December 14, 2012.
11 days before Christmas.
2 days before the end of Hanukkah.
20 children, ages 6 and 7.
6 teachers and administrators.
1 mother.
Gone. Just... gone.
Was this always a possibility? I suppose so... I suppose there was nothing before that would prevent a mad man from shooting his way into an elementary school and killing children as they tried to hide behind their teacher. In fact, it may have been even easier before Columbine, before schools started to lock the doors and install cameras and security systems. But really, did anyone actually think THIS was a possibility? Did anyone else out there, despite all of the preparations, really think that this would happen? Before Sandy Hook, did you ever once say to yourself "yes, well, today could be the day we've been expecting... today could be the day that a classroom full of first graders will be mercilessly shot." Did you? Because I didn't.
And yet, here it is. Apparently, it was possible. Apparently, we should have thought this could actually happen.
Nate is six years old and in first grade, and until Friday, I had not given more than a passing thought to the notion that he would be in mortal danger at school. But had he been a student at Sandy Hook, there is a very good chance - indeed, greater than 50% - that he would have been killed. Killed... but is "killed" even the right word for what was done here? Maybe "murdered" is better... at least from a legal sense, there is a distinction to be made between a killing and a murder (though certainly, not to the victim's family). But does "murder" even describe it? The children were shot multiple times with a high caliber, semi-automatic weapon. No, not ONE weapon. Multiple weapons. Massacred? Exterminated? Slaughtered? What word do you use to describe what was wrought upon the children and their families on that day? What word captures the terror that those children and teachers must have felt as they faced the man in body armor and two guns? How do you fully capture the horror of being sprayed with your classmates' blood?
And grief. Does the word "grief" even remotely approach what the parents of the children who were slaughtered feel right now? One news story reported that "the wails of the parents could be heard from outside the room." Of course they could. I suspect they still can. What word adequately describes how you feel when you are told that your six year old has been slaughtered, 11 days before Christmas, 2 days before the end of Hanukkah, in his classroom where we have all - apparently foolishly - presumed he would be safe from such extraordinary harm? Does the word "cored" hint at the torment?
How do you ascend from the particular level of hell where these parents have been heaved? How do you bury your child? How do you stand there while people express their condolences for your loss - the loss of your six or seven year old child! How do you compose yourself while your child is lowered into the ground? Forgive my language, but how in the FUCK do you do that?
Maybe they will simply just tell themselves - as so many others are telling them - that they will be okay again someday. But the truth is that they will never ever be okay again, and they must know that. Never. They can't. They simply can never be fully okay again, the way they were on Thursday, December 13. Or maybe I simply couldn't. Maybe the parents in Newtown have a reserve of strength that I am confident I do not.
And the teachers. The TEACHERS! The women (and men, I assume), who put their own lives ahead of the children in their classes. The principal who, upon hearing the window being shot out, raced to confront the man with the guns. The counselor who followed, hot on the principal's heels. The teacher who literally shielded children from gunfire as she herself was shot over and over again, who hid half of her class in a closet and lied to the gunman about their whereabouts! These teachers and administrators were living guardian angels who were simply outgunned. They and their families cannot be thanked enough, cannot possibly receive enough love and gratitude for their sacrifice. Again, words can never fully capture the admiration that we as a nation - and I as a parent - feel for what they did. Words cannot express how hopeful I am that no teacher at Nate's school is ever compelled to do the same, but that if they are so compelled, they act with even half the level of valor as the Sandy Hook teachers and administrators did.
I simply cannot imagine the depth of pain that the parents and families of the victims feel right now, and no amount of writing helps me find words for what has happened. I cannot bring myself to put words to what has been done here, because it should not have happened. It should not have been a possibility, and it should never ever be a possibility again. We should not have to tell our children about the sad, sick man who went into a school and shot people, including children. We should not have to ask our own children's school administrators what security systems they have in place to slow down a gunman. We should not have to hope that our children's teachers will serve as human shields in the classroom. We should not have to have an answer to "why don't they just put concrete over the windows so that no one can get in?"
We should not.
And yet we do.
Because on Friday, December 14, 2012, a man wearing body armor went into a goddamned elementary school with two semi-automatic assault weapons, shot the principal and guidance counselor, then went into two fucking first grade classes and shot as many children as he could as many times as he could before the goddamn coward shot himself in the face.
HOW DO WE DO THIS?
Wednesday, December 19, 2012
Friday, December 14, 2012
Sandy Hook
It is 9:37 am and your daughter is dead. You don’t know that yet, though, not at this
point, but in years to come, you will obsess about the time, obsess about what
you were doing at 9:37 am, obsess about where you were, where she was, the wild
chasm between your experiences at that moment, and it will feel as though you
should have known, should have acted, should have been able to act. You will feel as though you could have
stopped it.
But you couldn’t have.
There is nothing you could have done because the reality –
the unchangeable reality – is that sometime earlier that morning, a man walked
into her school with two guns. To the
media, the type of the guns will matter; they will say something about the man
who shot and killed your daughter. For a
moment, you may think it matters. You
may think it matters why he did what he did, what happened in his life that
made him go into her school with two guns.
But it doesn’t, and it never really will. All that will ever really matter is that he
walked into the school with two guns, walked into her classroom and opened
fire. All that will ever matter to you
ever again is that he shot and killed your daughter.
You, of course, were not with her at that moment. You were in a meeting, discussing project
budget forecasts or headcounts or something else that is, ultimately, comparatively,
inconsequential. You might have seen a
text message come in from a number you didn’t recognize and turned your phone
face down in that meeting, not realizing that it was the mass-text-alert from
the school advising parents that the school was on lock-down. You will check your email and messages to try
to piece together the timeline, figure out what slide you were on in the
presentation at that very moment. Did a
news alert pop up on your screen, only for you to quickly close it, embarrassed
that it interrupted your presentation – the presentation that you worked for
days to put together? Did you ignore the
message that you could have saved her?
You will ask yourself these questions over and over and over
again. You will assume everyone else is
asking them as well.
You will imagine what it must have been like for her, that moment
before she was shot, before she was killed.
You will see it in your dreams, and when you close your eyes during the
day. You will hear her screams even
though you never really heard them, and don’t even really know if she did
scream. Your body will convulse as hers
must have when you hear the gun shot in your head. You will weep with your closest friends as
you wonder aloud whether she saw him as he prepared to shoot her. Did she have any idea what was going on as
the gun was aimed at her? Did she
look him in the eye and give him a coy smile, like she would do when the
neighbor boy would trail his toy gun on her from his yard? Or maybe he shot her in the back. Maybe the fucking coward shot your baby in
the back, giving her no chance to plead for her life, no chance to run, no
chance to escape. Maybe he couldn’t
stand to look her in the eye as he murdered her. You will eventually find this out, whether he
shot her in the face, in the chest, in the stomach, in the back, but at that
moment, at 9:37 am, you have no idea.
You ignorantly believe she is in her music class like she is every other
Friday, learning songs about cows or sheep or whatever children her age learn
songs about. You believe she is
safe. And you are wrong.
You will pore over these details in the minutes, hours,
days, weeks, months and even years to come.
You will lose control of your voice as you tell the story, when you dare
to tell the story: there you were, in your meeting or getting your coffee,
while the news was just beginning to trickle out that a gunman had entered her
school. You missed the news initially –
the end of the quarter was coming up, you know, so you had things you needed to do, important work that others were counting on you to deliver. She was in music class... She so loved her music
class, so at least at that moment, you knew she was happy. He went into her classroom, drew his gun and began
firing. You could have done something, if
only you’d been there, if only she had been in gym class instead, if only you
had seen the message from the school. You
could have left earlier; you could have gotten to the staging area where the children
were evacuated sooner; you could have found out your daughter was dead a whole
hour before you actually did. An
hour. A whole hour. That single hour will ultimately define your
life, will make you question whether you could have prevented it from happening,
will make you wonder whether she was taken by this madman because you couldn’t
get there more quickly.
You will cry yourself to sleep at night because, if only you
had listened to her when she said she wanted to stay home from school that day,
she would be alive. Or if you had
surprised her with breakfast at McDonald’s, she would be alive. She loved McDonald’s – even the ones without
the Play Places. Maybe you didn’t really
need to be at that meeting, or you could have called in from home. If you’d stayed home that day, maybe she
would have gone into school late or just taken a day at home on the sofa
watching movies, and she would be alive.
If only. If only. If only.
If only that man had not walked into her school with two
guns and opened fire on the children.
