Post-Op

Last year, a kindergarten student in Nina’s school passed away as a result of complications from a tonsillectomy. As you might imagine, our entire community responded with rightful shock and horror, and now every time a child is slated for this procedure, parents join their offspring in maintaining a stiff upper lip, moving through the process with the sort of stoic optimism that they must possess while working very hard to silence the internal voices that reminds them of our neighbors who faced a similar routine surgery and buried their child as a result of it.

Nina had her tonsils out today.

A tonsillectomy takes less than 25 minutes to complete. Four hours later, children in New York State are returned to their couches where they may spend ten days watching an endless loop of Sponge Bob Square Pants. It is here that they will begin milking every last drop of sympathy out of their exhausted parents who would prefer for them to remain in the hospital, where trained medical professionals might be called upon to worry over their pallor, their temperature, and the potential for excessive bleeding. But let me tell you this: when you’ve spent the last three months battling the irrational yet persistent fear of losing your child, there is no amount of Sponge Bob Square Pants that you will not tolerate. This is what I have learned today. I know I sound pathetic and guess what? I really don’t care. Hell yes, nautical nonsense IS DEFINITELY SOMETHING I WISH right about now. Yes it is.

Nina was a champ. We were admitted on the first floor, where they put a bracelet on her wrist and an identification tag on her blankie so that he could accompany her through every phase of her journey. She spent the morning in the waiting room playing Nintendo Game Cube with her dad and watching Monsters Inc. Then, she had an albuterol treatment to address the tiny asthma issue we have going on this week, and soon enough, the nurse came to get her. She gave us a hug and a kiss and took this strange woman’s hand. I did not like this, but I did a good job of pretending like everything was fine.

I did not watch her walk away from me.

Two hours later, her sister called my cell phone to check in. Laura has quietly cried herself to sleep every night this week in anticipation of this event. No amount of reassurance can erase the memory of that little girl’s death from an eleven year old’s mind, and while Nina knew nothing of her sister’s distress, her father and I did, and I am really excited about the possibility of a good night’s sleep tonight.

“Can I talk to her?” Laura asked, and I handed Nina the phone. She propped herself up and detangled her arm from the miles of IV tubing it was twisted in.

“Hello! Laura?” she shouted into the phone, strung out on hydrocodone and albuterol and not fully aware of the power of her detonsilized throat. “I am fine!”

I could tell that there was much rejoicing on the other end of the phone.

“And Laura? You are totally not going to believe this! They won’t let me eat any lunch either! First I couldn’t have any breakfast, and now this!”

We’re all home now. Safe and sound and at the beck and call of her highness, who is already demanding macaroni and cheese.

 

Learning Curves

It’s never a straight line. It isn’t linear. And it never matters what it is I am learning about.

Learning curves.

Why do you blog? Why do you read the blogs that you do?

This is what I’ve been thinking about all week. The question was prompted by Heather Armstrong’s now infamous exchange with Kathie Lee Gifford a few days back, and it’s led to all sorts of conversation and debate online and off.

Why do we do this thing that we do?

I couldn’t answer that a week ago, but I think that I can now, and it has everything to do with my learning and how it curves.

Last week, I spent the better part of my Godson’s First Communion chatting with sister-in-law, who is the Director of Religious Education for a growing parish a short distance from here. As most of you know, I am a defiant sort of Catholic who finds herself dissatisfied with much of the Church has to offer anymore. This leads to many interesting brawls conversations at our dinner table, as you might imagine. Putting me at the same table for an extended period of time with my sister-in-law is a dicey prospect at times, but I found myself entranced by the things that she was sharing last week.

“Our young people are driven by a real hunger for meaning,” she said. I admit, I agree. “Spirituality isn’t something that we can simply hand them in an hour and a half of religious instruction once a week. This learning doesn’t happen within the confines of our classrooms. Isn’t faith bigger that? Doesn’t our relationship with God expand beyond what we spoon feed kids in this block of time?”

Well, yeah. It does.

Learning curves. As a teacher, I never did a straight march through a textbook series, and even the greatest wizards of curriculum and instruction can’t turn out any one program that will meet the needs of all of our learners. I’m the first one to admit that public school educators need to teach the students they are given, not the ones conjured up inside the fantasies that painted them as super teachers. As someone who trains teachers, I’m constantly thinking of ways in which professional development can evolve beyond something that looks like me standing at the front of the room suggesting what it is that teachers “should” be doing. My own professional growth happens independently, for the most part, and it shifts and changes shape in response to my changing needs and interests.

Learning curves.

After talking with my sister-in-law last week, I realized that we share a common perspective. I’ve simply applied the content of that thought to the public school classroom and to leading professional development sessions. She’s applying it to spiritual growth.

What does any of this have to do with why I blog?

Well, I realize that my reasons for blogging have changed in the last two years. My audience has as well.

