Be good to each other. Even if for the memory of people you never met. To fill the heartache of survivors, of onlookers, of remains that have never been picked up because they couldn't be identified; honor each other.
Life is, in fact, hard.
And some anniversaries remind you of that.
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
Some Kind of Perpetual State.
I'm in a worrying phase.
I don't know if fear is the right word anymore. It's very passive, blase. The definition just doesn't accurately summarize the empty ache I've been carrying in my right hand. The ever-present flutter of my outermost lash. That shit is bugging me. Fear seems so... fearful. Inactive. Lazily present.
And perhaps that ain't what I'm feeling. Worry seems lame too. Anxiety is too much of a diagnosis. I'm not there yet. No.
I been thinking about those closest to me. My mother, my lover, my child, few others. My legit-short list.
Some thoughts get more of my attention than does my work, my play, court-tv.
Some get more of my anxiety than others. It's the difference between lost sleep over love, and lost footing over a misplaced doll. It's a new kind of math, perhaps. Some things simply can be more easily over-come.
Out-run. Over-thought. #shit.
But... I won't be long-winded this go round and I need progress.
I think it'ssafe accurate to say: I'm feeling a certain kind of way.
My mom is too skinny. My job is a job. My man is uncertain. My child is observant. My ... other stuff too. Some ain't bad. This ain't (that) bad.
But I'm feeling some kind of way.
Right now. Today.
I don't know if fear is the right word anymore. It's very passive, blase. The definition just doesn't accurately summarize the empty ache I've been carrying in my right hand. The ever-present flutter of my outermost lash. That shit is bugging me. Fear seems so... fearful. Inactive. Lazily present.
And perhaps that ain't what I'm feeling. Worry seems lame too. Anxiety is too much of a diagnosis. I'm not there yet. No.
I been thinking about those closest to me. My mother, my lover, my child, few others. My legit-short list.
Some thoughts get more of my attention than does my work, my play, court-tv.
Some get more of my anxiety than others. It's the difference between lost sleep over love, and lost footing over a misplaced doll. It's a new kind of math, perhaps. Some things simply can be more easily over-come.
Out-run. Over-thought. #shit.
But... I won't be long-winded this go round and I need progress.
I think it's
My mom is too skinny. My job is a job. My man is uncertain. My child is observant. My ... other stuff too. Some ain't bad. This ain't (that) bad.
But I'm feeling some kind of way.
Right now. Today.
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
Baggage.
I hate that word, effing baggage. Hated it most in the months nearing Valentine's days, anniversaries with (now) exes, in conversations with friends as we scoured the bony remains of an ex-to-be. "that [expletive + adjective + noun] had baggage..."
I certainly had baggage. And so, I'd hold my nose up sheepishly. Pretend whomever we were ranting about really wasn't shit. A hater, even. Guffaw.
I'd cringe hearing the phrase when given my "it's not you, it's me speech" by whatever long-legged wave cap wearer I was in love with at any given moment, explaining how my clingyness was the sole contributor of our demise. Most times it wasn't. Most times however, they were right, at least, about my baggage; my clingyness.
Baggage pretty much sucks. It inhibits relationships to come; professional, personal, and if these relationships ever occur at all. Sometimes they scare love away. Sometimes it ain't the love you needed it to be anyway. Sometimes though, a love that could have been. A love that should have been.
In the height of Mummi's illness (1987, or thereabouts), she had this thing going on about race, ethnicity and separation. I listened as she explained what sounded like the creation story. She wanted me to get that I belonged in a certain place, with certain people. She wanted me to earn discernment, community. Kind of. She wanted me to understand placehood, a genre of being. Kind of. She interpreted hierarchy in race, class and wanted to put me in a safe place. Perhaps that was it mostly.
She also had a theory on relationships. I'll spare this story simply to say: it would have been a dangerous path if I stayed at home, spent my adolescence as a prophet of this kind of reality. I was made for more.