If only.
But that is not what happened.
Instead, it is 9:37 am and your daughter is dead.
Saturday, September 8, 2012
Reuniting, and it feels so... what?
I know it's hard to believe, given my incredibly youthful appearance and vibrant joie de vivre, but in a few weeks, I will attend my twenty year high school reunion. No, that wasn't a typo. Twenty years. As in, one year more than nineteen, and one less than twenty one. Five more than fifteen. Twenty more than zero. For those of you out there who are keeping track, this means that I may be slightly older than 25. But only slightly.
The decision to go to this reunion wasn't an easy one for me. For a variety of reasons, when I crossed that stage so many years ago at graduation, I promised myself I would walk away (when I was fully able to walk, that is) and not go back. Kind of like that scene in Aladdin when Jasmine says "I ran away, and I am never going back," except I wasn't running away from a castle and I wasn't sitting on a rooftop with a monkey when I said it. I was definitely wearing harem pants, though. It was, after all, the 90s.
Anyway, despite this promise to my seventeen year old self, I decided that I would go. I did decide, however, that I would not wear harem pants. So that's progress, right?
To get people excited for the event, our reunion planning committee set up a Facebook page - because even we old people use the Facebooks these days! Through this page, I've had the chance to reconnect with people a bit in advance, which in some respects takes the surprise out of the reunion but at least for me has gone a long way toward making me feel less nervous. Thank goodness someone posted pictures from our yearbook (and no, I NEVER thought I would say that), because it has names underneath many of the pictures and has therefore been a godsend to help me figure out who is who! (Confession to Shawn: I think we emailed a bit around the last reunion and I just kept going along with the discussion, even though I had no recollection of who you are. I totally know now, not only thanks to being friends with you on FB, but especially now that I've seen that awesome picture of you with the Color Me Badd hair.)
Some interesting stories have come out as well; it seems like time not only heals all wounds, but tolls the statutes of limitations - perhaps not criminally or civilly, but certainly as to embarrassment! People are outing each other's deepest, darkest secrets, including their long-unrequited crushes. What I love about these discussions is that everyone is included this time. In high school, we were all at separate tables in the cafeteria, in separate classes, involved in our own little microsystems, and although just about everyone in our class generally got along, there didn't appear to be a lot of cross-group interaction. Here, each thread is like one big cafeteria table, with a lot of people ribbing each other and throwing each other under the bus. It's like one big John Hughes-style house party, and everyone is invited! And we are all so old!
So far, I haven't brought myself to confess any big deep secrets; I think the biggest disclosure I've made is that I had a crush on the Hazlerig brothers. But let's be honest: what warm-blooded girl in our school didn't have a crush on Ben and/or Sam at some point? And it's probably no surprise to anyone who knew me then that I generally liked my teachers. On this blog, anyway, I've already confessed to a deep-seeded regret that I never pursued a career in the fine art of Vegas tub-sitting. What more is there?
Oh, there is so much more, mes amis. SO. MUCH. MORE. Someone once told me that during our four years together in high school, I was a bit of an enigma. After all, I didn't go to a lot of parties (maybe only a few our senior year), and I hung out with a pretty broad group of people so couldn't necessarily be completely defined by my clique. This person remembered me mostly for being smart, nice and athletic. [Yawn.] In some respects, though, I'm glad this was the impression; I think I'd rather be remembered as something of a vanilla-flavoured-mystery than as a caricature of who I actually was, which was mostly someone who felt conspicuous, out of place, dorky, who didn't know where she fit in, who didn't know how to talk to boys other than what she learned in Seventeen magazine (which, in hindsight, I can confirm was largely inaccurate advice), and who mostly wanted to just get through the whole high school thing unscathed (ha!) and move on with my life. But let's be honest... it wasn't like ANY of us knew who we actually were back then. Real life wasn't what was happening in those halls; it's what came after. High school was the prequel to the real scene. High school set the stage for who we would eventually become, what we might eventually do, where we might want to go, and how we would turn out - it was the pilot episode to our lives with a "To Be Continued" screen at the end. (This isn't just me waxing poetic; psychologically speaking, the teenage years are years of development, growth and experimentation, not of completion of self. Just sayin'.)
So truly, there is so much more to tell... for all of us. Some of it will be good. Some of it will be bad. Some of it will be hilariously embarrassing. (I'm especially looking forward to hearing those parts!) But all of it will have been built on the foundation that was laid in the 1980s and early 1990s back in the 'Hall.
See you in October, fellow Rams!
The decision to go to this reunion wasn't an easy one for me. For a variety of reasons, when I crossed that stage so many years ago at graduation, I promised myself I would walk away (when I was fully able to walk, that is) and not go back. Kind of like that scene in Aladdin when Jasmine says "I ran away, and I am never going back," except I wasn't running away from a castle and I wasn't sitting on a rooftop with a monkey when I said it. I was definitely wearing harem pants, though. It was, after all, the 90s.
Anyway, despite this promise to my seventeen year old self, I decided that I would go. I did decide, however, that I would not wear harem pants. So that's progress, right?
To get people excited for the event, our reunion planning committee set up a Facebook page - because even we old people use the Facebooks these days! Through this page, I've had the chance to reconnect with people a bit in advance, which in some respects takes the surprise out of the reunion but at least for me has gone a long way toward making me feel less nervous. Thank goodness someone posted pictures from our yearbook (and no, I NEVER thought I would say that), because it has names underneath many of the pictures and has therefore been a godsend to help me figure out who is who! (Confession to Shawn: I think we emailed a bit around the last reunion and I just kept going along with the discussion, even though I had no recollection of who you are. I totally know now, not only thanks to being friends with you on FB, but especially now that I've seen that awesome picture of you with the Color Me Badd hair.)
Some interesting stories have come out as well; it seems like time not only heals all wounds, but tolls the statutes of limitations - perhaps not criminally or civilly, but certainly as to embarrassment! People are outing each other's deepest, darkest secrets, including their long-unrequited crushes. What I love about these discussions is that everyone is included this time. In high school, we were all at separate tables in the cafeteria, in separate classes, involved in our own little microsystems, and although just about everyone in our class generally got along, there didn't appear to be a lot of cross-group interaction. Here, each thread is like one big cafeteria table, with a lot of people ribbing each other and throwing each other under the bus. It's like one big John Hughes-style house party, and everyone is invited! And we are all so old!
So far, I haven't brought myself to confess any big deep secrets; I think the biggest disclosure I've made is that I had a crush on the Hazlerig brothers. But let's be honest: what warm-blooded girl in our school didn't have a crush on Ben and/or Sam at some point? And it's probably no surprise to anyone who knew me then that I generally liked my teachers. On this blog, anyway, I've already confessed to a deep-seeded regret that I never pursued a career in the fine art of Vegas tub-sitting. What more is there?
Oh, there is so much more, mes amis. SO. MUCH. MORE. Someone once told me that during our four years together in high school, I was a bit of an enigma. After all, I didn't go to a lot of parties (maybe only a few our senior year), and I hung out with a pretty broad group of people so couldn't necessarily be completely defined by my clique. This person remembered me mostly for being smart, nice and athletic. [Yawn.] In some respects, though, I'm glad this was the impression; I think I'd rather be remembered as something of a vanilla-flavoured-mystery than as a caricature of who I actually was, which was mostly someone who felt conspicuous, out of place, dorky, who didn't know where she fit in, who didn't know how to talk to boys other than what she learned in Seventeen magazine (which, in hindsight, I can confirm was largely inaccurate advice), and who mostly wanted to just get through the whole high school thing unscathed (ha!) and move on with my life. But let's be honest... it wasn't like ANY of us knew who we actually were back then. Real life wasn't what was happening in those halls; it's what came after. High school was the prequel to the real scene. High school set the stage for who we would eventually become, what we might eventually do, where we might want to go, and how we would turn out - it was the pilot episode to our lives with a "To Be Continued" screen at the end. (This isn't just me waxing poetic; psychologically speaking, the teenage years are years of development, growth and experimentation, not of completion of self. Just sayin'.)
So truly, there is so much more to tell... for all of us. Some of it will be good. Some of it will be bad. Some of it will be hilariously embarrassing. (I'm especially looking forward to hearing those parts!) But all of it will have been built on the foundation that was laid in the 1980s and early 1990s back in the 'Hall.
See you in October, fellow Rams!
