there's simply no accounting for taste

The other day we were getting ready to go to the store, so I asked Hunter to find his shoes and pick out some socks. I wasn't sure if he would actually listen, but he went right to it. After much deliberation (throwing many pairs of clearly inadequate socks on the floor) he brought me his too-big turquoise Christmas socks with little penguins wearing Santa hats on them. Smiling hugely, he backed into my lap so I could help him put them on, and I did. I let him wear them even though they didn't match his outfit and even though it is April and nowhere near Christmas.

And maybe it seems silly to you, like a non-story basically, but I felt so good about it, like I had won at something, because my mom would NEVER have let me wear those socks in April or maybe at all. But he had done exactly what I asked him to do, and there was absolutely no good reason to make him think he was wrong. Just because I wouldn't wear Santa penguin socks in April doesn't mean he shouldn't wear them if he feels like it.

Autonomy is so precious, you guys. I can't even tell you. For your own sake I hope you don't quite understand what I'm talking about. I'm confident that Hunter won't, and I'm glad.

kicking butt

I was going to say that first-time parenting, working, and being in school all at the same time is seriously kicking my butt, and that's why I'm so tired... but then I decided that I am seriously kicking butt at it, rather, and THAT is why I am so tired. If I stopped caring about any part of all this, I would definitely get more rest.

So. Now I feel more empowered.

Today I am thankful for my busy, needy, beautiful son, and the way he has inspired me to work harder than ever to make our lives better. xo

abridged

Just one lonely post for all of September. Man.

I have opened up a blank page several times and there is just too much to say so I close it again, still blank. That's what happens when you wait so long. Hunter is 8 months old today; time is rocketing by and the days are busy yet somehow so boring, every single one the same. My investment feels invisible most of the time but today he hit himself in the face with a book and charged straight for me, with his new-learned, stilted crawl, head down, tears streaming. His mama-radar finely tuned, always taking him the shortest route. He knows where to go when life hurts. I'm right here, baby. I'm here. He believes I can fix it. Which means I'm doing something right. Thank goodness. It all could have been so different.

Daily life is a grind but there is sweetness in it too. Turning 30 this year has dawned on me slowly, pushing me to refocus, keenly aware of my choices and where they are taking me. It's so easy to let life happen to you. It is not easy to make your life happen.

I am reading a lot of articles these days; ISIS, Syria, feminism, sociology, psychology, presidential candidates, student debt, water shortage, the NFL. It feels good to have opinions about things and lively, educated discussions. For the past year I was in a sort of limbo, dealing with aggregate trauma around my pregnancy and bringing a tiny new human into the world. Now I feel suddenly awake again and it is refreshing and uncomfortable at the same time. But healthy discomfort can breed welcome change and that is what I am going for.

When Hunter was born, my old life ended. I have a new life now. And a squishy belly, and not enough sleep. And something gorgeous and unfathomable and inimitably worth living for. I never knew I could feel this way. I can't explain to you how powerful it is, to live for the first time under the assumption that living is good, that it's the best, that I'd rather not give it up. I fought so hard for so many years. The pure optimism of it boggles my mind. And yet here it is, the life I was fighting for.

a prayer for the wild of heart who are kept in cages

It was a rough weekend for me. Mother's Day has always been difficult, fraught with confusion, pressure, and conflicting emotions for as long as I can remember. May 11 is also my mother's birthday, and every few years they fall on the same day, as they did this year. At least I no longer have to give her a gift that was never good enough, or write a card, struggling with what to say that won't break my heart or my mind, and holding my breath that it pleases her so as not to earn me that dreaded smirk and/or the silent treatment for the rest of the day.

I know I'm not like her at all. I don't worry about that. Physically, mentally, and emotionally, we are at opposite ends of the spectrum. What hurts is that she doesn't love me, that she never did. All the commercials and the social media in the buildup to Mother's Day, celebrating moms and all they do, the way they nurture and protect and give of themselves, the special bond they have with their children - that's completely missing from my realm of experience. My life was not the life of a child who was loved.

