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. 

   

My Attempt at a Thank You

I'm trying something new these days. I don't know how to explain it, or why it suddenly makes perfect sense to me to live this way when it seems that only a few weeks ago, I couldn't imagine the world I'm living in right now. A few weeks ago, I had no idea it was possible to let go of worry.

Don't immediately get jealous, ok. It is exactly as good as it sounds, but it is also just as impossibly difficult as it seems. I STILL worry that I'll forget how to do it one day and go back to my previous way of living: in constant knots of terror.

Doing a search for "crying babies" is the saddest thing one could do.

I don't remember the exact catalyst that clued me in to the fact that I was in trouble, but it had something to do with my ever so complicated relationship with my parents. The parent in the limelight for this one: pops.

He was telling me how I needed to wait before putting a deposit down on a new place to make sure my promised room mate was actually going to move to Chicago. It was sound advice, that I had already put a good deal of thought into because my dad taught me to live like that. He had been telling me for forty-eight hours at this point. And I was already stressed out.

Nothing is more terrifying than looking forward to time with a parent, and knowing, just KNOWING, the criticisms that inevitably come along with it. My room will never be clean enough. Nor will my car. 
And surely I could snag a partner if I would just stop doing a list of things that I do...including...sometimes being mean. 

Chock it up to the fact that it often seems that men have a propensity to want to "fix" things. Chock it up to the fact that I still complain about being single, so I'm basically just asking for advice. Chock it up to the fact that I'm a woman and he's a man. Or call it what it is, an attempt to right some wrong he feels he's done me in raising me to this point. 

I have always been cautious, skeptical, and having my heart broken by my best friend when I was a wee young lad of just twenty-four didn't make it any easier for me to ease up on the caution. 

But I remember my dad saying to me once when I was contemplating trying out for the Tennis team in junior high, "Do you really want to try out? What if you don't make it?"

I probably just wanted to wear the cute outfits. 

That was the moment. I think about that breath of time a lot when I look back at how tiny my steps have been in putting myself out there. I think about all the auditions I didn't go to, and the jobs I didn't apply for, and the guys I allowed to be mean to me because I was afraid of being mean to them. And I was angry. For a while. 

But staying angry only hurts me, and I've been doing that for much too long. 

So, when my dad said, just one more time, "please don't put a deposit down on an apartment until you know for sure...," I lost it. I exploded in rage, punched my fist into the palm of my hand like one of those kids in Newsies getting ready to fight the fucked up child labor paper route system through song and dance, and I yelled, "don't you think I know that?! Don't you think I'm competent enough to know that?!? You don't even CARE!!! Leave me ALONE!!??"

To which he replied, "Okay."

If he said anything else, I didn't hear it, I immediately began to gracefully power walk a decent cushion between the two of us. We were on our way to a Cubs game. 

I have no idea how long I walked or how gloriously ridiculous I looked with my fists clenched and my hips jaunting about, this way and that. I was lost in a fog of my own rage. I felt like a two year old again, burning with fury and unable to express exactly why, and with no clue as to how to dry the tears. 

My mind raced over the other men in my life, pictures of moments like I was falling and seeing everything again. And I remembered conversations with my father about how I needed to hold on and be patient with them, try to be less frightening (try to hold back my true feelings). The only trouble is, the only true feelings I was having were the ones that were revealing themselves in my rage, the ones I was denying. 

In that moment I wished more than anything, that instead of cautioning me to stay safe when I wanted to take new steps and try to test my limits, my father had pushed me to step out into the abyss. Instead of counseling me to ignore the feelings that told me to run from different men, I wished my father had coached me to accept nothing less than the utmost respect from any man that would ever deign to love me. 

The truth is, he DID those things, in ways that anyone would attempt in his total lack of knowledge of what it's like to be a girl. For some reason, my brain only noticed that for which I have had the hardest time forgiving myself. 

My dad is, more than anything else, human. My dad has seen me as a tiny baby and, terrified, vowed to protect me at all costs to whomever would listen. My dad promised he would die for me, and I never doubted him. My dad's love for me is no less than super human, but his instinct to avoid pain is the humanity in him. Nothing hurts my dad more than seeing me hurt, and he prays for nothing less than a life without suffering for his daughter every night, in part because he loves me, and in part because he too has no desire to suffer. 

How could I fault my father, who loves me so, for being the very thing that he is: human? 

That is the plight of the parent, the terror of the task. Our humanity will never allow us to live a life without pain, without fear, without fault. For every responsibility we assume, we also adopt the myriad of mistakes we will make while trying to stay the course. 

Yes, both of my parents made mistakes, surely. But they made a lot of good choices too, don't ya think? I mean, I'm kind of amazing. At least, that's how I feel now. 

My dad called me to see if I wanted him to pick me up somewhere, and I yelled, "NO! I want you to apologize!! I want you to say you're sorry for all the things you did to fuck up my brain!!" It seems pretty intense, I know, but don't picture me saying it. Picture her:  

And so, my dad apologized. He didn't go on and on or try to defend his position. He just said he was sorry. He said that he loved me, and he asked if I still wanted to go to the Cubs game. I did. So we met there, hugged, scarfed down some hot dogs and beers and the WORST nachos I've ever eaten, and we watched the Cubs actually win a game. 