Reminder: Mummi wasn't on meds. She was again in a heightened state.Some All of her analogies were off. Confusing. And I was young. Small. Struggling. I accepted what she had to say as a type of truth. The best she could muster. It involved self-loathe of blackness, self-loathe of mixedness, self-loathe of bilingualism. And a promotion of all three at once. I accepted it in that way that a small child accepts the words of his/her mother.
I gauged that perhaps every third word of her relationship theory could have been right, maybe. I sheared her story of it's violence, it's sexual shame, its fearfulness. I extracted what seemed to be the most approachable of her analogy as truth. Clingyness seemed ok enough. Maybe that was how a woman should be.
I accepted her other truths, the ones about race and class, embarrassedly. I deferred to others who were "blacker", "more mixed", more functionally bi/trilingual. There was nearly no room for me to be enough of much. This feeling of not-enough-ed-ness evolved into fear of those who were enough. I moved away from Mummi and to a more homogenous environment that was nearly entirely black. I went to a school that was nearly entirely white. I was so uncool in both places I became self concious about clapping off-beat and speaking grammatically incorrect, depending upon where I was, with whom, when. No one wants to be an oreo.
Race became my baggage until it became my obsession/fascination. Relationships remained a curious thing. They still are. Even as I've grown up and into myself.
My arms get tired, all this damn baggage. I accept that I'm still working through what I learned en route.
And it aint Mummi's fault. It kind of can't be. But its my baggage. Mine.
And someday I hope I get it right. Drop it off, and move the hell on.
I certainly had baggage. And so, I'd hold my nose up sheepishly. Pretend whomever we were ranting about really wasn't shit. A hater, even. Guffaw.
I'd cringe hearing the phrase when given my "it's not you, it's me speech" by whatever long-legged wave cap wearer I was in love with at any given moment, explaining how my clingyness was the sole contributor of our demise. Most times it wasn't. Most times however, they were right, at least, about my baggage; my clingyness.
Baggage pretty much sucks. It inhibits relationships to come; professional, personal, and if these relationships ever occur at all. Sometimes they scare love away. Sometimes it ain't the love you needed it to be anyway. Sometimes though, a love that could have been. A love that should have been.
In the height of Mummi's illness (1987, or thereabouts), she had this thing going on about race, ethnicity and separation. I listened as she explained what sounded like the creation story. She wanted me to get that I belonged in a certain place, with certain people. She wanted me to earn discernment, community. Kind of. She wanted me to understand placehood, a genre of being. Kind of. She interpreted hierarchy in race, class and wanted to put me in a safe place. Perhaps that was it mostly.
She also had a theory on relationships. I'll spare this story simply to say: it would have been a dangerous path if I stayed at home, spent my adolescence as a prophet of this kind of reality. I was made for more.
Reminder: Mummi wasn't on meds. She was again in a heightened state.
I gauged that perhaps every third word of her relationship theory could have been right, maybe. I sheared her story of it's violence, it's sexual shame, its fearfulness. I extracted what seemed to be the most approachable of her analogy as truth. Clingyness seemed ok enough. Maybe that was how a woman should be.
I accepted her other truths, the ones about race and class, embarrassedly. I deferred to others who were "blacker", "more mixed", more functionally bi/trilingual. There was nearly no room for me to be enough of much. This feeling of not-enough-ed-ness evolved into fear of those who were enough. I moved away from Mummi and to a more homogenous environment that was nearly entirely black. I went to a school that was nearly entirely white. I was so uncool in both places I became self concious about clapping off-beat and speaking grammatically incorrect, depending upon where I was, with whom, when. No one wants to be an oreo.
Race became my baggage until it became my obsession/fascination. Relationships remained a curious thing. They still are. Even as I've grown up and into myself.
My arms get tired, all this damn baggage. I accept that I'm still working through what I learned en route.
And it aint Mummi's fault. It kind of can't be. But its my baggage. Mine.