I’ve used this space to write about everything from my experiences as a survivor of childhood abuse to my struggles and joys as a mother, a wife, a daughter, a sister, and a friend. When I look back over the time I’ve spent here, the growth has been tremendous. I’ve recovered from great injury in this little space. I’ve found shelter from various storms as well. And I’ve also, as you may have noticed, stopped swearing almost altogether now. Can you believe this? I cannot believe this.

I don’t think that this kind of healing or this changing awareness could have happened if I were merely keeping a paper journal. The exchange of thoughts, of feelings, of opinions, of perceptions…all of it…has been essential to my own personal growth. Your stories have informed my own. You’ve helped me see that I’m never alone in any of my struggles–big or small.

That’s why I blog now. It’s not just about the articulation of ideas anymore. It’s not just about the writing. It’s about the conversation. It’s about the connection. In this way, my audience becomes a part of the story that unfolds over time.

You shape the narrative in significant ways, you know.

How?

You push my thinking.

You inspire new ways of looking at my world.

And I don’t even have to climb out of my pajamas to get any of this done. How cool is this?

So, when I think about what blogging means to me, I don’t see dollar signs. Don’t get me wrong, I think Dooce is brilliant in a thousand ways. Not perfect. Not superwoman. But brilliant, yes, in many ways. And the internets might just be the teensiest bit jealous of that. But I’m not. I’m glad to have this space that I do and grateful for the readers that I have. Some of them even invite me to call them on a friday night so that they may talk me down from the latest ledge that I have myself perched on.

Understanding why I blog has led to some other decisions as well. I took my blogroll down. These things are really a bit outdated anymore, are they not? And also? It gets kind of political, deciding who I’m going to put there and who I won’t. This isn’t a popularity contest, I have no designs on being part of anyone’s clique, and the bloggers I love know that I’ll be around. I know that they will be here too.

It’s not about racking up hits on a page. Not for me and not for anyone I really enjoy reading, even those who do have tiny ads up in their sidebar. They’re simply paying the rent. They aren’t looking to Ad Sense to fund their kid’s college education. And even if THEY were, I’d still read them. They are good writers. They earn their keep.

Speaking of reading, I’ve made some choices about that as well. I learn things from you. You help me grow. You bring me closer to who I really am, what I really value, and what matters most in this life. I need to keep this in mind a bit more often, because if I’ve learned one thing in the last couple of years, it’s that there is a whole lot of junk out there, and what one person considers trash another may view as treasure.

It’s about figuring out who I am and reading stuff that nurtures that.

It’s not about leaving comments that will generate traffic toward my page.

It’s not about generating revenue for my checking account or for my ego either.

It will always be about learning.

The blogs I read have to feed me in some way. I need to learn or grow or heal, somehow, if I’m going to take the time to visit. Otherwise, it’s just not worth my time.

What do you think?

Why do you blog? Why do read the blogs that you do?

 

 

 

 

 

Thinking About Motherhood

She sent me this email last week:

“Virginia was beautiful! The weather wasn’t as warm as I expected it to be, but we were able to swim in the ocean one day. Of course, that was the day that I nearly drown, but it was still a beautiful day.”

I skimmed through the rest of her message, vowing to give her a call for the full report. Julie and I have been friends for nearly twenty five years now. We see each other often sometimes, and then there are long stretches of work-filled absence. Her daughter was in a play. My daughter had middle school orientation. Taxes were due. Our Godson made his First Communion.

You know how it goes.

Yesterday, I had lunch with my manager, who knows Julie as well.

“Have you spoken to her since she returned from her trip?” Barb asked me, and I shook my head.

“I called once, but we haven’t been able to chat yet,” I admitted.

“She nearly drown at Virginia Beach.”

Perhaps, I decided, a phone call was in order.

“I was sitting on the beach with a book,” she told me, and I could see her there. Julie and I have spent part of every summer doing precisely the same thing together. She always packs too much equipment, and my girls are always grateful for that. My two and her two burn up the hours catching minnows, building castles, and boogie boarding into the waves. They love the lake.

But this was the ocean.

“Alyssa was body surfing,” she continued, “Joe wanted to learn how. I figured it was safe enough. They’re older now. I didn’t think to go in with them. I never thought about the pull of the undertow.”

My heart began to pick up speed here.

“They were only in up to their hips,” she explained, and I believed her. My friend is known to be a bit overprotective. I tease her about this sometimes. If her memory tells her that her children were in hip-high water, I can promise you the water was only at their knees. She is a good mother. A careful mother. She used to know this too, but the tone of her voice revealed her new uncertainty.

“I swear I only read a page or two,” she promised me, “but when I looked up, Alyssa was gone. I couldn’t see her.”

She ran into the ocean. Alyssa was far off-shore by this time, beyond the point where her feet could touch bottom.

