The Word Means Something Damn It!

Last weekend I cried in my car like a girl.

Last weekend I realized that the problem was me.

Last weekend I defined what the word friend means when I use it to describe my relationship with someone else.

Today I’m still reeling.

I avoided Facebook for the longest time because of the way they used the word friend. While it’s nice to catch up with the fellow elementary school outcasts [1] and fun to see where the non-Tony winners of my high school graduating class have landed [2]; those people aren’t my friends. They are people I knew. They are people I worked with on a project or six. They are people I sat in front of or behind while learning how to diagram a sentence [3]. Yes, I consider some of the people I’m linked to on Facebook to be my friend; but, for the most part, they’re just people I know.

I’ve heard people speak of best friends, casual friends, and more variations that I never remember. For me, however, there are not shades of friend [4]. If I’m going to call you friend, I have to like you, I have to be willing to call you when I’m in need and I have to know that I’m someone you think of wanting to do stuff with even when I’m not in the room.

The last bit’s the kicker. Realizing that the last bit didn’t apply for some people I really wanted to consider friends broke my heart last weekend.

I struggle to know that I belong. I fight everyday to believe that I’m lovable. For the last ten days, I’ve been learning to accept that these people are going to be pals and not friends. More importantly I keep reminding myself that ‘status’ is a function of where all of us are holistically, not a commentary on my failures as a human being.

I considered asking the internets if I was wrong to want the word friend to mean something. Then I said screw it. To me the word means something extremely specific. What you say it means doesn’t really matter in the universe that revolves around me.

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[1] The bonus was realizing we turned out pretty damn well.
[2] Well, the eighty or so of them I could actually identify.
[3] Which, I have long since forgotten.
[4] Oddly enough, once a friend it’s hard to become unfriended. Even when you move back to Germany and I don’t see you for twenty years.

A Definition of Sorts

I’ve heard enough stories told to know two things about people. First, everyone has their own personal version of hell. Second, most of us have lived it.

My hell is being unseen and overlooked. In it, I am invisible and my screams are silent. I am expected to help in any way I see possible, excel without acknowledgment, and stay out of the way. My connections to my peers are hampered by my personal oddities and my disconnection from popular culture. If I want anything beyond the food, roof and clothing the only person I can count on is me. [1]

To me, my hell seems small and minor. Professionals and friends alike have told me that it was real. They’ve even told me that the horrors are still horrors even though I found ways to work within or around some of the obstacles of the hell. Strangely enough, after only eight years of therapy, I’m starting to believe it.

I look at the loneliness of my childhood and see safety rules, little violence, no sexual assaults and a parent that cared and wonder why much of that period feels so painful. Scattered like little points of light thought my youth are moments of knowing I was loved and had a place to belong too. Those bright spots make me feel guilty for complaining about so much gray. The “You were four…” argument still holds little sway. Moreover, if I managed to cope and adapt by developing a sharp tongue and a bitch of a public face what does it matter?

It matters because I don’t want to be known as a sharp tongued bitch. I want to be known for standing up for those things I believe; but, I don’t want to be seen as inflexible [2] or unpleasant. More importantly, I don’t want to be angry/frustrated all of the time. For years, I walked around with an elevated baseline level of anger. When I begin the day with annoyance [3], it takes minor amounts of inconvenience to cause a meltdown.

It matters because I don’t want to spend my life exhausted. I’ve accepted that I’m an introvert. I need time to process. I find large groups [4] or crowds for more than three hours to be energy sucks. More than the interacting with people though, keeping the reigns on the anger drains me.

The psychic wounds of the hell I lived through continue to damage me. They infest the waking moments of my life that I most want to cherish with disconnection and discord.

Tomorrow morning when the alarm sounds for the third time, I’ll pull myself out of bed while promising myself a nap later [5]. I will face the day. I will acknowledge that I hurt. I will know that the day after tomorrow may be better.

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[1] The foundation of this hell was set long before Squid ever came along. I’m grateful for him. He made the whole thing much easier to identify.
[2] Emotionally or mentally that is; I’ve never been physically flexible. I think mooning the world on the way in used all my flexibility.
[3] The day doesn’t begin until after the bathing. Really. If annoyance at the alarm determined my daily mood, I’d be dead by now.
[4] Large groups = more than six people.
[5] I’ve been promising myself a nap since middle school. The nap doesn’t happen much any more; but the ritual continues.

People Too...

I cut school during high school pep assemblies. Regularly. In addition to the crowds and the noise, the idea of building up a community by encouraging the ‘squashing’ of an opposing community never made me feel good about being in the room. Were the kids at Snider, not people too? Did their efforts to play a mean game of roundball deserve the disdain of 2,000+ students attending another school?