And someday I hope I get it right. Drop it off, and move the hell on.
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
Vacationing on Vacation.
We went away. Far and away... well, kind of.
Our unit-of-three vacated Mass for warmer climes... no seriously, we went to Disneyworld in FL in the DEAD of Hot-As-Hell-Hurricaine Season. *Wiping sweat thinking of it.
Ask me how it was.
Ok, wait. First, lemme provide some background you may, if you're a semi-reader of this blog, already know or be able to appropriately assume:
1. I am 31.
2. Our daughter is 2 (and fresh).
3. I've never been to Disneyworld.
4. I've got that "bad", "good" "kinky" in-between hair.
5. I've developed an affinity toward Princess Tiana.
So effing what. Lots of folks, parents in their 30s haven't taken their fresh ass kids to WD. And who cares about a friggin princess... Well, in all my 30+ kinky-headed years, ain't a one of them princesses been brown, had two jobs, missed a parent with her whole heart, or set an example for always aiming to do the right thing, if self-righteously so. It's an understatement to say: I get you girl.
I grew up in a time when kids, brown kids on brown kids, called each other African Booty Scratcher. That ish is funny, but it ain't. And if you're part-time homeless, or look like you might-could scratch your booty (as um, I'm assuming I did as a fuzzy headed part-time homeless kid) brown princesses, or some other animated or real character maintaining the whole you are somebody steez would have been a great aside.
In any event, I cried, and I'm a crier, so I cry-cried at the meeting of said princess, and at the parade when my daughter; a child who lives a very different life than my own, received a full-faced smile and hug from said character.
I cried when we got on the plane and I realized I was going somewhere not out of necessity, or for work, or in running away, but for whimsy.
I cried when I realized how thoughtful the place was; sitting under a shorn hedge shaped like Minnie Mouse. Not a heavy cry, but a whimper.
I cried a little at the beach, at the silence of the shoreline, no houses blocking the view of the sea.
And, perhaps not as much as I cried at the castle, I held a heavy lump in my chest that this is an experience my parents likely will never, ever experience. And part of me doesn't know what to do with all this "understanding". I got a full two weeks of it.
Perhaps I'll learn more at the cusp of my next vacation to Disney World.
Which, I'm hoping is next year.
XO
D
Our unit-of-three vacated Mass for warmer climes... no seriously, we went to Disneyworld in FL in the DEAD of Hot-As-Hell-Hurricaine Season. *Wiping sweat thinking of it.
Ask me how it was.
Ok, wait. First, lemme provide some background you may, if you're a semi-reader of this blog, already know or be able to appropriately assume:
1. I am 31.
2. Our daughter is 2 (and fresh).
3. I've never been to Disneyworld.
4. I've got that "bad", "good" "kinky" in-between hair.
5. I've developed an affinity toward Princess Tiana.
So effing what. Lots of folks, parents in their 30s haven't taken their fresh ass kids to WD. And who cares about a friggin princess... Well, in all my 30+ kinky-headed years, ain't a one of them princesses been brown, had two jobs, missed a parent with her whole heart, or set an example for always aiming to do the right thing, if self-righteously so. It's an understatement to say: I get you girl.
I grew up in a time when kids, brown kids on brown kids, called each other African Booty Scratcher. That ish is funny, but it ain't. And if you're part-time homeless, or look like you might-could scratch your booty (as um, I'm assuming I did as a fuzzy headed part-time homeless kid) brown princesses, or some other animated or real character maintaining the whole you are somebody steez would have been a great aside.
In any event, I cried, and I'm a crier, so I cry-cried at the meeting of said princess, and at the parade when my daughter; a child who lives a very different life than my own, received a full-faced smile and hug from said character.
I cried when we got on the plane and I realized I was going somewhere not out of necessity, or for work, or in running away, but for whimsy.
I cried when I realized how thoughtful the place was; sitting under a shorn hedge shaped like Minnie Mouse. Not a heavy cry, but a whimper.
