. It wasn't exactly a known show, however, and putting together a straight play seemed a lot easier and less horrifying than trying to throw together a musically complicated show with myself as the only paid member of the ensemble. Plus, there's a lot of really weird yodeling pieces in that musical.

The tragic outcome

I suppose I wanted to do the show because I was obsessed with the idea that this blank faced historic figure who died so tragically inspired someone else to write such beautiful songs of redemption. With the commemoration of his life in musical form, the image I had of Floyd Collins' contorted and frightened face could relax into peace and beauty.

When I walked into the darkness of depression, I knew I shouldn't have, but I wanted to see where it would lead...at least a very small part of me did, like that flicker of intense curiosity that I always feel at the mouth of a cave. Floyd Collins worked alone. I worked alone, but for far too long. Floyd Collins was trying to find a new entrance to the cave, and I too have been searching for another path...through my life (ooooooooh sparkles of dreamy realization).

I walked through the mountain of my life, surrounded by the demons of my own darkness and searched the images of my past for clues as to which tunnel to climb through to find the way out all while the terror that the earth above me could come crashing down and bury me alive continued to grow to the point at which I could barely stand on my own.

Then, with a lantern, my mother and my father came after me, found me, and began the task of helping me find a way out. They always do that because that's what parents do. They showed me the light at the end.

The nation watched the story of Floyd Collins, as best they could at the time, and an army of locals dug furiously to try to get him out. So too did my chosen family, my friends, notice my drowning and reach out to remind me that I'm not alone, that I'm never alone.

Thus, for 2016, I'm going to focus on that light, and I'm not going to look back without a rope around my waste and someone to talk me and walk me through the darkness. It's not because I'm not afraid any more. I'm terrified. But I don't want to be afraid any more.

I'll never forget crawling through a tunnel in the cave back in Tennessee with my head lamp scraping the rocky floor, and coming to a small opening large enough for one person to stand up at a time. I cast my light along the shimmering walls around me. Rock formations, dripping from the ceiling of the opening shone like diamonds.

I want to see further. I want to see what's in the light, and I want to share it.

Don't Sell Me a Gun or Some Facts About My Depression

Since I was a kid, I’ve had these wild fantasies wherein I get some horrible disease that makes/forces everyone to feel sorry for me, and worry about me, and...you know...give a shit. I’ve been depressed for most of my life, but no one feels sorry for you if you’re depressed. People feel sorry for you if you have cancer.

My depression comes from severe anxiety, so when I go through a period of high stress and it ends, I get really really depressed. It’s awesome. So, I’m crazy and angry for a few weeks, and then I’m so sad my whole body hurts, and I don't want to eat or drink or do anything....and then I feel better and start taking on more responsibilities. Then, I get stressed out again, and then I get depressed...it’s the circle of life. The wheeeeeel of misfortune.

I have trouble getting too close to people because of my depression. I try to be open about it, but end up sounding like an after school special, and then I actually get depressed and become mean and sad and convinced that I don’t have any friends. And I’m scared to call anyone because most people aren’t sitting around hoping their friend will call and say, “I don’t have any friends!!!” but in, like, the saddest cry voice you can think of.

I feel bad for my friends. I love my friends and I want them to know that I love them, but sometimes I can’t smile or be “happy” or stop crying or stop yelling about things or stop locking myself in my room and pretending to be dead.

I was diagnosed with “moderate major depressive disorder.” I’m moderately majorly depressed.

I’m kind of really depressed. I’m a little bit super depressed.

Why am I angry all the time? Because I’m sad and scared a lot FOR NO REASON. I’m just as confused as everyone else is. I would be fine if my life didn’t come to a halt every now and then because of my inability to separate myself from my emotions. I would be peachy.

In reality, I think I’m pretty nice….I think I am. I generally hope everyone is okay. I mostly want everyone to be happy. I’m more than grateful for what my friends do for me. But I run a lot of friends off….being sad. or angry. and then I feel bad...and I just bury myself in a hole of shame. And it’s not like I’m just saying to people “this is me! fuck you if you don’t like it!” I generally try to let people know “I’m depressed, and sometimes it’s really really hard.”

I lose friends, despite my best efforts. It is a lot to take on. My mood swings are enough to make me not want to hang out with me, but I’m always there, tagging along. I’ll go from “I’m an intelligent human being, and I make a contribution to society,” to “I’m an idiot and the worst at literally everything.” Naturally, feeling this way about myself leads to a great deal of anger. I think to myself “if I’m so great and intelligent and funny, why the hell do I suck so bad?”

