At every family gathering this year, there has been a point when the older folks switch the topic of conversation from living to dying. I don't know if they've been doing this the whole time, or if I've just happened to walk in on it this year. It's not subtle either--straight up things like, "I just know any day now, I'm gonna roll over to wake him up and he's gonna be cold."
It's not just talk of dying, either.
The family, generally speaking, knows about my grandma's brother and father. How they weren't right in the head, how they were alcoholics. How they were predators. My grandma left them behind in Massachusetts, but not before my mom was exposed to them. It's ugly and sick and shameful, and I can't imagine how it must feel to be harmed, like that, by people directly related to me.
We all know of it, but it's not detailed in our minds; in fact, I'm sure they left it that way because they didn't want us to feel like we'd been through it too. We don't need specific instances, we don't need to know what room it was, or what time it happened.
But it's part of the story of my family, and the stories of my mother and grandmother. They were altered as people because of those events, which affected every part of their lives--their emotional distance, the way they raised their children, and their ability to show (and be shown) love.
I picked up a Christmas card on my aunt's table while sitting around on Christmas day. It said, "Hope you all are OK. We are OK. Lou is not so well. It's hard to see", and then the pre-printed Christmas message. It is the saddest Christmas card I've ever seen in my life. A bit later, I'm outside with my grandma, and I ask her about the card from her sister. All she said to that was, "I don't talk to them no more." I asked why, and she tells me that they neglected to notify her when her brother died. She didn't know until three months later.
Then, she started talking about her brother. I wasn't asking her anything about it at this point--this is free-form grandma, and grandma doesn't talk much, and very rarely complains. She said he was her favorite, but he had a bad streak in him. She said he picked her up from school one day and got a ticket because he didn't stop for the school bus. And you know, I laugh, cause it's funny to me. And she laughs, and then tells me he didn't stop because he was trying to put his hand up her skirt.
"...and you know, I told him not to do that..."
My little sister, who was sitting there listening with me, audibly gasped. She looked at me for a cue, and I didn't have one. I just looked at her, wide-eyed.
All I had was confirmation that my happy childhood had only existed because all of them--my mother, grandmother, aunts and uncles, families by marriage and the like--had put us in the middle and made a human barrier to keep out the darkness. They were the Atlas that held my world on their shoulders. They'd all looked at it so we didn't have to.
Once you get to a certain age, you know or at least suspect as much. A few years ago, I started to see the reason why it's so hard to hold other people to my expectations: because everyone is from a different world, has had different struggles, and has seen different amounts of darkness. You don't know how warped they are, or if they've ever seen true darkness. Or if they've seen too much of it and can't trust anyone because of it.
Not all my memories of my grandma are good ones. She had it out for me when I was young, for reasons still kind of unclear. We'd stay at her house a lot, and she'd always accuse me of random offenses, like eating her lipstick. Furthermore, she'd make fun of me in public, or straight-up TRIP me when I was 7. She cackled like a demon, she thought it was so funny. The terrible thing was that I wanted her to love me more than anything. I'm sure she did, but when I was 7, that shit didn't feel like love.
She's clearly outgrown that phase, but after talking to her on Christmas, it occurred to me that maybe she resented her grandkids back then--just the tiniest, childish little bit--because growing up was made so easy for us. Paired with our generation's excellent complaining skills, she doesn't get it, and felt like she got the shaft. Why do we get nerf guns and hundreds of barbies while she grew up eating expired food from the restaurant her family lived behind? In the bitter cold Massachusetts winter, with an abusive alcoholic predator of a father? After the depression? WITH 8 SIBLINGS? I guess the least she could do was trip me in public to make me feel a slight smidgen of how painful growing up was for her.
Every Christmas feels more and more like "The Dead". All the kids leave, and the spirit dies, and all that's left is the old ones talking about their impending death like they'll put it in tomorrow's coffee.