I cried a little at the beach, at the silence of the shoreline, no houses blocking the view of the sea.
And, perhaps not as much as I cried at the castle, I held a heavy lump in my chest that this is an experience my parents likely will never, ever experience. And part of me doesn't know what to do with all this "understanding". I got a full two weeks of it.
Perhaps I'll learn more at the cusp of my next vacation to Disney World.
Which, I'm hoping is next year.
XO
D
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
Status Update; I know who or how I am. #perhaps.
A blog aint a place to revise your status, or your e-bio, but it is today. Cause I'm feeling down. Cause I'm feeling in betwixt places. Because well... because.
I like to think of myself as accomplished, if moderately so. You're entitled to think otherwise, but it won't matter much. This here is mine, my otherwise.
And so, otherwisingly so, I am: a Simmons/Lesley/Tufts woman. An educated micro-economic-maximizer. A failed spend-thrift. An easily agitated-yes man. I have big legs and a wide smile. My forehead is without wrinkles (yet). I frown often and hold uncompromising grudges. I smile sheepishly. I am intermittent. I work less to change that than I did when I was young enough to agenda set my growth.
I like to think of myself as: a writer. An emotional and emotive logician. A love-hating lover.
Mostly cause (that latter at least), I knew love former and fleeting, semi-permanent and pushy. I've known love lazy. Indulgent. Too curious and intense for its own good.
I've known angry love too. He was a hard one, him. I've known love gentle/nervous. He was a hard one, him.
I've both known and shared mother-love. It's hard, harder, hardest sometimes. Like now. Right-very-much-now.
But I can say in the end I knew love.
And so that makes iteasier, demandingly difficult and necessary to be love.
(perhaps) I say whisperingly.
Perhaps.
And there really ain't much left to report besides that.
I like to think of myself as accomplished, if moderately so. You're entitled to think otherwise, but it won't matter much. This here is mine, my otherwise.
And so, otherwisingly so, I am: a Simmons/Lesley/Tufts woman. An educated micro-economic-maximizer. A failed spend-thrift. An easily agitated-yes man. I have big legs and a wide smile. My forehead is without wrinkles (yet). I frown often and hold uncompromising grudges. I smile sheepishly. I am intermittent. I work less to change that than I did when I was young enough to agenda set my growth.
I like to think of myself as: a writer. An emotional and emotive logician. A love-hating lover.
Mostly cause (that latter at least), I knew love former and fleeting, semi-permanent and pushy. I've known love lazy. Indulgent. Too curious and intense for its own good.
I've known angry love too. He was a hard one, him. I've known love gentle/nervous. He was a hard one, him.
I've both known and shared mother-love. It's hard, harder, hardest sometimes. Like now. Right-very-much-now.
But I can say in the end I knew love.
And so that makes it
(perhaps) I say whisperingly.
Perhaps.
And there really ain't much left to report besides that.
Friday, July 22, 2011
Heat waves, brown outs, dead cats & other crude accompaniments to life
It’s hot as hell.
I mean, damn near. Which causes me to question, how folks in “other” countries do this. I mean, we don’t have flies in the eye crevices kind of thing (not to poke fun, but seriously, we don’t) and so why am I nearly dragging myself from air conditioned point A to B, particularly during my un-air-conditioned moments (which last approximately 3 minutes at most) so painfully.
When it gets hot like this, and its been in the upper 90s with a ridic amount of humidity for days (save me), I get worried about black outs/brown outs and just not having any damn access to the AC. And less for me than my parents.
This fear is a lot less superficial than it sounds. I’m not (necessarily) worried about getting hot, or my daughter or boo sweating it out, but my parents. My father is a macho man. I’m sure even if he woke up one day on the tippiest top of the sun he’d not say a damn thing about it being hot. He’d probably just say, Boston drawl drawling: Whaddya-gonnnnna-do. Ehhhh? And he’d be right. Nothing.