Nothing makes that clearer to me than having my own baby, the happiness he has brought me, and the depth of love I feel for him. I would do anything to protect him. I understand that he is separate from me, and that alone is a bigger gift than I can imagine.



My parents failed to form an attachment with me, and no matter what else happens I will always have that nagging feeling deep inside that I am different, that I am alone, a little lost, not quite trusting anyone completely. No one can fix it. It's a basic condition of human development. I am grateful for my son, for a chance to do it better, to feel that attachment from the other side at least, although it makes my grief so fresh again. The way he looks at me, smiles and talks to me, melts into my shoulder, lets me know not just that he loves me, but that he knows that I love him. Nothing matters to me more.

The photo above feels iconic. Our first Mother's Day. It looks like the kind of photo that people were sharing on Sunday of themselves as babies with their mothers. I hope that Hunter will look at this picture as an adult and feel, purely and easily, all of the things I always wished I could feel about my mother. I hope he thinks I'm beautiful, as a person, on the inside, because of the way I cared for him and loved him no matter what.

Coincidentally, Phil's mom also has her birthday on May 11, and she is someone I am happy to celebrate. Last year it was a welcome distraction to go and visit her for the weekend, and before we left she hugged me and called me her daughter. I cried. It was so unexpected and needed and kind. I had no idea that just a few weeks later my own little baby would make his presence known, to fill me with hope and trepidation and this stubborn, boundless love.



Title quote by Tennesee Williams. Dedicated to my little-girl self.

side effect

Being pregnant has made so many old memories fresh again. I dream about some thing that happened or some member of my family I never see anymore weekly, if not nightly. Mostly it does not rattle me too badly, but it does make me thoughtful and sometimes sad. During the day it stays on my mind and I have told P many little stories over the last couple of months, stories I've never told anyone. It is good to get them out, and P takes it in stride. He's learned to listen and nod and say "That's weird" or "That's fucked up" and then let it go. And I nod too, and keep folding the sheets, because that is all I needed from him. On their own, these anecdotes in a normal family might only make you wrinkle your nose or shake your head, but all together, and combined with the deeper tragedies behind them, it is rather terrible to think about. I am thankful to have someone to be with me in it and also help me push past and through. I did it by myself for so long.

Our anatomy scan is scheduled for September 20th. If we find out it's a girl, I've decided to get into counseling again right away. If it's a boy, I may wait and see how it goes. Either way I'll have a support team on standby after the birth. I am at a million percent risk for postpartum depression, and I am not willing to put myself, P, or the baby through any more of that than I can help.

tactics

I used to be obsessed with any injury I would get; cuts and scrapes and bruises from riding my bike, climbing trees, running through corn fields, hiding in barns, stepping on nails. Tears only elicited anger, not sympathy, so I knew better than to go looking for help where I'd find none. Instead I would sit down, quietly, wherever I was, and watch myself bleed. Encourage it, even. Squeeze the place where my insides had opened and examine the ruby red river as it pumped out, fascinatingly bright. How could something so luminous come from a place so hidden and dark? It was beautiful. Hopeful. Sad.

Don't pick your scabs, she said, they'll scar. So I hid, and worked at them harder. Because I wanted the scars, was desperate for scars. A collector.

Scars show what's happened. They leave a story behind. It was fascinating to me, that my pain could leave a story behind. But it was wretchedly unfair, too: these small injuries, which hardly fazed me, left their mark, but the far more terrible things that happened to me every day did not show at all. No one knew. My insides were lacerated, perforated, a tangled mess. No one could see. It would not occur to anyone to ask me if I needed help.

But if I pick, pick, pick at this, on the outside, if I make it last, someone might see. Someone might ask. Someone might notice, and sympathize, and talk to me. If only for a moment, and about a thing that did not matter. Maybe a scar could be more than a story. Maybe a scar could be a door.

this is me

I've faced down some pretty huge triggers this week. I feel ferocious. And I am proud.