Friday, September 7, 2012
What the f-? (#istandup2cancer)
So I'm here watching Stand Up 2 Cancer, bawling my eyes out, and I think to myself "hey, self, you need to write." No idea what I need to write, but here I am, typing away as though I know where it's going.
The vignettes with the kids are especially hard to watch. Have you ever known a child who has been diagnosed with cancer? I can't say that I have, although I feel certain that I was around them when my mom was teaching. I definitely knew children who died too young: the first one I remember is Mikey, who was a student at my mom's school. He died on the school bus. I think he was maybe 5? I was around the same age, and remember wondering, "what the f-?" I mean, I didn't wonder that exactly, but I'm sure it was not all that far off. I mean, little kids aren't supposed to die. My nieces' friend shouldn't have died from leukemia. Kids shouldn't have to say things like "I'm not afraid of passing away." I knew all of these things even then when Mikey died, and I know it even better now. Lord, how I know that now that I have a son of my own. And just the thought of Nate being diagnosed with something potentially fatal... holy crap. I think I just threw up a little bit in my mouth.
These kids in the video vignettes are so brave. So freaking brave. Like, beyond belief. And their parents! Don't even get me started on their parents. Grace. Calm. Serenity. Peace. I can only assume that they've already (I assume in private) gone through their drunk-off-their-ass-shouting-obscenities-from-the-mountaintop-hating-the-world phase. Good to know you can come out of it. I still can't imagine it. [More barf. Seriously. How do these people do it? They clearly are medicated or go to therapy A LOT.]
Alice, my mother in law, died from cancer last year. Not sure if you all knew that. She was having trouble swallowing. It wasn't anything big at first, and you know, she was one of those super-polite Canadians who doesn't ever want to inconvenience anyone, so who knows how long it bugged her before she went to a doctor about it. But if I remember correctly, she said it felt like there was something stuck in her throat. Well, as it just so happens, there was. A damn cancer was in her esophagus. Damn. Cancer. Can I say it enough? Damn you, cancer. Damn you, damn you, damn you. Damn you straight to hell. You suck. Big time. HUGE. There Alice was, just minding her own business, busy being one of the most wonderful people I've ever met in my life (and let me be clear, I have been fortunate enough to meet some amazing people in my life), and boom... cancer. To repeat what I thought when I was a kid and Mikey died: what the f-?
So maybe that's where this post is going: to a big what the f-? Maybe it's headed to a big no really, someone out there in the world please explain to me how this happens. A series of questions, like: How in the world does a child get cancer? Why do children have to be so damn brave? Why do parents have to watch their children fight and fight and fight and then still die? Why do wonderful people get diagnosed with horrible, virtually uncatchable, untreatable cancers? Why do people have to make the decision whether to keep on treating, or whether to simply walk away to die on their own terms? Can someone out there - someone with faith, someone who believes in God, someone who understands science, someone who understands it - please explain it to me? And on a side note, why did Komen have to go and screw with Planned Parenthood, so that I and so many other women end up feeling so conflicted about supporting them? Maybe that one isn't so much part of the bigger questions. But it's there... at least for me.
While I wait for some answers, I will simply do what I can whenever I can to help. You have a 5k? I'll run in it. My time will suck, but I will be there, and I will wear your t-shirt with pride. You have a telethon on television? I'll watch, and I'll donate. You shakin' a can at the grocery store? I'll find some money in my purse for you. Because kids shouldn't have to be brave this way. Grandmothers shouldn't have to draw the curtains closed on their lives this way. Parents shouldn't have to cry this way. And I don't want to throw up in my mouth any more.
The vignettes with the kids are especially hard to watch. Have you ever known a child who has been diagnosed with cancer? I can't say that I have, although I feel certain that I was around them when my mom was teaching. I definitely knew children who died too young: the first one I remember is Mikey, who was a student at my mom's school. He died on the school bus. I think he was maybe 5? I was around the same age, and remember wondering, "what the f-?" I mean, I didn't wonder that exactly, but I'm sure it was not all that far off. I mean, little kids aren't supposed to die. My nieces' friend shouldn't have died from leukemia. Kids shouldn't have to say things like "I'm not afraid of passing away." I knew all of these things even then when Mikey died, and I know it even better now. Lord, how I know that now that I have a son of my own. And just the thought of Nate being diagnosed with something potentially fatal... holy crap. I think I just threw up a little bit in my mouth.
These kids in the video vignettes are so brave. So freaking brave. Like, beyond belief. And their parents! Don't even get me started on their parents. Grace. Calm. Serenity. Peace. I can only assume that they've already (I assume in private) gone through their drunk-off-their-ass-shouting-obscenities-from-the-mountaintop-hating-the-world phase. Good to know you can come out of it. I still can't imagine it. [More barf. Seriously. How do these people do it? They clearly are medicated or go to therapy A LOT.]
Alice, my mother in law, died from cancer last year. Not sure if you all knew that. She was having trouble swallowing. It wasn't anything big at first, and you know, she was one of those super-polite Canadians who doesn't ever want to inconvenience anyone, so who knows how long it bugged her before she went to a doctor about it. But if I remember correctly, she said it felt like there was something stuck in her throat. Well, as it just so happens, there was. A damn cancer was in her esophagus. Damn. Cancer. Can I say it enough? Damn you, cancer. Damn you, damn you, damn you. Damn you straight to hell. You suck. Big time. HUGE. There Alice was, just minding her own business, busy being one of the most wonderful people I've ever met in my life (and let me be clear, I have been fortunate enough to meet some amazing people in my life), and boom... cancer. To repeat what I thought when I was a kid and Mikey died: what the f-?
So maybe that's where this post is going: to a big what the f-? Maybe it's headed to a big no really, someone out there in the world please explain to me how this happens. A series of questions, like: How in the world does a child get cancer? Why do children have to be so damn brave? Why do parents have to watch their children fight and fight and fight and then still die? Why do wonderful people get diagnosed with horrible, virtually uncatchable, untreatable cancers? Why do people have to make the decision whether to keep on treating, or whether to simply walk away to die on their own terms? Can someone out there - someone with faith, someone who believes in God, someone who understands science, someone who understands it - please explain it to me? And on a side note, why did Komen have to go and screw with Planned Parenthood, so that I and so many other women end up feeling so conflicted about supporting them? Maybe that one isn't so much part of the bigger questions. But it's there... at least for me.
While I wait for some answers, I will simply do what I can whenever I can to help. You have a 5k? I'll run in it. My time will suck, but I will be there, and I will wear your t-shirt with pride. You have a telethon on television? I'll watch, and I'll donate. You shakin' a can at the grocery store? I'll find some money in my purse for you. Because kids shouldn't have to be brave this way. Grandmothers shouldn't have to draw the curtains closed on their lives this way. Parents shouldn't have to cry this way. And I don't want to throw up in my mouth any more.
Friday, August 10, 2012
I'll Be There
Kind. Generous. Talented. Smart. Beautiful. Funny. Joyous.
She was all these things.
Except for when she wasn't. As it turns out, she was also sad. And profoundly so.
Or so I assume, because last week, she ended her own life.
And yet, despite this perhaps little-known fact, there on her Facebook page were so many posts from so many friends and family expressing their extraordinary grief that she was gone, expressing that the world would miss her light, her laughter, her contributions, her presence.
Expressing shock that she died so young.
Expressing that they will miss her smile.
Expressing that she had brought so much to their lives, and they will miss having her there on a daily basis.
Expressing that heaven had received a beautiful angel before her time was truly up on earth.
But interspersed among them were comments encouraging support for those who suffer from depression and mental illness. Comments about relief, and finally achieving peace. Was it possible? Had she really succumbed to the darkness that, whether we want to admit or not, has whispered to virtually everyone at some point or another? I reached out to another old friend who confirmed my suspicions. And suddenly, all of those posts took on a new meaning.
Kind. Generous. Talented. Smart. Beautiful. Funny. Joyous. And so very, very sad.
Looking back at her posts and pictures, could I see the sadness? Did she reach out for help? Was there someone she could have called, someone who could have prevented it from happening? Or was it a fait accompli? She was, after all, a headstrong and determined woman.
I and so many others who knew her may never know the answer to this question, and no matter how desperate we are to apportion it, there is no place to lay the blame. Not on her closest friends. Not on her dearest family. Nowhere. Only she could have known, but it is possible that even she couldn't find the words to express what it would have taken to pull her from the precipice, and she may not have wanted anyone to intervene. There are some who, when the darkness begins to close around them, feel a sense of relief when they finally make the decision to end their lives. It is possible that she felt a sense of relief - a sense of the weight of the world she had been bearing finally being lifted off of her shoulders, or a sense of peace when she passed into the darkness of death.
