sister in law
my brother is going to be engaged and then married soon.
i am fucking hating it.
the other day my he asked me if i was "excited to have another girl in the family." my wtf at that was endless. i finally texted back that lawl mom is a girl silly, because i couldn't think of anything else to say. but i can feel it beginning. the gendering.
it was great growing up with all brothers. i always proclaimed as a teenager that i didn't like catty, fickle girls and i preferred being around guys. i've spent a lot of heart aching work clawing that internalized misogyny out of myself. but there were still good things about having all brothers. since i was the only girl i was free to meld with everyone. i think things weren't gendered too much because then i'd be alone. there were obviously some gendered things, like when the boys would go off to do "their priesthood duty", but i was never made to feel like i was a girly girl that had to do my own girly things and be girly. i recognize now that, even with my problems, i was always a feminist and leaned that way.
but now there will be another "girl" in the family and it's already the worst. not in a sexist way but in a people will be sexist to us way.
we've known the girl for a while and she's cool and right for my brother but not someone i would automatically latch on to. we're very, very different. i don't want to have to be friends with someone just because we're the only two "girls" in the family. i don't want to be forced into gendered activities and be the butt of gendered jokes. my brother already texts me jokes about "the wife is always right" and it just makes me throw up. he is PUMPED for his own little, gendered, appropriate, "righteous" version of the lds marriage, and i'm excited for him but also horrified.
i am fucking hating it.
the other day my he asked me if i was "excited to have another girl in the family." my wtf at that was endless. i finally texted back that lawl mom is a girl silly, because i couldn't think of anything else to say. but i can feel it beginning. the gendering.
it was great growing up with all brothers. i always proclaimed as a teenager that i didn't like catty, fickle girls and i preferred being around guys. i've spent a lot of heart aching work clawing that internalized misogyny out of myself. but there were still good things about having all brothers. since i was the only girl i was free to meld with everyone. i think things weren't gendered too much because then i'd be alone. there were obviously some gendered things, like when the boys would go off to do "their priesthood duty", but i was never made to feel like i was a girly girl that had to do my own girly things and be girly. i recognize now that, even with my problems, i was always a feminist and leaned that way.
but now there will be another "girl" in the family and it's already the worst. not in a sexist way but in a people will be sexist to us way.
we've known the girl for a while and she's cool and right for my brother but not someone i would automatically latch on to. we're very, very different. i don't want to have to be friends with someone just because we're the only two "girls" in the family. i don't want to be forced into gendered activities and be the butt of gendered jokes. my brother already texts me jokes about "the wife is always right" and it just makes me throw up. he is PUMPED for his own little, gendered, appropriate, "righteous" version of the lds marriage, and i'm excited for him but also horrified.
it's okay
i'm a serious person. guess what, it's okay to be serious. i'm not a social person. it's okay. i'm not a drawing, painting artist, like i dabbled in when i was younger. it's okay, i don't have to be an artist. i always told everyone i'd be an editor, but that was because it was a respectable thing to say and i hated it when they asked if i was going to teach. but i'm not really going to, probably, and guess what, it's okay, there are other games i want to play.
there's also some insecurity still. as dh and i both struggle with health stuff i wonder if life would be different if i'd just worn my apron and made all the meals and done the homecookin wife thing. but guess what, it's okay if i don't want to be a housewife and it's okay if i don't want to cook for my husband like it's 1950 or if i don't clean when i don't want to.
and there's still the church thing to figure out. mostly, i don't have it figured out. but i have decided that it's okay. it's okay no matter what my bishop thinks of me because he doesn't actually know anything about me and he's spoken to me two times. it's okay if i don't smile and massage the priesthood duty feeling bravado of his bishopric goonies or other men at church. it's okay if i'm not a perfect, thin, adoring housewife with five children at my ankles and perfect tits and hair and a perfect testimony. i'm not even sure that shit's actually real. it's okay if i don't care whether or not our home teachers make it this month when the guy making the appointment approaches both me and my husband but only greets him. it's okay for me to go to church and not want to be there. despite what my bishopric thinks, it's okay for me to go to church and stay in the library instead of going to classes and i don't need to explain myself to them. if i just don't know right now, and if i'm more worried about protecting myself at the moment, it's okay.
if i don't stop defending myself or dolling myself up or trying to appease other people, i will never heal.
there's also some insecurity still. as dh and i both struggle with health stuff i wonder if life would be different if i'd just worn my apron and made all the meals and done the homecookin wife thing. but guess what, it's okay if i don't want to be a housewife and it's okay if i don't want to cook for my husband like it's 1950 or if i don't clean when i don't want to.
and there's still the church thing to figure out. mostly, i don't have it figured out. but i have decided that it's okay. it's okay no matter what my bishop thinks of me because he doesn't actually know anything about me and he's spoken to me two times. it's okay if i don't smile and massage the priesthood duty feeling bravado of his bishopric goonies or other men at church. it's okay if i'm not a perfect, thin, adoring housewife with five children at my ankles and perfect tits and hair and a perfect testimony. i'm not even sure that shit's actually real. it's okay if i don't care whether or not our home teachers make it this month when the guy making the appointment approaches both me and my husband but only greets him. it's okay for me to go to church and not want to be there. despite what my bishopric thinks, it's okay for me to go to church and stay in the library instead of going to classes and i don't need to explain myself to them. if i just don't know right now, and if i'm more worried about protecting myself at the moment, it's okay.
if i don't stop defending myself or dolling myself up or trying to appease other people, i will never heal.
i can feel my life turning a bit and i'm excited. i've closed down my freelancing projects and am getting serious about law school and, actually, i want to write a book. i know big things are down the road for me but i know that they will take time, too. i've always been good with the artistry of the thing but i'm also someone that takes time to get it right. i'll compress and decompress for a a while and then, randomly, when it's time, a pearl will surface. i want to get back to what i love: research and writing and that deep knowledge. and this job fucking sucks but i essentially could be getting a pretty fair salary to do whatever i want in my downtime at work--i could essentially be paid that salary to be working on my book. i can feel that the time is coming.
i've been reading a lot about professional women (mostly famous women, because accessibility) and it's really buoying me up. this is such an exciting (and difficult) time to be a professional woman and a feminist. the past two or three years have been so difficult--like when babies are born and they're all misshaped and squished from the incredible pressure of being born. i feel that change--my weight's different, my outlook is different, my social life is different, my priorities are different, my MO is different. i feel that misshapenness of being born. maybe this is how everyone is but i kind of feel like a star in hyper speed--when i catch on to something i'm too passionate and too outspoken and i usually step and squash on the feelings of the people helping me and i shine really bright until that excruciating supernova comes and then overnight i'm a stable white dwarf and i burn hot but not too hot. that's what these past few years have been, and i've finally stripped away all the things other people wanted me to do and i'm realizing what i actually want to be. and it's quite a beautiful moment, right now.
i told dh the other day that i don't plan on rethinking having kids again until i'm 30. that gives me 5 blessed years to turn my life around and put in that effort that i've never really put in. he was surprised but definitely supportive and told me he'd let me know if he was starting to feel a need.
i'm kind of freaking out about turning 25 in a month. like--i am not 18 anymore. my formative years are really, truly gone. this is the real game. but i'm also getting excited about it. there is so much to do and be and i can do anything i want.
i've been reading a lot about professional women (mostly famous women, because accessibility) and it's really buoying me up. this is such an exciting (and difficult) time to be a professional woman and a feminist. the past two or three years have been so difficult--like when babies are born and they're all misshaped and squished from the incredible pressure of being born. i feel that change--my weight's different, my outlook is different, my social life is different, my priorities are different, my MO is different. i feel that misshapenness of being born. maybe this is how everyone is but i kind of feel like a star in hyper speed--when i catch on to something i'm too passionate and too outspoken and i usually step and squash on the feelings of the people helping me and i shine really bright until that excruciating supernova comes and then overnight i'm a stable white dwarf and i burn hot but not too hot. that's what these past few years have been, and i've finally stripped away all the things other people wanted me to do and i'm realizing what i actually want to be. and it's quite a beautiful moment, right now.
i told dh the other day that i don't plan on rethinking having kids again until i'm 30. that gives me 5 blessed years to turn my life around and put in that effort that i've never really put in. he was surprised but definitely supportive and told me he'd let me know if he was starting to feel a need.
i'm kind of freaking out about turning 25 in a month. like--i am not 18 anymore. my formative years are really, truly gone. this is the real game. but i'm also getting excited about it. there is so much to do and be and i can do anything i want.