One trigger was an invitation to a party. One was a birthday card. One was a web series. Small things, but each was fraught, and wildly contentious, and all came at me in the same week.

The web series is actually a good thing. It's happening on the blog of Rachel Held Evans, whom I respect, and whose subject matter I often resonate with and always find interesting. This week the subject matter is abuse, and the perspective of victims of abuse. Which is great; but abuse is not great, and I have suffered nearly every variation, and that has made it rough for me. I've been reading anyway though. Testing my own fortitude, you might say. And my fortitude is withstanding the test. I won't say it's not hard. It is very, very hard. But I can bear it. I've been bearing it for years and years.

The birthday card was from my mother. (I hate to even call her that, since she never bore any semblance of a mother, but to remove the title also removes some small portion of her shame, and she doesn't deserve that kind of grace. Or if she does, she won't find it from me.) I haven't spoken to my mother in almost 4 years. Apparently, despite all that has transpired and despite the court order I obtained to prevent her from doing so, enough time has passed that somehow she managed to build her fantasies back up to the point where she got it into her head that contacting me would be a good idea.

It was not a good idea.

A year or two ago, that card would have ruined me for weeks or even months. But receiving it on Monday only threw me off for a few hours, and I handled the situation before lunch. I sent that bad wolf home, literally and figuratively, and I felt as empowered as I did the day I decided never to see her again. The day I felt like dancing, when I realized I did not have to include her in any part of my life, when I realized I could protect myself and my family from people like her, the way she had never protected me.

-----

I was thinking this morning, in the car on my way to work, about how I had always felt broken my whole life. And I realized I don't feel broken anymore. I don't feel fixed either, or restored or healed, or as if nothing bad had ever happened.

I just feel like me.

These scars are my scars. This heart is my heart. These choices are my choices. These tears, happy and sad, are my tears. I know I can do what I need to do to take care of myself. This is my life. All of it.

This is me.

little red refuses to be eaten

I did something tenacious and brave and self-affirming today, but I feel shaky now and depleted and impossibly tired. In fact I feel exactly as I imagine I would feel if I had slapped a bristling wolf on the nose and told it loudly to go home.

capture, release

I went over the list, saved it on my computer. Read it again, closed it again. I am an avid photographer, like it or not; I could have completed the project easily enough. But in the end I didn't feel compelled to. It might have helped, early on. But grief is not something I want to capture, anymore. Those particular relics are not what I want to keep.

I am still the face. I have been captured by grief -- and then, without quite knowing the exact moment that it happened -- released. And I find I am able to return that favor, finally. And I am pleased, and pensive, and content.

this whole place is one long poem about ghosts

The notion of
ghosts is
uncomfortable
sometimes, only
sometimes
though
because
there are things
like abuse and
neglect and
doubt
and
mistrust and pain
and how

how

does
the world keep on
spinning on
and on

how

do we go on
when this thing is still
around -- even if it
has disintegrated
turned to dust and slime, it's
in the air, it's
taking shape again, changing
into something else
smaller, maybe
not so ugly, maybe
not so scary or strong but
still

there. And

the same is true
of golden things, of
happy things now gone
now turned to dust and sunshine
water
and flowers
and air and stars and
memory
and changing
always changing
into something new, something
that can't be touched, can't be
caught or kept and yet
(thank goodness)
still it's

there.

two steps ahead and staying on guard

So here you are / Two steps ahead and staying on guard
Every lesson forms a new scar / They never thought you'd make it this far
But you've got something they don't / Yeah, you've got something they don't

real

Sometimes I like to pretend that I know you. That you call me up just because. That you are proud, as I am, of the things I've accomplished.