“When I got to her, I told her not to grab on to me,” she said. “We tried to swim on the diagonal. We tried to float on our backs. We swam for what seemed like forever. Remember the survival float from junior high? I did that. I did.”

She told me about the sky then. She described the perfect yellow of the sun and the way the water looked from her vantage point on the shore. It had been a perfect day. The danger rolled under her radar.

“The waves just kept crashing down over her head,” Julie said. She watched this happen over and over again. The water would come, it would pull her daughter under, and she would pray for her to resurface again. 

I can’t imagine doing this. I can’t imagine it at all.

“I kept waiting for the fear to subside,” she told me. Julie is a therapist. She knows how the brain responds to trauma. “I remember feeling so pissed off,” she laughed. “I thought my defenses would kick in and I would calm down, but I didn’t,” she said. “I didn’t.”

The last thing she remembered was her daughter’s voice, telling her she couldn’t swim any longer. Then, the perfect sky turned black.

She woke up on the shore, surrounded by paramedics.

“You nearly drown,” her daughter told her. “We almost died.”

And then she had a panic attack.

Tomorrow is Mother’s Day. This means I don’t have to do a damned thing for the next 48 hours. Tomorrow, John will do all of the housework. He will cook. Laura will do dishes. Maybe we’ll head to the Riverwalk and take a stroll along the Niagara.

When we were kids, we used head there every weekend. We’d drive a few miles up river, drop our inner tubes into the water and rely upon the steady pull toward the falls to carry us along.

“You’re going to end up drowning there one day,” my mother would warn me. “Stay out of that river, Angela. You’ll get caught in the undertow. It’ll take you right under.”

Do you think I listened to her then?

I was too busy tucking cans of Budweiser into my shorts.

It’s taken twenty five years for me to see how complex my life was back then. Today, I’m remembering how much easier it was as well. We had no fear. We didn’t contemplate the danger. So many times, we simply trusted that everything would be okay, and it was.

And Julie is okay today too, but we aren’t fifteen any longer. When she remembers that day at the beach, she won’t think about her rescue. She’ll remember how the water took her daughter under. She’ll remember how helpless she felt in the face of that. How she almost lost her. How they nearly lost each other.

When I was newly married and pregnant with Laura, I remember how terrified I was. I worried over my independence. Never again would I be free to do whatever wherever whenever. I envisioned my life in chains at times. A twenty year sentence awaited me. I wondered what would become of the girl I used to know. What had I gotten myself into? Was there any getting out of it?

What a silly fool I was back then.

Motherhood has been freedom in so many ways for me.

“You get a do-over,” someone wise once told me. “You get to reshape motherhood. You get to let go of the example provided to you. You get to make it anything you want it to be.”

My experience with motherhood has been so different than I assumed it would be eleven years ago, when Laura was little more than the swell of my stomach. It’s been my experience that the rewards I was seeking from freedom were granted to me through motherhood. As a young woman, I thought that my freedom would define my path. It was only freedom, I thought, that would give me purpose. Chaining myself to anything at that point in my life was an overwhelming proposition.

Responsibility meant loss of freedom meant loss of purpose meant loss of self.

I thought of this last night, after I hung up the phone. So often, I find myself pressured in my role as a parent. The girls will be fighting, John and I can’t get five minutes alone, there are practices and meetings and hobbies to nurture. None of this has ever felt like freedom to me. I get resentful sometimes. We all do, I know. There are days when I wonder if twenty years from now I might look back with regret over all of this time and energy I’ve wasted feeling frustrated or worried or angry on the job as mom. It’s not all sweetness and light, this path we walk. I don’t know about you, but my motherhood hasn’t looked anything like a Pampers commercial.

I’ve never nearly drown with my daughter beside me, though. I’ve never tried to swim out of an undertow. I’ve never considered the possibility that my girls simply might not be here one day….or that I most certainly won’t be. For them.

Here’s what I know, this morning: if I ever lost my girls for any reason, I would never feel free again. My freedom lies in the possibility that they’ve shown me. They’ve given me a joyful home, a happy family, a burning desire to do whatever I’m doing for precisely the right reasons, always. My girls have made me responsible for leaving their world a better place, and in doing this work in any small way, my heart expands as well. Becoming a mother has helped me realize that perhaps it wasn’t simply freedom that I was after all of those years ago. I think it was purpose. I think it was possibility. Motherhood has provided me with all of these gifts.

These are the things that this has cost me: time, money, and the ability to travel as much as I would like. But this is what I know motherhood has provided me: perspective. My girls are growing older every single day. We’re finding our freedoms returned to us. Slowly, there is space and there are resources to do anything we may have wanted to do when we were in our twenties.

But because I am a mother, I know how I want to spend that time. I know how I want to spend that money. I know where I want to go. How I want to get there. There will be meaning inside of these experiences that wasn’t there when I was twenty-five.