It is possible.
It is also possible that she, like her pictures and posts and impressions of so many friends, was truly joyous and that this was a moment of impenetrable, disastrous vulnerability.
In either case, the result is the same. She is gone. And we are left to remember her for the kind, generous, talented, smart, beautiful, funny and joyous person she was in her lighter hours. But in order to honour her life fully, we must also remember her as a complicated, wonderful human being who is perfect in her imperfection, profound in her despair. In the words of Jon McLaughlin, she was a beautiful disaster. And I for one was glad to have known her.
So it is with a heavy but hopeful heart that I say to all of my friends, all over the world: If you ever feel the darkness closing in, if you ever feel a tugging suspicion that maybe, just maybe, it would be easier or more wise or better to just. let. go, call me. Call me at any hour, on any day. Pick up the phone, or send me an email, or fire off a smoke signal, but call me - or find someone, ANYONE to draw to your side. If I can be there in person, I will be there - holding your hand, pushing the bottle away from your mouth, doing whatever it takes and whatever I can possibly do - to help you find your way back from the ledge. And I will move heaven and earth to help you find help. But you have to want it, and I need you to call me, because we cannot always readily see the pain and anxiety in each other's eyes, the scars in each other's souls, the burdens we each bear. But I WILL BE THERE if you call me - even if you think you don't want me there. Even if you really DON'T want me there.
Because whether you know it or not, whether you feel it or not, whether you want to believe it or not, you are loved, you are appreciated, and you are valued by at least one person in this world.
I'll be there. JUST CALL ME.
She was all these things.
Except for when she wasn't. As it turns out, she was also sad. And profoundly so.
Or so I assume, because last week, she ended her own life.
And yet, despite this perhaps little-known fact, there on her Facebook page were so many posts from so many friends and family expressing their extraordinary grief that she was gone, expressing that the world would miss her light, her laughter, her contributions, her presence.
Expressing shock that she died so young.
Expressing that they will miss her smile.
Expressing that she had brought so much to their lives, and they will miss having her there on a daily basis.
Expressing that heaven had received a beautiful angel before her time was truly up on earth.
But interspersed among them were comments encouraging support for those who suffer from depression and mental illness. Comments about relief, and finally achieving peace. Was it possible? Had she really succumbed to the darkness that, whether we want to admit or not, has whispered to virtually everyone at some point or another? I reached out to another old friend who confirmed my suspicions. And suddenly, all of those posts took on a new meaning.
Kind. Generous. Talented. Smart. Beautiful. Funny. Joyous. And so very, very sad.
Looking back at her posts and pictures, could I see the sadness? Did she reach out for help? Was there someone she could have called, someone who could have prevented it from happening? Or was it a fait accompli? She was, after all, a headstrong and determined woman.
I and so many others who knew her may never know the answer to this question, and no matter how desperate we are to apportion it, there is no place to lay the blame. Not on her closest friends. Not on her dearest family. Nowhere. Only she could have known, but it is possible that even she couldn't find the words to express what it would have taken to pull her from the precipice, and she may not have wanted anyone to intervene. There are some who, when the darkness begins to close around them, feel a sense of relief when they finally make the decision to end their lives. It is possible that she felt a sense of relief - a sense of the weight of the world she had been bearing finally being lifted off of her shoulders, or a sense of peace when she passed into the darkness of death.
It is possible.
It is also possible that she, like her pictures and posts and impressions of so many friends, was truly joyous and that this was a moment of impenetrable, disastrous vulnerability.
In either case, the result is the same. She is gone. And we are left to remember her for the kind, generous, talented, smart, beautiful, funny and joyous person she was in her lighter hours. But in order to honour her life fully, we must also remember her as a complicated, wonderful human being who is perfect in her imperfection, profound in her despair. In the words of Jon McLaughlin, she was a beautiful disaster. And I for one was glad to have known her.
So it is with a heavy but hopeful heart that I say to all of my friends, all over the world: If you ever feel the darkness closing in, if you ever feel a tugging suspicion that maybe, just maybe, it would be easier or more wise or better to just. let. go, call me. Call me at any hour, on any day. Pick up the phone, or send me an email, or fire off a smoke signal, but call me - or find someone, ANYONE to draw to your side. If I can be there in person, I will be there - holding your hand, pushing the bottle away from your mouth, doing whatever it takes and whatever I can possibly do - to help you find your way back from the ledge. And I will move heaven and earth to help you find help. But you have to want it, and I need you to call me, because we cannot always readily see the pain and anxiety in each other's eyes, the scars in each other's souls, the burdens we each bear. But I WILL BE THERE if you call me - even if you think you don't want me there. Even if you really DON'T want me there.
Because whether you know it or not, whether you feel it or not, whether you want to believe it or not, you are loved, you are appreciated, and you are valued by at least one person in this world.
I'll be there. JUST CALL ME.
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
And.... Scene
It is a story I've told time and time again. For years, I was unable to get through it without completely falling apart; at some point, I could feign enough distance to spin the tale without spinning out of control. In dreams and quiet moments during the day, it is the Lifetime Channel psycho-drama-tear-jerker that always seems to be on. I don't need to watch the whole thing. I already know the ending. Or do I?
Open on a girl, distant and distracted in the back seat of a car. The chatter from the front seat is miles removed from what she sees and hears; she is far away, wondering why she is there, wondering where exactly "there" is, wishing she had stayed home but feeling dimly privileged to have been invited out on this last Saturday of spring break. She peers ahead and to her left; suddenly, her face flashes alarm. Something is off. She yells to the driver to stop but the car accelerates. Her arms fly up to shield her face.
Impact.
Cut to black.
Nietzche wrote "what does not kill me, makes me stronger." It's a wonderful ending to the movie, if you can write it that way. But the loose ends don't always wrap up neatly in a bow at the end of an hour and a half, or even a day, a year, a decade or two decades. What does not kill me, makes me stronger. But "stronger" is a relative term. And what about what does kill... even if only for a few seconds, or a few minutes? What say you, Nietzche?
Voices above her are frantic, disorganized, panicked. She opens her eyes, the ground coming into slow focus. Why is she here? What happened at that party? Who are all of these people and why are they staring at her? She lifts her head and finds a familiar face. Relief. She shifts her foot and realizes she is partially on grass, partially on concrete. She has to get up. She's embarrassing herself...
For years following the accident, I lived by the rule of carpe diem. Sieze the day, for I never knew whether another would come. I would appreciate each moment, savour every experience. If the moment seemed dull, I would spice it up. If I am to carpe the diem, it should be a diem worth carpe-ing. If I am going to wake up on the concrete again, it will be for a reason far more interesting and entertaining than some silly car accident. If I was going to face down the Reaper again, it was going to be with a smile on my face, and come hell or high water, it was going to be on my terms.
Pushing her hands to the ground, the girl tries to push herself up but crumbles back to the ground as the strangers standing over her murmur. Her chest feels like it's on fire. Confusion and embarrassment give way to terror; she cannot get up. She touches her face. Blood. She tries to straighten her leg, but when the top of her leg moves, her knee and foot remain planted like so much dead weight on the ground. "Am I going to live?" she asks her friend. The friend, who is shaken and injured herself, nods yes. "Will I ever walk again?"
Silence.
I promised myself that I would never forget the second chance I'd been given by the many doctors, friends and family who helped me. When did I forget that promise? When did the gift of survival become just another life lesson that had been learned, tested, then packed away like an old holiday decoration?
The paramedics arrive and scurry to her side, carring a wooden stabilitizing board. She begins to cry, because she believes the board means death. She is shivering; shock has set in.
Years later, Byron and I turned down a job on a sailing vessel called the Fantome. With Hurricane Mitch bearing down on our island home of Grand Cayman a few months later, we shuttered the shop, consoled the guests, and bunkered down for what would turn out to be the second most powerful Caribbean hurricane since the 1800s. Returning to work a few days later, we learned that the Fantome, after trying to outrun the storm, had been lost at sea along with her crew. All that was ever found was a few life jackets and a portion of a staircase. How many more reminders did I need that I was lucky to have survived?
"Don't cut my socks off. They're my father's."
The movie replays itself every day. (BTW: World's Worst Netflix Queue EVER.) Each time, I am torn apart and rebuilt.
"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."
My chest tightens. My breath quickens. My throat closes.
"We were finally able to reach your brother."
