feels a lot like love

"The story of human intimacy is one of constantly allowing ourselves to see those we love most deeply in a new, more fractured light. Look hard. Risk that." -Cheryl Strayed

He could sense that the constant noise of a fuller-than-normal house was beginning to take its' toll on me. Concerned by my very rare silence, he told me to go take some time for myself. I assured him that I was fine, that the noise wasn't that bad, only to be given the look.

Oh, the look. I don't particularly like that look, if only, because it means that I've been figured out. The look tells me that someone else knows better. Even though my principles tell me otherwise, I no longer waste precious time protesting that look because I know that it's one of the things my husband does best. 

He sees me.

And we all just want to be seen, don't we? 

I haven't always appreciated being seen. Somewhere between desire to maintain a certain level of mystery in our relationship and realizing that true intimacy involves intrinsic transparency, Joe and I began seeing each other in a way that nobody else does-- or can. 

Even ten years in, it can still feel pretty fucking scary to walk around without any of the armor I spent my youth piling on. It often feels like the biggest risk of my life trusting someone to see me better than I see myself, to not abuse the power that resides within marrow of that trust. 

But, mostly, it feels a lot like love. 

Thanks, J, for always seeing me and for liking me anyway.

ily.

marlo being marlo, 4.5

Marlo, being Marlo, proving a point.

No matter where we are, no matter what her wardrobe consists of, Marlo is perpetually cold when eating. She spends most of her meal complaining, violently shivering to assist getting her point across which, as you can imagine, makes her the worlds most pleasurable dinner companion. She could be cloaked in a fur jacket and snow boots and she would still find it too cold for her, somehow managing to sit positioned under the one air vent in the entire restaurant. 

"Why can boys not wear shirts at the beach but I have to? I don't have boobs to feed a baby yet because I'm a kid, not a grown-up, so I'm not going to wear one either. Okay, mama?" Okay, Mo, you little feminist-in-the-making, you. PS. You make me so proud. 

More than anyone in the world, Marlo is skilled at forcing me to examine just how full of shit I am. Case in point: I've always believed that she should be in charge of making decisions involving her person. From letting her decide when she was ready to get a hair cut and how she wanted it to look to being able to decide when she would get her ears pierced, if it's on her body, I've always said that I would let her be in charge of making the decision (within age-appropriate reason of course). I made the cardinal mistake of assuming that I'd have years before being forced to practice what I preach. I forgot that she's Mo and, if anything, the walking and talking reminder that I have zero control over who she is quickly becoming. She wants pink hair. She wants to get her ears pierced for Christmas. She wants to wear lipstick anytime we leave the house. RED LIPSTICK. She wants to wear a shirt that shows her belly because she "thinks her belly button is the cutest belly button ever." I'm so out of my league here and counting down the days until I play the because I said so card. 

She recently asked me when colder weather was coming. I told her not for another couple of months and she looked relieved. "Mo, do you not want cooler weather to come?" "Of course not, mama." Okay. "Why not, Mo?"  "Mom, I am dreading colder weather because then I'll have to wear pants and I do not believe in wearing pants. Girls wear skirts and I am a girl. And pants itch." I just shook my head and decided to save this battle for another time. 

"Why is your boov* thing so big, mom? Will my boov thing be big one day, too?" I'm not sure if that's meant to be a compliment or a hint that I need to get myself to the gym. You'll thank me for that boov thing one day, Mo. *Boov is what she calls butts. She picked it up from the movie Home and I find it much more endearing than any alternative.  

I've been reassured that most toddlers are like this but I fear that Marlo is a hypochondriac. She so much as sneezes, she's convinced that she has the bubonic plague. She wakes up at least once a week and before she's even half way down the stairs, she tells us that she was "the worst headache ever" and needs to spend the day resting and therefore can't go to school or camp or errands unless the errand is Target in which case she is magically better and even has enough energy to throw a tantrum because I won't buy her some obnoxious toy that she doesn't need. We buy band-aids in bulk to cover invisible boo-boos that she demands to go to the hospital for. She will inform us that she has somehow broken her wrist which is almost always conveniently timed with when I ask her to pick up her toys or make her bed or brush her teeth before bed. Now that I think of it, she may not be a hypochondriac as much as she's a neurotic mastermind determined to get out of any task or chore she doesn't feel like doing. 

"Whatevs, Mom." I'm sorry, what?! You're four. STOP.

She still misses Brooklyn and her best friend there. Almost weekly, she asks me why we had to move to North Carolina but assures me that she's starting to really like it even though she likes DUMBO better. I have to hold back tears every time and keep myself from feeling guilty. It hasn't been the easiest transition for her but it's definitely getting better. 

