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The Human Condition (pt. 112)

I sipped my bourbon. I was tired, I didn’t want to be out. In fact, I wanted to be home, in bed, surrounded by my cats, drifting into a comfortably uncomfortable sleep. I wanted my worn-in sweats, with the loosened waistband, saggy bottom, pilled fabric throughout, softened through multiple washes…  I lapped the Bulleit lightly wishing I was already under the fat knit blankets in my bedroom, falling away into unconsciousness.

Instead, here I was, listening to a man drone on about the artistic condition.

The Artistic Condition, the grueling self-doubt, the striving to be at least an equal to their peers in that specific field, the 24/7 struggle to be recognized – noticed, the sleepless 2 a.m. tossing and turning anxiety ridden nights, the booze and the drugs and the men and the women and some more of the booze with a side of drugs… just to take the edge off.

And I fiddled with my drink, swishing the amber liquid lazily out of semi-boredom and resignation. Why was I here? Because while I wanted the cozy comfy security of my bed, I didn’t want to go to the home in which it was inhabited. Problems were at Home. Fights were at Home. Anger and 7 years of built up Frustration were at Home. Things I was not overly eager to deal with. Yet, these all seemed like better options compared to the incessant droning of the gentleman seated to my left.

Finally, I said, “So, Human. You’re bitching about being Human.” He doubled back and looked as though he was going to argue the point. But I excused myself before we could go down that (I could only assume) long and winding road.

A short tumbler with a couple swallows left of liquor remained on the polished bar top. A man kept an eye on it, waiting for its owner to return. And I walked out into the night, head full, heart empty.

 

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4/5/18 Maternal Guilt, In Short

Motherhood was never a driving goal of mine. Even as all my high school friends were off being impregnated by future absentee fathers, my only aspiration was to get out of my shitty poverty stricken neighborhood and maybe one day see the world.

Of course, youth + stupidity squashed those hopes fairly quick.

I wasn’t meant for motherhood. I knew it right away, although I couldn’t accept the bald truth of it. This is not to say that I did not love my first son – I have never loved any living human as much as I have my first child. Just looking at him every day broke my heart in different ways in which I had no idea how to handle. The overwhelming pain I felt in thinking that I wasn’t good enough to be the mother to this amazing tiny ball of perfection still lingers, 21 years later. Only in hindsight and more self-introspection that I care to admit, have I realized how much the absence of my own parents  affected my demeanor towards my son.  Of course, anyone on the outside looking in would say I’ve done a great job. How wonderful that he and I have such an amicable relationship.

They do not know that I walked away from him when he was 6 months old. That I thought he’d have a better life without me in it. They do not know that when he was a year old, I willingly handed over physical custody to his father and never legally fought for him because I was too scared that I would lose. The courts would see I wasn’t the right kind of “mom material” and I’d be deprived of any real communication or time spent with him. They do not know how much I drank (so much) while he was gone just to black out my guilt of not being the cookie cutter mold of what a “Good Mother” was supposed to be, that my status of Weekend Mom not only belittled my character in the eyes of others, but in my own as well.

But I loved him, albeit from a safe distance. In solitude, the ache of his absence would send me into fits of uncontrollable weeping. A handful of poems I wrote remain as a reminder of those times, but not one more than that because any attempt to  encapsulate my feelings about my life without his presence in it would spiral me further into a depression in which I was not keen to visit. Throughout the years, I never questioned that I still wasn’t worthy and constant arguments with his father (the “good” parent) didn’t help. The weight of my fears and doubts tempered any desire or attempt for the closeness I longed to have with my son.

However, as each year passed, as he grew into a young man and his childhood days receded as an ebbing tide, I accepted that imperfections and all, I was His Mother. I would like to say it was an overnight transformation in which I woke up and Voila, All Makes Sense and is Well and Good!, but that is not how life or personal growth works. I still wrestle with my guilty days, especially as I am now raising my two youngest in such a different manner. I find while I am spending time with them, running errands, singing songs, sewing up injured teddies – I am also ruing all of which I’ve missed from my first child’s formative years. However, I am also aware that even as just a weekend/summer mom, I tried the best I knew how to build a bond between the both of us. And as long as I am alive, there will always be room for improvement in that relationship.

We joke, we laugh, we text, we message.  We do have a better relationship than most. He has assured me time and again that he harbors no ill will towards me, that he never thought I was a “bad mom”. He has made it clear that I’ve always been Good Enough (and it makes him sad to know I felt any other way), which I still mostly struggle to believe. It is not something in which I’ve completely come to terms with, though little by little it sets in. He has grown into a man whom I am proud to call Son and I hope that one day I am the woman who he is proud to call Mom.