Over and over again, every single time, a small part of me dies.
Prom. Graduation. Learning to walk again. Riding a bike. The first time back on the volleyball court.
Inhale.
"You've healed remarkably well."
The chasm begins to close.
She steps out into the sunlight, warmth radiating onto her face. She closes her eyes and steels herself to move forward, one step at a time.
Roll credits.
What does not kill me, makes me stronger... eventually. What does not kill me, makes me me.
Even twenty years later.
Carpe diem.
Open on a girl, distant and distracted in the back seat of a car. The chatter from the front seat is miles removed from what she sees and hears; she is far away, wondering why she is there, wondering where exactly "there" is, wishing she had stayed home but feeling dimly privileged to have been invited out on this last Saturday of spring break. She peers ahead and to her left; suddenly, her face flashes alarm. Something is off. She yells to the driver to stop but the car accelerates. Her arms fly up to shield her face.
Impact.
Cut to black.
Nietzche wrote "what does not kill me, makes me stronger." It's a wonderful ending to the movie, if you can write it that way. But the loose ends don't always wrap up neatly in a bow at the end of an hour and a half, or even a day, a year, a decade or two decades. What does not kill me, makes me stronger. But "stronger" is a relative term. And what about what does kill... even if only for a few seconds, or a few minutes? What say you, Nietzche?
Voices above her are frantic, disorganized, panicked. She opens her eyes, the ground coming into slow focus. Why is she here? What happened at that party? Who are all of these people and why are they staring at her? She lifts her head and finds a familiar face. Relief. She shifts her foot and realizes she is partially on grass, partially on concrete. She has to get up. She's embarrassing herself...
For years following the accident, I lived by the rule of carpe diem. Sieze the day, for I never knew whether another would come. I would appreciate each moment, savour every experience. If the moment seemed dull, I would spice it up. If I am to carpe the diem, it should be a diem worth carpe-ing. If I am going to wake up on the concrete again, it will be for a reason far more interesting and entertaining than some silly car accident. If I was going to face down the Reaper again, it was going to be with a smile on my face, and come hell or high water, it was going to be on my terms.
Pushing her hands to the ground, the girl tries to push herself up but crumbles back to the ground as the strangers standing over her murmur. Her chest feels like it's on fire. Confusion and embarrassment give way to terror; she cannot get up. She touches her face. Blood. She tries to straighten her leg, but when the top of her leg moves, her knee and foot remain planted like so much dead weight on the ground. "Am I going to live?" she asks her friend. The friend, who is shaken and injured herself, nods yes. "Will I ever walk again?"
Silence.
I promised myself that I would never forget the second chance I'd been given by the many doctors, friends and family who helped me. When did I forget that promise? When did the gift of survival become just another life lesson that had been learned, tested, then packed away like an old holiday decoration?
The paramedics arrive and scurry to her side, carring a wooden stabilitizing board. She begins to cry, because she believes the board means death. She is shivering; shock has set in.
Years later, Byron and I turned down a job on a sailing vessel called the Fantome. With Hurricane Mitch bearing down on our island home of Grand Cayman a few months later, we shuttered the shop, consoled the guests, and bunkered down for what would turn out to be the second most powerful Caribbean hurricane since the 1800s. Returning to work a few days later, we learned that the Fantome, after trying to outrun the storm, had been lost at sea along with her crew. All that was ever found was a few life jackets and a portion of a staircase. How many more reminders did I need that I was lucky to have survived?
"Don't cut my socks off. They're my father's."
The movie replays itself every day. (BTW: World's Worst Netflix Queue EVER.) Each time, I am torn apart and rebuilt.
"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."
My chest tightens. My breath quickens. My throat closes.
"We were finally able to reach your brother."
Over and over again, every single time, a small part of me dies.
Prom. Graduation. Learning to walk again. Riding a bike. The first time back on the volleyball court.
Inhale.
"You've healed remarkably well."
The chasm begins to close.
She steps out into the sunlight, warmth radiating onto her face. She closes her eyes and steels herself to move forward, one step at a time.
Roll credits.
What does not kill me, makes me stronger... eventually. What does not kill me, makes me me.
Even twenty years later.
Carpe diem.
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
Wasted Youth
As I was walking to the car yesterday, I caught my reflection in a window. I had one of those moments when you catch a glimpse of your reflection by surprise, sigh and think "wow, I had hoped it wasn't THAT bad..." And then I thought "yup, youth really IS wasted on the young."
I continued to mull this phrase over as I trudged up the steps in the parking garage. "Stupid young people, having all of that youth and wasting it," I thought. "I wish I had appreciated MY youth before it was gone. Young people suck. Young ME sucked!"
Then I started thinking about all of the other things that are wasted on those stupid, sucky young people, and I became annoyed. I realized that young people get LOTS of great stuff that they just don't appreciate, like:
I'm sure there are many other pleasures and privileges in life that are wasted on the young, but since I am a grown-up and have this pesky job, I don't have much more time to think of them. But thanks to the googles, I discovered that George Bernard Shaw actually expanded this famous quote about the foolishness of young people, saying "[t]hey're brainless, and don't know what they have; they squander every opportunity of being young on being young."
That they do, George. That they do. If only we could all be so lucky.
I continued to mull this phrase over as I trudged up the steps in the parking garage. "Stupid young people, having all of that youth and wasting it," I thought. "I wish I had appreciated MY youth before it was gone. Young people suck. Young ME sucked!"
Then I started thinking about all of the other things that are wasted on those stupid, sucky young people, and I became annoyed. I realized that young people get LOTS of great stuff that they just don't appreciate, like:
- Good hair. My hair was never particularly cooperative, but boy has it gone downhill as I've gotten older, and looking back, it really was nicer (though not necessarily easily managed) than I gave it credit for. Plus, for the last couple of months, I've been shedding like a frightened cat in a windstorm, so it's even more disastrous that I have less of my uncooperative hair than ever before. Darn you, young people, and your glorious manes! [Shakes fist]
- Alcohol. Many young people use alcohol simply as a way to get drunk and kiss strangers in a bar (or was that just me?). As it turns out, there are a lot of really fine liquors, wines and beers out there that are meant to be sipped and appreciated, not chugged and barfed up. Unfortunately, having spent so much time chugging and passing out on pool tables in my own reckless youth, I never really learned how to drink "correctly", so I tend to avoid drinking much at all unless I'm properly supervised.
- Confidence. Young people are full of ego, bravado, and I-rule-you-drool-ish swagger, and yet most of them have nothing but their youthful good looks to back it up. Yet, because they are young, it's somehow okay! I am 37 years old now, have an awesome job, look pretty good (if I do say so myself), and a great family but I also have enough sense to know that brazen over-confidence is obnoxious and off-putting. I missed my chance to tell the world to go fuck itself and shout my own praises from the mountain-top, and this makes me sad.
- Preschool. Let's face it. Preschool - long days filled with Play Doh, finger paints, recess, running through the sprinklers and generally making mayhem - was awesome. Did you appreciate it? Did you realize just how fleeting those brilliant moments of joy would be? Did it ever occur to you that when you grew up, you would NOT be able to dress up like a kitty cat pirate robot and parade down the street singing the "SpongeBob SquarePants" theme song at the top of your lungs? No? Case closed.
- Dance clubs. Dancing is one of the best ways you can relieve stress, especially if you're tipsy enough not to care whether you dance well (see #2 above). Can someone please explain to me what "stress" 20 year olds have? Please? Anyone?
- Dexterity. Every young person I know can type an email or text message using only their thumbs in a matter of nanoseconds. Very few of those emails or texts need to be sent with such urgency. By contrast, I occasionally need to type an email response from my iPhone in the two minutes it takes to walk from my office to the cafeteria, yet I lack the dexterity to do it without significant typos, and apparently, using texting shorthand is "unprofessional". NTTAWWT, but AFAICT, their texts are NWR so this really kind of has me ROTFLMFAO while simultaneously feeling FINE. I mean, WTF?
- Summer. Young people get their summers free to frolic in the sunshine, run in slow motion on beaches, hang out at cafes and travel. They don't spend the whole day staring at a computer, answering the same question for the twenty-seventh time, and waiting for the world's most interminable conference call to end. They don't spend their days pining to go outside... they just go outside! They don't wonder if they can make it to Starbucks and back in the eight minutes they have before their next meeting (AND have time to go to the bathroom?)... they just go to Starbucks! They don't wonder if there will be time on the weekend - in between the laundry and the dusting and the dishes and answering emails and getting the child where he needs to be and trying to cook dinner - to go to the pool and relax. They just go to the pool! And worse yet, they look good in their swimsuits! Gaaaah!