I used to believe it when people pointed out my flaws as...flaws. I still believe it, but I’ve been carrying around a lot of things that were said to me out of fear and self-loathing that I took on and have continued to carry with me for over a decade. I believe, most of the time, that these people must know better than I, and that, although my primary intentions do not include bitterness or hatred, it must run rife in my blood if so many people respond to me as such. I am mostly just very confused.

I don’t like to hide from things. I don’t find that kind of behavior to be beneficial to me. I may be wrong about that. Instead of hiding from things, and ignoring them until they go away, I like to drown in them, sit on the floor and obsess over them until there is nothing left of me. I will withdraw and moan, but I don’t believe I try to crush people. I don’t believe I try to hurt people. I suppose I withdraw because I don’t want to hurt anyone. I don’t want anyone to feel like I do.

I do not fully and completely see myself as a beautiful person. Maybe in any way. On the one hand. There’s a whole different hand on the positive end of that spectrum, it’s just a small gimp hand that doesn’t do much. Maybe I need a robot hand. A Darth Vader hand.

But sometimes I do look in the mirror and see myself and think, holy cow. I'm gorgeous. And sometimes I look back on my life, what I've done and where I've been, and I think, GOOD GRIEF you've had a life. And I have.

Sometimes I feel like there is nothing but sadness. That my future is only a constant cycle of pain and confusion. Sometimes I scare myself and the people I love. I'm scared of being alone. I'm scared of chasing everyone away. I'm scared that I'll never be able to stop this cycle. And my fear is deeper than I usually guess. It's so deep it takes over and fills my head with noise, and it makes me so angry.

And sometimes I feel like I can do anything. That I'm surrounded by love. That I'm a child of hope. I wish I could feel like THAT all the time.

But I'm sick. Ill. And that makes me forget the love. It makes me forget my life, my accomplishments, my own strength. It's real, and it's hard, and no one should have to do it alone. So I can't be silent. I can't ever be silent. Because I am not alone. No one is alone.

Mush

I wrote this blog this past April after attending the wedding of two of my favorite people in Austin, TX.  I never posted it because it seemed too silly and sentimental. Right now, I could go for a little silly... and sentimental.

I recently attended a wedding. I haven't been too up on weddings in a while. I honestly think the last wedding I attended was a friend's from high school, and I didn't even actually attend the wedding. I made it just in time for the reception, and that was the best part...because there was free wine and frozen daiquiris.

I grew up in the church, a church that taught me that my ultimate goal was to find a husband and have children...and raise them in the church. How would I mark the beginning of this, my real life? With a wedding, of course!

There would be a ceremony, beginning with the bride walking slowly on a plastic white "carpet," announced by some pop song. The rooms (sanctuaries) were usually white walled with beige or sea-foam carpeting. This part of the wedding, the ceremony, would last no less than forty-five minutes, almost, if not as long as, the length of a church service.

The bride and groom would light a candle together, or pour sand into a jar (ridiculous. RIDICULOUS) to represent their unity. Then, they would kiss, and it would be time for cake.

Cake was as much as one could expect from the grand reception celebrations. There was also punch and sometimes cookies. The "party" would take place in the fellowship hall, filled with long tables and folding metal chairs, lit by the glare of magnificent florescent lighting.

The bride and groom would cut the cake, throw the bouquet and...the garter belt (but not really a garter belt) to the single men and women, and then they would run out the doors to their limousine, and disappear into the exciting new world of doin it...together.

And it was sacred*, and it was beautiful*, and clean* and pure*, because anything more would be...SIN.

I don't want to shine the WORST light on this. I know many wonderful people who did the best they could with such ceremonies and have had a grand time of marriage. The important part, I'm sure, is the marriage, not the wedding.

The wedding I attended last week in Austin, TX, that joined my close friends, NAY, bestest friends Carol Alexander and Matthew Falkenberg, was all of those things*, as well as one of the most beautiful sins I have ever committed.

I know. That's a really big statement to make. Like, that's huge and sentimental and shit. But I don't know how else to describe it.

We ate and drank and...indulged...and swam, and danced, and sang, and drank more (and indulged), and danced and sang more than I may have ever done.

It was pure and beautiful and even sacred, but not because it was religious. It wasn't.

I think somewhere along the line, we may have forgotten who...what....God is. God is Love. And that is huge. It's bigger than religion..s.

Matthew and Carol were married by our wonderful friend Devin, who recently married his precious husband, McKenzie in our nation's capital so that they could be transferred together when the Marines sent him to Japan. So that he could be with his family, with the man he loved.

And I cried.

I've been thinking a lot about love and about family, extending those definitions to the people in my life that I've used to redefine my tree. I lost hold of my concept of what it meant to belong when my ideals were challenged way back (you may know the story). I eventually found that loving the others in my life could fill the void left by the rift in my belief system. I took love away from the romantic notion and found it in everything.

