Whoever created this linear idea of time clearly wanted to impose some order…
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I assumed my life would basically look like the life I had growing up.
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Some days you just want to cry for no reason
except no reason is actually so many reasons
Isn't it funny how the thing we were so scared of can become our new normal, and then at some point, we will once again feel the winds changing and have to calmly reach for some kind of inner compass?
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I bet she’d be intrigued, excited, relieved, and a good deal terrified, knowing some big shit awaited her but also that somehow she’d get through it intact.
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They’d likely not vacation together again, for more reasons than the woman would get into now. Needless to say, a day was just right. They stopped for ice cream before returning home, letting the summer day run long. She remembered how she used to have such a hard time saying goodbye, letting go. She still did.
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It’s not pretty to look at the parts of ourselves that exemplify the things we say we’re against — entitlement, white privilege, intellectual snobbery. But to not look at these, to choose to stay cloistered, sheltered, more “successful” in ways society recognizes and values, and what we may have been taught would be “safer,” is inexcusable for anyone who claims to care about justice and humanity.
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A deep breath. The light changing so subtly and gradually, it’s almost impossible to discern. But soon enough, it will be dark outside. We’ll sleep once more, than start all over again.
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In the end, it’s a quality of being honest that is liberating. For so long, I wasn’t fully honest. I lied outright about some things, like smoking, and in a more subconscious way about deeper things, things that I didn’t have names for, things that were so big I was afraid to expose them.
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I got up out of bed. I put on jeans and a sweatshirt and peed and brushed my teeth and had coffee. I prepared French toast for Pearl with a birthday candle in each piece — much easier to blow out than 12 + 1 for good luck! I navigated some choppy mothering waters and even got us safely to shore (aka school) through some mild rapids.
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Take some time soon to write about anger. Set a timer for 10 minutes and make a fast and furious list (see what I did there?) of associations you have with anger. You could simply start with “anger = …” and go from there, returning to this equation if you get stuck.
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That’s exactly it. Taking these 24 or so hours “off” is really a chance to get quiet, to go inward, to look in the mirror, to turn away from the output and towards what is closest. The circles of what’s sacred to me are all beautiful, and when I disregard my soul in the busy mix and the caring for and focusing on others, something gets lost.
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Yes, there has been social and economic progress. But you don’t have to look hard or far to see the cracks in this perspective. It’s a distinctly white perspective, and one that rests on tremendous privilege.
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Give me this life where I don’t cringe at the sight of my own flesh or wish I were someone else, and where I am not only tolerated but loved most of all, most adored, in my hunger, in my mess, in my half-naked sandal-wearing ruined beauty.
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On my bedside table, so many books. Half-read books, unread books. Paperbacks, hardcovers. On my head, more grey hairs every day. I pluck them, not in battle but more like a new hobby. My skin is changing. My life is changing.
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And then it’s over and the house is still standing and you still love the people you love and they still love you and another day is passing, a day we’ll never get back, a day some people would do anything to have just one more of with the one they love and miss and lost.
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Apparently, I wasn’t done crying yet, as her question triggered another round of heaving sobs. Flooded by how much I love my kids, more than perhaps they will ever know, and feeling in my bones that this is how much my mother loves me. The immensity of love felt almost like too much to bear. Because it is also pain, and it is also loss. There is no picking and choosing here.
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That was a Wednesday. Four days later, I was telling my husband of nearly eleven years that I was gay. And yes, I was sure.
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