Ironically, motherhood has given me roots. It has also given me wings.

How about you?

 

 

Math

When I was in fifth grade, my parents finally relented and allowed me to drop out of Catholic school. Suddenly, my wardrobe expanded. I made a few new friends. Every morning, a massive school bus pulled up in front of my home, and I got on. Walking to school through rain and snow was a thing of the past. I sat next to the heater and observed the drama unfolding around me. There were real live teenagers on my bus. They swore and had boyfriends. It was a whole new world.

This was also the year that I discovered my complete ineptitude for mathematics. Mrs. Laine was my teacher, and nearly every day, I sat beside her on the playground correcting my work while the rest of my classmates played dodge ball against the school building. I didn’t mind. I hated being hit, even when it was with an innocent rubber ball.

“You could really use a tutor,” Mrs. Lane reflected, and I had a feeling that she was right. I just didn’t get it. Unfortunately, my parents didn’t agree with Mrs. Lane, and so I sacrificed my free time to the practicing of facts and endured countless lectures from my father, who had decided that laziness was to blame for my struggle. When third quarter report cards came home, I was given a stern warning: if I didn’t finish fifth grade with at least a ”C” in math, I would be spending the summer grounded. Again.

So, I did what I had to do. When June rolled around, and I received the “D” I was expecting, I used a lead pencil to modify the report. I changed my “D” to a “B” and slipped the print out back into the mailbox. I admit, I was surprised when my parents fell for it.

Only, they didn’t. Not really.

That evening, my father called for a celebration. Allow me to assure all of you that in my 36 years of life, my father has never called for a celebration of any kind. Not when I graduated high school or college. Twice. Not when I got engaged, found myself married, and not even when I gave birth. Celebration is not a concept that my father readily understands. But on the night that I received a “B” in math? We painted the town red. First, there was dinner out. Then, shopping. My father told me he was proud of me that night. It was the only time I remember hearing these words from him. And then, after we arrived home and I found myself clenching my stomach with repressed guilt and angst, he finally fessed up.

“I know that you changed that report card grade,” he smiled at me, wryly. I was busted, and he was loving it. He intended for me to feel guilty, and that’s why he spent the evening pouring on the reinforcement. He thought I would break open all on my own, and I almost did, but he was as impatient as ever.

“You’re going to summer school,” he informed me. “We used your Communion money to pay for it, too.”

That was the first time he booted me out of the house. I was ten, and I spent the summer living with my 83 year old grandmother and walking to the school near her home each morning. Not every school offered summer sessions back then, so the move was a necessary part of his punishment.

Only, he didn’t count on something: I ended up having a blast.

MTV had just launched the year previous, and my great grandmother had cable television. I introduced her to David Lee Roth that year, I remember. The woman didn’t speak a word of English, but this didn’t matter. She found my music videos enthralling. Or at least she pretended to. I made friends in the neighborhood that year as well. We would ride our bikes to the pool and walk to McDonalds for milkshakes. Houses were close together there, and I was never lonely. There was plenty for a kid to do, and I took full advantage of it all. Even my teachers were kind. My classes were fun. I finished summer school understanding enough about math to do fairly well in sixth grade…in high school…and beyond.

This month, though, my math phobia caught up with me again. I spent yesterday visiting with my new accountant. I’ve hired him because the thought of keeping track of my business profits and losses sets my hair on end. He is a nice man.

“This will be easy,” he assured me on the phone. “Come around four o’clock. I’ll tell you what you’ll need to know.”

I drove through my grandmother’s neighborhood on the way, past the school where I learned math and past the house where my friend Wendy used to live. I traced the path toward the town pool with my car, and I smiled at the crowd of skateboarders gathered there.

I could have been thinking about my father then.

I could have been thinking about how cruel it was for him to guilt me like that.

I could have been thinking about how I was tricked.

But I wasn’t thinking about any of those things.

Instead, I was thinking about all of the fun that I had that summer. I remembered the rock candy that we used to buy and the yellow bicycle that I owned. It was brighter than the sun. It really was. I’m beginning to realize that when I subtract the pain from the pleasure of living this life, I’m still in the green. There have been bad times. Worse than bad times. Yes. But they don’t destroy all that was good.

So many of my days were happy, despite everything. It’s true.

That’s what I was thinking about yesterday on my way to the accountant. I was thinking about the past. Adding things up. Doing the math.

Tonight

Tonight, I took my eleven year old daughter to her middle school orientation.

The halls were cavernous. Stark. Empty.

The “welcome address” was an overview of how grades are assigned and what kind of clothing can and cannot be worn to class.

The English classroom didn’t have any books in it. It did, however, house a chalkboard that remembered today’s lesson on diagraming sentences.