27 December 2010
15 December 2010
on junkies
When I see the junkie at the gas station, while I'm dressed comfortably and freshly-showered, a little bit of my stomach sinks and starts fucking with my sense of well-being. An overwhelming sadness, with flecks of worry and fear. It's caused by the knowledge that a day in my life might come when I choose that path. Being a junkie doesn't just happen to people--they choose it, right? And I have those same choices to make in my own life.
I might be making them right now. My car needs gas, my rent is still unpaid, and I have this little itch in the back of my head. Yes, I want to get fucked up.
Oh God.
And then I think about God.
God, what soul would think of free will as a great gift to mankind? Perhaps, a soul who has never been among them, has not faced these choices every day, and instead sent his son to die at the hands of the junkies.
God begins to make no sense to me, though I'm not sure I really thought about it before. The junkie has "turned away from God", and as a kid, when I'd see a junkie, my mom told me that's why he was a junkie. Why?
I start to dissect the logic, and discover that there is none. And like most people, I do not have a clear grip on what God is. The Christians tell you that you aren't supposed to understand. God is a nebulous, celestial entity who created life, and gave the glorious burden of free will to humans alone. Not the cats, not the hamsters, but me. Me.
Perhaps God is a feeling that you get when a path is set in front of you, clear-cut, and you have no choice but to keep walking on it, and a large portion of the world accepts you and praises you for it. The pure kind of love that comes with security, acceptance, and peace of mind, often found in infants.
Perhaps Free Will is called a gift because that's the only way we can be happy about it at all.
Perhaps turning away from God is a feeling you get when you realize you can jump over the shrubs, scale the fence, get as far away from that path as you want to. Perhaps those "without god" know free will is not a gift, but a burden, because we have so many options. You could be a cabbie, rob a bank, breathe air atop Mount Fuji, or fall to your death. You realize you can do anything, and that there is no path.
Perhaps there is no God/Satan dialectic. Maybe it is the God/Free Will dialectic. The Set Path/Erratic Tumult.
The night after I saw the junkie at the gas station, the sinking churned my stomach into a restless, fruitless sleep, because all I thought about was how tomorrow's choices might land me begging in front of a gas station in five years, with my infected track marks and my decaying teeth. Of course I won't make those choices, I'm better than that, but there's no way to be sure.
All of a sudden, the road was littered with sinister pot-holes that I swore I'd never seen before. Maybe I'd just been overlooking them--is that how it starts? I wanted to go to my parents' house, my childhood home, my alma mater, with an urgency that I haven't felt since infancy, or what I imagined infancy felt like (Isn't it funny that we don't remember it? What God felt like?). I wanted to be coddled, to be told that I am a good person, and that I don't have it in me to end up like that.
But the thing is, I do have it in me. That's the God-damned truth.
And tomorrow, at any point, maybe sitting at a desk or in the middle of a phone call, that sinking shadow in my gut could crawl up into my stomach and start convulsing again, sprouting thick, scarred veins and a mugshot-worthy complexion. My safety net, hand-crafted out of questionable mythic materials, evaporated and I might be halfway to the bottom already. I'll hit the bottom before I realize there was never any safety net. I'm not any different from the Godless junkies.
Sometimes, I have these dreams. I'll be out with my friends at a bar, and we'll all be having fun. Then all of a sudden, I am a zombie. I cannot talk, walk, or function, and all I want is another of something. It doesn't matter what it is, the It is always variable. But I want it. Need it. After I turn into a zombie, I don't remember who I'm with or what is happening--only that I need another.
And I wake up so convinced that it happened, that I don't remember how it started. As if I blacked out. When I wake up from dreams like this, the sense of shame is almost unbearable. Sure, it was a dream. But in the back of my head, there's this itch.
I might be making them right now. My car needs gas, my rent is still unpaid, and I have this little itch in the back of my head. Yes, I want to get fucked up.
Oh God.
And then I think about God.
God, what soul would think of free will as a great gift to mankind? Perhaps, a soul who has never been among them, has not faced these choices every day, and instead sent his son to die at the hands of the junkies.
God begins to make no sense to me, though I'm not sure I really thought about it before. The junkie has "turned away from God", and as a kid, when I'd see a junkie, my mom told me that's why he was a junkie. Why?