Over the July 4th holiday, we watched our next door neighbor's dog while they were on vacation. I made sure to include Mo when tending to him because I want her to understand that having a pet is a big responsibility. Mo has always been extremely task oriented so it should've been no surprise that she took the job VERY seriously. She came home a few nights ago from playing with their daughter a few dollars richer and this is the conversation that ensued: "Mom!!!! Mom!!! Mr. Tom gave me so many moneys!!!" He did!? What for? "Mom, don't you remember? I took care of Smith for them and I did a great job so I got the moneys." That's awesome babe. Do you know what you're going to do with the moneys? "Yes! I'm taking you out for ice cream because you helped unlock their door for me to feed Smith because I'm too short and you threw the ball for him when I didn't want to touch it because it was slobbery and dirty and you picked up his poop. You want to get ice cream with me? You gonna get chocolate, vanilla, or coffee?" She may pick and choose when to be generous and genuinely kind-hearted but it never fails to take my breath away when she is. 

Since she was around three and a half, most of her curiosity revolves around gender roles. Raising egalitarian and open-minded kids is a responsibility I take very seriously, especially given the current social and political climates they are growing up in. We were in the car on the way to camp a few mornings back and this was our lesson of the day: "Mom. So what you're saying is that boys and girls can do whatever they want, right?" That's right, Mo. "So boys can wear make-up or be princesses or paint their nails or wear jewelry or buy pretty skirts and that's okay?" If it makes them happy, then yes, absolutely, it's okay. "I think I would be best friends with a boy if he did all dat stuff mama. He'd be so happy and I'd be so happy and we could play dress-up together but not my Elsa dress. That one is special to me so I won't share that with anyone, even a happy boy. We'd could make friendship bracelets though. Wouldn't that be so nice?" Kids have a way of taking intimidating topics and proving that it's not as complicated as many of us make it out to be.

Marlo often reminds me that very rarely do kids give a single fuck about anything other than being happy and being a part of what makes other people happy. If only the rest of the world could catch on...

thoughts on becoming a real parent

I don't think I felt like a real parent until yesterday.

I was only 25 when I had Marlo which, looking back, isn't all that young in the grand scheme of things. But I was young enough that I often got asked if I was the nanny or, even better, the baby sitter. Fortunately, I was too medicated to be offended by the implication that I am either A) too young to be responsible for creating and taking care of a life or B) that my child looks absolutely nothing like me.

When I was a mama to only one, I was also in the throes of first-time parenthood which is a period of time resembling a psych experiment gone rouge more than a blissed-out bubble of maternal bliss. I was a mom, sure, but I remained under the assumption that parents-- REAL parents-- had it all figured out. By way of deductive reasoning, I could not possibly be a parent because the things I had figured out numbered near nada. 

I entered second-time parenthood more optimistic. However, I soon realized that I still didn't have anything figured out. I knew what to expect with a newborn which I've determined is a large part of the battle those first few brutal sleepless months (or in my case, these last fifteen). The second time around, I quickly discovered that my most challenging obstacle was that I had absolutely no idea how to raise two kids. 

Siblings was an entirely foreign concept to me as I grew up an only child. Mo was incredibly excited about Edie's impending arrival and she loved her already... all the way up until the minute she arrived. After only a matter of a few days, Marlo realized that a newborn was rather boring and being hushed, rushed, and told to wait (over and over and over again) wasn't worth all of the hype. We had lied to her. When Edie was six days old, Mo scratched her on her nose, drawing blood. It was then that I realized that this sibling thing was likely going to take some work.

From that first drop of blood moving forward, my only goal was to help Mo not hate Edie. I also reasoned that if Edie could survive her first year as Mo's little sister with very little blood shed, I would declare it a job well done for all of us. 

Yesterday, a little over fifteen months later, I sat on our porch and watched two sisters delight in each other's company. I drank a glass of rosé, silently soaking in the fruits of my labor. They laughed, they bickered (well, Mo whined; Edie just grunted), they hugged, and they played. They behaved like sisters who love each other as much as they are utterly annoyed by the other's presence which is a delicate balance I consider a win.

They take their respective roles seriously: Mo looks after Edie probably more intently than I do. She anticipates a fall or a stumble and is usually the first one reaching for her chubby little hand. There is no one more proud of Edie than Mo. Edie, on the other hand, is becoming an expert at annoying the shit out of Marlo. No one can do it more efficiently and she devilishly delights in messing with her any chance she can get. She also finds no one funnier than Mo which, in Mo's eyes, often makes makes up for standing in front of the tv when she's watching Bubble Guppies on repeat.

As I watched my two girls be sisters, I felt like one of those real parents. I now know that the things I get wrong don't and won't matter as much as the things that I get right.

Maybe what makes you a real parent isn't having it all figured out; rather, just figuring out your kids and doing right by them as often as you can*. That's my theory, anyway, and I'm sticking to it.  

*The fact that Marlo now looks like my twin and I no longer get mistaken for the nanny doesn't hurt matters either. 

August 3rd

Today is August 3rd, the day of my biological father's birth. 

I try to avoid admitting it but August 3rd hurts. Whereas birthdays are usually cause for great celebration, August 3rd is a reminder that birthdays will eventually have an expiration date. August 3rd's alternate parallel is May 9th, the day that claimed Keith's death.

