Generations Apart

My granny and me. I miss her so very much.

I think we look alike.

A Day in the Life -And a lot of pictures

Yesterday was one of the strangest days I've had in a long, long time. I realize it perfectly symbolizes my life here, and the everyday tiny struggles that make me tired and oddly defensive when anyone suggests I could actually leave this difficult city. Brief aside: A friend and I once were watching "Turtle Man" on Animal Planet, which I was using as an example of the life I left in Kentucky, and they were chasing a groundhog out of it's hole. Turtle Man said this nugget "now, the groundhog, once he digs into his home, he ain't going an.y.where. He's moved almost 70 tons of dirt to dig in, and he's tough to root out."

Fast forward to brunch later, when I was grumbling about all the tourists that were in "our" diner that day. She said--you know, you're really territorial. I retorted that like the groundhog, I also move a metaphorical 70 tons of dirt to dig into my home and be able to stay, and yes, I don't want people rooting around in my tunnel. I thought she was going to throw up she laughed so hard.

The day went like this: Wake up. Check phone to find out when I have to go to the office. Walk out to get a bagel with egg and bacon with an unsweet ice tea. Walk back. Glance over to where I'd parked my car the night before. Notice it's not there. Panic. Check phone to find out when I have to go to the office.Call the police. Learn that my car had been towed a block away for absolutely no discerable reason to me. Check phone to find out when I have to go to the office. Find the car. Note that I'm being charged $100 to be moved to the next block. Again, for absolutely no reason explained to me. Check phone to find out when I have to go to the office. Find out I do not have to go to the office. Pick up a friend at the metro. Circle for a parking spot for 30 minutes. Go on a date. Check phone to find out when I have to go to the office tomorrow. Go back to my neighborhood. Circle for a parking spot for 30 minutes. Give up, and park illegally. Drink beers. Two shots of Jameson shoved into my hand by said date. Check phone to find out when I have to go to the office tomorrow. Put date in a cab at 1am. Friend comes over with wine to whine about men. Check phone to find out when I have to go to the office tomorrow. Discuss our idiocy for being still awake. Go to sleep at four. Wake up. Check phone to find out when I have to go to the office.

Sigh.

I don't often have to go into the office on the weekends, but it's an extraordinarily busy time right now. It's going to be a hellish week. One day, I have to be in a meeting at FIVE AM. Holy shit.

Funny aside: I got a text message from my sister while sitting in a meeting on Friday. Open, discover it's NOT a picture, but a video that started playing in the middle of a presentation. It was of my niece opening her birthday present that I'd had mailed from Toys r us.com, and was a "barbie horse," as requested. She l*o*v*e*d it with the energy of a thousand suns, and I feel like the coolest aunt ever.

I went to Maine last weekend to visit my cousins. We went to Boston for one day, and then ended up heading with all 3 of my cousins, plus one of their young sons, to an island off the coast to spend the rest of the trip. It was amazing. I want to live there so much.

Better start digging that 70 pounds of dirt.

Happy Sunday....

 Dinner one night in Portland

 

On the beach of the island



 Ryan and Daddy on the boat to the island

Me, and my cousin's wife. She's a good egg.

Boston Commons Park

Me, Todd and Jenny. Todd is my fiercest protector.

Ryan and Uncle Todd

Ryan walks.

From the Archives

Something I posted almost two years ago. I'm so glad my Dad is still with me.

_____
So many things to update you all on, but there will be time enough for that. I've had visitors for the last two weekends, and this past weekend, my father and step-mother came to see me. Last night, I needed to take the trash out. To do this, I go down a small alley behind my house. This disturbed my dad to no end --he hooked his flashlight on his belt and tucked his gun in his holster and we set out as though we were conquering a neighboring village. Me in my pajama pants and he with his gray haired swagger.

When we returned, he tried to tell me he was going to leave his flashlight for me. The dialouge went something like this:

Me: I really don't need a flashlight
Dad: What if your power goes out?
Me: I have candles
Dad: How will you see to find your candles?
Me: I just know where they are
Dad: But what if you don't?
Me: *smacks my forehead*

Dad can frustrate the life out of me sometimes.