But I forgot that the romantic notion was also real, and I've been rolling my eyes a lot over the years.

When my heart was broken for the first time, I wailed to my mother that The Bible (which states: Love never fails) was wrong. She always says she did a bad job of raising me (which isn't a nice thing to say to a daughter, MOM), but my mother hit the nail on the head that day when she answered, "that verse isn't talking about people, and it's not talking about marriage, it's talking about God."

It's hard for me to think about, "God" without thinking about "Love." I try to remind myself that it's not okay to equate God with the people who say they represent...IT (close your mouth, parents). The verse is talking about love. And I know, I'm waxing spiritual like I fancy myself some sort of prophet. I don't. I've believed in that all encompassing God-love for a while now, but I haven't necessarily believed in that romantic love.

I do now. Again. A little. At least. Finally. Because it's the same damn thing, or it should be.

I found love after knowing Matthew and Carol for less than a year. I chose them as my family, and Devin and McKenzie too. Since then we have grown together and apart. We have moved closer and further away, and last week, we met up again, with others in our circles, and we ate and drank and danced and sang. We celebrated love and commitment, and we laughed together as we acknowledged the inevitable hard times.

I know I'm too sentimental. I know it. I wish I could be funnier right now. But I can't. I'm a damn love-sick fool, and I don't care who knows it.

It may seem easier to follow a predetermined path for your life, to try your damnedest to make all the pieces fit so that you can float by with as much ease as possible. But there comes a time when you have to grow up.

"When I was child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child, but when I grew up, I put childish ways behind me." (I made this one my own...meaning, I took out the gender specifics) (gender is a structure, not a real thing. Kill your idols).

There is no guidebook for your life, and there is no way to plan for your future, even with a 401K and a savings account with a great interest rate (if that even exists!). There is only you...and the people you love, but it can take a while to see them, to find them.

"For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known." (that's just straight up NIV, kids)

My friends, the people that I love, have taught me to love in every way that one can, and through those lessons, they have inadvertently helped me to continue my hope in the greater love, the omnipresent love, the love we forget about that calls us to put away the self and serve the other. There is no greater task. There is no job that trumps our responsibility to love each other. 

Matthew and Carol, if you're reading this, you are part of the team that taught me that love still exists (even the sexy kind!), and holy cow, what a feat. You guys are like...not just a piece of the pie...but the whole pie. And I wish you the absolute best. I hope, when it's hard, when part of the pie seems to be missing, that you remember the rest of the pie still waiting to be eaten. I also hope this metaphor makes sense. 

Now, I say with confidence, to anyone listening, it's true, "Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away." 

And nothing else matters. 

The Blues is Just a Cicada in Your Beer

The sound of the singing cicadas begins in the morning and grows stronger and louder as the summer sun reaches it's place, first in the noon sky, and finally again as it reaches the horizon in the west. It doesn't matter where I am when I hear them, their song instantly takes me back to Memphis.

It took a while for me to understand how it felt to have a nationality, but it took me no time at all to know what it felt like to come from a place. I realized where I was from, and the part it would play in my life, the first time I crossed the bridge over the Mississippi River into Arkansas. I sat up on my knees in the back seat of my parents' car and watched the skyline rise and fall as we disappeared into the west. 

When I left for the first time to live in another place, all I could think of was the river and the Mississippi Delta, the slow gate of the inhabitants of area code 901, the bitter idealism, the weeping of the music, and the mysticism on every street corner. 

Memphis took me in, although she was not my birth home. She raised me and sent me on my way. When I came back to her, broken and lost, she took me in, put me back together, and made me see who I was, maybe for the first time in my life. 

It was most certainly the people that colored my life in the bluff city, but we were all under the spell of her dark magic. 

A few days ago the Cicadas in Chicago stopped singing; however, they are still present. I see their shells lying along the grass in small, neatly trimmed lawns. They leave them, their old selves, behind as they continue to migrate.

Go back in time and find the shells I have left behind, those I continually leave in my wake. I don't know why, but I keep moving, running once I've found it too difficult to keep singing.

When I returned home to Memphis after learning to teach English in Europe, meeting Liam, falling in love with the world outside my home, the Cicadas were in full force, flinging their bodies into violent flights, and singing at the top of their...lungs(?).

One found its way into my beer at a house party in midtown. I was drinking someone's home brew. It was sweet and malty. Not the Cicada, the beer. The Cicada leapt from the shadows and into my beer. Just as quickly as its body landed in my beverage, it had flung itself out and on to the next Solo cup. I kept drinking the beer. My friends made that beer, which means they put their passion into it.