I'm sure there are many other pleasures and privileges in life that are wasted on the young, but since I am a grown-up and have this pesky job, I don't have much more time to think of them. But thanks to the googles, I discovered that George Bernard Shaw actually expanded this famous quote about the foolishness of young people, saying "[t]hey're brainless, and don't know what they have; they squander every opportunity of being young on being young."
That they do, George. That they do. If only we could all be so lucky.
Wednesday, April 11, 2012
That's just biology
Dropping my son off for school this morning, I got myself into an interesting exchange with some of the boys in his class over whether one of them would ever get married. It roughly went as follows:
Child #1 (largely apropos of nothing): I'm never getting married!
Me: Okay.
Child #1: No, really! I'm NOT getting married!
Me: Okay - you don't have to. But you might change your mind someday. Or you might not. Maybe it's best not to decide when you're six.
Child #1: No. I've already decided. I'm NEVER getting married!
Child #2: But you have to get married SOMEDAY, Child #1!
Child #1: No. No, I don't. I'm NOT getting married!
Child #3: But if you don't get married, you can never have a baby.
Me: No, that's not true. You don't have to be married to have a baby. That's just biology.
As the debate continued behind me, I looked down at my son, who was crunching Ritz crackers and watching keenly, then over to my son's teacher, who was snickering. Then it hit me: it is entirely possible that Child #3's parents had told him that you have to be married to have a baby - and it was even more than just "possible" that if they did tell him that, it was because it is a core value or ideal to them that you should be married before you have children.
Yikes. I am SO going to get a phone call.
Now, in my own defense (because this is MY blog and I can do what I want here), what I said was technically accurate. It is not a biological requirement to be married before a child can be produced. My guess is that if it WAS a biological requirement, we would not be having so many other debates in this country about the availability of contraception, access to abortion, gay rights, etc. etc. etc., and there would not be nearly as many single mothers (and fathers, natch) out there. So, at least as far as the "structural integrity" of my statement goes, I feel pretty good.
Plus, it was, is and will always be important for me to ensure that my adopted son understands that there was nothing that his birth mother (who was not married when she had him) did that was wrong. I also do not want him thinking that he has to get married when he is older; if he meets someone and falls in love and they want to get married... great! More power to him. If not, I am perfectly fine with that as well. If he wants to have a baby but he isn't married (for whatever reason!), I want him to know - intellectually as well as deep down inside - that this is OKAY. I won't judge him, and I will defend his choice to my dying day as vigorously as he will allow me.
And, well, let's face it... the reality is that I sometimes speak before I think things through. There were probably other more subtle ways of accomplishing my goals, and perhaps I should have availed myself of those methods. Alas, I am human, therefore I occasionally (RARELY) err. Get used to it. Or, you know... forgive. Isn't that the divine thing to do?
But...
Thanks to the benefit of hindsight https://litigation-essentials.lexisnexis.com/webcd/app?action=DocumentDisplay&crawlid=1&doctype=cite&docid=55+Case+W.+Res.+633&srctype=smi&srcid=3B15&key=51bb52d52fa56821384344a7c7b23a44 (darn you, hindsight and your associated bias!), I also understand that my response MAY have UNINTENTIONALLY flown directly in the face of the values of others, and I probably shouldn't have responded so flippantly without knowing whether my statement would have the relative weight of "Santa Claus doesn't exist" or "The sun is hot and really far away". And it wouldn't be COMPLETELY ridiculous for those other people to pick up the phone and ask me to be a bit more careful in the future.
I mean, after all, that's just biology.
Child #1 (largely apropos of nothing): I'm never getting married!
Me: Okay.
Child #1: No, really! I'm NOT getting married!
Me: Okay - you don't have to. But you might change your mind someday. Or you might not. Maybe it's best not to decide when you're six.
Child #1: No. I've already decided. I'm NEVER getting married!
Child #2: But you have to get married SOMEDAY, Child #1!
Child #1: No. No, I don't. I'm NOT getting married!
Child #3: But if you don't get married, you can never have a baby.
Me: No, that's not true. You don't have to be married to have a baby. That's just biology.
As the debate continued behind me, I looked down at my son, who was crunching Ritz crackers and watching keenly, then over to my son's teacher, who was snickering. Then it hit me: it is entirely possible that Child #3's parents had told him that you have to be married to have a baby - and it was even more than just "possible" that if they did tell him that, it was because it is a core value or ideal to them that you should be married before you have children.
Yikes. I am SO going to get a phone call.
Now, in my own defense (because this is MY blog and I can do what I want here), what I said was technically accurate. It is not a biological requirement to be married before a child can be produced. My guess is that if it WAS a biological requirement, we would not be having so many other debates in this country about the availability of contraception, access to abortion, gay rights, etc. etc. etc., and there would not be nearly as many single mothers (and fathers, natch) out there. So, at least as far as the "structural integrity" of my statement goes, I feel pretty good.
Plus, it was, is and will always be important for me to ensure that my adopted son understands that there was nothing that his birth mother (who was not married when she had him) did that was wrong. I also do not want him thinking that he has to get married when he is older; if he meets someone and falls in love and they want to get married... great! More power to him. If not, I am perfectly fine with that as well. If he wants to have a baby but he isn't married (for whatever reason!), I want him to know - intellectually as well as deep down inside - that this is OKAY. I won't judge him, and I will defend his choice to my dying day as vigorously as he will allow me.
And, well, let's face it... the reality is that I sometimes speak before I think things through. There were probably other more subtle ways of accomplishing my goals, and perhaps I should have availed myself of those methods. Alas, I am human, therefore I occasionally (RARELY) err. Get used to it. Or, you know... forgive. Isn't that the divine thing to do?
But...
Thanks to the benefit of hindsight https://litigation-essentials.lexisnexis.com/webcd/app?action=DocumentDisplay&crawlid=1&doctype=cite&docid=55+Case+W.+Res.+633&srctype=smi&srcid=3B15&key=51bb52d52fa56821384344a7c7b23a44 (darn you, hindsight and your associated bias!), I also understand that my response MAY have UNINTENTIONALLY flown directly in the face of the values of others, and I probably shouldn't have responded so flippantly without knowing whether my statement would have the relative weight of "Santa Claus doesn't exist" or "The sun is hot and really far away". And it wouldn't be COMPLETELY ridiculous for those other people to pick up the phone and ask me to be a bit more careful in the future.
I mean, after all, that's just biology.
Monday, March 5, 2012
Dear Nanny
Happy birthday!
Yes, I know I'm a day early, but I wanted to be sure you got the message in time and I wasn't sure how fast your internet connection is up there. I'd like to think it's faster than it is down here, but I understand Time Warner has quite a lock on the market so I wouldn't be entirely surprised if you have intermittent outages there as well.
As you probably know, Nate, Byron and I miss you and talk about you often; I'm sure your ears have been burning! (Do ears burn where you are? Or does something more pleasant happen when someone talks about you, like a super-fluffy kitten licks your face? Just curious.) Nate misses you profoundly. I don't say this to make you feel bad - after all, it is the circle of life! - but rather to let you know how deeply he loves you and how important you still are in his life. True to his MO, he asks lots of questions: "Where did Nanny go when she died?" "Does Nanny know we miss her?" "Is Nanny a fossil now?" My assumption is that you are not a fossil, though I could be wrong there. Are you? Hmm. Might be too early to ask that one. I'll check back in a few million years.
As you probably know, Nate, Byron and I miss you and talk about you often; I'm sure your ears have been burning! (Do ears burn where you are? Or does something more pleasant happen when someone talks about you, like a super-fluffy kitten licks your face? Just curious.) Nate misses you profoundly. I don't say this to make you feel bad - after all, it is the circle of life! - but rather to let you know how deeply he loves you and how important you still are in his life. True to his MO, he asks lots of questions: "Where did Nanny go when she died?" "Does Nanny know we miss her?" "Is Nanny a fossil now?" My assumption is that you are not a fossil, though I could be wrong there. Are you? Hmm. Might be too early to ask that one. I'll check back in a few million years.