They left this morning, and I came home to a still, silent house for the first time in awhile. I went to my bedroom to change clothes and found on my dresser--the flashlight.

There was a note underneath that he had hastily scribbled:

"Find your way home."

Not Loss

“You have too many goddamn friends!” my best one exclaimed once, back when we were first getting to know each other. I was telling some story or another and mentioned probably “my friend Sarah” (of which I have several) and she got confused on who in the hell THIS random person was coming from the woodwork, and shook her head before making that declaration. She herself isn’t one to need many friends – she’s someone who would rather have one or two really close friends, and the rest acquaintances, to have her needs met.

I’m somewhat like that—I, of course, have friends who hold a closer place in my heart than others. But, I do have a lot of goddamn friends that I rely on pretty heavily for emotional support. Part of that comes from being single, and part of it comes from just who I am naturally. I have a big family; I’m used to a big community of support. I’m used to a wide range of personalities, and I need to be able to pick up the phone and know without a doubt that I will at least find someone to chat with me about trivial things, or remind me that I’m loved. For some reason, I forget this fact time and time again, and become wide-eyed panicked that I’m alone in the world.

This same friend became engaged a few weeks ago. Many (most?) of my friends are married. I’ve managed to keep some, and I’ve lost an equal number of them to that hallowed institution. My physical distance from them certainly plays a role in the losses, but still, they no longer need to tell me something funny about their day or rely on me when something big happens. They have spouses to do this, and I’m delegated to “I’ll call her this weekend/next week/next month/next year” and boom – I haven’t spoken to my college roommate in years. I haven’t spoken to my post-college roommates in years.

The circumstances for my best friend, S, becoming engaged are murky. I became friends with her when she was in her last marriage, and I was the sole confidante when it began to fall apart. It was incredibly difficult on me, partly because I was so young (about 26 at the time) and I just simply had no idea what to say/do, etc. I haven’t been married. I don’t have kids – she has teenagers, now adult kids. It was, as I told her once, above my pay grade. During all this tangle, her and I got tangled in a close friendship that bordered on desperation at times because we both had such monumental changes happening in our lives, and we felt that the other was the proverbial raft from our own sinking boats. The immediate aftermath of her divorce came my move back to DC, and here we are.

I continue to struggle very, very much with her relationship with this man. On the one hand—she’s my best friend. Of course I want her to be happy. On the other hand, I feel uneasy and strange around the guy she is marrying, and there are certain behaviors he’s exhibited that lead me to think that this is NOT a good man. However, she’s agreed to marry him. I have no doubt that she will, and that she wants this to happen.

It bothers me so much that I am bothered so much by this. It is in equal parts selfish and worry that make me uneasy. Worry for her about a potentially bad situation down the road, and selfish on my part because I want to stay the most special. I don’t have anyone declaring me most special, and we fulfilled that role for each other for a long time. We sign off every text message with some variation of “Top of List” because we are the top of the top for one another. I have never doubted her deep love and caring for me, and I’ve hands down never had a friend love me unconditionally as much as she does. That’s not to insult my other friendships, but S takes me simply as I am. She never tries to change me as some friends do, and constantly tells me I am gorgeous and brilliant (her words, not mine) and that I am perfect to her. We curl into each other like sisters when we sleep – to say we’re close is an understatement.

The series of posts by Heather Spohr at the Spohrs are Multiplying this week have really hit me hard. If you’re not familiar with Heather (and I believe my few readers are), Heather lost her toddler daughter unexpectedly following what was a simple cold, lost her aunt soon after, has dealt with a miscarriage this year and this week, her very best friend Jackie, died of a brain tumor. These are powerful pieces of writing, and have resonated with me this week.

I wept in the car after S told me she was engaged. I pulled over in front of my old apartment because I didn’t know where else to go and just cried. Cried for how empty my life sometimes feels, cried for how much I thought I was losing my best friend.