I couldn’t find a Smartboard in the place. Or an InFocus machine.

One computer per classroom. Maybe thirty in the library.

Not a single example of real student work on display.

Okay, I’m just going to stop now. I haven’t been home since seven this morning. I’m tired and hungry and dehydrated and just…….very negative right now.

I know I’m just being a judgmental witch right now.

Things will look better in September.

Yeah.

Beyond Words

Do you remember learning to read? Because I don’t. I don’t ever remember being read to as a child, owning books as a very little girl, or following a teacher’s lead as she first began to sound out letters. And yet, I love words. I love books. Reading has saved my life a thousand times over. Clearly, I enjoy writing, and so sometimes, I wonder if this learning happened so early on that it has always been there–this deep, fundamental desire to read and write and yes, as you might imagine…speak.

There were phases in my early adolesence where words would begin to present themselves to me. Suddenly, terms and phrases I had never heard before were appearing everywhere. At the time, I was convinced that the words themselves were new additions to the English language. It didn’t occur to me that perhaps, I simply didn’t understand or appreciate them previously, and as a result, they merely escaped my attention. Instead, I found myself mildly confused by my newfound awareness of them, and when words began creeping up on me like this, it put me a bit on guard. I was listening. Watching. Surprised by the places where a newly acquired phrase would hide itself. Surprised as well by the varied ways in which words could be turned. I realized how possible it was to shape them. Words were like clay, and I fell in love with the art of them. As I’ve grown, I’ve continued to appreciate the varied ways in which we all use words. And still, when I stumble upon a word I’m unfamiliar with, its presence still seems to multiply in my world. Within moments, it’s everywhere. I love this phenomenon.

This is what life has been like for me lately. Suddenly, it seems as if my vocabulary has expanded. I’m beyond the cold simplicity of shock, anger, and shame. It feels as if a long length of road has been constructed between my self and my past experiences, and now there is space to pause, to reflect, to think. To notice. This is what happened when I made friends with truth. I am no longer expending huge chunks of time recovering from emotional clobberings. I stopped taking the truth so personally. I stopped being offended by its existence. I’m still scraping up memories and dealing with flashbacks, but now they seem more like additional pieces that fit into a puzzle I’ve already solved. They don’t hurt as much. They certainly don’t surprise me. I’m no longer on my guard.

Since I’ve put down my ammunition, I’ve started paying better attention, it seems. And like words, the lessons are suddenly everywhere. Everywhere. I don’t mean to get all granola on you, but seriously? I’m overcome often lately. If I just quietly observe the unfolding of my life, it really does become clear that no matter how much I would like to pretend I’m in control, I’m really not. And when I try to take the reigns, little good ever comes out of it.

We all have a path. But I don’t know that we all get to choose it, exactly. This lesson has woven itself throughout my entire life, over and over and over again and it’s only now that I’m finally willing to sit with that.

So, I’m not going to walk around with my shoulders jacked up to the tops of my ears, wringing my hands and babbling in obsessed gibberish over whether or not I should apply for a fancy-pants job or follow a great dream. It’s foolishness. It just gets in the way. When I’ve got myself all wrapped up in this illusion of control, I can’t see what’s right in front of my face.

The truth is, these are not hard choices to make.

I didn’t give up my job with any illusions. I don’t intend to make a living off of my writing at this point. I simply want time to pursue the thing that I love. I’m also good at what I do professionally. So, I don’t doubt that my business will be able to support me in this pursuit. I want to return to school because I don’t intend to leave education–ever. I enjoy being a part of the change that needs to happen. Even if it is happening at the speed of mud as far as I’m concerned. I’m impatient, but I’m no quitter.

I’m applying for the job. If I’m asked, I will interview, and I will try as hard as I am able to pay close attention between now and the end of that meeting. Instead of trying coerce an answer out of my gut right now, I’m simply going to go along for the ride, see how I feel, and keep my fingers off of the controls. And I will be damned if I go jumping out of one frying pan into a blazing fire. This is where my ego gets in the way, admittedly. I was honored to be asked to interview. That alone could trip me up if I’m not careful.

In short, I don’t think this decision is really mine to make. I just need to shut up and listen.

So thank you, all of you, for your words of wisdom. This is what I appreciate so much about having you all here. Every single one of you brings your own life experiences with you, and they are so varied and full of blessings and pain. It makes you all wise in ways I’ve come to admire, and in ways I’ve come to rely upon as well.

So, when are you all moving to the East Coast?

Pennies for Your Thoughts (Because That’s All I Can Afford)

So, let’s just say that you recently chucked a decent salary and phenemenol health benefits so that you could pursue your own business, return to school for your doctorate full time, and get yourself published (with any luck). Let’s say you’ve done this knowing full well if the business doesn’t take off, you will be in some fairly dire straights. But let’s imagine that there is a fairly decent chance that people will want to hire you, so you aren’t petrified. Yet.