But I remember when my mom was, for the first time in my life hospitalized. It was the summer before 5th grade. We’d received her “summons” letter that essentially said, hi, you’ve been abusing your kid. We have concluded you’re mental. It be best for you to come in, stay here, and said kid will live elsewhere. It was hot that day too. Or I was. Whichever.
So we walked the 1.3 miles south-west to what was then Mass Mental. I was sweating. We left our two cats Kitten (Pepper as her gov’t name) and Lady (she was my fav). Mummi was admitted and I became a temporary ward of the state. Hot.
Fast forward two weeks. I stop bed-wetting. My grandmother’s AC hits me perfectly from my new spot on the couch. A light bulb goes off when the dust in my 9 year old mind starts to settle: My cats!
Anxiety is reintroduced.
I quake, nearly sieze. I need to get my cats out of the apartment, get them fed, watered. It will ruin my mother. They were my only friends, hers. Our only “things”. Forces rally slowly. We return to Huntington Avenue. We walk up the two steep flights. My father enters first, solemnly as if he’s (again) failed me. Motions authoritatively, the way a man who is 6’5 can, that I should remain outside. I push past him. Hell, I’m 9 and I love my cats. I expect them to be dead, both from lack of love as much as air, lack of food, lack of human everything for more than 2 weeks.
I find two skinny love starved cats. Alive. One with a dry tongue and a pronounced ribcage. The other looking bright and strangely ok. Kitten (Pepper) was industrious.
I don’t know what to extract from this memory. But I have lived with a life-time of fear of things dying when I no longer see them. Fear of letting my mother down. Fear of things/family/pets feeling unloved when I can’t be present to say, hey: I love you/ need you/ want you to thrive.
I also hate when it gets too hot, but I am, after all, a New Englander.
Which leads me to today, and an impromptu prayer to the AC God.
Dear (AC) God,
Do not let there be a brown-out in Boston proper, (Back Bay). I don’t want Mummi or Lyman to get hot. I love them. Please send it to Concord instead. Uberbia can handle it.
XOXO,
DMR.
Fingers crossed it works.
I mean, damn near. Which causes me to question, how folks in “other” countries do this. I mean, we don’t have flies in the eye crevices kind of thing (not to poke fun, but seriously, we don’t) and so why am I nearly dragging myself from air conditioned point A to B, particularly during my un-air-conditioned moments (which last approximately 3 minutes at most) so painfully.
When it gets hot like this, and its been in the upper 90s with a ridic amount of humidity for days (save me), I get worried about black outs/brown outs and just not having any damn access to the AC. And less for me than my parents.
This fear is a lot less superficial than it sounds. I’m not (necessarily) worried about getting hot, or my daughter or boo sweating it out, but my parents. My father is a macho man. I’m sure even if he woke up one day on the tippiest top of the sun he’d not say a damn thing about it being hot. He’d probably just say, Boston drawl drawling: Whaddya-gonnnnna-do. Ehhhh? And he’d be right. Nothing.
But I remember when my mom was, for the first time in my life hospitalized. It was the summer before 5th grade. We’d received her “summons” letter that essentially said, hi, you’ve been abusing your kid. We have concluded you’re mental. It be best for you to come in, stay here, and said kid will live elsewhere. It was hot that day too. Or I was. Whichever.
So we walked the 1.3 miles south-west to what was then Mass Mental. I was sweating. We left our two cats Kitten (Pepper as her gov’t name) and Lady (she was my fav). Mummi was admitted and I became a temporary ward of the state. Hot.
Fast forward two weeks. I stop bed-wetting. My grandmother’s AC hits me perfectly from my new spot on the couch. A light bulb goes off when the dust in my 9 year old mind starts to settle: My cats!
Anxiety is reintroduced.
