Who are we to each other, really?

As young girls, we seek out friendship based on the most basic of premises. The girl that sit next to you on the first day of school, the girl with the prettiest barrettes, any excuse to forge a deep connection with your potential best friend forever. It’s supposed to be about hopscotch and tea parties, but it’s out there from day one: Deviate from the norm and be rejected. Fail to entertain and be rejected. New girls are automatically cooler than everyday friends. Young friendship is full of pitfalls.

And that stuff hurts. It hurts when you find yourself shoved out of those fierce friendships. They’re new, but you’re holding on tight because you don’t know any better. Inevitably, though, you’re going to get ditched.
(At this point it should be clear that I’m not talking about the sort of girls that flit easily from friendship to friendship as children, and have seemingly easygoing friendships for the rest of their lives. Those girls should go read Jezebel or something.)

One of my friends was telling me that her young daughter had a terrible time with keeping friends. She would get along great with someone for 2-3 days, then the other little girl would start to drift away, and she’d get really upset and treat them badly. My friend would look at her daughter and see herself. We wondered if you could ever fix that neediness, or if you’re born with this hunger and it never goes away. Her mom was one of those girls. I was one of those girls. Neither of us had an answer.

It makes your grownup friendships interesting, I think. I’ve definitely severed friendships (or at least closed my heart and put up some boundaries) with people that seemed to care a lot less than I did. I used to worry about this a lot, but I justified it in my head by telling myself that I gave so much of myself to my good friends and I didn’t have energy for people that didn’t really care about me.
I do spend a lot of time on my friends. I take late night phone calls, I spend hours listening to people cry. I pride myself on never walking away from people when they need someone. I don’t think I’m that person anymore.

I took a phone call the other day from an old friend. She’s been struggling with some issues for many years, and she’s not in a good place. For the past few years, we’ve had this routine: I probably talk to this friend 3-5 times a week for a few months, take a few weeks off, and begin again. Helping her work through her thoughts and feelings is a significant part of my life. It makes me pretty tired, but she and I have been friends for a long time and I love her very much. When I was not at my best, she was a loyal and steadfast friend. This is who we are to each other. Of course I would take her calls, of course I would help her work through the circuitous and damaging patterns in her brain.

This phone call was different though. This was a bad call. My friend was calling to say that she was planning to commit suicide in the coming days. She was resolute in her plan, and she’d given me a list of a few people to touch base with after the fact. She was going on about her plans in great detail, and she asked me if I supported her decision.

There are limits, you know. To everything, for everyone. Asking a person to be collateral damage in your suicide is pretty fucking selfish, and it’s doubly selfish to ask that of me. I have already been collateral damage in someone else’s shit show, and I’m not shy about sharing my complete and utter lack of respect for suicide. So this conversation didn’t go well.

The kindest, most coherent thing I could say was ‘I understand that you’ve made this decision, but I don’t respect it, and I refuse to pretend that it’s OK.’ Eventually I hung up on her, and I wondered if “fuck you,” would be the last thing I ever said to her. I struggled with this. I wanted to be as loving as possible, if this was my last chance, but I felt like any capitulation to this choice was just…betraying my fundamental values in some way. I’m not willing to weep at her bedside like we’re in Little Women. Everything about that choice is bullshit.

As a rule, I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about my father. When I do, I try not to spend that time dwelling on what a colossal fuckup he was as a parent and a partner, but there’s something about suicide that sends me right back down memory lane.

She sent me a text later that night, but I ignored it.

She sent me one a few days later telling me she’d changed her mind and that she wanted to talk.

Am I supposed to do a happy dance now? Because I’m still pretty pissed. I feel manipulated and abused and run through the sternum, and I don’t see why. I think this may be the end of my tether. I think I may have to walk away from someone that has asked for my help. I think this is my limit. I’m out of compassion. I’m out of energy.

Plus, this shit’s not working.

I can't sleep

Things I do when I can't sleep:
1. Watch Adult Swim
2. Pace
3. Snuggle with my fur babies
4. Make neverending lists

What do you guys do?

I do this every year

Today is the first day of Lent. I'm not Catholic, but I try to give something up every year. This year is no different. I'm giving something up. Something big. Something life-changing if I succeed.

Wish me luck!

Lurking in My Library

A semi-occasional something or other on my reading list, also cross-posted at Wandering the Midwest. We both have Kindles, and we’re in love with them. This is officially a thing.