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the balance of art and every day life in a dream

When the last things you do before bed is watch Hell’s Kitchen, look through your Instagram feed, comment about art, order slippers for your grandma online and curse to yourself that you didn’t do the sink full of dishes but fuck it, you’re tired so they’ll just have to be done in the morning…

You dream about sitting at your grandma’s table and talking to two local artists you admire, your best friend, Cortney and social acquaintance, Jim Terry about art and the creative process, but then the kitchen morphs into some crazy restaurant (who are all these people?) and wow all this food looks good and damn you’re hungry, but now you’re in some sort of barracks/cabin which you’re sharing with at least 6-8 other females (who the fuck are these chicks???) and you’re on a cot cuddling with the obnoxious lesbian from Hell’s Kitchen (her hair is foofy and her skin is soft at least) and you see piled Right Next to you dishes that need to be done, so you’re like Fuck. I can’t go to sleep with Soft and Foofy until these dishes are clean, so there you are… washing f**king dishes in your dream.

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The Missed Miscarriage

I’m on a few hours sleep right now. I am surprisingly alert yet I am also not sure how long this strikingly coherent state will last. In short, I am writing this before I lose the will and/or energy to gather up my loose thoughts before they roll away into the ether mist of the back bits of my brain.

I had a missed miscarriage. In case you are not familiar, it is when the fetus dies but the body hasn’t recognized the death. The mother-to-be will still feel pregnant, symptoms and all, but in actuality, isn’t. It was something I knew of, yet apparently didn’t completely grasp.

There was no amount of self-preparation that had me readied for the ultrasound technician to softly utter, “There isn’t a heartbeat.” Of course, I knew there might be a chance for loss of pregnancy. I just turned 40. We didn’t plan this. I had still been eating and drinking like a savage before finding out that my sickness was of the morning variety. So, yes. I repeatedly reminded myself that I could lose this surprise baby at any given moment. And that logic and rationality helped to keep my composure in the face of these nameless hospital personnel peering at me with saddened eyes. I cannot stand for the pity of strangers, so “losing it” or expressing anything other than reticent calm was  not an option. I let the kindly woman know that it was okay. I knew there was a chance of this happening. I’ve been preparing myself for something like this.

And when I saw the doctor to discuss how to deal with the dead fetus in my womb, I didn’t shed a tear. She shot it straight and listed my options. I could wait for my body to expel the tissue on its own. I could take some pills to force the miscarriage to its completion. I could have the surgery which would in essence be vacuuming up the no longer useful or needed remains of a new life that just didn’t make it. I sat straight in that chair, the absolute pragmatist, and asked which was the most cost efficient.

Ah. Pills it is.

After finishing up the talk with discussion of future birth control methods and “Don’t forget to make a follow-up appointment”, I left. No time for tears. Still have to drive home. Oh, it’s nice out. Maybe we can finish putting up the lights. What should we have for dinner?

It wasn’t until the pharmaceutical assistance kicked in that I understood and truly felt in my soul what was happening. Why did I choose this? What – was I some emo depressive teen locked away in my room with my razors and angst, needing to associate physical to the emotional, or else it didn’t matter? The cramping itself wasn’t the problem. It was the rapid expulsion of what could have been.

It was after 6 a.m. My husband was barely at work 5 minutes before he jumped in his car and drove right back home. He held me as I cried and apologized for ruining his birthday. He whispered Shut Up into my birds nest of bed head hair as I sobbed quietly, not wanting to wake our other two boys across the hall. He helped to mop up the blood and gross seemingly masticated chunks of tissue that was just falling out of me sloppily, with no warning or difficulty. Once my tears stopped, in between the sorrow of loss and the mourning of a life that would never be, there happened a void. A numbness, an emptiness that carried with it no descriptive or tangible explanation. An emotional black hole – an oxymoron.

After a while, the pain and bleeding subsided. I was physically exhausted, dehydrated, and famished. It didn’t take my body too long to recover. Water, food, rest. All is well.

But is it? While life as my family knows it has continued to move forward, I find myself swimming in reminders that Hey, we never planned another child. That this is for the best. Well, now we don’t have to figure out A, B and C. Things will be much easier financially. Etc., etc., etc.

Yet, all of these constant prompts do little to quell the ache. I will finish decorating. I will grocery shop and meal plan. I will do laundry, wash dishes, make vet appointments for our cats, eventually hang out with my friends and enjoy a dinner out with a nice glass of wine. And I will take care of my two little boys while doing my best not to wonder what it would have been like to have a third in our new house that still needs so much work…

Maybe it’s not the best solution towards recuperation, but it’s the one I’ve got.