I like to pretend that when I was small, and so often sick, you would test my forehead with a kiss, that you would read me stories and make a pot of soup from scratch, just for me, your presence and your undivided attention coaxing me back to some semblance of health. It's all I ever needed, to get well: the smell of soup, and knowing someone cared. It's still what I need. It's still what I never receive, except for the one time, and then not from you.

I like to pretend our house was always clean and dry and full of light. That it smelled nice, that you smelled nice. That you smiled more often than frowned. That you loved me. That you loved anything at all.

My mind is strong. Even I can say that, and with confidence. I didn't just erase the bad things, as they happened; I made up new and better things to take their place. Not much better, but a little better. Rational, nearly palatable. Just this side of horrifying. Bearable, you know? Bearable, I thought. But I don't think that, anymore. I think I know exactly how Peeta feels when he says, "Real, or not real?" Dreading the answer, either way, for neither memory is a welcome one.

I wish you were real, and not a story I made up to keep my heart from breaking. I wish I knew I'd have a chance to make my stories true for someone else.

the law of bad things

I hate that good things are so foreign to me it sends my system into shock. Crushing, crushing. Can't breathe. Dangerous scenarios feel natural, feel expected, feel like where I'm supposed to be. This whole year, nothing bad has happened to me, and I feel like I'm running from the law. The Law of Bad Things. Fugitive of horrors, hidden away for now -- but it's only a matter of time.

over it

I'm not over it. Any of it. I doubt I will ever be "over it." Rather, I feel as though I am--suddenly--in it. Not again, but for the first time. I am in my life. And the clarity and the openness come not from looking back, but from looking around. Here. Now. This moment, and this one, and this.

I am in.

closure

The prosecuting attornies want to know how my father's crimes have affected me, and what I think should be done with him. They are giving me a say; and I imagine, for many crime victims, that is very empowering. But for me... I don't know. It's not something I wanted to do.

I told the detectives everything I could think of when I made my official report, and then I never wanted to talk to anyone else about it ever again. I don't want to think about him. I don't want to hear his name. I don't want to hear the charges. I don't want to remember what he did to me.

I don't want him to have any kind of power or presence in my life anymore. I want to forget as much as I possibly can. I want to have as normal a life as I possibly can. I don't. want. to talk. about it. any. more.

I finally wrote them a letter, but it was very brief -- because the truth is, what's done is done, and nothing anyone could do to him will make me feel better. They can decide for themselves what his punishment should be. And then it will be over, really over. I can only hope that no one ever mentions him to me again.

I think I'm going to do myself a favor, and just pretend that he is dead from now on. Let's have a quick funeral, shall we? Here's the eulogy: He was a disgusting man who will not be missed.

There. I feel a little better already.

Here is my final goodbye: Goodbye to my so-called father. Goodbye to hope. Goodbye to redemption. Goodbye to feeling unworthy. Goodbye to being unloved.

It is finished. Goodbye.

rambling

It's so hard to know sometimes what I should put up here. I remember when I had no followers, and it felt like it was just me, tossing my words into the ether.

I saw them like handfuls of skelatal leaves, imagined them drifting away and away to I-knew-not-where. I wrote from my woundedness, bleeding in English, onto the lined pages of my journal and across my computer screen. Back when I was falling apart, or maybe just falling, like Alice down the rabbit hole, on and on, not knowing when or if I'd ever find the bottom, or rediscover which way was up. But I did; I found the bottom eventually, and to my astonishment there were other people there. People like me, whose worlds were scrambled as snow-globes. Loneliness made me happy to see them. Compassion made me sad. But perhaps the biggest shock of all was discovering how much I'd always been right about, after being told all my life that I was the one who was constantly wrong...


Oh, ruinous land of my mother and father! I shake off your dust from my feet.


----------


I'm trying to move forward, but I still have trouble separating who I was from who I am. I still panic when things take a turn for the better. I still expect to be punished for being alive. But maybe it won't always be this way.