i'm having a lot of pent up feelings that i need to get out.
we've been watching a lot of archer. actually, like, we watched all of it. and at the end of the last episode on netflix, we find out the main female character is pregnant. (spoiler alert? lolz oh well.) at this, i was FURIOUS. i was so upset. why is the only interesting thing that can happen to a female character for her to get pregnant? pam beesly, anyone? i know there are some very important reasons i may be overreacting. like, of course this won't happen with a male character, because that's anatomically impossible. and everyone has families. families in art are art imitating life imitating art. i get it, it's okay for characters to have families. also, getting pregnant is a really exciting and possibly the biggest life change a person can have. but still... why is it the catch all SURPRISE PLOT TWIST in movies and tv shows? like, literally, why does this have to happen? i am so furious. like, not watch the show ever again mad. at least in the office it was about pam and jim's love and their family... i guess... but archer is straight up satire on satire on satire. so like, give me a break. what a misogynistic plot choice.
the other one is how much i hate chris pratt. i know i am a terrible person for saying this and he is lovely, has a lovely family, is an actually nice guy and shit. im getting de ja vu so maybe i blogged this before but i'll never forget dh saying to me once when we were watching parks and rec together that leslie was not funny at all but that andy was the shit. I HATED THAT. please see earlier post about mook movies and comedy. leslie, a funny, well written, smart, ambitious, feminist female character doesn't have a thing on andy, who everyone thinks is funny because he's stupid and acts dumb. let me say that again. an ambitious, put together, spit-fire, feminist character cannot compare to a male character defined by being dumb. that is incredibly frustrating. then galaxy of the guardians happened, which honestly was MEDIOCRE, at best. but everyone loved it because chris pratt!!!!! and now he's a big star!!! and he deserves a mcconaissance!!!! and everyone on the internet is so excited! i understand that he's pretty much the male jennifer lawrence but that also just doesn't even compare. jennifer has been distinguished in everything she does and is a consistently great actor. then chris pratt does two "funny" (if you're into that) gigs and now he's the most important actor in hollywood. like, give me a fucking break.
i think i'm just having a bad day. but i really needed to talk to someone about this.
we've been watching a lot of archer. actually, like, we watched all of it. and at the end of the last episode on netflix, we find out the main female character is pregnant. (spoiler alert? lolz oh well.) at this, i was FURIOUS. i was so upset. why is the only interesting thing that can happen to a female character for her to get pregnant? pam beesly, anyone? i know there are some very important reasons i may be overreacting. like, of course this won't happen with a male character, because that's anatomically impossible. and everyone has families. families in art are art imitating life imitating art. i get it, it's okay for characters to have families. also, getting pregnant is a really exciting and possibly the biggest life change a person can have. but still... why is it the catch all SURPRISE PLOT TWIST in movies and tv shows? like, literally, why does this have to happen? i am so furious. like, not watch the show ever again mad. at least in the office it was about pam and jim's love and their family... i guess... but archer is straight up satire on satire on satire. so like, give me a break. what a misogynistic plot choice.
the other one is how much i hate chris pratt. i know i am a terrible person for saying this and he is lovely, has a lovely family, is an actually nice guy and shit. im getting de ja vu so maybe i blogged this before but i'll never forget dh saying to me once when we were watching parks and rec together that leslie was not funny at all but that andy was the shit. I HATED THAT. please see earlier post about mook movies and comedy. leslie, a funny, well written, smart, ambitious, feminist female character doesn't have a thing on andy, who everyone thinks is funny because he's stupid and acts dumb. let me say that again. an ambitious, put together, spit-fire, feminist character cannot compare to a male character defined by being dumb. that is incredibly frustrating. then galaxy of the guardians happened, which honestly was MEDIOCRE, at best. but everyone loved it because chris pratt!!!!! and now he's a big star!!! and he deserves a mcconaissance!!!! and everyone on the internet is so excited! i understand that he's pretty much the male jennifer lawrence but that also just doesn't even compare. jennifer has been distinguished in everything she does and is a consistently great actor. then chris pratt does two "funny" (if you're into that) gigs and now he's the most important actor in hollywood. like, give me a fucking break.
i think i'm just having a bad day. but i really needed to talk to someone about this.
when i first got married, i had this terrible fear of driving places alone. like if it was a planned thing with friends or something, it was fine. but if i was going to go to target or smiths without dh, there was like a 95% chance it wouldn't happen. i like, didn't leave the house and drive by myself anywhere for months. i don't know if dh knows that. i don't know what it was. maybe a fear that if something happened with the car i'd be too overwhelmed to deal? that because i'm so quiet no one would notice for hours or longer if something happened? that home was just too, too comfortable?
going somewhere with someone just takes so much pressure off for me. like, here comes this taciturn, awkward, vaguely-fashionable-and-pretty-in-a-past-teenage-life, self conscious, polite but seemingly snobbish--and now, overweight--person. and if i have someone with me, it kind of validates my entire existence. like, i'm not too weird or too quiet or too awkward not to have a companion. doesn't even matter that it's dh. i'm as validated going out with my brother as i am with my dh. for me, running errands alone is like trying to do improve alone. ironically, i need to feel like i'm functioning in the normal-people world.
so i don't know what that's about.
also, i prefer only to go outside/anywhere alone after dark. i don't know why. it's just so much more private. which is why winter is so great.
going somewhere with someone just takes so much pressure off for me. like, here comes this taciturn, awkward, vaguely-fashionable-and-pretty-in-a-past-teenage-life, self conscious, polite but seemingly snobbish--and now, overweight--person. and if i have someone with me, it kind of validates my entire existence. like, i'm not too weird or too quiet or too awkward not to have a companion. doesn't even matter that it's dh. i'm as validated going out with my brother as i am with my dh. for me, running errands alone is like trying to do improve alone. ironically, i need to feel like i'm functioning in the normal-people world.
so i don't know what that's about.
also, i prefer only to go outside/anywhere alone after dark. i don't know why. it's just so much more private. which is why winter is so great.
one of my employees saw the new hunger games last night and it started this conversation. according to them,
- it's "so annoying" for an actor (philip seymour hoffman, who they didn't know) to “just die in the middle of filming”
-that it's like when they "just switched rachels" in the batman movies
-that the “first rachel” was “tom cruise’s wife”
-that “the second rachel” is too tall, old looking, and "not innocent and caring"
please keep going, guys. that was only twenty seconds and you only said like ten offensive things.
oh, and expect me to murder you in the night for saying that about maggie gyllenhaal.
- it's "so annoying" for an actor (philip seymour hoffman, who they didn't know) to “just die in the middle of filming”
-that it's like when they "just switched rachels" in the batman movies
-that the “first rachel” was “tom cruise’s wife”
-that “the second rachel” is too tall, old looking, and "not innocent and caring"
please keep going, guys. that was only twenty seconds and you only said like ten offensive things.
oh, and expect me to murder you in the night for saying that about maggie gyllenhaal.
for my dad's birthday--his miraculous, second birthday since his diagnosis--we got my dad a really nice watch to replace the one that he threw at the wall and broke when he found out his brother died.
to quote tiffany maxwell, "that's a feeling."
to quote tiffany maxwell, "that's a feeling."
i think one of my best friendships is officially over. i've kept in touch with my best high school friend pretty much just through text, which we both prefer, for six and a half years. this summer our conversations kind of started flickering out. we didn't talk very much and it was pretty much the same thing over and over. which is ironic, because that's when things really started happening in both of our lives. anyway... the details are many, but i'm pretty sure it's over. things were at an awkward standstill when i deleted my facebook and instagram (and i'm lovin it), and that's been it.
everyone i loved in college (and still love) started to leave, and i'll never forget the night that i met one of my best friends at her apartment to help her pack but mostly just be with her before she left for nursing school. and then i went home that night, that was it. i haven't done anything one on one with someone other than my husband or immediate family member since then. i actually 100% believe that, outside of work, i haven't had an in person one on one conversation that lasted for more than 30 seconds with anyone that wasn't my husband or immediate family member (or maybe grandparents, i don't remember for sure). i know what people would say about this--it's freakish and seriously unhealthy and i'm pathetic. but honestly, it's been great. it's not that i don't miss my provo ladies, and actually i look back on the time we were all together like a really huge missed opportunity because even though you three will always be a part of who i am, i wasn't willing enough or vulnerable enough or in the right place to open up and really craft those friendships like i should have. maybe that would have never happened. and maybe this high school friendship could have never lasted.