I start to dissect the logic, and discover that there is none. And like most people, I do not have a clear grip on what God is. The Christians tell you that you aren't supposed to understand. God is a nebulous, celestial entity who created life, and gave the glorious burden of free will to humans alone. Not the cats, not the hamsters, but me. Me.
Perhaps God is a feeling that you get when a path is set in front of you, clear-cut, and you have no choice but to keep walking on it, and a large portion of the world accepts you and praises you for it. The pure kind of love that comes with security, acceptance, and peace of mind, often found in infants.
Perhaps Free Will is called a gift because that's the only way we can be happy about it at all.
Perhaps turning away from God is a feeling you get when you realize you can jump over the shrubs, scale the fence, get as far away from that path as you want to. Perhaps those "without god" know free will is not a gift, but a burden, because we have so many options. You could be a cabbie, rob a bank, breathe air atop Mount Fuji, or fall to your death. You realize you can do anything, and that there is no path.
Perhaps there is no God/Satan dialectic. Maybe it is the God/Free Will dialectic. The Set Path/Erratic Tumult.
The night after I saw the junkie at the gas station, the sinking churned my stomach into a restless, fruitless sleep, because all I thought about was how tomorrow's choices might land me begging in front of a gas station in five years, with my infected track marks and my decaying teeth. Of course I won't make those choices, I'm better than that, but there's no way to be sure.
All of a sudden, the road was littered with sinister pot-holes that I swore I'd never seen before. Maybe I'd just been overlooking them--is that how it starts? I wanted to go to my parents' house, my childhood home, my alma mater, with an urgency that I haven't felt since infancy, or what I imagined infancy felt like (Isn't it funny that we don't remember it? What God felt like?). I wanted to be coddled, to be told that I am a good person, and that I don't have it in me to end up like that.
But the thing is, I do have it in me. That's the God-damned truth.
And tomorrow, at any point, maybe sitting at a desk or in the middle of a phone call, that sinking shadow in my gut could crawl up into my stomach and start convulsing again, sprouting thick, scarred veins and a mugshot-worthy complexion. My safety net, hand-crafted out of questionable mythic materials, evaporated and I might be halfway to the bottom already. I'll hit the bottom before I realize there was never any safety net. I'm not any different from the Godless junkies.
Sometimes, I have these dreams. I'll be out with my friends at a bar, and we'll all be having fun. Then all of a sudden, I am a zombie. I cannot talk, walk, or function, and all I want is another of something. It doesn't matter what it is, the It is always variable. But I want it. Need it. After I turn into a zombie, I don't remember who I'm with or what is happening--only that I need another.
And I wake up so convinced that it happened, that I don't remember how it started. As if I blacked out. When I wake up from dreams like this, the sense of shame is almost unbearable. Sure, it was a dream. But in the back of my head, there's this itch.
09 December 2010
Ask Me To Pull Through
I feel sorry for my neighbor across the hall tonight. She's got company, and I absolutely must listen to the entire Ben Folds discography, including Ben Folds Five. In a few hours, she'll want to take an axe to my door, throw my cat out the window and destroy my hard drive via explosives. Ahh, too bad for her.
I took the mystery editor's freelance offer, despite my misgivings and disillusionment with journalism. I could say I did it for money--that's certainly part of it, but it doesn't account for the whole. I've been in a slump for the last month or so, not because of any particular reason, but rather...a lot of pixels come together and create a feeling of woe, like Poe's all-inclusive mood style. But the one thing that seems to consistently pull me out of it is directed writing. Not this blog--sometimes it helps to dump everything out, but this is not one of those times. In a way that has a lot to do with pride, I hate admitting it, but it's nice to have someone just tell me what to do. Especially when it's writing, and especially when I don't know what else to do.
And the assignment I just finished was one of the most intensive I've ever done. Definitely the most journalistic thing I've ever written, much different from the fluff pieces and movie reviews I've written in the last six months. It was hard, on several levels--the first being I only had 3.5 days to do the research and interviews necessary, the second being I was required to come to a conclusion after interviewing six people. Six people rarely come to a consensus, so the consensus had to be mine.
