Letting Go

"I haven't posted anything in two months."

"I know."

I write, and then I delete it, and then I start over and then I end up crying and falling asleep. I'd like to post more, I would, but I really hate crying, and writing anything worthwhile, usually results in tears and me making really terrible faces.

"I'm not ready to not be part of my family yet, and I can't do that to them."

"But that's what art is."

"You don't understand, I can't stand my family, but they're not bad people and there are things that all of them don't know and I don't want to say anything yet."

Sam is an only child, but has a lot of cousins on both sides of his family. I am the youngest of five and have two cousins on each side, I don't really know any of them. But as my siblings have all spawned the feelings at family gatherings have certainly shifted. It's more hectic, but generally we, the adults are better behaved than we were a few years ago. Perhaps though this is just a phase my family is going through. 

But they really don't like me writing about them. That's really hard for me. Because it's my nature to share, and overshare. Last Christmas things got crazy and my sister *August requested that I change her name. I get that, I do, and she and I didn't talk for a few months after that, but part of me really wants to not care. That part of me wants to say, "if you really loved me, you'd recognize that this is something I have to do" - and eventually I will, but I haven't yet. 

I went to New York this week and when I got back I noticed that my dad had made some changes to the computer (he's anti-wifi, long story) and I went downstairs to get him. 

"You changed the password? I can't update anything. I'm so pissed."

"That's it! I don't have to help you. Not if you're going to use that kind of language."

Pissed. That was the word that he was upset over, this, the man who routinely went on angry tirades while I was growing up. The man who used many a name, including a variety of fun four letter words in my direction growing up. 

 I pulled him back and he told me to not use that kind of language, again, and I told him to come back upstairs.

"I didn't hear you say 'Please.'"

"Please."

He put in the password and then told me the password.

"I didn't do anything bad to you."

"What?"

"When you were growing up. You act like I did all these things to you."

"What are you going on about, you did do lots of awful things to all of us."

"I don't remember them."

"You called me a 'fucking ungrateful twit' when I was sixteen because I had forgotten where the remote was."

"I don't remember that."

"You threw a tea set at me because I forgot to put it away and it broke as it his the wall behind me. I was five."

"I guess I've blocked all that out, I try to remember the good things."

"I do, too. It's just hard sometimes. And you're not like that now."

"I hope you've written this down."

"Not all of it. And I haven't published it because you're not the asshole you were then. I haven't wanted to hurt anyone."

"You need to write it all down."

And I will, but I'll include the good parts, too. Those existed, but it's hard growing up and going to the park and having a great time and not knowing what will set anyone off. Or going to the zoo, or bowling or piano lessons. There were so many rules, some I didn't even know about until I had broken them.

"You should probably be in therapy."

"I was for years, and things are a lot better when I'm not around you and mom."

"Maybe you should go back."

He's probably right, but more than anything I feel like I don't have to hold on to things anymore. Part of that is really scary, but everything feels so much better when it's shared.

September 11: Ten Years Later

I was still getting to know the girls at my lunch table, we were all beginning sixth grade together in a new school. An eighth grade teacher on lunch duty escorted my friend, Elizabeth, to the front office. Her mom had called and wanted to let her know that her dad was alright. Elizabeth's dad was in the Marine Corps and had been in New York that day. 

We hadn't heard anything from teachers or other students.  I had noticed a few students leave school early, but nothing out of the ordinary, though as the day progressed and class sizes shrunk it became more apparent. 

When Elizabeth got back from the office she told us that a plane had hit some skyscrapers in New York. None of us knew what the World Trade Center was, none of us had been there, I had never been to New York City. It was completely foreign to me. It wasn't until I got home from school that I found out about the plane that had hit the Pentagon, just twenty-five miles away from my house.

Volleyball tryouts and all other after school activities had been canceled. My mom wasn't home, but she didn't want me to be by myself and had asked her friend to meet me. It wasn't that I wasn't allowed to be home alone, it was that she was nervous. I don't remember the woman's name, but we sat on the couch and watched the footage together. I don't really remember talking to my parents about it. I knew what happened, I had let it set in, but I wasn't scared.

That night everyone in my neighborhood had flags and candles set out on their porches. School had been canceled for the next two days and everyone on my street was outside. While the adults talked amongst themselves, me and a couple of other kids noticed the helicopters flying overhead in regular intervals. We were used to seeing them, it's fairly normal to see one any day anywhere in the DC suburbs, but not as frequently as they were that evening, and for the following months. 

The next day's paper included a printed flag for readers to tape in their windows and doors. The candles continued to be lit each evening. The eerie sense of unity persisted well after the paper flags had faded and been thrown away. 

I understood what terrorism was, but it wasn't a word that I had heard much before September 11th, I wasn't aware of The Middle East, or what countries it was made up of - I could hardly pass my states quiz in History class. September 11th very abruptly made me aware of a much larger world, one in which one's nationality and religion mattered. I had Muslim friends and classmates from everywhere, and that day didn't make me reconsider their friendship, it wasn't something that anyone cared about at lunch, not at school. They were Americans too, and just as affected as I was. 

Of everything everyone seemed to be feeling, the only emotion that had really set in for me was sadness. I was confused. We hadn't done anything, at least nothing twelve year olds are aware of, and the idea that people existed whose intentions were to interrupt my life, who set out each day to conceive new ideas for inflicting fear upon anyone vulnerable enough to accept it, that, that was what I didn't understand. Ten years later there is still no understanding to be had. As long as people remain scared of the unfamiliar, of the foreign, of people in clothing different than our own, with customs traditional to a culture we ignore and bigot, the hatred and fear and terror will persist.