I get teams. I’ve been a member of teams. While I’ve never been a star, I’ve served as part of the back bone on more than one team. (Without stepping foot on the court, I have a middle school basketball letter to prove it.) I’ve always viewed sport, much the same way I approached the speech team - as a skills challenge. The team with the best set of skills on a given day in a given field of play wins. My performance on the field (or in the classroom) depended entirely on my day.

I don’t get the culture around teams. The need of fans to paint the guys [1] on the other side as evil, as bad, or as less than human turns my stomach. It makes me crawl away from competition. It disgusts me to be associated to such dehumanizing behavior.

I know, it doesn’t seem like alot. That tiger you have noosed and dragging behind your car is just stuffed and you’re not hurting anyone’s feelings. As spectators, do we even acknowledge that the guys on the other side of the field are humans? They might dress differently; they might think differently; heck, they might think differently; but, they’re still humans. While they chose a different school than you did, they bleed when you prick them. Your disrespect of a stuffed tiger becomes your commentary on their choice.

These aren’t big things, and to some they’re probably don’t even register. I wonder how we can even have civil discourse in a culture that seeks to indoctrinate students, young and old, in an US verses THEM mentality. When it comes to facing the big issues we feel powerless about, US verses THEM complicates an already nuanced debate.

While the bulk of the post doesn’t directly respond to Representative Joe Wilson’s actions in Congress last night [2], it is in large part about it. Mainly because, it’s possible that the competitive nature forced in pep rallies bleeds into adulthood in unacknowledged ways.

Representative Wilson, my questions to you are: so what if President Obama lied? [3] Are illegal immigrants not people too? Is humanity only imparted upon the recognition of the state? Does the lack of being born or naturalized as a United States citizen mean that other humans should be treated as less than humans and left to die outside of hospitals? Are we, the tax paying insurance buying citizens, not already paying for the medical bills of illegal immigrants? Is looking out for those less fortunate than ourselves not a tenant of the Christian faith?

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[1] Guys is used generically, in a non-gendered manner.
[2] It’s behavior that my flatmate would call tacky; I would call it rude. But then, I think the clapping and ovating is rude. Let the man speak.
[3] I recognize that presidental lying is a big deal. It is not however, the focus of this piece.

Having Something to Say

I don’t feel like I have anything to say.

No, that’s not entirely true.

I have things to say.

I don’t feel like having an argument. I don’t feel like saying the same things for the fifth time. I don’t feel like banging my head against walls that are already solidified.

This country faces major issues. Systems providing and paying for health care in this country suck. Regulations keeping banking and financial institutions in check fail. Laws encouraging environment awareness in corporation and citizens bulldozed.

I look at these large issues and back away because there are so many moving parts. At roughly 3.79 million square miles and 307 million people [1], the balancing act between the marketplace, the regulators and the bottom line boggles the mind. As I look at the big picture issues, I get lost between pie in the sky wishes of how things would work and the bottom line. Wondering in the haze of these big issues, I ignore them, because my tiny voice seems so feeble.

On the other hand, we’ve been fighting contractors lately over material choices. The type of hold-down you use in a three story building is a function of my engineering judgement. I feel like a bitch every time I say no. I hate having the same conversation over, and over, and over again [2]. If I want to sleep at night, these fights I fight.

I’m only one person; but, contractors hear me roar.

Tonight, I have nothing to say. I was at class during President Obama’s speech. You aren’t a contractor [3]. And, I’m more than ready to take a nap.

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[1] I looked it up.
[2] Usually, the repetitive conversations are with Bossman and not the contractor.
[3] At least not one I knowingly work ‘with’ from time to time.

Sayin' Goodbye to a Building

In the silence that marked much of the last year or so, my mother got re-married to The New Guy. While The New Guy doesn’t feel like a bad guy, he presence has added serious strain to the three person family unit that formed after Dad died. Things involving The New Guy have been happening fast. Or, at least at a pace that seems like fast from here. They started dating in July of last year, were engaged by September and married just after Christmas. Around May sometime, it was decided that they wouldn’t be spending another winter in Indiana.

So, for the long weekend, I road tripped home to the suburb of cornfields to say goodbye to a building.The New Homestead is going cease being a place I can attach roots too just as soon as they can sell it. I’ve never actually been more than a visitor to the house Mom had built just as I graduated college; but, some part of me had accepted the moving of my ‘roots’  five miles north-ish as the crow flies. This single story house with the nearly white carpets and the amazing ability to give me a nose bleed provided me a great retreat. I could visit, chat, and sleep without feeling like too much of a lazy bum. Oddly enough, it still felt like home without any house specific memories.