And since then. I don't care any more. I just want to be me. I don't want to worry about making me change to fit different spaces. I don't want to keep shredding my heart apart with self doubt and self hatred. I'm no longer interested in the voice that questions the validity and purity of every choice I make. I don't care about being pure. I want my hands in the dirt. I only care about being grateful for the love that I have in my life. I have people that worry about me constantly. I can't imagine what it takes to care about someone as much my parents care about me. I only hope that I can share some of the love I have been given with whomever may need it. I only care about turning some of that love in on my self, and admiring the core of my existence, the chance beauty of my tiny blip of a presence on the timeline of time. 

In other words, I am in awe. 

Words Are Important (or Merry Christmas Mr. Semore, Sorry This is Late)

I was driving home Christmas night after an attempt at going out that was thwarted by a fevered frenzy. As much as we try to fake fevers as children, when the real thing hits, it brings even the most headstrong adults to our knees. I was breathing heavily, shivering, and talking myself through each red light so that I could make it home to shiver and whimper under a mountain of blankets until the fever broke. And I was nauseated.

Rewind a bit and join me on an OkCupid date that was doomed from the start. I had already decided that this handsome, older, lucrative man wasn't quite right after he fully described to me the time he spent deciding what shoes to wear, but the deal was sealed when he found himself struggling to find the noun to match his repeated usage of the word, "nauseous."

What is the noun that goes with nauseous?

Those of us who speak English as a first language have an innate understanding of the structure of how we speak, but we often struggle, and usually give up, when it comes to actually succeeding in the process of proper sentence construction.

The noun that belongs in the canon for all things nauseous, is NAUSEA. The gentleman buying my drinks that evening settled on nauseousness. He was trying to explain that he felt nauseous, and was tired of all the "nauseousness."

I will never forget the correct forms and usage of the word for the feeling you get right before you boot just as I will never forget the day Michael Semore proudly displayed the Queen Elizabeth I Barbie that he had found ON THE CLEARANCE TABLE at a toy store. There are teachers that you remember because they tried too hard, and there are teachers you remember because they simply were. They were knowledge, language, sharing, teaching, faith, and, most importantly, vulnerable (I realize that, in order to make this sentence stylistically more pleasant, the last word SHOULD be "vulnerability," but that doesn't further my point..OKAY).

"If you come to me to ask for a hall pass and tell me you feel nauseous, I will respond by telling you that, yes, you are making me want to throw up too, but I don't see why that qualifies you for a hall pass."

Why? It is something that is NAUSEOUS, like a big ol' pile a' crap, that induces NAUSEA. If you experience something NAUSEOUS, you may become NAUSEATED.

I know, I know. I'm a sad grammar nazi,

the type of person that has to silently correct your grammar to make myself feel better about the future of civilization, when it probably doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things and if I could just chill out about it I wouldn't be so frustrated/might not be single/(insert some form of existence that you find suitable because your ideas about living are just as valid as mine, if not totally different).

It's true. It doesn't REALLY matter. Saying, "I feel nauseous" is acceptable (according to the sacred Oxford English Dictionary that Mr. Semore introduced to us in it's original tangible form that required a magnifying glass just a few short months before the internet would transform absolutely everything). It's accepted. No one will be confused if you tell them you feel nauseous. The only person that might be confused is you, when you are trying to explain to someone that you felt nauseous to excess, and you stumble upon the word/notword "nauseousness," when you could have simply used the term "nausea" and been done with it.

The beauty of language is that it evolves. It exists for the people. It is the only way that we can truly tell the difference between ourselves and the world around us, the only way we can describe our experiences to each other, the only way we can communicate. Language is not merely words; it is symbols. It is a collection of signs to represent the signified, and that is everything that is not us. Even those who cannot speak find a way to communicate, to form symbols that add up to thoughts and feelings and experiences.

I suppose that is why I find it so sacred, so beautiful. I can take words, and what I know about words, and I can use them to tell someone what it feels like to fall in love, or what it feels like when one falls out of love. I can describe what it feels like on a day when I spring out of bed full of excitement about the day ahead and what it feels like when a sudden bout of nausea leaves me huddled in the fetal position and unable to go about my day.

The depth and breadth of language knows no bounds just as humans are capable of more than we can imagine. It's almost nauseating to think of the fact that there are words for feelings in other languages that don't even exist in English. In English we have to find another way to describe that feeling you get when you're standing alone against the wall at a high school social, and that cute boy you've always liked asks you if you want to dance. Usually we resort to using other words, or similes and metaphors to describe that particular brand of nausea, but I'll bet it stands alone just fine in one of the love languages (and by that I mean Latin based languages).