I quake, nearly sieze. I need to get my cats out of the apartment, get them fed, watered. It will ruin my mother. They were my only friends, hers. Our only “things”. Forces rally slowly. We return to Huntington Avenue. We walk up the two steep flights. My father enters first, solemnly as if he’s (again) failed me. Motions authoritatively, the way a man who is 6’5 can, that I should remain outside. I push past him. Hell, I’m 9 and I love my cats. I expect them to be dead, both from lack of love as much as air, lack of food, lack of human everything for more than 2 weeks.
I find two skinny love starved cats. Alive. One with a dry tongue and a pronounced ribcage. The other looking bright and strangely ok. Kitten (Pepper) was industrious.
I don’t know what to extract from this memory. But I have lived with a life-time of fear of things dying when I no longer see them. Fear of letting my mother down. Fear of things/family/pets feeling unloved when I can’t be present to say, hey: I love you/ need you/ want you to thrive.
I also hate when it gets too hot, but I am, after all, a New Englander.
Which leads me to today, and an impromptu prayer to the AC God.
Dear (AC) God,
Do not let there be a brown-out in Boston proper, (Back Bay). I don’t want Mummi or Lyman to get hot. I love them. Please send it to Concord instead. Uberbia can handle it.
XOXO,
DMR.
Fingers crossed it works.
Monday, July 18, 2011
New growth; nappy edges and when friendships (need to) fade.
So: analogy time...if you're up for it.
When I was a kid (ok, even now) the collective we had names for overgrowth, for the sparse and kinky sections of hair that would grow up and against the relaxed, chemical treated sections. The portions we went over attempting to smooth, smother, slick against humidity, against inevitability, against, well, poetic nappiness. It would work until it rained. Until the growth overtook it's six week pledge to be well behaved. Then it would erupt, realness, frizziness, in a fit of kink and candor.
Over time, well, you just cut off the treated and "good" shit. Commit yourself to Sundays at the Dominican salon. Adopt other riturals to let your hair be who it could and should be, in any weather. Or you continued that strange and startlingly un/complicated relationship with perm until further notice. #shrug
Neither approach was/is wrong. Neither made you (or me) a higher powered person, more moraly stable or lovable (I think), but a choice you made on your head and in your mind about what your mane would look like.
And lately I'm realizing there is some carryover. Friends aren't buckshots, but they can be just as hard to work with... Case in point, I have a close friend. We formerly referred to each other as sisters. Fighting-@$$ sisters, I'll tell you that. But what sisters aren't?
It was one of those relationships where she hurts your feelings, and I came off as a know-it-all. And it's deeper than frenemies cause y'all do care for each other and the goal isn't to bring each other down. Y'all think: I can get this joint smooth. I can deal for another six weeks. You can't. At least we couldn't.
And like clockwork, our typical exchange went its necessary route, starting playfully, then superfically, moseying into someething markedly less official. We talked about hair, to hoes, to family. Perhaps health. Mental health even. We later fell over the deep end. It became very #teamWTF
The expectation on one side was that I'd provide unwavering support, perhaps a yes or two. Perhaps I was supposed to remain quiet. However, in order to do so I'd have to sacrifice something I strongly believe in, uphold myself to. I'd have to be the lady version of a yesman...But I couldn't/can't/won't. Love is one thing, right is another.
I semi-realize now my homegirl wasn't wrong, our rights just didn't see eye to eye. Not for years I think now. And perhaps not for years to come.
So, like a fade, like a good barber, the lines have started to taper, not abruptly, not cuttingly sharp or fierce, but subtlely into the skin of silence that is very necessary and for the time being. And I've not ever been one to speak to forever. So I can't/won't go there.
That, and I'll admit, sometimes I miss her. And sometimes I want to pull over and scream (I'm damn near always in my car) and say how selfish of you not to let me be the friend I can be/must be/have been...
But I'm realizing, I didn't let her be who she was either. And I perhaps, can't.
And what is this life if we have to be who another makes us be? Or crafts us into?
Nothing very zen about that.