I know it doesn't sound like a tall order, but real-world-related writing that must conclude something is asking a lot. You really have to put yourself out there, and be okay knowing that someone's going to disagree with you vehemently. To someone like me, that's a billion times more terrifying than writing fiction, because it's real. Personally, I spend as little time in reality as possible. Therefore, my opinions about reality are often completely incorrect, and I go into it expecting everyone to disagree with me.
But I really needed an assignment. Something that was DUE. And when I finished at 8:47pm tonight, after four hours of dissecting, transcribing and deciphering recorded interviews, all I wanted to do was bask in the afterglow and eat a healthy meal.
I'm not going to think about it too hard. They pay well, anyway. I'm clearly just doing it for the money.
I took the mystery editor's freelance offer, despite my misgivings and disillusionment with journalism. I could say I did it for money--that's certainly part of it, but it doesn't account for the whole. I've been in a slump for the last month or so, not because of any particular reason, but rather...a lot of pixels come together and create a feeling of woe, like Poe's all-inclusive mood style. But the one thing that seems to consistently pull me out of it is directed writing. Not this blog--sometimes it helps to dump everything out, but this is not one of those times. In a way that has a lot to do with pride, I hate admitting it, but it's nice to have someone just tell me what to do. Especially when it's writing, and especially when I don't know what else to do.
And the assignment I just finished was one of the most intensive I've ever done. Definitely the most journalistic thing I've ever written, much different from the fluff pieces and movie reviews I've written in the last six months. It was hard, on several levels--the first being I only had 3.5 days to do the research and interviews necessary, the second being I was required to come to a conclusion after interviewing six people. Six people rarely come to a consensus, so the consensus had to be mine.
I know it doesn't sound like a tall order, but real-world-related writing that must conclude something is asking a lot. You really have to put yourself out there, and be okay knowing that someone's going to disagree with you vehemently. To someone like me, that's a billion times more terrifying than writing fiction, because it's real. Personally, I spend as little time in reality as possible. Therefore, my opinions about reality are often completely incorrect, and I go into it expecting everyone to disagree with me.
But I really needed an assignment. Something that was DUE. And when I finished at 8:47pm tonight, after four hours of dissecting, transcribing and deciphering recorded interviews, all I wanted to do was bask in the afterglow and eat a healthy meal.
I'm not going to think about it too hard. They pay well, anyway. I'm clearly just doing it for the money.
01 December 2010
The Saddest Christmas Story Ever
I've never been a huge fan of Christmas decorations. Well, I'll rephrase that--I've never been a fan of putting up Christmas decorations. I like other peoples' hard work and I like taking that drive to see all the pretty lights, but I've never actually put any effort into my own living space, aside from the plug-in fiber-optic mini-tree I bought last year. I don't think I could get away with calling that "effort".
This year, I find myself in a different sort of state. Last year, I was more or less financially secure, vaguely unhappy with myself and most things in my life. I shared this space with someone as lost as I was. We clung to each other to validate some stray path we'd both taken. It sounds kind of sad, and it is, but that kind of relationship is part of the human condition--experiencing that is necessary on the way to understanding the human soul. Or, my soul, anyway.
This year, I've nothing to cling to. My finances, while strict and disciplined, don't allow for much excess. It's a double-edged sword: while it can mortally wound me, it also cuts out all the excess that eventually makes me "sad without cause". Not having the money to buy the bag of cookies kinda makes the choice for you, you know?
This year, my life feels a bit like my room when I was a kid. I'd create modifications out of what I had on hand (example: I once made a speaker shelf out of an old plastic pencil case, hemp twine and duct tape), tied together with string and tiny bits of prayers I remember from childhood. Everything is so fragile. If I drop the ball, it all breaks to pieces, and this time I won't be able to glue them back together.
So I got a Christmas tree.
I didn't pay for it; it was the old fake tree my parents have been putting together for 14 years now. And even though it isn't a money tree, and it does not grow peace-of-mind pinecones, it has somehow glued the living room together.