Procreation Starts With Prayer

I spent the first eighteen years of my life learning about marriage and what a woman's role within those sacred confines means. My brother served a mission for the Mormon church and got married less than a year after he returned, as the Church encourages all Return Missionaries (RMs) to do. This was, and to my parents still very much is the ideal.

Recently I was discussing sleeping-bags with my dad, and he offered to buy me a new one. But I am very picky about these things and told him that I wanted a specific one, one that cost about three hundred dollars. His response was, "well I want you go marry a Return Missionary." This has become his response to my expressing most any desire. As the cliche goes, "it's nice to want things," and he and I want very different things for me.

My mother is more passive about it. She will call me and tell me about a former friend or acquaintance who is getting married, AND they're getting married in the temple, or they're having a baby with the person they married in the temple, or even "so-and-so has started dating someone, they are Mormon." That is great for them. I am so happy that someone else has found something that makes them happy, and that they found someone else who is also made happy by that same thing, but I'm not interested in being sent pictures from their weddings, or of their babies. 

One of my best friends from childhood got married almost two years ago. A girl I grew up with had her first kid about a month ago, with her RM husband. Another former friend got married last month and my ex-best friend is getting married next week. This means that they will all be procreating the entire time I'm busy avoiding responsibility, so for at least the next decade of our lives. Don't get me wrong, I like babies, but few that aren't related to me, and I imagine, if I'm not keen on their parents, their chances dwindle significantly.


Mom: "You know So-and-so's baby is due..."

Me: "That's great, but I really don't care."

Mom: "Well, I just thought you'd want to know."

Me: "Nope!"

Mom: "But you were close growing up."

Me: "No. We weren't. Mom, I am not interested in hearing about her or anyone else' wedding plans, dating lives, or pregnancies. They aren't a part of my life anymore for a reason."

Mom: "I can see now is not a good time, I'll let you go."

Me: "Thank God."

This did not stop my mom from sending me a picture message from a reception a week later.

End Times: The Rapture

FUN!

Tomorrow, or today depending on where you are in the world, bodys and/or spirits are supposedly ascending up to heaven to hang out with Jesus for The Rapture. I'm pretty stoked about this. I mean, I spent the first eightteen years of my life going to church every week, my summers going to multiple Mormon camps, high school getting up early to attend a religious class before school every day and youth events multiple evenings each week. All of this is to say, that when I let that one dude put his hand up my shirt that one time when I was fifteen, started drinking alcoholic beverages and dancing around naked on friends' roofs, I'm pretty sure that I gave up, what obviously would have been a free pass to heaven. Though, I do bake people things and I think that should count for something.

Though, since I'm not going to be ascending to heaven anytime in the next thirty-six hours, I am really looking forward to several things, but mostly the end of people screaming at me in public places or passing out propaganda. Guys, Mormons train their youth to be missionaries from a very young age, and I have had to knock on strangers doors bringing them the good news under the umbrella of a "Youth Activity." Why anyone willingly does this is beyond me.

When we're left behind, there won't be anyone to tell us to turn our music down, or that out outfit shows too much skin, however, there will be pundits and politicians. I know Glenn Beck thinks he's getting into heaven, but I'm pretty sure he'll still be here, so will Palin, and O'Reilly, I'm pretty bummed out about it. In fact, just thinking about it makes me wish that I had not had any fun ever, but then I also never watch Fox news so I think I'm good. And by good, I mean, I don't watch Fox news, so I'm totally getting into Heaven.

Belated Mother's Day



My mom about my age.


For Mother's Day I went to church with my parents. It's simple and free and my parents take way too much pride in showcasing their spawn at church, it's not just them, it's a Mormon thing. Church, for me is like a role in a play that you were in in high school that you still remember all the lines to - it's just like that. I wear a sleeved dress with a relatively modest neckline, that goes down to at least my knees with modest heels. And lipstick, red lipstick (because other colors are useless) that my mother has implied is "inappropriate." It sends the wrong message to young return missionaries.

I went for all three hours. It's very strange going now, the congregation is mostly young couples not much older than me that already have multiple babies. It freaks me out, not because I don't like babies, they're fine, but because that could have been me. I could be the young mom taking a toddler to the bathroom while prgnant with another. I could be a stay at home mom, already, at 21.

My mom stayed at home until my dad retired from the Marines and my family moved from North Carolina to Northern  Virginia. She got a job at the local hospital doing administrative stuff and started cleaning on the side, as the hours at the hospital became more restrictive, she quit and expanded her cleaning business. She taught us to clean, all of us know how to clean a bathtub and a kitchen sink, and that all you really need is warm sudsy water and elbow grease. As a result I have little patience for people who have ever paid anyone to clean up after them.

My mom is the hardest worker I know. She's scrapy. She grew up with nothing, in a podunk town in Eastern North Carolina. She put herself through community college where she got a degree in court reporting, did that for a bit, worked at a hospital for a bit, worked in social services for a bit, and eventually married my dad, had five kids and started her own company. . She moved around a lot, all my mom ever wanted was her own a house. Her house, that she could fashion in any way she wanted. And she does.

My mom is familiar with others' good will, and as a result she exhibits that gratuitous excess. There is not a person who's situation she is not familiar with or unwilling to help. She's opened our house to those who need a place to crash, provided clothes, a shower, food, whatever is needed to those who need a helping hand. And she taught all of us what it was to work and to be compassionate, and to be nice - though, I am not always very nice, I'm working on it. And when I'm being a bitch she won't say the word, she'll fidget and warble unintelligibly, because she is a lady and ladies don't use that kind of language.

She doesn't get me. And most of the time I don't get her either, and sometimes that makes communicating with one another difficult, but this is something we both recognize. She didn't go out much at my age, and she certainly didn't kiss strangers and she lived close to her entire extended family until she got married to my dad who scooped her up and took her to California. She doesn't understand my restless nature, but she listens.