But reading Heather's posts smacked me in the face that no, I am not. I can still pick up the phone with my best friend, and tell her I love her. I can have a close loving relationship with her, for the rest of my life, if I choose to do so. There was a time when I thought there was no WAY I would coexist in her world if that man did as well. But, that’s childish and petty and makes me into someone I’m not very proud to be. I have to fight, hard, to keep myself from falling into my inherited genetic trait of grudge holding, bitterness and meanness. I feel those feelings rising up in my throat sometimes and I have to actively push them down and say that I am better than that. I won’t go there. I won’t be THAT mean, bitter person who feels it’s either her way or the highway.

S wants to choose a path I wouldn’t take, and right now, it’s my job only to love her and let her love me back and try to focus on the fact that my life—MY life—is still wide open and in front of me, ready for what may come.

Blood is Thicker than Water (but not as thick as honey).

I can't say I exactly have writer's block, but rather writer's non-starter. Too much going on in my family life, in my personal life, and in my working life, and I don't know where to start.

As longtime readers know, my family is big and varied. Many members of my immediate family are actually stepfamily members but have been in my life so long and in so much depth that it's impossible to separate the real from the not real and what is "real" anyway? Each of my four families (mother's, father's, stepfather's, stepmother's) reacts to things like conflict, crisis, holidays (sometimes conflict and crisis lies within this category!), and the like in very different ways.

Due to this, I have a...confused... sense of what's normal. It's more like an occupational hazard that I have to just deal with. I have to juggle very different personalities on a constant basis and as my families have been hit hard lately with illness, death and just life that happens as the founding (in my view) matriarch and patriarch members of each family battle age.

Due to the nature of proximity, my coworkers are usually the ones who hear things first. They are two feet away when I get bad news, the first people I see in the morning if I'm distracted with news I've gotten the night before. Cancer, Alzheimer’s, divorce--my family has been hit hard in 2012.

During the latest bit of news that an aunt has been diagnosed with uterine cancer, I started to notice eyes glazing over- just a little bit. I could almost see their thought bubbles--"Didn't she have an aunt that just got cured of cancer? Is this a new aunt? Actually, doesn't she have an aunt only a few years older than her? Wait -- is this a different aunt? I actually thought she had an aunt just die? From ....lung cancer?"

Not only are all of those above statements true; all of these were/are different aunts. Some biological, some step. One not even related to anybody at all, but a family friend who we called "Aunt" for our whole lives.

Yeah, it's weird.

My grandfather--you pick the relation--was arrested last week. For what, I won't get into here for his privacy and mine, but he has been exhibiting symptoms of dementia for a long time and this was simply the catalyst to kick us in our collective asses, pull our collective heads out of the sand, and deal with this bad situation that's not going to magically fix itself. My sisters and I held a conference call -- yeah, as if I didn't do enough of those -- last weekend to try and figure out what we can do and what our roles will be. We are trying.

My grandfather was sent to a psychiatric institution for a mandatory hold, and then went back to jail yesterday. We bailed him out, and he is now home. We are figuring out what to do. Court is next week. I got a long text from a sister last night, to several of us, as she attempted to update us from afar. She said at the end..."Now is the time to knit ourselves together as a family. We need to be a strong unit for Nana and Pappaw, and we need to show that our family won't break."

Blood? Forget it. Those words were sweet as honey that sticks us together and flows through our veins, recognizing, knowing.

Remember me? I'm the one who loves you.

I'm driving to Kentucky in an hour.

I am struggling.

It's the point I was at this time last summer, and the summer before that. And probably the one before that. It's middle of summer; middle of the season where all terrible things happen to me. Nothing terrible has happened yet, but I'm waiting for it.

I struggle this time of year.

I want to smack my head against my desk for feeling this way at all. You know, this desk I have in this big office with a big window and cherry furniture. Sometimes I'll be standing in the middle of my office with my bluetooth in my ear, on one of my zillion conference calls I have per day, I'll stop and pause. Note the TV in my office tuned to Cspan. Note that hey--didn't I get everything I wanted?