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1/25/16 Kindness

Today is one of those days in which I cannot turn off the introspection. I often become lost in revelries, unwanted reminiscences of the past lives I’ve lived. Of the countless mistakes of youth, poor life choices, of the ridiculous and often dangerous situations I had put myself in – note, I’ve not mentioned regret. Regret isn’t something I have very much of, at least not in the grand scheme of things. My regrets are minuscule, mostly petty and even then, taken with a grain of salt. But I digress. I suppose I must mention this because I know that Regret isn’t very useful since every crap decision and horrible thing I may have done, with or without malicious intent, has brought me to the place where I am at right now.

That, and Kindness.

My brain has moments of elephantine recollection when it comes to people who have been genuinely good-hearted to me. The same with those who have abused my heart, soul, person, etc. I may forget birthdays, what I had for dinner last week and even plans I Just Made five minutes ago, but Kindness is something that has never gone unnoticed or forgotten.

I’ve stopped. I’ve stopped to look away from the screen because this is the hurdle. This is my mountain. To sit here and purposefully remember the less than ideal circumstances I either stumbled or boldly threw myself into, with little fear or concern of consequence or reprisal. It’s a bit more difficult than I had anticipated.

I remember being a teenage runaway and having the good fortune to not have to live on the streets when a girl I met and was briefly romantic with offered to let me stay with she and her mother, not just for a day or weeks, but months. I remember when at a party, my first girlfriend covered for my dandruff flakes as Dry Shampoo – “That happens to me, sometimes”, she smiled. The unspoken understanding and gratitude over escaping embarrassment is something that still sticks with me today. Another party, when the difference between the terms “pretty” and “attractive” were being discussed and I mentioned that my father said I was Attractive. I knew what my father had meant and I suppose the usually catty gay man involved in the conversation did as well. He leaned his body back, head tilted elegantly dramatic to one side, scrutinized me with his intensely blazing blues and said, “Mmm… I’ll give you pretty.” I abashedly took the compliment but I don’t think he’ll ever quite know just how much that meant to me at that time. Or maybe, he did. Maybe he saw the insecurity in my lowered gaze, the way I tried to hide my small underdeveloped body in giant thrift store flannels and oversized jeans. Maybe he knew how much I needed an assurance that I was of acceptable human stock.

Being laid up in bed not able to move, my boyfriend’s roommate coming in to talk to me, recommending books I’d like, pretending that I didn’t look like death warmed over. A mere acquaintance becoming one of my closest friends when he loaned me the money I needed to make rent. When I tried to pay him back, his smile and laugh damn near frightened me but he merely shook his head and pushed my hand holding the money away from him. “One day, someone might need a kind of help of their own. All I ask is that you return the favor.”

And maybe this won’t seem like an act of Kindness, but to me it was. A show of Mercy, after all, aren’t the two related? I was followed by a car on my walk home one night, far too many years and several lives ago. Two men jumped out, physically assaulted me, dragged me into the vehicle and I’m not sure what would have happened were it not for the driver. Was it my pleas for release? Did I remind him of a niece, a sister, a friend? I’m not sure, but he abruptly stopped the car and told my would be captors to let me out.

I ran… I ran to the first house I saw, crazed, crying, delirious. A couple, kind in their own way, let me in. Telling me it would be okay as they waited for the police to arrive. It hurts to revisit that particular memory. That was a day that shattered my remaining trust in humankind. But – BUT – Mercy. I was shown/given Mercy. And while it took me some time to feel safe again for something as simple as walking home, I still carry an appreciation for that man who told his cohorts, “Enough.” But do not mistake my gratitude for forgiveness. I do not nor will I ever free him of his guilt or culpability, but I suppose that’s a subject for another day.

But Kindness. This – each and every act, no matter how seemingly insignificant or of a grander scale, none of them are ever forgotten. Not a one is petty or trivial. From a stranger in front of me at the drive thru buying the coffee for the person behind them to an unexpected text from a friend reminding me that I’m loved, “You’re really kind of a bitchy pain in the ass, but I wouldn’t have you in my life any other way.” I hold all of these close to remind me that the smallest act of Kindness can carry a person who’s having a rough time of it just a bit further down the road. Every day, we run about minding our own business, barely thinking about the brief interactions we have with those bustling back and forth around us. It doesn’t hurt to put some good back in a world that so desperately needs it.  And of this I am ever mindful, especially on days like these where I am most pensive and somewhat blue.