Title of book: Tess of the d’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy, published 1891

Title of Review: Poor Tess!, or This is My Scarlet Letter moment


Synopsis: Tess is a sweet and responsible English girl (she can’t be more than 15 or so) with a pair of useless drunks as parents. She works very hard to maintain their status quo of crushing poverty and occasionally attend school and care for her siblings. Her useless drunk of a father, John, encounters the parson one day, and the parson informs him that John’s a descendant of the long-dead noble line of the d’Urbervilles, and refers to him as ‘Sir John.’ Sir John, being a useless drunk bastard, takes this occasion as an opportunity to cease working and spend money he doesn’t have. He entices his useless drunk of a wife to join him, and, long story short, he oversleeps for his important trip to sell turnips or something in a nearby town, and Tess’s useless drunk of a mother urges Tess to take the trip in the middle of the night with a small sibling that will be no help. Tess falls asleep while steering the horse, the postman collides with her carriage(?), and the horse dies. As it is the family’s only horse, Tess feels guilty enough to allow her parents to pimp her as a chicken-tender to a family of d’Urbervilles in a nearby town in the hopes that she can marry a rich distant cousin. She comes home knocked up because the distant cousin (who is not a distant cousin, but the son of a nouveau-riche family that just borrowed the name) is a pushy, rapey, psychopath and he refuses to marry her. The baby dies. And then things get fucked up. Tess is kinda a Riot Grrrl of her day.

Favorite moment: The intro conversation between the parson and John Durbeyfield sets the tone for the entire book. It’s almost Shakespearean, and it makes me wish I’d studied this book in college.

Least favorite moment: Pretty much any scene involving Tess and another person.

Line I highlighted (this may be my favorite aspect of the Kindle. Get one): “experience is as to intensity, and not as to duration.”

Arbitrary rating scale: This book gets 4 out 5 stars and 5 out of 5 feminist awakenings

What a more traditional review would talk about: Hardy’s clear affection for the pagan-esque rituals of agrarian life, and his thoughtful exploration of religious hypocrisy and the ways that it can supersede the lack of individual religious belief. There’s a religious debate that runs through this book that I don’t quite understand, but I bet that it’s fascinating if you have the proper historical context.


The Review:

The synopsis above covers roughly the first third of this incredibly fucked-up book. I refuse to give you a full synopsis because I want you to read it, and wallow in all its fucked-up glory. The ending is amazing and completely insane, it’s like one of those really pretty songs that you sang as a kid, and then you grew up and realized that the whole song is about dead people. This is the Scarborough Fair of literature. Seriously, read it.

What the hell does the title of my review mean? Well, my mother once told me a story about how my grandmother said that reading The Scarlet Letter is what made her a feminist. I read that book as a junior in high school and I was already a feminist, but I absolutely understood the outrage (which may not even be true, cuz god knows every story about my family is an elaborate version of the telephone game). So this book just reawakened all of my (not necessarily dormant) feminist fury. Why do Tess’s parents ship Tess off? She’s the oldest, but she’s also incredibly pretty. They want to sell off their prettiest asset so that they can continue to be shitty people without having to worry overmuch. A solid 25 percent of the book is about the street harassment Tess faces for the high crime of walking down the road while pretty. After her baby dies, she meets a man and falls in love. He’s smart and avant-garde and full of fresh ideas, but when he finds out about her history, he gives her 50 pounds and takes off for Brazil. Because he’s an asshole. Every speck of happiness within her reached is smashed against the rocks because she had the temerity to be raped by an asshole. When Tess finally decides to be the actor instead of the acted upon, the resulted is as desperate, pathetic, and warped as you would expect from a person that’s only allowed to exist at the mercy of a league of shitty people that never have to pay for anything that they do to her. Also, it’s violent and awesome and a little punk rock. I’m so glad I watched Sucker Punch in the middle or reading this book. They’re a great combo. It took me a long time to read this book, because I was furious at everyone in it not named Tess. I’m so very glad I read it though, and if you have a Kindle (or a Kindle app) it’s free. Go get it.

What I'm Reading

Note to self: There’s no such thing as “light” reading about working mothers.

So, after Jezebel did this piece, I decided to buy the book. If you know me, you know that this means nothing. My list of books to buy (a word document I tried to fix and upload at one point, but got too busy) sits at about 300 right now. I have eight books on my dresser waiting to be read. I’m in the middle of two books right now, and there are three other ‘unopened’ books hanging out on my Kindle, waiting for my attention. I have a book problem.

(I really don’t have a problem, and if I do it’s the fact that my brother-in-law gave me Game of Thrones and the Hunger Games early this year, and reading those 8 books threw off my schedule. I give him full credit for the backlog this year. Next year will be different.)