it's hard to convince anyone you're a loving, loyal, deeply invested person to be in a relationship with when you aren't social at all. like, physically-painful-to-even-answer an-email-after-twelve-days antisocial (yes this is happening to me right now). when i write my cover letters--and i have written a shit load of cover letters this year--i always include one specific thing. i talk about how i've had so many different jobs at this company and the more jobs i've passed through the more the relationships have stood out. the relationships i had built, or the taking of the opportunity to behave in a two minute conversation so that that person knew i really carec and that they had all my attention--were the things that enabled me to do such great work. and i always include this one line about how my desire to continue building those relationships and the fact that i value them "adds hunger and warmth to my everyday work."
and the thing is, that is like, picked out from the hidden corner of my soul. i really feel that way, and it really means that much to me. there's this saying that you can't get to heaven alone. you have to serve and love and work on those relationships. so, can an introvert get to heaven alone? like, really though. does it count that i can pack a shi-ton of love and caring into two minute conversations when i can't sustain very many relationships, or even text my high school friend back, or even answer a twelve day old email?
everyone i loved in college (and still love) started to leave, and i'll never forget the night that i met one of my best friends at her apartment to help her pack but mostly just be with her before she left for nursing school. and then i went home that night, that was it. i haven't done anything one on one with someone other than my husband or immediate family member since then. i actually 100% believe that, outside of work, i haven't had an in person one on one conversation that lasted for more than 30 seconds with anyone that wasn't my husband or immediate family member (or maybe grandparents, i don't remember for sure). i know what people would say about this--it's freakish and seriously unhealthy and i'm pathetic. but honestly, it's been great. it's not that i don't miss my provo ladies, and actually i look back on the time we were all together like a really huge missed opportunity because even though you three will always be a part of who i am, i wasn't willing enough or vulnerable enough or in the right place to open up and really craft those friendships like i should have. maybe that would have never happened. and maybe this high school friendship could have never lasted.
it's hard to convince anyone you're a loving, loyal, deeply invested person to be in a relationship with when you aren't social at all. like, physically-painful-to-even-answer an-email-after-twelve-days antisocial (yes this is happening to me right now). when i write my cover letters--and i have written a shit load of cover letters this year--i always include one specific thing. i talk about how i've had so many different jobs at this company and the more jobs i've passed through the more the relationships have stood out. the relationships i had built, or the taking of the opportunity to behave in a two minute conversation so that that person knew i really carec and that they had all my attention--were the things that enabled me to do such great work. and i always include this one line about how my desire to continue building those relationships and the fact that i value them "adds hunger and warmth to my everyday work."
and the thing is, that is like, picked out from the hidden corner of my soul. i really feel that way, and it really means that much to me. there's this saying that you can't get to heaven alone. you have to serve and love and work on those relationships. so, can an introvert get to heaven alone? like, really though. does it count that i can pack a shi-ton of love and caring into two minute conversations when i can't sustain very many relationships, or even text my high school friend back, or even answer a twelve day old email?
This morning my two single employees were freaking out about how much married rent is. Then one of them goes, "yeah, sometimes I just think I should find a girl that like just graduated but has a job. Then she'll be like, 'eight hundred dollars for rent? No big deal! I make $84,000 a year' and write a check!" I'm just going to let that sink in. $84,000 a year.
Another time a girl that was working for me was always saying how she just couldn't wait to graduate and be a therapist and make $70,000 a year and she was serious. I'm not really sure where they get this idea from, like are people out there making $70,000 a year 2 years after gradating from this college?? Maybe some. But is everyone? Hell no.
My other employee started saying how married rent is expensive but it's doable on two student incomes. And the $84,000 a year guy goes, "I guess...... And be poor........?.....?"
Another time a girl that was working for me was always saying how she just couldn't wait to graduate and be a therapist and make $70,000 a year and she was serious. I'm not really sure where they get this idea from, like are people out there making $70,000 a year 2 years after gradating from this college?? Maybe some. But is everyone? Hell no.
My other employee started saying how married rent is expensive but it's doable on two student incomes. And the $84,000 a year guy goes, "I guess...... And be poor........?.....?"
sometimes people in my life (usually men) do this thing where if they don't like something i do (98% of the time it doesn't even affect them), they will question me about it until they know all my reasons. i hate it because pretty much they are doing it because they don't think i'm capable of making a sound decision (otherwise how could it be something they don't like??) or they think they deserve an explanation and they won't stop turning their nose up at me unless they think my reasons are good enough.
this happens in response to all kinds of things i do--from putting a door stop in a door to going to law school.
my favorite is when they ask me again if i'm sure about it. hmm let me think.... oh wait, yes, i definitely meant to do that as evidenced by my doing it and my explanation and defensiveness at your request.
i don't care if you understand and i don't owe you an explanation. i don't care who you are. that's not me being a bitch, that's me being a person.
this happens in response to all kinds of things i do--from putting a door stop in a door to going to law school.
my favorite is when they ask me again if i'm sure about it. hmm let me think.... oh wait, yes, i definitely meant to do that as evidenced by my doing it and my explanation and defensiveness at your request.
i don't care if you understand and i don't owe you an explanation. i don't care who you are. that's not me being a bitch, that's me being a person.
remember that one time my roommate never talked to me or said anything and then one day she exploded and told me i gave her depression by not being her good friend and she had to meet with the bishop on regular basis to deal with it and that the whole ward was talking about me behind my back and everyone was mad i wouldn't be friends with them? also remember how she would NEVER lock the front door and when we confronted her about it (and really asked her nicely to lock it) she had a break down and was crying and said that she hates locked doors?
or remember that other roommate who was my best friend who one day she stopped talking to me and wouldn't tell me what was wrong and then one day i came home and she was moving out that day without telling me? and also how she loved twilight and i accidentally found her expensive vampire veneers in a bathroom cupboard one time?
or remember when my roommate would buy bags and bags of stuff from the dollar store and COVER our entire living room in the most awkward home made dollar store crafts? and put a sticker on her missionary calendar every single day until her missionary came home and dumped her?
or remember that one time my roommate's parents convinced her over christmas break that when a guy friend had been in our dorm room and made a joke about a homemade bomb like two months before it was actually a serious bomb threat and she told the police, the bishop, the relief society president, and then asked me not to allow him in our room anymore but when i said no, requested to move rooms immediately? and would also rather die than eat strawberries because she read that they sometimes dye them?
or remember that time i had another roommate who would cough until she threw up? and who also cracked our toilet seat somehow?
or remember when i had a suite mate who refused to lock the shared bathroom door and--semi-unrelated--also saw me naked?
or remember that one time my roommate asked me to keep her credit card so she couldn't buy any more pizza? or that time she had been watching law and order svu for like six days straight (i think she left it on while she slept) and then randomly when i was walking through the living room told me really dramatically that she thought she just remembered being sexually abused? and how she told us she had a porn addiction and would leave her lds recovery booklets around and got way awkward about it when our home teachers came over? and was always in and slept in and kept her stuff in the living room even though she had the only private room? and would throw parties that no one would come to so she would wallow for a week and post mean stuff on our ward's facebook wall?
damn, it's good to be married.
or remember that other roommate who was my best friend who one day she stopped talking to me and wouldn't tell me what was wrong and then one day i came home and she was moving out that day without telling me? and also how she loved twilight and i accidentally found her expensive vampire veneers in a bathroom cupboard one time?
or remember when my roommate would buy bags and bags of stuff from the dollar store and COVER our entire living room in the most awkward home made dollar store crafts? and put a sticker on her missionary calendar every single day until her missionary came home and dumped her?
or remember that one time my roommate's parents convinced her over christmas break that when a guy friend had been in our dorm room and made a joke about a homemade bomb like two months before it was actually a serious bomb threat and she told the police, the bishop, the relief society president, and then asked me not to allow him in our room anymore but when i said no, requested to move rooms immediately? and would also rather die than eat strawberries because she read that they sometimes dye them?
or remember that time i had another roommate who would cough until she threw up? and who also cracked our toilet seat somehow?
or remember when i had a suite mate who refused to lock the shared bathroom door and--semi-unrelated--also saw me naked?
or remember that one time my roommate asked me to keep her credit card so she couldn't buy any more pizza? or that time she had been watching law and order svu for like six days straight (i think she left it on while she slept) and then randomly when i was walking through the living room told me really dramatically that she thought she just remembered being sexually abused? and how she told us she had a porn addiction and would leave her lds recovery booklets around and got way awkward about it when our home teachers came over? and was always in and slept in and kept her stuff in the living room even though she had the only private room? and would throw parties that no one would come to so she would wallow for a week and post mean stuff on our ward's facebook wall?