I said goodbye to my mom once (ok, five times). Our goodbyes lasted years. they were angry and coarse throated. People say it's different with family, that you can't ever truly let go or truly move on. You know what, it actually isn't. I just decided that I didn't want to do let go or move on. I very much just wanted to see her age. I decided I would attempt growth, indifference, but still me-ness with the time each of us has left.
And this committment has worked, if bumpingly, if nappily so.
But you make a decision, as an adult, as a grown-@$$ whatever you are, and sometimes your sources of support aren't necesarily supportive, or relective, or reflexive. And sometimes you need some of those -ives more than the others.
And so for now, and for my own mental stability, I won't be continuing with that strange and startlingly complicated relationship until further notice.
Goodbye friend.
When I was a kid (ok, even now) the collective we had names for overgrowth, for the sparse and kinky sections of hair that would grow up and against the relaxed, chemical treated sections. The portions we went over attempting to smooth, smother, slick against humidity, against inevitability, against, well, poetic nappiness. It would work until it rained. Until the growth overtook it's six week pledge to be well behaved. Then it would erupt, realness, frizziness, in a fit of kink and candor.
Over time, well, you just cut off the treated and "good" shit. Commit yourself to Sundays at the Dominican salon. Adopt other riturals to let your hair be who it could and should be, in any weather. Or you continued that strange and startlingly un/complicated relationship with perm until further notice. #shrug
Neither approach was/is wrong. Neither made you (or me) a higher powered person, more moraly stable or lovable (I think), but a choice you made on your head and in your mind about what your mane would look like.
And lately I'm realizing there is some carryover. Friends aren't buckshots, but they can be just as hard to work with... Case in point, I have a close friend. We formerly referred to each other as sisters. Fighting-@$$ sisters, I'll tell you that. But what sisters aren't?
It was one of those relationships where she hurts your feelings, and I came off as a know-it-all. And it's deeper than frenemies cause y'all do care for each other and the goal isn't to bring each other down. Y'all think: I can get this joint smooth. I can deal for another six weeks. You can't. At least we couldn't.
And like clockwork, our typical exchange went its necessary route, starting playfully, then superfically, moseying into someething markedly less official. We talked about hair, to hoes, to family. Perhaps health. Mental health even. We later fell over the deep end. It became very #teamWTF
The expectation on one side was that I'd provide unwavering support, perhaps a yes or two. Perhaps I was supposed to remain quiet. However, in order to do so I'd have to sacrifice something I strongly believe in, uphold myself to. I'd have to be the lady version of a yesman...But I couldn't/can't/won't. Love is one thing, right is another.
I semi-realize now my homegirl wasn't wrong, our rights just didn't see eye to eye. Not for years I think now. And perhaps not for years to come.
So, like a fade, like a good barber, the lines have started to taper, not abruptly, not cuttingly sharp or fierce, but subtlely into the skin of silence that is very necessary and for the time being. And I've not ever been one to speak to forever. So I can't/won't go there.
That, and I'll admit, sometimes I miss her. And sometimes I want to pull over and scream (I'm damn near always in my car) and say how selfish of you not to let me be the friend I can be/must be/have been...
But I'm realizing, I didn't let her be who she was either. And I perhaps, can't.
And what is this life if we have to be who another makes us be? Or crafts us into?
Nothing very zen about that.
I said goodbye to my mom once (ok, five times). Our goodbyes lasted years. they were angry and coarse throated. People say it's different with family, that you can't ever truly let go or truly move on. You know what, it actually isn't. I just decided that I didn't want to do let go or move on. I very much just wanted to see her age. I decided I would attempt growth, indifference, but still me-ness with the time each of us has left.
And this committment has worked, if bumpingly, if nappily so.
But you make a decision, as an adult, as a grown-@$$ whatever you are, and sometimes your sources of support aren't necesarily supportive, or relective, or reflexive. And sometimes you need some of those -ives more than the others.
And so for now, and for my own mental stability, I won't be continuing with that strange and startlingly complicated relationship until further notice.
Goodbye friend.
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