So I bought this because I’m reading a nonfiction book about a German pastor I learned about via the Kindle Daily deal (damn you Kindle Daily Deal!) and it is so. damn. dry. I want to finish it, but I go through these long phases where I just don’t care about his siblings, the family holiday celebrations, or the letters to grandma. I need frequent breaks.

Hubby and I went to Chicago for the funeral and I knew I didn’t want to read Holocaust-themed nonfiction, so I picked up I Don’t Know How She Does It and settled in to the trip.

Note to readers: What follows is not a review. It’s a personal, visceral, profanity-laden rant about my feelings after reading the book. If you’re looking for in-depth analysis, you’ll have to catch me on another day. Also, spoilers.

So this book made me want to open up a vein. I went into it expecting something like “Bridget Jones becomes a mom,” and I got something more like 9 to 5, except the bad guys kind of win. Apparently the only way to succeed at a parenting is to give up your high-stress high-profile career and live on your less ambitious husband’s salary. Also, single women that don’t want children should have them anyway, because the main character felt ‘awe’ when her children were born. That doesn’t make any damn sense.

I’m in a labyrinth here. The book tries desperately to paint a picture of the unfairness of judging the main character’s choices in parenting. I don’t actually want to judge her parenting choices. Thing is, every person in her life judges her parenting choices, AND SHE LETS THEM. She’s a well-paid, high-powered hedge fund manager with no backbone. Ultimately, she decides that everyone in her life that made her feel small, from the misogynists to overcompensating moms to her heinous in-laws, are somehow right. If all of these characters are right and she is wrong, then why isn’t a single one of them likable? I stayed up all night after reading this book, trying to figure out if my decision to TRY to get pregnant was going to destroy any hope of a career. I know that she’s a fictional character; I know she has more money than I do, and I know that she worked in a field with a LOT more men. Yet I found myself troubled and anxious about this book because it seemed to say that, no matter your gifts and talents, there’s only ONE WAY TO BE A MOTHER, and that way is all-consuming.

I’m not a mother (yet), but I’m obsessed with the mechanics of working motherhood. I’m less interested in the opt-out/opt-in debate, because it is presented as an argument for rich people. It’s never, “do I want to stay home?”, it’s always “am I squandering my intelligence/pedigree/greatness on kiddie time?” The real-life SAHMs I know don’t present their problems or choices in this way. A lot of them stay home because they don’t demand pay that would exceed day care. That’s an issue I can understand.

The thing is, even if I was rich, I’d still want to work. I’d want my children to see me working. I’d want to them to understand that coming home after accomplishing something is important. I think that ambition gets a bad rap in our society, and I want my kids to appreciate and nurture their ambitions. If, heaven forbid, one of my kids ends up in an abusive or otherwise nonfunctioning relationship, I’d want him or her to realize that economic independence is the way out. That’s easier to do if he or she grows up in a situation where economic independence is the norm for both spouses.

I can’t be appeased by a tacked-on ending about securing funding for a “lady business.” The ending almost makes it worse. She can only use her skills for a dollhouse factory. Because she’s a MOTHER. She can’t fight back against the environment in her office. She has to leave. Because she’s a MOTHER. It's the only option. How fucking depressing is that?

So who was he to you?

We’re sitting in Detroit, New York, DC, Philly, across Georgia, Ohio, everywhere. We’ve woken early to a missed call from the wee hours of the morning. We’re girding ourselves against the news. We’re calling back, spines stiff and cutting to the chase: “Who died?” We are absorbing the news, changing diapers, making breakfast, dusting forgotten shelves. The key for us is to keep moving. Keep moving and stay on the phone. We’re drinking coffee, we’re shredding junk mail, and we’re calling each other, over and over again. We’ve put on the music of our respective youths. In Georgia, you can hear the Dells. In DC, it’s Boyz II Men. Music, and ringtones. We have to keep calling each other. We have to tell each other stories. We have to wonder about funeral arrangements. We have to bicker and snap at each other, get briefly frustrated, hang up, and call back in a few hours. We have to guess how other family members are dealing. We have to call them after we decide how they feel… They don’t get the opportunity to disabuse us of our perceptions. We don’t actually say much, or we say everything. The silence and the noise, it’s all the same. It’s family. It’s the women of my family building a weathered, heavy chain against the grief. We don’t cry. Much. Not as long as we keep moving.