damn, it's good to be married.
my mom and dad had their very first family reunion this summer with us, their kids (i am the oldest and only married one). we did so many things and had so much fun. on the last day or so, we stopped by buffalo wild wings because my dad had called in an order of boneless wings. a lot of things make him sick these days, but buffalo wild wings is one of the things he can usually eat. we'd been out all day and were in fact coming home from one of our activities, so we all stopped while he ran inside. i don't remember if for some reason i was already irritated--i think someone had been squabbling--but we sat there and the minutes began to drag on. ten minutes. twenty minutes. it was getting to be half an hour and i just wanted to go the f back to the house because it was hot and for whatever reason we were all kind of pissy, mostly from the sun.
we commandeered my brothers, moving them from my mom's car to our car, and right as we were pulling out my dad came out with his little bag of wings, and away we went.
later my mom tells us that my dad was waiting in line for his order when he suddenly had to get to the bathroom. he rushed in there in a panic but the stalls were full, and he lost control of his bowels. it had happened to him before at work in the middle of the morning, and my mom had to pick him up.
she will tell us how he'll go to work and realize his shirt's on backwards or inside out or both and how humiliating it is for him. how once they got an insurance check for my brother's braces and he went out and bought shoes, pants, some books--things he had been needing and wanting--$500 of it. when she asked him why in the world he did it, he said he just thought they had an extra big pay check, that they didn't have any bills that week or something.
my dad is sick and when it hits me, like tonight, from something so silly as a movie, it's obliterating. it's like if he is fading away, i shouldn't exist. not like i can't go on without him or anything like that, but just that this shouldn't happen to anyone's dad, so it's impossible for this to be real. and the burden of that is crushing.
the only thing i could think tonight before the sorrow took over is that i have to make this all worth it. i have to make something of myself.
recently in a get to know you meeting at work one of the questions was, "what was your biggest childhood struggle?" i told the group honestly that i think my parents struggled quite a bit but that i never felt like i was missing a thing, and couldn't think of an answer. i always knew my mom was a fighter from the way she lived her life, but you grow up and learn things you maybe don't want to learn but need to. like that she won against clinical depression. and the battle against suicide. and she's winning in this battle with my dad's cancer--i mean, she's fucking killing it. no human should be able to handle it half as well. and i always under-appreciated my dad. the day they found out about the tumor he was furled up in a wheelchair--why was he in a wheelchair?--and, my mom told us, a tear rolled down his cheek. he asked my mom quietly, "was i enough?" he is a quiet person--i get it all from him--and he is going just like he came--so quietly and imperceptibly that if you didn't know what was actually going on you wouldn't even know it. and then one day he will just be gone.
i am scared that one day i will wake up or be woken up to a call that he just passed away in his sleep. that it could be literally any day. that maybe the tumor won't even come back first. and that i won't have done shit for him, in return for all he did for me.
i have to keep going, on to law school or--the only suitable replacement being--something of equal weight and work and challenge. for all that has happened they gave us so quietly the best life they could, and even if i am not as selfless or opposed or strong as them, i have to give at least one thing in life all that i've fucking got.
we commandeered my brothers, moving them from my mom's car to our car, and right as we were pulling out my dad came out with his little bag of wings, and away we went.
later my mom tells us that my dad was waiting in line for his order when he suddenly had to get to the bathroom. he rushed in there in a panic but the stalls were full, and he lost control of his bowels. it had happened to him before at work in the middle of the morning, and my mom had to pick him up.
she will tell us how he'll go to work and realize his shirt's on backwards or inside out or both and how humiliating it is for him. how once they got an insurance check for my brother's braces and he went out and bought shoes, pants, some books--things he had been needing and wanting--$500 of it. when she asked him why in the world he did it, he said he just thought they had an extra big pay check, that they didn't have any bills that week or something.
my dad is sick and when it hits me, like tonight, from something so silly as a movie, it's obliterating. it's like if he is fading away, i shouldn't exist. not like i can't go on without him or anything like that, but just that this shouldn't happen to anyone's dad, so it's impossible for this to be real. and the burden of that is crushing.
the only thing i could think tonight before the sorrow took over is that i have to make this all worth it. i have to make something of myself.
recently in a get to know you meeting at work one of the questions was, "what was your biggest childhood struggle?" i told the group honestly that i think my parents struggled quite a bit but that i never felt like i was missing a thing, and couldn't think of an answer. i always knew my mom was a fighter from the way she lived her life, but you grow up and learn things you maybe don't want to learn but need to. like that she won against clinical depression. and the battle against suicide. and she's winning in this battle with my dad's cancer--i mean, she's fucking killing it. no human should be able to handle it half as well. and i always under-appreciated my dad. the day they found out about the tumor he was furled up in a wheelchair--why was he in a wheelchair?--and, my mom told us, a tear rolled down his cheek. he asked my mom quietly, "was i enough?" he is a quiet person--i get it all from him--and he is going just like he came--so quietly and imperceptibly that if you didn't know what was actually going on you wouldn't even know it. and then one day he will just be gone.
i am scared that one day i will wake up or be woken up to a call that he just passed away in his sleep. that it could be literally any day. that maybe the tumor won't even come back first. and that i won't have done shit for him, in return for all he did for me.
i have to keep going, on to law school or--the only suitable replacement being--something of equal weight and work and challenge. for all that has happened they gave us so quietly the best life they could, and even if i am not as selfless or opposed or strong as them, i have to give at least one thing in life all that i've fucking got.
on friday dh was offered and hired or a full time job--his boss's job. so, pretty much our eyes are dollar signs right now.
except, it's so much more than that. we are doing well. we are both tooting along. after we got married, it was a year of just being in a dark place. then the next year genuinely dark things were happening in our lives. and now we are coming out of it a little bit and it feels so good. like, maybe this is just what feeling okay and being normal adult humans feels like. but we are so much happier. (at least, i am.)
it wasn't until a few months ago that i realized that what was missing in my life was time alone, time spent actually looking at myself and being like "okay who the f is there?" my senior year of college i was doing amazingly well. i lost a ton of weight and had finally come into my own as an english student and was excelling at work and freak i got a job before i even graduated. and then graduating, getting married, and starting work full time sent me to this twisty place.
i have always been kind of dysfunctional in romantic relationships and i was possessive and i let my life revolve around my marriage. and marriage is important but like dude if you're not doing anything else in life then you're not worth being married to, and i just didn't get that. i just hadn't really made plans to be a person after graduating. (not like i knew what to expect.) maybe waiting those two years f'ed me up (tho i don't regret waiting for him). maybe it's just that i never learned in my 4-year high school relationship to grow the f up and be an adult about things, because i just didn't have to. all i know i that whatever good thing i was coming into when i graduated college quickly left me.
but right now, this moment is delicious. the holidays are coming. some of my evenings will be free for me to spend at the gym, at the movies, in a good book, or wherever i please. we are going to get out of debt. we are doing everything our own way. some people don't get that but we are both doing things that are so right for us.
i am so happy. thank you to my friends who stuck with me when i was so lost.
except, it's so much more than that. we are doing well. we are both tooting along. after we got married, it was a year of just being in a dark place. then the next year genuinely dark things were happening in our lives. and now we are coming out of it a little bit and it feels so good. like, maybe this is just what feeling okay and being normal adult humans feels like. but we are so much happier. (at least, i am.)
it wasn't until a few months ago that i realized that what was missing in my life was time alone, time spent actually looking at myself and being like "okay who the f is there?" my senior year of college i was doing amazingly well. i lost a ton of weight and had finally come into my own as an english student and was excelling at work and freak i got a job before i even graduated. and then graduating, getting married, and starting work full time sent me to this twisty place.
i have always been kind of dysfunctional in romantic relationships and i was possessive and i let my life revolve around my marriage. and marriage is important but like dude if you're not doing anything else in life then you're not worth being married to, and i just didn't get that. i just hadn't really made plans to be a person after graduating. (not like i knew what to expect.) maybe waiting those two years f'ed me up (tho i don't regret waiting for him). maybe it's just that i never learned in my 4-year high school relationship to grow the f up and be an adult about things, because i just didn't have to. all i know i that whatever good thing i was coming into when i graduated college quickly left me.
but right now, this moment is delicious. the holidays are coming. some of my evenings will be free for me to spend at the gym, at the movies, in a good book, or wherever i please. we are going to get out of debt. we are doing everything our own way. some people don't get that but we are both doing things that are so right for us.
i am so happy. thank you to my friends who stuck with me when i was so lost.
for the record, i really like my employees right now and life is pretty quiet and good.
but when my brand new 25 year old employee tells me he is taking two weeks off for christmas and he needs to just make it official so his mommy can buy his plane ticket, i can't tell you how much sympathy i don't have for him.
and ok, he didn't say "mommy", but that's pretty much how it came off.
but when my brand new 25 year old employee tells me he is taking two weeks off for christmas and he needs to just make it official so his mommy can buy his plane ticket, i can't tell you how much sympathy i don't have for him.
and ok, he didn't say "mommy", but that's pretty much how it came off.