I didn't have any ornaments or tinsel, or shiny breakable baubles to adorn it with, so of course I made some. Old CDs tied to the branches with hemp twine, a handmade dream catcher from JH, strips of mismatched fabric as bows. A Chinese takeout box with a light bulb inside as the topper. It really does look like my tree.
And I've been thinking a lot about it. Not just the tree, but the atmosphere of a widely-celebrated holiday. I'm not exactly a Christian; I'm not exactly a believer in anything outside of positivity. So why would a Christmas tree smooth over the rough spots? Bridge the gaps over abyssal sadnesses? It's not even a real tree.
I guess it could be as simple as, this is what's always happened around this time of year. There's always been a tree. Maybe it's just familiarity, like the ghost of something that once made me so excited I couldn't sleep.
I hear we spend our whole lives trying to get back to our care-free youth. Maybe, in a sense, the more care-free your youth is, the more lost you are when you grow up, because it doesn't exist outside of that. To get it back, you have to build it; shove over everything else in the real world and make room for it. And still, no matter how much hemp twine or scrap fabric I tie together, I'm never going to get it back, not really. It will always be the ghost of it--a smell, a warmth, but less than it was. A residual. Until I spawn my crotchfruit, of course; then I can re-create it for them, and weep a little inside when I see how happy they are. And I'll think, I remember that. I remember that.
The Christmas tree helps, though.
This year, I find myself in a different sort of state. Last year, I was more or less financially secure, vaguely unhappy with myself and most things in my life. I shared this space with someone as lost as I was. We clung to each other to validate some stray path we'd both taken. It sounds kind of sad, and it is, but that kind of relationship is part of the human condition--experiencing that is necessary on the way to understanding the human soul. Or, my soul, anyway.
This year, I've nothing to cling to. My finances, while strict and disciplined, don't allow for much excess. It's a double-edged sword: while it can mortally wound me, it also cuts out all the excess that eventually makes me "sad without cause". Not having the money to buy the bag of cookies kinda makes the choice for you, you know?
This year, my life feels a bit like my room when I was a kid. I'd create modifications out of what I had on hand (example: I once made a speaker shelf out of an old plastic pencil case, hemp twine and duct tape), tied together with string and tiny bits of prayers I remember from childhood. Everything is so fragile. If I drop the ball, it all breaks to pieces, and this time I won't be able to glue them back together.
So I got a Christmas tree.
I didn't pay for it; it was the old fake tree my parents have been putting together for 14 years now. And even though it isn't a money tree, and it does not grow peace-of-mind pinecones, it has somehow glued the living room together.
I didn't have any ornaments or tinsel, or shiny breakable baubles to adorn it with, so of course I made some. Old CDs tied to the branches with hemp twine, a handmade dream catcher from JH, strips of mismatched fabric as bows. A Chinese takeout box with a light bulb inside as the topper. It really does look like my tree.
And I've been thinking a lot about it. Not just the tree, but the atmosphere of a widely-celebrated holiday. I'm not exactly a Christian; I'm not exactly a believer in anything outside of positivity. So why would a Christmas tree smooth over the rough spots? Bridge the gaps over abyssal sadnesses? It's not even a real tree.
I guess it could be as simple as, this is what's always happened around this time of year. There's always been a tree. Maybe it's just familiarity, like the ghost of something that once made me so excited I couldn't sleep.
I hear we spend our whole lives trying to get back to our care-free youth. Maybe, in a sense, the more care-free your youth is, the more lost you are when you grow up, because it doesn't exist outside of that. To get it back, you have to build it; shove over everything else in the real world and make room for it. And still, no matter how much hemp twine or scrap fabric I tie together, I'm never going to get it back, not really. It will always be the ghost of it--a smell, a warmth, but less than it was. A residual. Until I spawn my crotchfruit, of course; then I can re-create it for them, and weep a little inside when I see how happy they are. And I'll think, I remember that. I remember that.
The Christmas tree helps, though.
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