My cousin says, “All my life we’ve been searching for him.” I agree. Some years, we heard from him every week. Some years we didn’t even have a phone number for him. He was complicated. We are all complicated. My husband says, “Who is he exactly?” He cannot wrap his brain around my huge, huge, family. I say, “One of my grandmother’s brothers.” My grandmother had 10 siblings. His parents are close to my grandmother’s age. His grandparents passed years ago. He didn’t know their siblings, and they didn’t have all that many anyway. I say, “My uncle.” He stops himself from correcting me. He’s finally realized that in a family our size, we tend to simplify. Everyone older is an uncle or aunt. Everyone your age is a cousin. Even if they’re not. Everyone is family. Even if you don’t know how. My husband doesn’t know who this uncle is to me. He can’t recall if I’ve ever mentioned him. I don’t talk about my childhood much. It’s loaded for me, and I try not to dwell on things I can’t change. And there are so many aunts and uncles, so many cousins. I tell stories right before I take him to see someone. I tell stories right after someone dies.

He was a nice, nice man. One of my mother’s favorite uncles. I can tell, because he is complicated. I have inherited her love of complicated people. It is a narrow sliver of a counterculture streak, I suppose. For us, not so much. It’s never a radical act to love your family. He lived in Chicago, which was very cool. Detroit with a better reputation. We could trade barbs about our basketball teams. I grew up with the Bad Boys. He tolerated my armchair enthusiasm. He was a former athlete with a different perspective. I was a kid with a loud mouth.

He grew up in Detroit too. A very different Detroit from my own. It didn’t matter, much. Just as we are all family, our family is all Detroit. Very few of us move away. To my young brain, this made him an exception.

He would talk honestly about anything in his life. I didn’t get sent to the backyard to play in Chicago. I got a seat at the table, and he talked to me like an adult. I didn’t understand all of it. I don’t remember all of it. I know he wanted to help me avoid his mistakes. And I know his mistakes looked a lot like my father’s.

The dead father thing hangs between me and my family. Lots of silence, lots of assumptions about my feelings. We don’t talk about the thing. It’s a big reason I ran east after college. It’s a big reason I ran inside myself before I could leave for college. I want to wear it a certain way. In the Midwest I don’t get to do that, so I don’t stay for very long.

That’s not the fairest of assessments, but that is how it feels and therefore I don’t care.

My uncle didn’t care about how I wore it, or how I was supposed to be seen. (I didn’t even have words for that at the time.) He would just talk to me about the choices he made, especially the choices that overlapped with my father’s. He’d be very, very honest. He had some regrets. Most of the time, he was perfectly capable of surviving himself. My father did not survive himself. As a kid, I needed that juxtaposition. Needed to know that dad’s way wasn’t the only way. I needed to believe that with strength you can rise above. My uncle gave me that.

I haven’t seen him in years. An invitation to my wedding was returned by the post office. I would occasionally wonder about him, and about his kids. I assumed I’d hear from him, or about him. So many aunts and uncles, so many cousins. I didn’t hear anything until Saturday.

Eventually I have to stop calling and I have to stop answering the phone. I have to stare into space and hold my dog and sit still. It’s important to practice sitting still without crying. There’s an art to it. Someone will need me soon, or I will need someone else. This will all go better if we keep the emotional dreck at bay. We’re not an emotionally expressive group, as a whole. We don’t carry tissues. We carry bricks and build walls. We yo-yo each other, pushing away and then holding close. Fortifying ourselves with and against each other all at once. My husband looks at all of this and sees a lot of crazy. I look at my half-cleaned half-arranged house, I hear my music, I see myself clutching my phone, and I see my great-grandmother in her kitchen. I see my grandmother on her couch the day my father died. I see my mother in Georgia listening to the Dells. I see all their sisters and daughters too.

At my wedding, a woman is making a brief speech about marriage. She is poised and funny and full of life. My husband leans over and says, “Who is she?” I say, “She’s an auntie, related to my grandfather.” He says, “What’s her name?” I don’t know it. “How do you know she’s related to your grandfather?” he says. It’s the nose. And the charm.

With grandma’s family, it’s the stiff spine. It’s the refusal to limit mothering to your own children (or children at all). It’s the busy hands in times of tragedy. It’s the chip dip and peach cobbler and whisper fights. It’s a huge damn porch on Beniteau. It’s the tears that come eventually.

No matter how far away, it’s still family.

Read this

Hey, I'm working on a post for today, and hopefully I finish before Irene does a face punch to my fair city. In the meantime, read this awesome post from the Good Men Project.