----------


My heart is heavy lately, and so is my mind. I feel like I can barely lift my head sometimes, for the weightiness of my thoughts. Prioritizing is the hardest part of being an adult, I think. Deciding what takes precedence in one's own life, and knowing it is no one else's call. The line between responsibility and perfectionism. The line between laziness and self-care. It's hard for me to see, a lot of the time.

Maybe this is just how it is. Maybe this is life. I can't help wondering, though, how much more difficult certain things are for me, and always will be. There's no way of knowing. Our experiences are ours alone. But I have hope, still, much as it annoys me sometimes: I hope that my life has simply had it's seasons out of order.

I was born into a hundred year's winter, ice and snow and silent malice all around, each day lived as under a curse. A curse that I have broken, now, through sheer force of will. (While breaking curses is all very well, it still takes time for that much frost to melt.) But spring will come, I suppose. Eventually.

and NYC

Look, another! I do love a good timelapse...


video by Mindrelic, discovered via SwissMiss


Speaking of lapses in time, however: it's been a difficult couple of days. Most of it is kind of a blur. I got a voicemail on Tuesday night, and needed to return the call the following morning and talk about some really unpleasant family/legal stuff. And it was upsetting. It made me sick to my stomach, in fact. But you know what? I made that phonecall. All by myself. I called the lady back, with no prodding or stalling, even though I (really really really) didn't want to. And that, my friends, is enormous progress. When I hung up, I felt all trembly and sick inside -- but I felt a little bit like a lion, too.

I spent most of the rest of the day playing Free Cell on the computer (my main coping superpower) and didn't get anything else accomplished, and next thing I knew it was nighttime; but I am totally okay with that. I am still just so proud of myself for picking up the phone, and dialing the number, and doing what needed to be done. Tuesday night was definitely hard, and last night was hard too. But I am doing better now.

I am feeling more and more like a lion.

variations on a theme

I've been thinking lately about how the first event of my year seems to ultimately wind up being its thesis. Going to The Center last January was such a huge precedent for the rest of 2010. Last year was about separation, and also integration. It was about sorting things out, about turning the topsy-turvy world I'd always lived in right-side-up.

I was absolutely driven by the idea of distance. I wanted distance -- physical and chronological separation -- from the past and from the people who had done me harm. And I found that the farther I got from Them, the closer I got to my Self. And that was good.

----------

2011 began, for me, in Australia; and I don't see how anything could really be a better prelude to a year of Potentially Unmatched Awesome than that. I hope that this will be a year of saying "Yes!" and of taking hold of whatever other priceless opportunities come my way, big or small. Of being less sensible, and more spontaneous. Of being bold. Of being free.

Of being.

When I was in Australia, I had this sudden realization that I was the person on Facebook who was getting to do something completely awesome and talk about it in my status updates. That I was having this experience, and it was happening right now. I have (and had) such a hard time being totally present, but there were times when I know I succeeded, and that is comforting. I can see my growth. But I want more. I want this to be the year when I come into my power -- and not quietly, either. For the first time in my life, I want to be noticed. (Which says a lot, actually, about how much safer I feel in my own skin these days.)

I have a good feeling about all this. I hope it doesn't fade. I hope that by the time Christmas comes around again, I am spending it with Pam and Gretchen and Jill and Jeff and the kids... and that I am positively crackling with vitality. Watch out, my dears!! It's gonna be awesome.

another brother

Dear Benjamin,
How are you, small brother? I've never thought of you so much in my life as I have these last few days, and I'm not sure why.

I was very young -- probably too young -- when I learned about you. I hardly understood what "abortion" even meant, except from the context of the conversation. I remember our mom talked about it like a memory of a dream. A baby who was never born. A baby boy, another brother. He would be younger than Kyle, but older than [Gretchen]. Baby Ben.

Of course, she made it her thing, presented it as her thing, like she always does. As if it was nothing to do with me. As if her choices and her struggles had no effect on my life whatsoever. As if it were her trauma alone, and her tears to cry, and there was no reason for me to be getting so upset about it. And maybe that's why I shut it down, put my feelings about you away; because she acted as if I were stealing something that wasn't mine. But you are mine, too, aren't you? You are. You're my family.

