On Family

 

Its fall. Things are changing. And aren’t they always. The cold that doesn’t’ set in early enough in the night, but wakes me in the morning with a crispness my body craves. The starlings have started to land in flocks on my front lawn, fifty at a time, taking off in a synchronized emergence that leaves me jealous. My body gets tired sooner, but so sooner does it light up in the morning light with inspiration. 

 I’ve been thinking about family a lot this year. The one I grew up with, that I call my parents and sister and brother now, the one that keeps my stomach in knots yearning for some level of emotional intimacy we never learned to whip up. Also thinking about the one I’ve built, with the ones I truly love, the ones that hold me when I’m crying, laugh with me til I’m crying again, stumble through life with me and help me to refine my edges and move towards where I want to be while remembering right where I am. Then, of course, thinking of the family I might call my own child someday. I dream of her, running around the house. I dream of myself being able to hold space for her, to build a pattern in her that knows love is safe. And maybe dreaming she can help me learn the same. 

 Mom and Dad came to visit last week. After a couple difficult (for all) conversations with me begging for softness and closeness amidst my impending choice to be a single mother, and with my father calling me a ‘snotty little bitch.’ Honestly, it felt good to hear him say it. Masochistic? Or just relieving that finally something was said instead of another layer on the old pile of passive aggressive violence and silent anger in the family. My dad and I will never talk about that again, like all the things we’ve never addressed. My mom, on the other hand, was great. I see her trying, trying to meet her sensitive daughter with the best she’s got. She asked questions, she spent time with me, she said some kind things about my friends. She may never be the mom who could ever hold me hand, or stroke my hair or my face, or look at my sweetly and tell me that I can do it, that I can be a mother, that she is proud of me, that she is here for me. And I’m grieving that, perhaps in a way that’s really going to shift the pain for me for once. 

 Perhaps some of the forgiveness and grace I’m feeling for my mom comes from seeing her brother. 

That’s why she came to Colorado. Her brother, Tim, is dying. Her words not mine. They haven’t spoken in 10 years, since Grandma’s funeral, and they didn’t speak for a good 10 years before that. Her other brother, Mike, no one knows where he is. Apparently he’s got six kids somewhere around Colorado, all my cousins running around this state, but I couldn’t even tell you one of their names. Her sister, Glenna, who has always been good to me when I see her once every 3-4 years, she won’t speak to either of the brothers. Apparently the last time Glenna saw Tim he tried to strangle her, a story my mom just shared with me this trip. 

I watched my body tighten, the tears build in the corners of my eyes, the heart stop itself from showing vulnerability in front of my mom. I watched myself just keep driving, trying to listen to her passively share the violence of her family, and mine. My uncle tried to strangle my aunt after my grandmother died, in the same small, smoky living room in Greeley, Colorado where my dad tried to strangle my brother years ago. We’ve never spoken of that one again either. 

 This, my friends, is America. Northeastern Colorado, rural, staring out the window at a farm that will never feed people, watching the dust billow up on the abandoned old cars on the side of the dirt road. Walking up the old ratty stairs of a house left for dead long ago, crushing the pages of old Buddhism texts beneath my feet as I make my way into my past, into my family’s heirlooms of memories. Breathing in the aroma of cigarettes, speed, rotting fast food bags, pain and tears cried into the carpet, fights that turned violent, things thrown, relationships broken, boys never turning into men – or maybe molding men too fast, too soon. In the background I spot a hole in the wall and I wonder what the story is. But in front of the hole is a box of Pallisade peaches. Owen – my cousin - wants to can some later. Dissolved in all the roughness that’s making me cringe, there is an instinct of sweetness, a common love for, well, good local fruit. Tim is dying, that seems to be true. Owen and Kelton, my other cousins running around Colorado that I don’t know of but can at least say their names, are showing a love I’ve never been able to experience with my parents. I watched Owen’s hands, hurt from heroine addiction and strong from scraping by an existence putting up siding on his dad’s old house, move across Tim’s back rubbing back and forth trying to help him cough out the cancer that will never leave again. I watched Kelton’s eyes, the sensitive searching ones yearning to be seen, tear up as he gives us the update on Tim’s prognosis and what life’s next steps are in life after he dies. He doesn’t know. 