Now, the only reason I have to go back to the suburb of cornfields will be for funerals where I’ll once again be introduced to family members I couldn’t pick out of a lineup. I’m sad to loose the link to where my roots are. I don’t ever want to live there again; but having direct ties to a place that felt like home provided an almost tangible grounding in reality.

Wishy-Wanty

Recently, I gave a friend of mine a difficult time regarding her attitude toward some of her distant relation. What followed was a mini-rant on not having much respect for people who speak in terms of “I wish …; but, …”. [1] The conversation moved on to other topics when she concluded; but, I found my frustration with the attitude following me home.

It took a couple of miles of speed limit driving to find the irritation. For me, wants and wishes are two very distinct things. Wants fall along the rough life plan - those things that someday want to be a part of my life and still believe to some degree that it can happen. Providing I do the work or get dealt a good hand one day I just might teach high school math or even get married. Wishes, on the other hand, are the parts of the life plan that have fallen away - either due to reality, or the consequences of previously made choices. I will not grow to 5’-6” tall [2] nor will I see my father again [3].

And while I’ll never really know if others make the same distinction between the words wish and want - I assume they do. So the “I wish …; but, …” construction doesn’t bother me. I even find it comforting if their “but” aligns with where I think that train derailed, as if we actually live in the same reality.

So, now knowing where the disconnect is, I can release this little difference and move forward.

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1. I know the punctuation is all fouled up. I apologize; but, am not sorry.
2. Those darned genetics.
3. OK, maybe with the help of psychotropic drugs.

From Where?

I am from a suburb of cornfields; a mid-sized town in the middle of the midwest. A landscape informed by hot summer days and frigid winter nights. I am from entertaining myself for the twenty minute walk to and from school. Both sides of an argument becoming apparent as I told my stories.

I am from raspberry picken’ and rhubarb cuttin’. Making canning and freezing a way of life. I am from velveta macaroni and cheese and burnt hamburgers. Making onion-cinnamon spaghetti and forgetting about those leftovers.

I am from a two-story cape cod with an burnt orange front door. For a while there, a great navigational landmark. I am from being kicked outside “cause it’s too nice to stay indoors.” Gracefulness yielding summers full of bruised knees, scraped elbows and the occasional black eye.

I am from solving for X. Finding peace and comfort that there is a right answer, even if it was just within a limited range of circumstances. I am from breakfast for dinner and when ever else we could squeeze manage. The first lessons in breaking stupid rules seeming so innocent.

I am from Sue and George, Avis and Larry, Grandpa B and Grandma B. I am Squid’s dedicated pain in the ass. I was Buffy’s afternoon napping partner. I am from throwing sarcasm around to indicate feeling. Any feeling at all.

I am from going in the same door you went out. Yes, even if you have to walk around the house to get there. I am from preparing for a fire and sleeping sideways on a bed. In by the street lights and tucked away by nine - no matter the season.

I am from chasing fireflys and picking up acorns. Planting in cast iron pots - another art I’ve lost. I am from music as background noise. Making a joyful noise as enjoy the acoustical benefits of tile.

I am from perversely independent as the only lifestyle choice. Expecting shit to go bad is always so healthy and so much fun. I am from dinner as a family, even if you don’t say anything. I never did learn how to sit in a chair ‘properly’.

I am from driving alone at sixteen, one month and one day. Darkness fell early in winter. I am from riding my bike to Hooks without telling anyone. And falling off my bike in the middle school parking lot.

I am from getting up in the morning even if it makes you want to cry. There are people out there expecting your very best. I am from brave smiles and happy faces.Which never seemed to fool anyone.

I am from the yearbook and the speech team. How much time you have to get there becoming more important than the presence of a plan. I am from the generalized geeks. Never stepping too far off of any one cliff.

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inspired by Kathy Howe

Sounding Like Me

A couple of weeks ago Dr. Snit and I sat with her Young Man on the upper deck of Six Feet Under an enjoyed conversation over dinner. Well, most of the conversation anyway. Toward the end of dinner we ended up in a heated discussion with at least three different layers. The crux of the issue was Young Man blowing off a reading recommendation for his senior thesis because he didn’t want what someone else wrote to influence his fictional voice. Leaving aside the writing of a fictional piece for a senior thesis and the associated scholarship issues, doesn’t everything you read or do inform your writing voice in the moment of writing?

Young Man switched from the creative writing program to religious studies because he felt that reading and understanding dead white guys, like Shakespeare, would adversely mess with his writing style. I understand how immersing yourself in the writings of someone else could, for a time, change how you approach writing a sentence or setting up a thought exercise; but, don’t those small changes to form reflect your life in the moment? Young Man’s desire to be considered a good writer without knowing who’s company he kept bothered me most about the whole conversation. There are many good writers, and many of them learned their skills through other traditions; but, I don’t understand why one would purposely avoid them when given the opportunity to learn from what has gone before.