Then, let’s imagine that one of the best companies in the area suddenly invited you to apply for a pretty nice job, working for an incredibly brilliant and very kind person in a climate that is high performing and also…as a result….probably pretty competitive, political, and demanding.

Would you take the job? Would YOU choose job security and the potential to do good work in mighty big places with mighty impressive people OVER starting your own business, pursuing a degree, and writing?

I am in a pretty tough spot today. Need your thoughts. All of ‘em. Really.

Because when I turn this potential opportunity down and my business tanks and my kids are eating cat food, I want someone to blame. Please volunteer to be that person.

 

Awaiting Further Instruction

It’s easier to love them from a distance.

When I was involved in the daily undoings of their lives, I was so consumed with outrage or anger or grief to have the perspective that I have now. Distance provides clarity that allows me to see them for who they really are, beyond my self-righteous indignation. Not that I wasn’t entitled to that. I certainly was. I suppose I still am. But last month, the snow began to melt, and for some reason I woke up bored to death with the mess of it all. I’m realizing that I’ve invested far too many years in the care and keeping of this rage. Broken people remain broken until they alone choose to heal. I have a pretty good feeling that I can sit around with my ass chapped until Kingdom come, and my parents? They will not be changing one iota in response to this. That’s just the tragic truth.

I really don’t think I owe anyone a lifetime of grief over this terrible misfortune. Nobody owes anyone that. I guess logic would suggest that someone with my past would bear the scars of that forever, but I’m thinking maybe I don’t have to be logical after all. I can do whatever the hell I want.

My closest friend is a warm, wonderful person. She is gorgeous and smart and nurturing and kind. Shortly after she became engaged fifteen years ago, she learned that her fiance was terminally ill. They married quickly and learned of her pregnancy about five minutes later. She spent two years changing diapers–her baby’s and her husband’s. There were bone marrow transplants, rounds of chemo and radiation, and courses of steroids that transformed her husband into someone we no longer recognized.

In the end, he entered into full remision. Six months later, he confessed several indescretions, including the fact that he was cheating on her. In fact, he had been cheating on her throughout their courtship, their engagement, and just about any moment wherein he was not confined to a hospital room. The entire retelling of his adventures made me want to hose myself down with antibacterial gel. Seriously.

They separated, but never divorced. He continued to dangle his affection for her three inches outside of her grasp. He would pull her close only to cheat on her again. He told incredible lies. He caused outrageous pain. And yet, my friend always returned for more.

How was I to respond to any of this as her friend? For years, I held her hand and kept my mouth shut. It wasn’t my business. Perhaps I didn’t know all of the facts. Maybe I was wrong. I didn’t want to get involved. I didn’t want her to do anything because I said so. I wanted her to act on her own instincts.

Last year, when my friend began questioning her relationship with this man again, I asked why she continued to stay. I told her I was worried for her. In recent years, he has really outdone himself, let me tell you. He has earned perfect scores in every dimension of the asshole rubric. Her affection for him has always escaped me, but at the point of this conversation, I was truly beginning to question her sanity.

Love is blind. And deaf. And a little defensive sometimes.

“I stay because whenever I really get serious about leaving, he threatens to kill himself.”

Oh.

This was my cue to shut my mouth again. But just that week, I had been visiting with a very wise woman who reminded me that I was her friend, not her therapist. It was my job–nay, my responsibility as her friend–to be honest about my feelings. Anything less wasn’t friendship.

I remember telling her that threats like that were beyond abusive. I remember telling her how manipulative he was. How calculating. How narcissitic. All of that.

“But what if he does it?” she asked, and we considered this together. The possibility certainly existed, and I really didn’t want to be the one condoning any action that might lead to this sort of end. But then I thought again. Here’s the thing: it would have been tragic if this man had committed suicide. But it is absolute fact that even alive, he had himself in chains and he certainly had my best friend there too. She didn’t even recognize herself anymore…this is how perfectly he had screwed with her head. So I said that.

I told her that if he wanted to kill himself, this wasn’t her responsibility or her choice. Her job was to make the most of the life she had. He wasn’t allowing that to happen, and that was a sort of death in and of itself. She was squandering her own life…the only life she was truly responsible for. I told her that the greater tragedy would be the destruction of TWO people, and at that point, he was taking her down with him. All of her gifts…all of her light…all of her energy was completely absorbed and destroyed by this man’s dysfunction. I think she understood.

I remembered that conversation today..the way my voice was shaking….the fear of losing our friendship. The very real concern about her husband and what he might do if she acted on our conversation. In the end, I stand by those words, harsh as they were. And she’s standing upright on her own two feet again, which makes me smile harder than you can possibly imagine.