I could say all kinds of angry, bitter things here about our parents, and I could speculate about what it might have been like, if you'd had a chance to be born; what might have been better, what would have undoubtably been worse. But really all I wanted to say was: Hi, baby brother. I'm your older sister, and I remember you. Maybe you've met my children, your neice and nephew? Maybe the three of you are great friends by now.

You would be about 22 years old, I think, if you were here. But you're not here; and it's sad to say, but I can't help thinking maybe you are the luckiest sibling after all.

Peace be with you, my dear. Happy Christmas.
Love from you sister -- Vera

now and then

This day is so different from last year.

Last year I was invited to Seattle. Last year I sat at my best friend's house and waited for her other guests to arrive; people I'd never met before. People who didn't know that I should have had a firm, round belly that day, showing under my sweater; didn't know that my breasts used to be smaller, that my bras used to fit. Didn't know the me from before, the me who hardly ever cried, who didn't need to wear waterproof mascara every day.

"Did you warn them that I'm a little, um... unstable?" I asked, anxiously.

Last year, in true northwest style, we prepared salmon and arugula and root vegetables and apple-cherry pie for dinner. We drank wine in shades of red and white and rose until the candlelight and the conversation both sparkled with added brilliance, and everything was funnier than usual; and then suddenly, instead of funny, everything was just quiet and comfortable and warm.

Last year, to amuse myself, I threw together ingredients without any measuring involved to make a loaf of pumpkin bread for my hosts -- which turned out to be a thing of such glory that it truly stunned us all; and I can say with confidence that the taste and texture of it shall never be equaled nor accurately reproduced. But that's as it should be.

Last year, when I missed my baby, I pulled out his quilt and worked my pain into it, rather than cry in front of strangers. Though I suppose it was really just my own way of crying in front of strangers.

Last year, I sat and stared out the window at rain dripping slowly off of blood red leaves, and tried to think of something to be thankful for, which felt, at the time, like an exercise in futility. But then I slowly realized that I was sitting in the living room of a person who, for some reason beyond my understanding, really, really cared about me. Who actually wanted me around, despite my sporadic withdrawls and bouts of tears and my inability to see past this moment, then this one, then this.

And I was grateful then, for her and for the handful of other people who felt the same, who would do the same for me. It did not seem like quite enough; it seemed a pitifully small number, in fact, standing between me and a huge, violent, scary world... but I knew it was a start. And while I felt completely ambivalent about whether I lived or died on any given day, I knew that they did not. A year later, those same people continue to be the most important ones in my life.

However. I'm afraid I cannot say with any kind of conviction that I am really happy to still be alive. There are days when I think it hardly matters, one way or the other, and I wonder at times if perhaps my wounds will turn out to be fatal, after all. I must confess, if I died tomorrow, my final thought would be: At last, at last.

But do not worry, dear ones. And do not let your feelings be hurt by my despair; my pain runs deeper than you can ever know, and it is not your responsibility or your fault. I will speak of other things, now, for your sake. Because I love you, too.

----------

Today I am alive, and since I am alive, it is good to be alive in California. It is good that the sun is shining today, despite the cold. It is good that I do not have to see or speak to anyone that I don't want to see or speak to. It is good that I have a place where I can express what I think and feel without fear of retaliation. It is good that later on I will be welcomed to a table, heavy-laden in the best sense of the word.

It is good.

I am thankful for the people who got me here, to this place and to this day. I am thankful for the people who still think it makes sense for me to wake up every morning, the people who believe my life really is worthwhile, despite all. You are brave, to believe such things. I am thankful for the people who read these words of mine, who open up their hearts and who leave a few words of their own in return. You are generous. You are kind.

----------

It is quiet in my room. There is sunlight, stillness, peace. For now, in this moment, and this one, and this: I am thankful.