With death's finality, any possibility of fixing what is broken is gone which makes me inconceivably, and understandably, angry. I'm embarrassed to admit how easily focusing on that anger comes for me so I limit it to these two days a year. I fight it off like a rabid dog. Being angry is easier than accepting an apology I'll never get. It's far less difficult than forgiving a person who never admitted that they were wrong or that they fell short in the ways that mattered most. It requires very little effort to blame him, to shake a finger at the man who found solace at the bottom of a bottle of Crown Royal rather than in the arms of the people who poured their love into him so blindly until they had to choose self-preservation over martyrdom. I could rattle of his shortcomings as a husband to my mother, as a father to me, or as a son to my grandparents. I could call him a hypocrite and a coward.

I could for the hundredth time ask what-if until I have nearly convinced myself that I could've done more than I did, that I could've swallowed my pride and picked up the damn phone; that I, alone, could've fixed our relationship. If I wanted to reverse any of the work I've done thus far, I could ask the one question I know I shouldn't; the one question that is excessively unfair to lay on anyone's shoulders:

Could I have helped prevent his death?

And I have said all of those things and asked myself those questions over the last six years. To myself, to therapists, to my friends and loved ones, to the woman who was once married to him, and even to the man who stepped in and took over as my dad when I was drowning in the murky waters of losing the father I was born with. I've sobbed silently, sat with the deafening and complicated process of letting go of someone that I never really knew, and wished simultaneously that none of it ever happened and that I could live through it all over again. I've wondered why I didn't try to give him an ultimatum: me or the booze. I've wondered what he would've chosen and, mostly, doubted that it would've been me. While it's impossible to avoid these thoughts, I will not under any circumstance allow myself to wallow in them.

It's been thirteen years since we've last spoken and in that amount of time, I've finally gotten to a place where I don't feel the need to rehash all that he wasn't, even if doing so helps me justify excusing myself from our relationship. I've stopped focusing on all that he didn't do or where he came up an inch or a mile short, telling myself instead that he was likely trying his best at a job he simply wasn't cut out for. I've stopped asking myself why he didn't value his own life enough to keep living, if only, because no matter the answer, his lack of self-worth is a gut-wrenching reality.

I've concluded that he, like the rest of us, was a deeply flawed human and just like I've done a thousand times-- just like any flawed human has done, does, and will continue to do-- he simply fucked up. If I can so easily admit that I am human, surely, I should show the same respect to a man who, quite literally, made his grave and now rests in it. 

What I have been forced to accept is that some wounds will never fully heal. They run too deep because the manner in which they occurred was etched much too vividly into our brains. We either hide them behind cloaks of nonchalance or humor, pretending they don't still hurt like hell when given the acknowledgement or we painfully attempt to keep the wounds clean. 

A small part of me prefers knowing that the wound is there. Not out of self-pity or because I find comfort in painful memories; rather, I wholly fear the alternative of apathy. I'd much rather walk around with an occasionally bleeding wound than there be no remnants whatsoever of the battles I've fought so hard to survive.

My belief that we cannot allow ourselves to stand in allegiance to pain, no matter the perpetrator, is only solidified. It is fiercely reiterated that our own emotional well-being and preservation is wholly as important as the next person' and the League of Martyrdom isn't one you should ever accept an open invitation to join. 

August 3rd is hardly an easy day. It is nowhere close to even being considered a good day. But I didn't wake up hoping to have a good day. I woke up planning on simply having a day.

Before I fell asleep last night, I told myself that when I woke up this morning, I'd use this particular August 3rd differently than I have in the past. I wouldn't sulk. I wouldn't allow myself to feign indifference. I would finally allow myself the freedom to feel the feelings. I committed to waking up and being grateful for simply waking up. I swore I'd spend the day mindful of all of the good problems I am lucky enough to have and to embrace the scars some of those problems have left in their wake. I promised to focus on the chance I've been given to learn from my own mistakes as well as from his. I pledged to love loudly because if a person who is suffering needs anything, it's love.

I vowed to appreciate August 3rd... 

and him, wherever he is. 

024/365

a few things I want to remember

the sound of edie calling me ama (pronounced: aaahhh maaaaa) instead of mama. hearing Mo tell me how pretty she felt the entire ride home from getting her hair cut. catching Joe looking at me with what felt like deep love and affection combined with rather carnal attraction. the satisfaction of cooking an expensive steak to the perfect medium rare temperature. being caught off guard by genuine kindness. afternoon light. three a.m. cuddle sessions with marlo after one of her supposed nightmares. landing handstand after months of work. waking up in the morning (when it is actually daylight, no less) after the first night of uninterrupted sleep in weeks. watching Mo twirl her little sister in the kitchen one rainy afternoon and realizing that THIS is why you have more than one kid. reading a book that you can't put down, that you don't mind loosing sleep in order to finish because it is THAT good. being understood and validated even if there remains a difference in opinion.