Some Thoughts on Mercy - Ross Gay
today's essay is "some thoughts on mercy" by ross gay. i want to preface this entire blurb by saying that i will never know what racism feels like and i understand this privilege is incomprehensible to me. the closest i've ever been to someone denigrating me for the color of my skin was in high school when i was looking for a place to sit. the bus was crowded and i tried to take this empty seat but the kids around it looked me square in the eye and said, 'we don't like white people.' they were asian. still, i'm pretty sure he was joking and that they were laughing at the reserved and terrified look on my face when i left.
i grew up in a pacific northwest town where the hispanic demographic was around 40% of the population but climbing to 50%. there were also many arabic and asian families in town, brought in by the large corporation in town. we were a mostly white but pretty mixed group. it's one of the most liberal areas in the country and, at least as a white (albeit white and mormon) person, it felt extremely accepting.
still, i remember my parents complaining loudly on several occasions that the schools printed everything double sided, with english on one side and spanish on the other. "if they're living here they need to learn english" i heard them say so many times and have heard other people say and have come to loathe with a disgusting pit in my stomach. gangs were also one of the administration's biggest problems (with a relatively calm sea of students), but i don't ever remember anyone, including the administration, defining them racially. mostly i've heard as racist comments as any come out of my parents' and grandparents' mouths and the others that are close to their age. i've always told myself this was an insular mormon and a generational thing, but maybe racism was always more prevalent, even in the northwest, than i understood.
gay's arresting essay focuses on two things: racism as a self-fulfilling prophecy and the unbearable disproportionate responsibility of having skin that's not white. rather than using the term "stereotype" he describes the idea as a "phantom". he describes the way these imagined phantoms affect the white people around him as well as everyone else, and that even a potentially dangerous situation that wasn't dangerous at all had a physical effect on him: "this nonevent took up residence in my body and wrung me out like a rag." i'm very familiar with this feeling of dread and stress from my toxic work relationships--like the other person might as well be threatening or actually attacking you because your physical response--based on an imaginary or unspoken phantom--was that strong.
i also empathize with the blatant disregard and stupidity of the ones denigrating you. "the white kids, some of whom were my close friends, told nigger jokes to my face," gay says, a feeling i'm familiar with as people make sexist jokes and comments to me day in and day out in the office. he recalls how his white friends would explain to him ""the difference between a 'black person' and a 'nigger.'" as a woman, men and other women feel free at any time and at their discretion to determine the type of character a woman has, based most generally on her overall sexual activity and even appearance. i think one difference between the constant subjugation in racism and sexism is that many happily and passively and unknowingly (or disbelievingly) participate in sexism, not believing the power structure to exist, while the existence of racial differences are plainly spelled out on the skin and in history. racism is such an unashamed, unapologetic phantom that wears everything on its sleeves. one story gay shared was particularly poignant:
again, i don't know what it feels like to be a victim of racism. gay's words brought these feelings and memories rushing back, but in the end, i know nothing of his plight. i love his words: "We all think the worst of each other and ourselves, and become our worst selves." he describes the creation of this essay a a way to see "how I’ve been made by this. To have, perhaps, mercy on myself. When we have mercy, deep and abiding change might happen."
i think the reason some people kick their spurs against the word "privilege" is because it's disarming. if you recognize that you have privilege, you are recognizing that you are in some way (probably) not of your own choice given an inability to help solve a problem without potentially being condescending, diminishing, dismissive, or even violent. everyone wants to believe they are a good person and everyone has to believe their intentions are good and pure so their life can go on, but racial privilege is like a built-in hubris, an irremovable mote, a characteristic you had no say in having. and this essay leaves me no choice but to say that, as a white person, i am compelled to "help" but that compulsion is also part of the problem, for me to think that it's my problem to fix. i'm grateful to have read gay's essay to have to face my own privilege, not really having to have faced it growing up, and contemplate that i could be part of the problem.
i'm reminded again of the powerful idea of the other, and that in my day to day walk, and when i have opportunities to serve people at large, i need to give away compassion, allowances, trust and the kind of mercy gay talks about, which is the benefit of the doubt and the willingness to let people articulate, negotiate, and fully scale and own where it is that they come from.
i grew up in a pacific northwest town where the hispanic demographic was around 40% of the population but climbing to 50%. there were also many arabic and asian families in town, brought in by the large corporation in town. we were a mostly white but pretty mixed group. it's one of the most liberal areas in the country and, at least as a white (albeit white and mormon) person, it felt extremely accepting.
still, i remember my parents complaining loudly on several occasions that the schools printed everything double sided, with english on one side and spanish on the other. "if they're living here they need to learn english" i heard them say so many times and have heard other people say and have come to loathe with a disgusting pit in my stomach. gangs were also one of the administration's biggest problems (with a relatively calm sea of students), but i don't ever remember anyone, including the administration, defining them racially. mostly i've heard as racist comments as any come out of my parents' and grandparents' mouths and the others that are close to their age. i've always told myself this was an insular mormon and a generational thing, but maybe racism was always more prevalent, even in the northwest, than i understood.
gay's arresting essay focuses on two things: racism as a self-fulfilling prophecy and the unbearable disproportionate responsibility of having skin that's not white. rather than using the term "stereotype" he describes the idea as a "phantom". he describes the way these imagined phantoms affect the white people around him as well as everyone else, and that even a potentially dangerous situation that wasn't dangerous at all had a physical effect on him: "this nonevent took up residence in my body and wrung me out like a rag." i'm very familiar with this feeling of dread and stress from my toxic work relationships--like the other person might as well be threatening or actually attacking you because your physical response--based on an imaginary or unspoken phantom--was that strong.
i also empathize with the blatant disregard and stupidity of the ones denigrating you. "the white kids, some of whom were my close friends, told nigger jokes to my face," gay says, a feeling i'm familiar with as people make sexist jokes and comments to me day in and day out in the office. he recalls how his white friends would explain to him ""the difference between a 'black person' and a 'nigger.'" as a woman, men and other women feel free at any time and at their discretion to determine the type of character a woman has, based most generally on her overall sexual activity and even appearance. i think one difference between the constant subjugation in racism and sexism is that many happily and passively and unknowingly (or disbelievingly) participate in sexism, not believing the power structure to exist, while the existence of racial differences are plainly spelled out on the skin and in history. racism is such an unashamed, unapologetic phantom that wears everything on its sleeves. one story gay shared was particularly poignant:
Don told me he had been at the bookstore, where a young white woman had asked if he needed any help, and he’d snapped, “Do I look like I need help?” I’m sure this behavior didn’t make sense to the poor woman trying to assist him. Don thought he was being perceived as a criminal. “Can I help you?” twisted in his ear into “Are you stealing something?” I tried to tell him that I’d seen the clerks at that store ask everyone who walked in the same question. Don held his head in his hands. “I’m just so tired,” he said.after a feminist awakening in an inherently skeptical community, i know something of that tiredness. i think that's the same tiredness (which begets impatience and a level of bitterness) that many feminists feel, especially in mormon circles where the community is inherently and at its roots skeptical.
again, i don't know what it feels like to be a victim of racism. gay's words brought these feelings and memories rushing back, but in the end, i know nothing of his plight. i love his words: "We all think the worst of each other and ourselves, and become our worst selves." he describes the creation of this essay a a way to see "how I’ve been made by this. To have, perhaps, mercy on myself. When we have mercy, deep and abiding change might happen."
i think the reason some people kick their spurs against the word "privilege" is because it's disarming. if you recognize that you have privilege, you are recognizing that you are in some way (probably) not of your own choice given an inability to help solve a problem without potentially being condescending, diminishing, dismissive, or even violent. everyone wants to believe they are a good person and everyone has to believe their intentions are good and pure so their life can go on, but racial privilege is like a built-in hubris, an irremovable mote, a characteristic you had no say in having. and this essay leaves me no choice but to say that, as a white person, i am compelled to "help" but that compulsion is also part of the problem, for me to think that it's my problem to fix. i'm grateful to have read gay's essay to have to face my own privilege, not really having to have faced it growing up, and contemplate that i could be part of the problem.
i'm reminded again of the powerful idea of the other, and that in my day to day walk, and when i have opportunities to serve people at large, i need to give away compassion, allowances, trust and the kind of mercy gay talks about, which is the benefit of the doubt and the willingness to let people articulate, negotiate, and fully scale and own where it is that they come from.