It takes a big person to tell a room full of 16-18 year olds that he loves words and wants them to respect his love by respecting the words. Perhaps that is why Mr. Semore has stayed with me all these years. True passion requires vulnerability, and true vulnerability is daunting, nauseating at times. The only way to affect change in our own lives as well as the lives of others is to be vulnerable. When we open ourselves up to love something or someone or many, the more capable we find ourselves of opening even further, of finding new ways to express ourselves and our feelings. Thus, language evolves further to accommodate our changing needs.  More importantly, we find we are more capable of loving, fully and unabashedly, not just words or shoes, but living and life, and eventually...hopefully...ourselves.

Thoughts on...Things

I've been sick for almost a week now, but luckily, I feel as if I'm coming out of it. Being sick really makes a person think...and usually in a more melancholy way...I'm also listening to some Patty Griffin...so I'm going to wax...sad....but also retrospective. (retrospective? is that the right word?)

A lot of people were concerned about Liam's visit to Memphis, and I won't lie, I was too...but I was adamant that I wanted him to come here. I described it as the wake for the funeral of our relationship. I figure, at the end of a relationship, everything...him and it...and you...has to kind of die...in order to be reincarnated into whatever it's all going to be in the future...or something. Anyway. He's been here for almost two weeks now, and he leaves on Friday evening. I've been sick for half of his visit...and that's been hard. Here's why: I feel like I should be savoring these moments with him...after I've had some distance...now that I see things more clearly...but I am unable to because of my illness...and when I start to regret that...I wonder to myself if it's really worth being sad about. I've learned some truths over the past two weeks. 1. Liam is over me, and...well...I'm actually kind of over him...meaning, I no longer want him back. and 2. Liam is immature and while he was a very attentive boyfriend, he never really loved me the way I loved him...and not that that's a bad thing...wait...well...I mean...there were things that I didn't like about the relationship, about him even, but I LOVED him, and that made it easy to overlook those things. But HE...he didn't overlook those things, I don't think. He decided he didn't really like me...and he doesn't really like me now...I mean, he does...just not all of me...and he lets that part affect his love for me...and well...I just don't think it's worth getting all sad about not being able to entertain someone that doesn't really like you. It's hard to be vulnerable. It's hard to show people who you are...in your darkest places...and when you get the courage to actually do that...it helps if they don't decide that the relationship isn't really worth it. I always felt like it was worth it, but I was the only one.

We always had these arguments in which I would point out things that I didn't like...things that he did that hurt me...always trying to acknowledge that the hurt was more than likely unintentional. And he would always get upset...and throw this brilliant argument back at me: "You make me feel like a terrible person, and I'm not a terrible person. I have a lot of friends and none of them think I'm a terrible person." Let's not completely dissect this...let's accept that we all realize that no one can make you feel anything...and let's focus on this "my friends don't think I'm terrible." We recently had an argument in which I just told him sometimes he was a real asshole...to which he argued, "none of my friends think I'm an asshole." Um...well done? I have loads of friends that think I can be a real bitch sometimes...but I'm pretty sure they still like me...and well, that's pretty much why they're my friends. That's the concept he doesn't get. That it is possible to be a jerk sometimes...to make big mistakes...to hurt people (accidentally)...and to still be loved. That's what love is...in a nutshell. Part of growing up for me was accepting that I can be a real bitch...wanting to change...and still loving myself in the process. And loving myself should always come first. So....what I'm saying is: I'm putting this regret nonsense behind my and I'm going to focus on that first part.

I'm also going to focus on loving my cats. They're freakin cute...and awesome. and also my family and friends...cause theys all I gots.

Muddled thoughts. I know...but I feel like I might be getting somewhere. Finally.

When The Crying Stops

So...it's been three days since I last cried. I bet you're wondering, "when you're not crying, what on EARTH do you do with your time?!" And the truth is, nothing much really. I take a while to get out of bed. I take a while to decide what to eat. I take a while to get dressed. I take a while to decide to do the next thing. Everything moves in slow motion, rather than being at a complete standstill. I sometimes wonder if I've found some way to suppress my true feelings and fool myself into being somewhat content. I don't know. I'm not destitute, by any means. I see the light at the end of the tunnel, and I'm confident that it will continue to get bigger, the closer I get to it.

I am haunted by the past...still. I have these moments of terrible sadness. Not violent, or dramatic, just very quiet, slow sadness. I still wish he would change his mind, and try to find a way back into my life, but I do not expect it...in any way. Life is rarely ever magical unless it's because of something I've worked for...and then it's not really magical...is it? I feel awkward in many social situations. I want to talk about it all the time, and then sometimes I never want to talk about it again. Today in the middle of my first class (which I TOTALLY improvised because I planned for the wrong class)...I wanted to talk all about it. It reminded me of how open I was with all my students in the fall about my future plans and my "boyfriend" and how I was so excited. They were excited for me. Luckily, the part of my brain that is managing to move forward through the mess held me back from teaching a terrible lesson about heartbreak, rather than writing in English.

I still believe, after everything...and it certainly wasn't as much as it could have been...in love. I know it is out there...probably in the very distant future...but it is out there again...waiting for me to be completely unprepared for it. It is also here...with me...beside me...and all around me. So...