The times when the Blues have come into my life have seemed like little lifetimes within themselves. I feel like I'm walking down a dark tunnel, tense and certain with a twinge of doubt that the light will appear...eventually? The darkness always seems relentless, like the song of the Cicadas.

I know that it isn't. I know that life is difficult, that it doesn't really get better or easier. But I also know that I can handle it because I am stronger than even I realize...or will probably ever admit to myself. It's easier to make friends when I'm weak than it is to keep them. I can chase everyone I know away in a matter of minutes when that particular bad dream shows its face (The Blues...stay with me, guys). The ones that don't run are infinitely amazing to me. The ones that stay with me and hold my hand when I am THE WORST at holding hands, those are the people I hope I never lose.

I know I can't keep flinging my body from one beer to the next; thus, as I continue my travels, I have stopped running home. I would love to return more than I can say, but I will never rise from the ashes if I keep packing them up and dragging them to Memphis with me. I know that phoenix metaphor is pretty dramatic, and I'm a little embarrassed about it, but it sounds kinda cool too, and I don't want to be afraid of the overly sentimental if it gets the point across...or just...like...affects someone.

I'm in a tough spot right now, but I'm not alone, and despite my urge to continue to run, I've got to stay here and finish this beer. I'm pretty sure my friends made it, which means...

Oh, HI!

The Family You Choose

I chose the title for this blog a week ago, and I had almost forgotten my inspiration for it until just now. I finished eating yogurt covered pretzels, sipping my morning coffee of leftover Stumptown coffee beans that had to be removed from the espresso grinder by hand and either thrown away or stuffed in a pastry bag and transported to my home, whilst watching John Oliver, and I began my daily perusal of the facebooks to read yet another post from a good friend of mine that sparked a delightfully (actually) intelligent debate which, in turn, reminded me of the reason I would like to write about "The Family You Choose." Long sentence? It's legit. Try reading some Cormac McCarthy.

I've had a strange relationship with the idea of "family" for most of my life. I suspect we all do. There are societal norms, 2.5 children and such, and there is...everything else.

My mom is the youngest of seven. Holidays and vacations spent in the exotic small towns of Oklahoma were bustling, frenzied, and fascinating. There were so many siblings with children with their own children, and cats and dogs, and food and football, and that remarkable Nevills sarcasm. I could write books about the people I met, that claimed me and I them. My family.

My dad, on the other hand, is one of two. There is a certain level of intimacy, I gather, from growing up in a family of four, an almost perfect nuclear family. There is also a certain level of honesty that ferments from mutual strife. I remember meeting my dad's sister once, vaguely, as a child of about five, and a second time, years later, as a confused as hell teenager. I walked into my grandmother's room at the nursing home, and my aunt stood up to shake my hand, say this, "remember me? If you do, it's probably not good because the last time I saw you I hated kids," and give me the warmest smile I can remember.

Then there's...us. The three amigos. My mom and my dad and me against the world. And for twenty-four years, that's how it seemed it would always be. Until my parents divorced, and I, basically, fled the country.

I don't think I had started to grasp the vastness of the cosmos until my parents got divorced and I felt, for the first time, that I was completely alone in the universe, that my leash to the space shuttle had broken and I was Sandra Bullock-ing through space (Damn, she fine in that movie, though). The remarkable thing that I take from that whole...moment...was the simultaneously deafening yet beautiful utter silence.

Imagine being reborn, except this time, you're old enough to remember every terrifying second, from realizing that this liquid room you live in isn't big enough any more, to being SLOWLY forced through your mother's vagina, head first, to all the damn SHOTS you have to get...again. You have to shit your pants a lot, too.

At the age of twenty-four, I began the painful process of relearning the whole damn universe.

The most remarkable part of growing up is meeting your new family members. If you go looking for love, you will find it. I was lucky enough to meet some incredible people that fell in love with me and took me in. These are the people that occupy the space of my heart because I know that I occupy the space of theirs.

When I feel alone, misunderstood, lost, insane, broken, and bloody, I think about my family. The family I chose. I think about how much they must love me, to keep coming back after experiencing my waves of depression and anger. I think about how brave they are to be jumping off of cliffs every day to live the lives they've always dreamed. I think about how proud of me they'll be even if I fail at everything.

The people in my life, that I love, are so smart. They are inspiring. They are beautiful. And they love me. So I've got no excuse not to do the same.

The best part of it all, is that I still have my family from my childhood. It looks different and feels different. It is different, but that doesn't mean it isn't better. The honesty that comes from mutual strife, that ferments, becomes a relief. It becomes a resting place, where we can be ourselves, where we can be safe.

BOOM. Whole post about my dog who is incredible. GOTCHA!!!!

P.S. Not really.