If someone wants to kill themselves—physically, spiritually, psychologically, emotionally–there is nothing, NOTHING that anyone can do to stop that. This is what I’ve realized. Our anger, our rage, our self-righteous indignation, our guilt, our hope…none of that will stop them.

So I’m tired of being angry. I’m tired of being hurt. It isn’t going to change anything or anyone. Who am I to mess with someone’s death wish? They are certainly entitled to it.

It’s funny, but I thought that healing would feel more like a triumph, and it doesn’t. Mine is a simpler experience, I guess. Last weekend, I was sitting on the couch watching television when I noticed how empty I felt inside. This emptiness was not painful in any way. It simply was.

“I’m not angry about anything,” I mentioned to my husband. “I’m not sad either.”

He shrugged his shoulders. “That’s supposed to be a good thing.”

“I don’t know what to do with myself,” I realized. “I’m bored.”

He nodded.

That was all.

I expected fireworks and marching bands. I thought there would be confetti. Champagne. Something. Instead, it simply feels as if a long, cold season is over. I’m packing up my winter clothes. I’ve peeled off that heavy, heavy coat that has been weighing me down for so many years. It feels like closure, finally. And that’s just…..amazing. Truly.

But I’m feeling a little antsy standing here waiting around…..wondering what might come next.

 

 

 

Little Legacies

It was Christmas Eve. We were sitting in Denny’s, and the air was literally crackling with intensity. This wasn’t the usual lunch crowd. No one was lingering over coffee or contemplating the dessert menu. We were all there under duress, strung out on adrenaline and making a feeble attempt to refuel before braving the mall in search of that elusive “perfect gift” once again.

I looked across the room and caught the eye of another girl my age. We recognized each other immediately, although we’d never met before. There is a sort of sisterhood that exists between girls who are forced to escort their fathers on shopping marathons twelve hours before Santa is due to arrive. I wondered what she was getting for her mother. More importantly, I wondered how much she would take for whatever it was. The year before, my father and I bought my mother a perpetual wave machine. I figured we had little to lose in light of this. But then the girl turned back to her hot cocoa, my father began grilling me for ideas, and all hope was lost.

I feared I would never recover from this shopping excursion, and I was set to feel good and sorry for myself when I cast my eyes upon the bus-boy, who was beginning to buckle under the weight of his bus-pan. Dishes were piled clear-up to his ears, and while the waitresses moved in a swirl around him, he continued to wipe down tables and chase after customers as they left their packages behind in their haste to conquer even more consumer territory.

That’s when the scuffle broke out.

A man had returned to the restaurant looking for a missing wallet. The bus-boy spent a good fifteen minutes tearing an entire booth apart in search of it, and when he came up empty-handed, the man became unglued. There was much screaming and great apology and at no point did a manager show up to fend off the customer’s attacks. The kid was simply torn apart in front of a room full of diners.

Ho. ho. ho.

My father studied that boy long and hard, and then he pulled out a one hundred dollar bill.

“Here,” he said, handing me his credit card and our check, “can you go pay for our meal please?”

And I did.

In the mean time, my father crossed the floor and silently tucked that one hundred dollar bill into that bus-boy’s palm. He chased us to the door.

“I can’t take this,” he told my father, but my dad just brushed him off.

“Yeah you can,” he laughed. “You’ve earned every cent of that tonight, son.”

My dad was my hero that night. In fact, he was my hero on many occasions. There is so much good in my father. Truly, there is. He is very smart. He is incredibly talented. We share a similar work ethic. And believe it or not, he longs to do good things. He has done good things. Many good things.

And also, he voted for Jerry Brown in ‘92. This counts for something. It does.

When I’m really missing my father and feeling all sorts of sorry for myself and my sad little lot in life, I often take to imagining what my life might be like if I could simply select the memories I want to keep of him and wash the rest away? This is a dangerous proposition, and one that I have tinkered with in the past. It often finds me back in dangerous territory again, and so I know better than to go there now.

The hero abused me. Badly.

But, still.

What if I could take the whole of my father and rub away the rotten parts? What if I could skim the darker layers from the top of his soul? What if I could press his character through some sort of strainer, separating the abuser from the hero? What would remain of him? What might we be to each other now? What might he be to himself?

When I was a new mother, I spent too much regretting my family history. When I consider the fact that my father’s blood flows through my daughters’ veins, my stomach sometimes hurts. But then, I think of the child my father was. The losses that he suffered. The abuses he endured.

I wonder who he might have been when he was five years old. Seven. Nine.

Eleven.

I wonder if I could separate the abuser from the hero, if he might have been a bit like this, before the damage. I know this: I know that tonight, he is sitting in his living room about twenty minutes from here, reading all about his grand daughter. My daughter. I hope that after all of this time and in spite of the loss, he sees what I see.

We endured the damage.

She is the aftermath.