 I am my mother’s daughter. I have her heart, her rebellion. Something made my mom leave this old house, leave this old town, search for something more. Something made my mom believe in goodness, in social work, in helping people. Probably the same people like her family. Something made my mother put herself through a semester of college even though it angered her father. Something made her believe she could figure out how to be a mother, not only of one, but of three. And something made her keep trying to love even though everything she’s known of love, including my father, and her son at times, is scary, hard, distant, violent, substance abusive, harsh, and ultimately leading to not speaking. 

 I am my mother’s daughter, and maybe I can do what she has done.

On Loving unconditionally, me.

 

Thats what I wanted. To love you unconditionally. Yes, I wanted that in return, and I still do. 

But somehow loving you became more important. It comes more naturally, more peacefully than trying to love myself. To see you for your whole self, for this man you’ve yet to become but that you are becoming, always. To watch your curls unfurl on your head, cut back, and rebirth. To watch your desire pull the curtain back on your confidence. To watch your hands find a steadiness around my hips, in the soils of Colorado, pecking away awkwardly at a computer, soulfully sprinkling salt over the Turkey stock at thanksgiving dinner. To give you an appreciative audience to the unraveling of your mystery. 

Thats what I wanted, to love you unconditionally. And I still do. 

I try to love myself, perhaps more, unconditionally. I unravel the mysteries of my shadows, I’m digging too many layers deep looking for a richer humus of myself. I’m turning over the layers looking for the beauty in how my selves have decomposed into themselves to bring me here. I'm trying to believe that that is sweeter - or will be - than the fiery sweetness of knowing you might love me.

the Big Feelers

 Someone told me the other day, "You and me... we’re a lot."  

I am a lot. I've had more than my fair share of heavy feelings. Maybe that’s why I tend to love men who have felt a lot too. Like, finally I'm not alone. 

Austin always felt a lot. Thinking back 20 years when my love-struck eyes gazed back at him in his beat up old car I found so charming, holding my breath at 4AM after a cram session at the library, believing with all my heart that our love was about to burst on the scene. I felt a lot that night. And so did Austin... unfortunately not for me, but for another woman getting married (oh Oklahoma college days!). He wanted advice from me, his "special friend", on whether and how to make a romantic stop-the-wedding Rom Con scene. 

My heart has always wanted to believe in these scenes. Thanks Hollywood. I’m ashamed to admit it, but I filled my brain with Dawson’s Creek, girl-next-door, innocently simple yet extremely dramatic and never fulfilled love. It's what I grew up on, and what I never had, and what made me believe maybe there was always something wrong with me.  I’ve tried living out the image of this perfectly imperfect girl, independent and stubborn yet you just can’t not love her, she's the man everyone wants! Ever seeking the adorning male gaze, especially from the Big Feelers like me.

But I’m not that woman. No one is.

I've watched Austin and I both fight the battle for balance of being a Big Feeler and a Reasonable  Badass in this world. (Why are they at odds with each other?) Austin, my college girl crush, my Hot Boy in a Towel, wandering off to New Zealand to be a sheep farmer, reading The Razor’s Edge with me with notes in the margins, clicking his heels mid-air in front of my downtown apartment pre-hipster Denver, smoking his first joint under an adult living room tent, flying me to Vegas for a renewal on the belief in adventure, stretching his arms out for love.

In many ways, I’ve been stretching my arms right back at him, and to everyone. Believing in all the fragility and vulnerability and beauty of Love.

In 2020, I watched Austin and his Big Feeler love take a turn. 

After another (yes, another) heartbreaking breakup, a text from Austin came as a refreshing breath of Mountain Air, an invitation to take up space in his Crested Butte home for the weekend and literally and figuratively put my feet up and say fuck it all. I pictured myself next to the fire, sipping cheap red wine, finishing my book “the Subtle art of not giving a fuck” from my Ex nonetheless, and renewing my lease on adventure while living out the Razors Edge of life. I opened the door that night to a different picture. Not prepared at all for what life was about to throw at me. 