In any event, I thought of you the other day as I was driving to pick Nate up from school in the middle of a storm. In the half hour it took me to get there, the EMS system interrupted regular radio programming four or five times; as you know, there were tornadoes touching down all over Indiana, Ohio and Kentucky. But at that moment, the weather was just beginning to roll into Cincinnati. As I was sitting in traffic, I saw what looked like a piece of paper floating along, drifting downward, being blown by the increasingly belligerent wind. It shimmered silver and then became dark like a shadow and then it was gone - but only for a moment, as it reappeared just a second later, silver and magical once more. I watched it for several minutes (inching forward in traffic), and at some point it dawned on me that it wasn't just a piece of paper... it was much too far away to be something so small. It must have been something extraordinary in size yet light enough to be carried by the wind. No matter what it was, it was a wonderful little piece of grace in the midst of impending chaos, and apropos of nothing, I thought of you. Or maybe it wasn't apropos of nothing. Was it? Was that graceful ghost of debris you? Were you flitting around on the wind in that otherwordly, ethereal way that only you and your heavenly cohort can do? Were you taking the opportunity to say 'hi' via a piece of scrap metal in a storm? In a childish way I kind of hope so, because whatever it was, it made me feel comforted, safe and warm, as I hope you are now.
Anyway, tomorrow we plan to have a toast of Bailey's Irish Cream (swimsuit diet be damned!) in your honour. We hope you will join us, even if only in spirit. (Yes, that pun was intentional. No, I haven't gotten any funnier since you left.)
With love,
Kimberly
Monday, February 20, 2012
Am I Pretty?
It's a question I've asked myself a thousand - nay, a million, at least - times. It is a question that I ask every time I look in the mirror. I ask myself every time I read a fashion magazine. Sometimes it's paired with "Am I fat?" Sometimes it goes along with "Why didn't these scars fade more?" I can honestly say that it or some form of it has crossed my mind just about every single day since I was about ten years old.
But while I've asked myself this question a million times, it would never have crossed my mind to record myself asking the question out loud and then post it to the internet, inviting people to comment and respond.
Never.
Yet this is what girls all over the country are doing. They are taking to the internet to publicly proclaim their insecurities and ask for a vote (of sorts) on whether they are pretty. http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=am+i+pretty&oq=am+i+pretty&aq=f&aqi=g10&aql=&gs_sm=3&gs_upl=1202l2165l0l3212l11l8l0l1l1l1l206l1151l0.5.2l7l0 Some have specific features which they worry make them unattractive - a high hairline, frizzy hair, what have you - and some think they might be pretty but don't have the boyfriend to show for it, so they question their own confidence.
Yes, you read that right. Because they don't have a boyfriend, or because they can identify something flawed about their outward appearance (or sometimes, because they have asshole "friends" goading them on in the background), they think they are not pretty, and are looking to the internet to make them feel better. The INTERNET. The very same internet that brings us breading cats http://www.breadedcats.com/, shit someone else says, and Bronies http://bronies.wikia.com/wiki/Wiki_Home.
Now, by my math (which admittedly sucks), I have spent the better part of my life questioning whether I am pretty... or on days when I've decided I am pretty, whether I am pretty enough. But what I have come to realize is whether I am pretty on a given day - or overall - is dependent on myriad factors, only some of which have to do with how I actually look. Yes, it matters if my hair is doing the right thing, if I've lost or maintained the right weight and body proportion, if I did a decent job on my makeup, and if I've gotten my outfit right. But it ALSO matters if I got enough sleep. Or if I'm in a good mood. Or if I am feeling confident (which, I've discovered, doesn't always come from how I look!). Or if I'm feeling sassy. Or if I'm feeling personable and outgoing. Or if I'm feeling particularly smart that day. Or if I'm just feeling pretty.
NONE of these factors can ever be adequately captured in a 30 second YouTube video made with a webcam or an iPhone, especially when that YouTube video is dripping with inadequacy, insecurities and sadness. What I see in each of these videos is a girl who doubts herself, who wants attention (and who maybe hasn't figured out that mocking isn't exactly good attention) and who has yet to realize that pretty comes just as much from within as it does from without. I don't blame them; although I can claim to know this here on my blog, I don't always believe it, either. But I really wish they understood that nothing anybody out there on the internet says will help them answer the question... especially not the idiots on YouTube.
I feel sad for these girls. Just sad.
And one thing I know for certain: when I'm sad, I'm not pretty.
But while I've asked myself this question a million times, it would never have crossed my mind to record myself asking the question out loud and then post it to the internet, inviting people to comment and respond.
Never.
Yet this is what girls all over the country are doing. They are taking to the internet to publicly proclaim their insecurities and ask for a vote (of sorts) on whether they are pretty. http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=am+i+pretty&oq=am+i+pretty&aq=f&aqi=g10&aql=&gs_sm=3&gs_upl=1202l2165l0l3212l11l8l0l1l1l1l206l1151l0.5.2l7l0 Some have specific features which they worry make them unattractive - a high hairline, frizzy hair, what have you - and some think they might be pretty but don't have the boyfriend to show for it, so they question their own confidence.
Yes, you read that right. Because they don't have a boyfriend, or because they can identify something flawed about their outward appearance (or sometimes, because they have asshole "friends" goading them on in the background), they think they are not pretty, and are looking to the internet to make them feel better. The INTERNET. The very same internet that brings us breading cats http://www.breadedcats.com/, shit someone else says, and Bronies http://bronies.wikia.com/wiki/Wiki_Home.
Now, by my math (which admittedly sucks), I have spent the better part of my life questioning whether I am pretty... or on days when I've decided I am pretty, whether I am pretty enough. But what I have come to realize is whether I am pretty on a given day - or overall - is dependent on myriad factors, only some of which have to do with how I actually look. Yes, it matters if my hair is doing the right thing, if I've lost or maintained the right weight and body proportion, if I did a decent job on my makeup, and if I've gotten my outfit right. But it ALSO matters if I got enough sleep. Or if I'm in a good mood. Or if I am feeling confident (which, I've discovered, doesn't always come from how I look!). Or if I'm feeling sassy. Or if I'm feeling personable and outgoing. Or if I'm feeling particularly smart that day. Or if I'm just feeling pretty.
NONE of these factors can ever be adequately captured in a 30 second YouTube video made with a webcam or an iPhone, especially when that YouTube video is dripping with inadequacy, insecurities and sadness. What I see in each of these videos is a girl who doubts herself, who wants attention (and who maybe hasn't figured out that mocking isn't exactly good attention) and who has yet to realize that pretty comes just as much from within as it does from without. I don't blame them; although I can claim to know this here on my blog, I don't always believe it, either. But I really wish they understood that nothing anybody out there on the internet says will help them answer the question... especially not the idiots on YouTube.
I feel sad for these girls. Just sad.
And one thing I know for certain: when I'm sad, I'm not pretty.
Sunday, February 12, 2012
Bs from the BS
I'm not an avid fan of RuPaul (or even a half-assed fan, for that matter), but I am an avid reader of Jezebel.com. And Jezebel has a regular feature which shares notable tweets. Some are profound - or as profound as one can get in 140 characters - and some are clearly just intended to get something out there to the followers... to keep them engaged and reading.
But a recent tweet from RuPaul on the site caught my eye. It said: Very easy to find participants in a pity party. But can U rock it with the bitches from the bright side? http://jezebel.com/5884200/khloe-kardashian-takes-a-ride-in-the-kotex-mobile/gallery/20
Oh, RuPaul, how right you are... And it was a much-needed and timely reminder that it's easy to grouse, it's easy to let yourself wallow, but it can be much more difficult to chin up and find a way through the darkness.
Turn to the left
Sometimes, a pity party is just what you need. Some major life events demand not just a pity party, but a pity cotillion. Smaller traumas require a more intimate get together. And if you have friends, you will always find people to attend your pity party, regardless of the size or duration. But the reality is that some pity party guests have better "manners" than others.
For example, are you having a pity party to celebrate a recent break up? Beware the pity party animal who will remind you - ad nauseum - that your now-ex-boyfriend was an asshole to begin with, and of course, had you realized that earlier on in your relationship (which was impossible, given your terrible history with men and your patent, constitutional and obviously pathetic inability to see past the fact that all signs indicated he was a decent guy and this came completely out of the blue), this never would have happened! Or maybe if you had just listened to her a year ago when she said that she heard from someone else, who heard from someone else that he was not your type, that he had different interests, and that she said way back then that it wouldn't work, well... you know...
In other words, there are some people who seem to thrive on keeping your pity party going. Willing participants, the pity party animal will bring hats, noisemakers, streamers, and copious quantities of libations to the party. Even when you're ready for it to end and have turned off the music (or put on the best party-ending music ever, New Kids on the Block), they're in the middle of the room dancing by themselves, screaming "Oh my GOD... we should do SHOTS!"