Large swaths of Quo Vado? are about my voice, what I have to say and how I need to say it. When I’m borrowing a style or approach from someone else, the thoughts still mine. You won’t often find me framing my thoughts in iambic pentameter; but, when you do, they’ll still be my thoughts twisted to fit the form in my own way. As I read through the archives, I’m struck how what I wrote three years ago, doesn’t sound like me anymore. I’ve grown. I’ve experienced new things. My voice has grown with me. Even with the influence of Shakespeare.

Just Stuff On the Shelf

I cleaned out the trunks yesterday. I’ll drop the trunks and the bulk of the stuff in them at the Goodwill later today. In my youth, I collected small dog and Precious Moment figures. As I went through the boxes, I realized that to me, it was just stuff, I’ve been hauling them around and storing them for years. These little figures had no memories attached, they didn’t connect me specifically to any one point in my life.

I saved one of the dogs. She’s not the prettiest, or the best made of the bunch. She’s the very first one. Grams encouraged me to pick a figure off of that stained 1x shelf. There were a number of small bronze animals, I chose the little dog pretending to sleep. Unlike the other figures in the collection, I chose that piece for myself. For a few moments, I was permitted to want something and encouraged to speak up about it.

The dogs make me think of all the things I’ve disappointed Mom with by not wanting. The house I grew up in had it’s fair share of stuff that used to be owned by one relative or another. Pipes, watches, bottles, and furniture all owned and some made by people I never knew. I’ve been asked numerous times if I wanted any of it. For the most part, I’ve declined.

I’ve claimed three pieces. The rocking chair I love, a beautiful chest of drawers and this all wall hanging of Grandma B’s. Those three pieces, along with a child’s roll top desk (scarred by me), a blanket and a box will remain touchstones to the past. Little reminders of where I’ve been, enough to keep a connection to the past but not overwhelm the present.

Willful Ignorance

Music never served as more than background noise in my youth; today, I remain clueless about the technicalities of music by choice. I purposely remain what Dr. Snit’s Young Man describes as willfully ignorant. Endeavoring to remain uneducated about the topic and allowing myself to enjoy the music that speaks to me without the ‘noise’ of technically based evaluations in the background thoughts.

I don’t understand music. I cannot tell you why something worked, or didn’t. I cannot tell you if what I just heard qualified as ‘good’, or didn’t. I cannot tell you that the music I just heard matches the notation on the sheet music in front of me, or didn’t.

I can tell you that I love the piano, vocal harmonies and great hooks.

For all that I avoid ‘formal’ education, I love music. It somehow manages to uplift and ground simultaneously, to connect me to mute feelings, and make me dance (badly). The thought of living without music scares the tar out of me, and I’m not going to look closer to find out why.

A Little Lush Anyone?

I think I have a problem. For someone professing to care not so much, I do have a serious amount of product.

Learning to Count

Some little things you may (or may not) know about me.

1. I don’t like wearing pants. Seriously. They’re the second things off when I get in the door.
2. I have never had hair long enough for a pony tail - even one of those stubby ones.
3. I once got busted with ten other people for co-ed clothed showering. We didn’t get sited because we were stone cold sober.
4. I gave myself a clean bathroom as a birthday present today. It would have been more of a present if I hadn’t done the cleaning myself.
5. I drive with the palms of my hands about seventy percent of the time.
6. The local breakfast place is where I learned to branch out when looking at a menu.
7. I refuse to determine how many sets of Birkenstocks I own.
8. My brain won’t slow down enough to make baths relaxing.
9. If I can’t see something, the likelihood that I’ll forget it increases tenfold.
10. I love simple deserts.

34 Years Survived

I’m roughly eight hours away from the to the minute anniversary of my birth; but, I can’t believe how grateful I am to have survived another year. Amazingly enough, the thirty-fifth year begins on an upswing. Quite by accident, I’ve found a group of people I can be myself around more comfortably than I ever have before. I might get let go from my job because of an anemic work load; forcing me into that second career I’ve talked about for seven years. And, I’ve recommitted to writing something everyday.

As I move forward, I plan to actively work to expand the paradigm beyond the approach taken in the last thirty years. My life could be easily described in ten words.

Survival: it’s what I do. Life: it’s what I dream.

I live a charmed life. There’s a roof over my head. Good food graces my table. I walk in relative safety where ever I go. Yet, for so long I’ve hidden from the people in an attempt to keep the pain at bay. It didn’t work. The pain came anyway; it haunted the waking and sleeping moments.

So, I take this marked moment, to try once again to break free from the habits of the past, to jump into the deep end, to actually make a stab at making the last five words Life: it’s what I savor.