 Austin’s brother Clay was diagnosed with Bipolar 1 Disorder back in college. Back when Austin and I were both struggling to find our own truth in the midst of the Bible Belters, and back when Mental Health was a dirty word among Evangelicals and progressives of Oklahoma country life. Back before my friend Easton was  diagnosed with Bipolar too. Back before Adam would commit suicide after years of severe depression. Back before I knew how to name my own Anxiety. 

For Austin, it's always been his brother's "thing". Of course, Austin and his family have “to deal” with it because of his brother. I’ve only heard of how Austin has to pay for, clean up, cover up, struggle with the reality of his brother’s mental illness. I never really thought or felt the need to dig deeper into how it may affect Austin beyond that. 

 When I opened the door, Austin’s eyes told me something was off. His normally warm and welcoming heart was cold, red-blooded, stressed, distracted. He couldn’t even muster the focus to show me to my room. My ego immediately made it about me - was he mad I was late? Was he upset and needed to talk? I need to pee, but I should listen to Austin, I should make him some food. Instead, he left me for the Steam Room, and I made my way to the kitchen where I met Clay, Austin’s brother, who I would spend the next 24 hours in the worst fight or flight of my life. Austin’s bipolar manic episode started off with a slight, moderate pacing and heavy breathing - something you could call stress. He travels back and forth between New York, and Crested Butte and London so much you might expect he just needs to chill out. Austin also has quite a bit of money - I mean, he’s pacing in a 4000 square foot home in the most expensive mountain towns in Colorado, taking breaks in his personal steam room. He runs with the CEOs of Exxon mobile and private agents of Christopher Dawkins. So when he starts telling paranoid conspiracy theories of people following him and listening to his plans to start a new political party based on love (Make Integrity Great Again), it's somewhat plausible to think he’s right. 

I thought he might just needs to lay down for a minute; I laid my feet over his; we put on his favorite comedy shows, gave him water. His mild stress and pacing turned to fierce paranoia. Kris, should I drink water? Clay, what was that noise outside? Do you think the fire is real? Do you think they’re listening to us through your phone? The pizza I tried to get him to eat was poisoned, the water glass we gave him was contaminated with bleach, the vape pen was stealing his DNA and uploading his consciousness into the internet. I’ve never seen anyone like this. Even on molly, X, acid you name it - I’ve never seen someone so convinced. 

 His paranoia eventually merged into a super ego, a superman complex, a delusion of grandeur. He threw a bag over the stairwell, breaking a bunch of glass in the throw. The outcome invigorated him, seeing the destruction his body could cause, and he flipped over a coffee table. He began “breathing the breath of Yahweh, and eventually threw a 50 pound weight over the stairwell and cracked the floor below. That’s when I grabbed my dog and locked myself in the room on the basement floor - bad call. 

Had I known the trajectory of the night, or had I had any semblance of idea what was going on with a bipolar paranoid manic, I would have grabbed my keys and left. But this is Austin - my hot boy in a towel, my Philosophies of LIfe college philosiphizer, my partner in crime in the belief that all that matters in the end is Love. How could I leave him? And how could I leave Clay? Clay eventually made into my room and we locked Austin - who was now masturbating, peeing, screaming, exercising the Antichrist out of the house, vacumming, - out. Austin tried to break the door down. While he wasn’t successful in getting in, he did manage to break the door. Here I am again, behind a closed door being banged on. I feel small, and emotional, and questioning of myself over reacting. And most of all I feel alone. I made it through the night without a single tear. Austin made it through the night too, somehow. At 5AM he decided, “THE GAME IS UP.” He just kept saying it was over, he knew everything now, and he was “out.” Leaving behind his phone and a winter coat, he left in a car with only boxers on in the middle of Colorado mountain winter. Sparing the details of that horrible day, I can end with … he survived. Physically, he survived. Mentally, I’m not sure if he’ll ever be the same. And neither wil I. I too am human, I could easily be you.