Documents - Charles D'Ambrosio
today's 50 essay is "documents" by charles d'ambrosio, who teaches at psu. while d'ambrosio uses three difference documents--a try-hard poem by his dad, who's a professor of finance; a casual letter from his schizophrenic brother; and the suicide note of his other brother--the theme focuses around the latter and the loss of his brother.
i think what makes me nervous about the imagine of these three documents sitting in the boots his brother died in on d'ambrosio's desk all the time (which brings to mind the word, "weight", and not because the boots are filled with rocks), is that these types of artifacts are kind of missing from my life. that diary that i talked about that i kept around the time my dad got sick is in my safety box with my social security card, birth certificate, and our marriage certificate--i consider it just as important as any of those documents.
but my dad's not really big on the written--or spoken--word. i can't even imagine my dad writing something, and he doesn't say much either. what will be left when he's gone? memories, of course, and the life he gave me and the lessons he gave me. but, i won't have anything to literally hold on to. but is that important? not that i'm asking that rhetorically. i really want to know.
my mom is an avid journal writer. she has written in her journal nearly every day since she was a young teenager. i think it has especially helped her fight and see through her depression. the older i get the more i realize that my mom is someone who should have spectacularly and completely imploded years and years ago, but somehow she has kept it together. through severe depression. through isolation. through trials with her kids. through unemployment for our family. and now through cancer. i know her heart and soul are in those journals. they are all in boxes somewhere. once, when i was about fifteen, i found myself in her room alone. i don't remember if i snuck in there or if i was grabbing something. but her journal was on her bedside table. i was so overcome with insane curiosity that i froze, because i am not a spontaneous-deep-diving person. even back then i knew that those journals were special. like in slow motion, i touched it, i pulled it out, i cracked it open. i remember seeing the date of the page i opened to but being too scared to even skim it so i carefully, carefully replaced it on the shelf. despite all of this, somehow she knew that someone had been looking at her journal, or at least that they had touched it, and she knew i had been in her room. she tearfully and angrily confronted me. she asked me if i read her journal and i told her no but she thought i was lying because i had, in fact, pulled it off the shelf. she was so angry because she was so hurt and felt so betrayed, and i think that single thing that i did-didn't do hurt her more than anything else i've ever done as her daughter. those journals are beyond sacred--they are where she works out all the ugly, selfish, messy, dark things i know she hides from us so we can know her as our comforting, unwavering, diligent and (seemingly) thoughtlessly selfless mom.
my grandma, her mom, asked her once what she was going to do with all her journals one day. without skipping a beat, she said, "burn them."
so probably, i will never know what they say. but in a way there's something really dignified about that. i once wrote about this exact thing for one of my women in literature papers, saying that it was kind of a beautiful thing how much they were a part of her and that it was completely her choice how they lived and died, how they were such an important part of who she was and of her identity but that they belonged to her and to no one else. by writing her narrative i think she was often rewriting it.
in his essay, d'ambrosio also recalls when his father shows him his bed where he is constantly eating, showing him all the food stains and how embarrassing and weird it was that a father needed to tell his son that, for no reason except to show it. to me, this only reinforces the need each of us has to tell our story, and shows the kind of twisty but inexplicably healing and solidifying effect the telling of our story can have.
one of the main themes of the essay is that communication isn't always perfect. d'ambrosio talks about how he started writing letters to his father as a grown man because he "believed we might have something to talk about," and that writing it down made it seem significant and almost like a ritual. that kind of blew my mind--that he started writing the letters because he thought he might have something to talk about with his own father, when the two of them had been through so much together. i think communication often falls apart with grief, which is maybe why so many married couples who lose children end up divorcing at a higher rate. there is just something paralyzing about it, something that can't be said, or that you don't want to say because then something dreaded or hurtful or foreboding comes into reality.
in these letters to each other, the author's dad breaks down into pedantic fact-telling, mistaking it for truth-telling, as he explains to his son all the reasons he's wrong about their shared experiences, especially, i presume, the death of their son and brother. plurality and the way two people can experience something different--and then defend that with solid although rarely unopposed facts and definitions and testimonies--is astounding. i think defending our side of the story can sometimes be a way of denying or foregoing complexity or ultimately conclusion, because if you admit that something is complex or that conclusions depend on circumstances, at best, or that there is no one great Truth, then i think you often discover at the same time that you have nothing to say. it's like in the moment you admit there's not a right answer, you also have nothing to say because if there's no right answer there's no point in even taking about it. but i think this is one reason why writing, and especially corresponding, is so important--we work on and eventually dissolve "Truth" with a big "T" for our individual "truths" with a little "t", becoming a compassionate person who is at peace and understanding with their own individual truth (and, often, their inability to change the truths of others). the works of c.s. lewis come to mind, with their reflection and extensive writing on the most important topics and themes and experiences in his life. i think c.s. lewis was a man at peace because as a writer he did the work to write his peace. much like my mom writing in her journals day after day to remember the good and the bad and form not only her story but herself.
i like how d'ambrosio says that one reason he keeps these documents is because as long as he has them, he and that person are "still in a dialogue." there's something really compounding about what we say to others, especially our family. like once something has been said, it's real. i'm grateful to have read d'ambrosio's essay so i can think more carefully about how to write my own story and also how to tell and show my family that i love and need them.
i think what makes me nervous about the imagine of these three documents sitting in the boots his brother died in on d'ambrosio's desk all the time (which brings to mind the word, "weight", and not because the boots are filled with rocks), is that these types of artifacts are kind of missing from my life. that diary that i talked about that i kept around the time my dad got sick is in my safety box with my social security card, birth certificate, and our marriage certificate--i consider it just as important as any of those documents.
but my dad's not really big on the written--or spoken--word. i can't even imagine my dad writing something, and he doesn't say much either. what will be left when he's gone? memories, of course, and the life he gave me and the lessons he gave me. but, i won't have anything to literally hold on to. but is that important? not that i'm asking that rhetorically. i really want to know.
my mom is an avid journal writer. she has written in her journal nearly every day since she was a young teenager. i think it has especially helped her fight and see through her depression. the older i get the more i realize that my mom is someone who should have spectacularly and completely imploded years and years ago, but somehow she has kept it together. through severe depression. through isolation. through trials with her kids. through unemployment for our family. and now through cancer. i know her heart and soul are in those journals. they are all in boxes somewhere. once, when i was about fifteen, i found myself in her room alone. i don't remember if i snuck in there or if i was grabbing something. but her journal was on her bedside table. i was so overcome with insane curiosity that i froze, because i am not a spontaneous-deep-diving person. even back then i knew that those journals were special. like in slow motion, i touched it, i pulled it out, i cracked it open. i remember seeing the date of the page i opened to but being too scared to even skim it so i carefully, carefully replaced it on the shelf. despite all of this, somehow she knew that someone had been looking at her journal, or at least that they had touched it, and she knew i had been in her room. she tearfully and angrily confronted me. she asked me if i read her journal and i told her no but she thought i was lying because i had, in fact, pulled it off the shelf. she was so angry because she was so hurt and felt so betrayed, and i think that single thing that i did-didn't do hurt her more than anything else i've ever done as her daughter. those journals are beyond sacred--they are where she works out all the ugly, selfish, messy, dark things i know she hides from us so we can know her as our comforting, unwavering, diligent and (seemingly) thoughtlessly selfless mom.
my grandma, her mom, asked her once what she was going to do with all her journals one day. without skipping a beat, she said, "burn them."
so probably, i will never know what they say. but in a way there's something really dignified about that. i once wrote about this exact thing for one of my women in literature papers, saying that it was kind of a beautiful thing how much they were a part of her and that it was completely her choice how they lived and died, how they were such an important part of who she was and of her identity but that they belonged to her and to no one else. by writing her narrative i think she was often rewriting it.
in his essay, d'ambrosio also recalls when his father shows him his bed where he is constantly eating, showing him all the food stains and how embarrassing and weird it was that a father needed to tell his son that, for no reason except to show it. to me, this only reinforces the need each of us has to tell our story, and shows the kind of twisty but inexplicably healing and solidifying effect the telling of our story can have.