Turn to the right
On the flip side of the pity party animals are what RuPaul has brilliantly named "bitches from the bright side". They may attend the party for a while, but they're also the ones trying to get you to move on to a better party across the street. They won't drag you there, of course - some pity parties have to naturally run their course - but they won't beg you to stay at the pity party, either.
Back to the break up example, the BftBS will be the one with the ice cream and a shoulder to cry on. The BftBS will nod quietly, listen to your tale of woe, ask how she can help, and point out that if he is as big of a jerk as you say he is, perhaps this is a smart decision (no matter who made it), and an opportunity to find a better match. She'll give you hugs. She won't judge. She won't minimize your pain. She'll try to understand what you are going through, and if possible, help you to find a positive path forward.
You'd better work
At the end of the day, you are the host of your pity party, and you control its outcome. Only you can decide whether you want to move on to the party across the street with the BftBS, or hang out with the pity party animal to do mind eraser shots and make bad decisions. It can sometimes be difficult when you're in the throes of a pity party to figure out who is who. You have to pay attention, and for each guest in attendance, ask yourself: Is this person making me feel worse about myself, my situation, or my decision? Or is this person helping me acknowledge what has happened, assimilate the information, interpret its meaning (if there is any) and find a positive path forward? If it's the former, politely suggest that they might be better served hitting the bar down the street. If it's the latter, hold on to those friends, because BftBS are worth their weight in gold.
Of course, once the party has ended and you are firmly back in the fold of the BftBS, there is only one thing to say:
Sashay, Shante!
But a recent tweet from RuPaul on the site caught my eye. It said: Very easy to find participants in a pity party. But can U rock it with the bitches from the bright side? http://jezebel.com/5884200/khloe-kardashian-takes-a-ride-in-the-kotex-mobile/gallery/20
Oh, RuPaul, how right you are... And it was a much-needed and timely reminder that it's easy to grouse, it's easy to let yourself wallow, but it can be much more difficult to chin up and find a way through the darkness.
Turn to the left
Sometimes, a pity party is just what you need. Some major life events demand not just a pity party, but a pity cotillion. Smaller traumas require a more intimate get together. And if you have friends, you will always find people to attend your pity party, regardless of the size or duration. But the reality is that some pity party guests have better "manners" than others.
For example, are you having a pity party to celebrate a recent break up? Beware the pity party animal who will remind you - ad nauseum - that your now-ex-boyfriend was an asshole to begin with, and of course, had you realized that earlier on in your relationship (which was impossible, given your terrible history with men and your patent, constitutional and obviously pathetic inability to see past the fact that all signs indicated he was a decent guy and this came completely out of the blue), this never would have happened! Or maybe if you had just listened to her a year ago when she said that she heard from someone else, who heard from someone else that he was not your type, that he had different interests, and that she said way back then that it wouldn't work, well... you know...
In other words, there are some people who seem to thrive on keeping your pity party going. Willing participants, the pity party animal will bring hats, noisemakers, streamers, and copious quantities of libations to the party. Even when you're ready for it to end and have turned off the music (or put on the best party-ending music ever, New Kids on the Block), they're in the middle of the room dancing by themselves, screaming "Oh my GOD... we should do SHOTS!"
Turn to the right
On the flip side of the pity party animals are what RuPaul has brilliantly named "bitches from the bright side". They may attend the party for a while, but they're also the ones trying to get you to move on to a better party across the street. They won't drag you there, of course - some pity parties have to naturally run their course - but they won't beg you to stay at the pity party, either.
Back to the break up example, the BftBS will be the one with the ice cream and a shoulder to cry on. The BftBS will nod quietly, listen to your tale of woe, ask how she can help, and point out that if he is as big of a jerk as you say he is, perhaps this is a smart decision (no matter who made it), and an opportunity to find a better match. She'll give you hugs. She won't judge. She won't minimize your pain. She'll try to understand what you are going through, and if possible, help you to find a positive path forward.
You'd better work
At the end of the day, you are the host of your pity party, and you control its outcome. Only you can decide whether you want to move on to the party across the street with the BftBS, or hang out with the pity party animal to do mind eraser shots and make bad decisions. It can sometimes be difficult when you're in the throes of a pity party to figure out who is who. You have to pay attention, and for each guest in attendance, ask yourself: Is this person making me feel worse about myself, my situation, or my decision? Or is this person helping me acknowledge what has happened, assimilate the information, interpret its meaning (if there is any) and find a positive path forward? If it's the former, politely suggest that they might be better served hitting the bar down the street. If it's the latter, hold on to those friends, because BftBS are worth their weight in gold.
Of course, once the party has ended and you are firmly back in the fold of the BftBS, there is only one thing to say:
Sashay, Shante!
Friday, January 27, 2012
A Belated Happy New Year
To all two of my loyal fans out there, happy new year! To everyone else who has perhaps randomly stumbled upon this little on-again-off-again blog, welcome and happy new year! And to the haters out there, well, click here (and happy new year): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZ5TajZYW6Y
Every new year brings about some level of reflection on my part. Last year, my first two days were spent reflecting on why it seemed like a good idea to get into a drinking contest with my much taller and much MUCH younger nephew on New Year's Eve. After many hours praying to the porcelain god for clarity, several doses of Tylenol and hours and hours of fitful sleep, I concluded that it was not, in fact, a good idea, and resolved not to do so again... ever. That was about as far as I got in 2011.
By contrast, I started this year off with a bit more clarity and way fewer doses of Tylenol, and as a result have had more reflective reflections. I call them super-reflecty reflections, and call me crazy, but I'm pretty sure they (easily) meet or beat the (obviously) high standard set by 2011's main learning:
And finally...
Happy new year!
Every new year brings about some level of reflection on my part. Last year, my first two days were spent reflecting on why it seemed like a good idea to get into a drinking contest with my much taller and much MUCH younger nephew on New Year's Eve. After many hours praying to the porcelain god for clarity, several doses of Tylenol and hours and hours of fitful sleep, I concluded that it was not, in fact, a good idea, and resolved not to do so again... ever. That was about as far as I got in 2011.
By contrast, I started this year off with a bit more clarity and way fewer doses of Tylenol, and as a result have had more reflective reflections. I call them super-reflecty reflections, and call me crazy, but I'm pretty sure they (easily) meet or beat the (obviously) high standard set by 2011's main learning:
- I recognize that I really need to take time off from work, and that going an entire year before taking multiple days off at once is a fast train to Snarky Town. After two weeks off for the holidays, I'm confident that my clients and husband have noticed the difference. We're three weeks into the new year, and I still feel much less like running out of the building and screaming when I am called upon to answer the same question for the thirtieth time ("No... you still can't do that. No. No. NO. Aaaaaaarrrggghhh!!!!!"). I therefore resolve to go on vacation in March. Lucky for me, the flights are booked already! Done and DONE!
- This year will mark the 20th anniversary of my car accident. As many of you know (since there are only two of you out there, I'm pretty sure you all know, but anyway...), the accident changed the trajectory of my life in ways that even today I have yet to discover. I expect that this will be a difficult anniversary, and it is entirely possible that despite my best efforts, I may never be able to talk about it without feeling like someone is sitting on my chest and slowly closing my throat. I resolve to try my best to confront these emotions, and to rewrite the narrative in a way that will allow for more personal growth in the future.
- I need to read more books that aren't about dinosaurs. I mean, dinosaurs are awesome and everything, but I miss reading big words that don't end in "-saurus." I resolve to read more grown-up books, and maybe even some magazines. But have no fear... my boycott on women's magazines will remain firmly in place...
- Our cat is thirteen years old this year, which it seems to me is pretty old for a cat. I resolve to pet her as often as I can without giving myself an allergic fit.
- When we lived in Cleveland, we had a hammock. I like hammocks. I did not use the hammock in Cleveland often enough, and I regret that. I would like to get a hammock again. I resolve to look into this, and if we can make it happen, to use it at least once a week during the summer.
- My child is awesome. This isn't really new, but I recognize that he really is awesome... and in so many ways. Is he perfect? No. Is that okay? Yes. I resolve to make sure he knows - every single day - how much I love him for the little person he is and the bigger person he will eventually become.
And finally...
- It is a bad idea to get into a drinking contest with my much taller and much MUCH younger nephew on New Year's Eve. I (still) resolve never to do this again.
Happy new year!
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