I did. And, I do want it. I am lucky beyond measure. I've worked hard for this, without sacrificing my relationships with my family and friends. I have life in abundance.

I said that word to myself last night, willing the anger not to rise up. I am blessed with work/friends/family in abundance. But still, the anger comes. Boiled over at 3:39 this morning as I tossed and turn. Anger at God, anger at myself, anger at the anger cycles that come this time of year. Anger that it is just damn hard to love someone that doesn't love you back. It is hard to face that feeling day after day, year after year. It makes it impossible to move on; to find someone new. Anyone. Days like this, that hateful, mean feeling rises in my throat....and i would give ANYTHING to be able to go out and run without causing permanent damage to my ankle--my doctor nixed running until at least one year post-surgery. Walking just doesn't let me get the mads and the sads out the way running did.

Yesterday it's been 9 months since the break. I feel broken all over, and vulnerable today.

Time for another conference call.

Let it be.

This past weekend, I spent a long weekend in Florida with my oldest step-sister and my two oldest nieces and oldest nephew –S, C and L ages 17, 14 and 13. I’ve written of them many times, and their influence in my life is unmistakable. Their very presence made our (very newly-formed, blended) family go in a direction that produced instant cohesion. We avoided much of the yours, mine conflicts because almost immediately after my mother and step-father’s union, my step-sister gave birth to S. I had only been an 8th grade graduate a few days when she arrived. S was, simply, ours. We could all love her mutually. She belonged to none of us, she belonged to all of us.

Our (for me, this side of my) family life and dynamic is not an easy one. It is fraught with tension, hints of mental illness, and a tendency for the melodramatic. In the middle of the storm there always, always has been S, C and L. They’ve grown up to be such wonderful kids and easy teenagers that I’m constantly amazed when these tall, hilarious, creative, talented kids still tries to crawl into my lap. They slip their hands into mine to hold. They lay in bed with me and ask for backs to be scratched. This weekend I got a glimpse of the still-difficult live they lead, largely at the hands of my step-sister. I could elaborate further, but I would likely end several hours and tears later. There’s no use.

After a particularly tough few hours, I watched them play in the ocean while I sat on my towel with the Beatles cranked up in my headphones and trying to slow my beating heart. They laughed and played like the toddlers I once knew. I watched them and hoped with every fiber of my being that they break this cycle. That they will be the ones to break this vicious endless cycle of finger-pointing and blame and too much yelling – not for us, not for our family, but for themselves.

I want these things as I watch them teeter on the end of adolescence and I watch and I cry and clutch my fists to keep my dreams for them inside. Let it be.

Last night, I ended what was a small flicker of a relationship. I actually cooked for this one – I really did try. I told people about him. I slept with him. I tried. But it still didn’t work. I don’t know, honestly, what to do anymore. I am very pessimistic that anything will be happening for me in this game of love.

I know, I know – it’s easy to wave me off with a “Ah, well you’re just 31! You’ve plenty of time!” The reality is—no, I really don’t. I don't have all that many years to find, nurture and grow a relationship, have babies, etc, before that window of time will end. I can do math. I doubt my chances of meeting The One are going to grow ever larger as I age, become set in my ways and continue to set myself up for a life alone. Do I like it? No. But it is what it is. I feel like I need to let go of this future life I’m envisioning for myself and just let it go.

Let it be.

Let it be, so that I can eliminate expectation and come to terms that maybe I’m a kick-ass aunt because they are the only children I’m going to have in my life. Maybe I have such a large and meshed-together and extended family unit(s) because they are the only family I am going to have. I just don't know. But I know I can't stop listening to this song.

“Holding out for some perfect reason/
Staring at the skyline with expectation.
Never finding what I believe in/
I’ll wait if I have to…
But feels like my hope’s slipping away
While I’m waiting here
Feels like I go from green to grey
As I lose another year.”


---Gavin Creel