one of the main themes of the essay is that communication isn't always perfect. d'ambrosio talks about how he started writing letters to his father as a grown man because he "believed we might have something to talk about," and that writing it down made it seem significant and almost like a ritual. that kind of blew my mind--that he started writing the letters because he thought he might have something to talk about with his own father, when the two of them had been through so much together. i think communication often falls apart with grief, which is maybe why so many married couples who lose children end up divorcing at a higher rate. there is just something paralyzing about it, something that can't be said, or that you don't want to say because then something dreaded or hurtful or foreboding comes into reality.
in these letters to each other, the author's dad breaks down into pedantic fact-telling, mistaking it for truth-telling, as he explains to his son all the reasons he's wrong about their shared experiences, especially, i presume, the death of their son and brother. plurality and the way two people can experience something different--and then defend that with solid although rarely unopposed facts and definitions and testimonies--is astounding. i think defending our side of the story can sometimes be a way of denying or foregoing complexity or ultimately conclusion, because if you admit that something is complex or that conclusions depend on circumstances, at best, or that there is no one great Truth, then i think you often discover at the same time that you have nothing to say. it's like in the moment you admit there's not a right answer, you also have nothing to say because if there's no right answer there's no point in even taking about it. but i think this is one reason why writing, and especially corresponding, is so important--we work on and eventually dissolve "Truth" with a big "T" for our individual "truths" with a little "t", becoming a compassionate person who is at peace and understanding with their own individual truth (and, often, their inability to change the truths of others). the works of c.s. lewis come to mind, with their reflection and extensive writing on the most important topics and themes and experiences in his life. i think c.s. lewis was a man at peace because as a writer he did the work to write his peace. much like my mom writing in her journals day after day to remember the good and the bad and form not only her story but herself.
i like how d'ambrosio says that one reason he keeps these documents is because as long as he has them, he and that person are "still in a dialogue." there's something really compounding about what we say to others, especially our family. like once something has been said, it's real. i'm grateful to have read d'ambrosio's essay so i can think more carefully about how to write my own story and also how to tell and show my family that i love and need them.
several of the men i work with are divorced. one of them was talking with my boss today about his family when my boss casually and cheerfully asked if there was any chance of the guy and his ex-wife getting back together. (like, who asks this?)
no, the guy said. he said she had been married before him as well but divorced her first husband when he cheated on her. in her second divorce with this guy, or soon thereafter, she was excommunicated after becoming estranged from the church. "she'll tell you that the church only excommunicates women, because they didn't excommunicate her husband for cheating on her."
my boss asked what it would take for them to get back together. (who asks that??) the guy said she would have to be good with the church again for that to happen.
"oh, so in the spirit world probably you'll be together again," my boss said.
who says things like that?? who THINKS things like that?
no, the guy said. he said she had been married before him as well but divorced her first husband when he cheated on her. in her second divorce with this guy, or soon thereafter, she was excommunicated after becoming estranged from the church. "she'll tell you that the church only excommunicates women, because they didn't excommunicate her husband for cheating on her."
my boss asked what it would take for them to get back together. (who asks that??) the guy said she would have to be good with the church again for that to happen.
"oh, so in the spirit world probably you'll be together again," my boss said.
who says things like that?? who THINKS things like that?
dear boss and co workers:
asking me how my husband is--especially asking me to go in to detail about his work and school life when you have literally met him like two times and you don't ask me about my life--does not count as asking me how i am. you are being sexist.
oh, and when we had that special lunch meeting to get to know each other better and my spiel ended up being short so you decided to ask me some more questions, pronouncing loudly that i got married (2 years ago??? and, everyone there was married, so...??) and then telling everyone about my husband/asking questions about him did not count as getting to know me. you were being incredibly sexist.
kthnxbye
asking me how my husband is--especially asking me to go in to detail about his work and school life when you have literally met him like two times and you don't ask me about my life--does not count as asking me how i am. you are being sexist.
oh, and when we had that special lunch meeting to get to know each other better and my spiel ended up being short so you decided to ask me some more questions, pronouncing loudly that i got married (2 years ago??? and, everyone there was married, so...??) and then telling everyone about my husband/asking questions about him did not count as getting to know me. you were being incredibly sexist.
kthnxbye
i ended up watching a lot of conference. i think it was mostly for the reason that i didn't want to get caught by a coworker or family member not knowing something really obvious or important that had happened. but it stung.
a lot of feminists and now-skeptics can do this wonderful thing where they listen to a neutral or even otherwise-problematic talk and pull out soundbites that give them hope. i've discovered that i don't have the ability to do this. if i even suspect a speaker or talk of meaning ill-will, i will ignore and curse them/it entirely
i feel like i've been successful in seeing the church as a body of individual, flawed people. for a lot of people, this bolsters their testimony and helps them believe it could still be true. but for me, it has only made me more bitter and confused. i still believe the church could be more than the sum of its parts, but how could so many individual parts, individual people, be so hateful, so disappointing, so casual or unaccountable in beliefs that not only harm but destroy other people. if the church is only as good as its individuals, then how come all the individuals give up their accountability and say not "the devil made me do it" but "the church made me do it" and get away with it, having it said of them that they are good people trying their best.
the worst was hearing president eyring, someone i have always admired and looked up to, quote another apostle in saying "the prophet receives revelation for the church, the bishop for the ward, the father for the family, and the individual for himself." so, women can't receive revelation? apparently. why, president eyring, couldn't you have added "or herself." why couldn't you have fixed this one harm and prevented the violence of that sentence. why, when i've trusted you so many years, you thought nothing of this?
i want to trust the church but i just don't trust the individuals, my acquaintances, in the church. just as easily as someone could say of an acquaintance, "they don't know me so i can't fault them for saying this thing," i will think, "they don't know me so how dare they ever say this thing."
i immediately dismiss and dislike and i don't know how to look for or use the good.
a lot of feminists and now-skeptics can do this wonderful thing where they listen to a neutral or even otherwise-problematic talk and pull out soundbites that give them hope. i've discovered that i don't have the ability to do this. if i even suspect a speaker or talk of meaning ill-will, i will ignore and curse them/it entirely
i feel like i've been successful in seeing the church as a body of individual, flawed people. for a lot of people, this bolsters their testimony and helps them believe it could still be true. but for me, it has only made me more bitter and confused. i still believe the church could be more than the sum of its parts, but how could so many individual parts, individual people, be so hateful, so disappointing, so casual or unaccountable in beliefs that not only harm but destroy other people. if the church is only as good as its individuals, then how come all the individuals give up their accountability and say not "the devil made me do it" but "the church made me do it" and get away with it, having it said of them that they are good people trying their best.
the worst was hearing president eyring, someone i have always admired and looked up to, quote another apostle in saying "the prophet receives revelation for the church, the bishop for the ward, the father for the family, and the individual for himself." so, women can't receive revelation? apparently. why, president eyring, couldn't you have added "or herself." why couldn't you have fixed this one harm and prevented the violence of that sentence. why, when i've trusted you so many years, you thought nothing of this?
i want to trust the church but i just don't trust the individuals, my acquaintances, in the church. just as easily as someone could say of an acquaintance, "they don't know me so i can't fault them for saying this thing," i will think, "they don't know me so how dare they ever say this thing."
i immediately dismiss and dislike and i don't know how to look for or use the good.
by some act of god, in the months leading up to as well as after my own father being diagnosed with cancer, i kept a pretty detailed and consistent journal. that was the only time in my life i had done anything like that, so it wasn't normal for me. i stopped a few months after the diagnoses. i currently have no record of when my father in law passed away and suddenly tonight i remember it and need to write it.
it was tuesday night. dh was at work and i was settling in to some snacks and some tv. i was really happy. after dark i got a call from him. "can you come pick me up?" he asked. he never ever ever comes home early from work--he pretty much never skips work, not when he's sick an not for pretty much any reason, so i asked him if he was okay. "no," he said, "my father is dead."
i asked him if he was kidding and started shaking uncontrollably. i got in the car and drove to his work and it's kind of a miracle i wasn't in an accident, i was numb and couldn't really see. dh was waiting for me. i got out of the car. he was focused and he meant business. we agreed to drive up to his mom's right away, threw some things in a bag, and left around nine. he insisted on driving, i think so his mind would have something to focus on. he seemed unshaken and deliberate.