Today, I met with her teacher, and do you know what her teacher told me? She told me that my daughter is humble and kind. She told me that is incredibly bright, incredibly motivated. She told me that she is the happiest child she’s known.

“She floats on air,” she told me. “She lifts me up.”

Her teacher told me that my father’s grand daughter is a gentle soul, a wonderful friend, and a child she will remember for the rest of her career.

I returned home promptly to hide my own fifth grade report cards.

There are worse legacies that my dysfunctional family could leave behind.

Evolution is a beautiful, amazing thing. And I am humbled beyond imagination this evening. By her. By you. By life. What bliss.

 

 

Scar Tissue

About twelve years ago, when I first began speaking in coherent sentences about my childhood, someone very wise suggested that there would come a day when I would realize that my mother really did do her best to parent me well. I nearly ripped this person’s face off then, and I might have, had I any money to pay my bail.

But, I remember his words today because this is what I know: he was right, and the day has come.

It occured to me long ago that I didn’t have to take my parents’ treatment of me personally. I used to struggle with this, because they treated my sister so differently. She was not abused less–just differently–and as a result of this, I came to see my abuse as something that was cooked up special, just for me, because clearly, there was something particularly unpleasant about the fact of my existence.

Abuse makes narcissists of us all, you know. When Anne Lammot referred to herself as the “piece of shit that the world revolves around” I totally related. This is what happens when people take time out of their regularly scheduled lives to pound the crap out of you in any way physical, psychological, or sexual. You begin to think you are different and somehow special. Special in a not-so-good-way, but special nonetheless. It’s taken almost four decades now, but I’m beginning to understand that I wasn’t special. I was just there.

“You know,” my father once told me, “dogs are just like kids. You always ruin your first one.”

My father owned show dogs. They always finished first. Internationally.

As you might imagine, this little adage of his really used to bother me quite a bit, given the fact that I was his first-born. Now, I see it as his only admission of guilt. His only attempt to take responsibility. My father hates himself for what he did to me when I was young. This is why he stopped looking at me eventually. It’s why he stopped treating me like his daughter.

It was nothing that I did. It was what he did.

And when my mother began silencing me? Locking me away? Tearing me down? Threatening to leave?

It was still all about what he did.

I’ll bet she couldn’t handle “taking care of me.” She couldn’t bear to look at me. I know this.

But none of that was my fault. I just represented a truth she couldn’t bear to witness.

The abuse was really nothing personal. I was instrument, that’s all, and anyone who might have been born to them in my place or time would have received the same treatment. I don’t think it was my fault (as much) anymore, and I certainly don’t think that I deserved any of it. In a sick sort of way, it was all just a matter of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

When children are young, they are often warned that lying begets lying. I can remember my mother telling me how one lie leads to another. I’ve shared this insight with my own girls. I’m sure that some of you have done the same. But when I think of the history of my family, the truth of that wisdom just takes my breath away. The destruction of my family truly began with one small lie.

My father crossed over a line that he should not have crossed over when I was very young. And one small untruth was told in order to conceal the facts. This lie gave birth to other lies, and they provided a distance between himself and my mother where continued abuse could unfold. By the time my mother was beyond denial, so much had happened that protecting me would have subjected her to an incredible amount of judgment and quite possibly, legal ramifications.

So, she did what she could to make it better: she taught me how to lie to myself, and she put a wedge between my father and I. And then she gave him another baby, so he could start fresh again. Clean slate.

You only ruin the first one.

I see how it happened, now, and it doesn’t hurt nearly as much as it used to.

And Wendy–what you said–I know that this is true.

I think I’m at that point of letting go now, and there is sadness in that. I know that many of you understand this. Everyone has grief, and that’s where I’m at.

I am so grateful to be walking forward, toward my bright, shiny future. I really am. It’s just that every so often, I look back over my shoulder, hoping beyond hope that the mom I wanted might be there, and every time I do this, my heart still breaks a little when I realize that she isn’t. I don’t know how long I’ll do this. Maybe forever. That would be okay. She’s my mom. And he’s my dad. But that’s the stuff of another post.

Here is the real tragedy that I have yet to overcome: she hides from me and from the truth because she doesn’t think I would ever forgive her. She is destroying herself bit by bit every single day because she hates herself for what she has done and for what she has failed to do.

All I ever needed was to know for certain that she would do the right thing now. But the fact is, my mother can’t do what’s right. She won’t do what’s right. She has remained an accomplice for all of these years, turning a blind eye when my father hurt me, and turning a blind eye when he went on to hurt God only knows how many other people. So she sits in silence with her self-loathing and goes about the business of slowly killing herself.

And because of this, she’ll never know that I forgave her long ago.

So, this is sad.

But you know what? Sad is okay. Sad is way better than crazy any day.

And I’m so grateful for the fact that some of you know precisely what I mean.

Thank you.