when we got to the house there were a few people there. hugs were exchanged and we were waiting for my mother in law's inactive son in law to show up, i don't remember why, before she was going to get a priesthood blessing. she was the plainest and most level-headed i had ever or have ever seen her. it was weird how clear we all were. two of dh's siblings were on a long-planned vacation to somewhere tropical. they had just arrived there and would eventually decide not to return before they had planned, having delayed the decision until an actual funeral date was set. two other siblings lived out of state, one of them young and broke. the only other sibling came to the house soon after, but i don't remember if it was that night or if it was the next day. i think she waited to drive the next morning and arrive first thing.
we stayed up late that night. people were in and out of the house and i don't have any idea what was said. it was really late when suddenly dh and i found ourselves alone together in the living room of his childhood home. we went toward the stairs down to his old room to stay the night, and right when he was about to descend he turned around to face me and buried his face in my shoulder. i know exactly what my husband looks like--of course i do--but in that split second when he looked in my eyes with that ache i saw him like he was years ago, skinny and young and just different somehow, especially his hair. he gripped me and sobbed and cried and cried. we stayed this way for a while, and i was glad the room remained empty and still. i asked him if he wanted to go down to the bed, and he said yes. there he cried some more, crying out in pain, especially that no one would tell him how his dad had died because the cause of death wasn't (and actually still isn't) definitive.
the next morning we all left without really eating or showering to go to the accident site. it was a really beautiful day and the scene was gruesome. officials followed us around all day as we retraced the last steps and collected the facts and the things we needed.
the worst part of that day was the news crew. when we came back from the accident site there were two news crews outside their family home. dh and i were both grateful we had arrived first and before everyone else, his mom and his sister. i stood back as dh asked them who they were and what they wanted, and amicably but pretty much told them that maybe later they could have an interview. they did leave before anyone got there. dh told me he wanted to tell them to fuck the hell off, which i never would have guessed by how nice he was to them. before they left he had given them his phone number, which i guess was a mistake because they wouldn't stop calling him. not when he was greeting guests at the door for his mom, not when we went to the store to get chips, not when he asked them to please lay off. they wanted him to give them an interview around the home and just give some memories and details of his dad's life. when he declined they said that sometimes lds families ask their bishop to represent the family and give a statement, and maybe dh could ask him. (bishop later declined unless dh and the family really wanted him to.) i don't think they ever got what they wanted. i don't remember what finally got them to shut up and back off.
we drove back and forth so much that all the trips run together. my mother in law decided to have the funeral the next week instead of that weekend for some reason. i think she was just not ready. the house was always gurgling, full of visitors in and out all the time, plus more and more family all the time. the flow of people seriously delayed any plans or preparations, none of which were made really until the last, unavoidable second, but all the people seemed to comfort my mother in law. dh and i were grateful for our last hold out in his old room. we could go in and lock the door and just forget them all for a moment. it was really the only thing that kept us holding things together. we left all the events, including the public viewing, early and didn't say much to anyone. we locked the door and no one came looking for us. we stayed in there for hours, just being quiet. we had a lot of sex, i don't know why. it was like this unspoken thing, it just happened that way. the house was so full of people that it actually took time to cross a room, but in that bedroom we talked about the people and even laughed and rolled our eyes at the crazy or the family drama but talked almost nothing about the funeral or about what had happened.
the day of the actual funeral we pulled up with our dress clothes and dh's somewhat long-lost brother from texas, along with his wife and step daughter were crossing the street. for some reason i remember i was wearing my "votes for women" shirt. my brother in law called me a communist feminist with a big smile. someone said, "what's wrong with that?" i wanted to say, "hella nothing," but instead i just said "nothing" and smiled. dh's siblings were raised in the church but only his one brother (not the one from texas) was still in the church. so i constantly have this feeling of wanting to impress them/kind of tell them how i actually feel about the church, but they are so respectful and good at pleasantly avoiding the topic that it never really came up, and right then, seeing them for the first time since their father had died, just felt like the wrongest time to say "hella nothing." during the entire funeral there was this weird unspoken dynamic, buried deep. my mother in law wanted all of her inactive children to have spiritual experiences--purposefully planning activities and events around that, making a point of it. her inactive children, just having lost their father, i think wanted nothing to do with it. i guess i can't say whether or not they had spiritual experiences, but all the talk of the celestial kingdom and forever families and priesthood and temples fell so strangely flat. like, it just all happened in such a way that it even sounded weird to me, a somewhat still believing mormon. like a funeral was the last place in the world for religion. a lot of their extended family has also left the church, and everyone was walking on eggshells trying to remember a man still very much active in the gospel but with so many important people in his life that knew and understood him wholly but, ironically, not on that level.
the siblings gave the most beautiful life sketch. they took turns reading out of a hilarious and wonderful biography of their dad. my mother in law had talked for days about how she had written the perfect talk, which brought in the gospel but didn't harp on it, trying to be sensitive to the many in the room that didn't believe as they did. as far as i can remember, the talk was entirely about the plan of salvation.
before the funeral had started, my parents and both sets of grandparents had arrived. my own cancer-patient of a dad, leaning on my mom all the way to shuffle slowly along, met us in the viewing area but quickly said he felt uncomfortable being around my father in law's body and they again shuffled off. after the funeral was over, i met them briefly outside by the hearse. my brother was getting home from his mission in the next week or two, and after my mom reminded me sweetly and with strength to remember to take care of myself as well, with my hand outstretched and everything i said loudly something like, 'i will! and we'll see you again next week at the next party!!!" even in the moment i said it, i couldn't believe what i'd said. it was the most obnoxious, annoying, insensitive, weirdest, cruelest thing i had ever said, with weeping family and friends filing out of the doors on either side of me. and somehow, i had no control over it. i was way more messed up than i could grasp, and it just came out.
after the funeral i admitted to dh the worst of it. in order to keep from crying during the entire funeral--from the moment we first walked in to the viewing through every talk and finally to the release in the procession out to the hearse, i had loudly and as cartoonish-ly as possibly sang to myself in my head: "trolololo lo lolo lo lolo lo lolo lo lolo lo! trolololoLOOOO!" you know, exactly the way this guy sings it. the closer i came to crying the more exuberantly i sang it. i belted it when dh's sweetest, softer sister cried at he podium. when an older sibling of my father in law's sobbed loudly behind me right before the family prayer. even during my dh's beautiful solo song that he arrange himself, i sang it to keep from shedding more than a few tears. the thing about me is that when i cry, i cry for hours. i knew if i began crying at that funeral, i literally wouldn't stop crying for hours. i was in a weird, even removed and out of body-like fog those days, sad but not upset. but underneath something roared. when i told dh about the trololo, i was relieved that he laughed, understanding and even finding it hilarious. but i don't think i'll ever forgive myself for purposefully not feeling during my father in law's funeral what i really owed him.
several weeks later that something came bursting out. we were at home in our own bed and i was overcome. i sobbed and heaved just wanted to passed out. my sweet felt the grief mostly at night while i was asleep. i didn't even know he was up for hours crying unless he told me later. but right then in the middle of our okay evening i cried for the first time since my father in law had died. i sobbed about how life wasn't supposed to be like this. we were supposed to have dads and they weren't supposed to leave us--both of us. it wasn't okay and it wasn't fair, i sobbed and screamed.
i still have no idea how to act about it, and i still pretty much do nothing. i was with dh every step of the way but i didn't really feel (or wouldn't even feign to feel, feeling unworthy,) his grief. i was there, and yet it's like it didn't even happen to me. people kept giving me their condolences and it was like they were asking me if i was santa. i would shake and harden at the mention of it, but i couldn't fathom that it really happened. and i still feel like i let dh down in a grand and unforgivable way, even though i know that's not true and that we will carry this together all our lives. there is no way to know how to love someone in grief. there is on way you can begin to touch that grief. even as the most intimate person in their life, it will exist in on a plane you know exists but can't find.
sometimes i make a teasing joke about his dad, just like we did when he was alive, but it will be just gray enough that things get awkward or dh goes serious. somehow once "elf" quotes were flying someone said, "i hope you find your dad!" and dh and i just started saying it all the time, i don't even know why--we just thought it was hilarious, and i said it to dh just once as he was getting out of the car to pick up our pizza. he turned around and looked me squarely but kindly in the eye and said, "no, i won't," before giving me what i knew was a hurt smile and closing the car door. there are the hard moments that i think are still good--when the siblings are all together and they remember their dad. or even when we were with my family and dh accepted a father's blessing from my father and there was just this spirit in the room.
i can't pretend to know what dh thinks and feels and suspect i am very much separated from it, even though i supposed i may know some type of it soon enough. it's almost like i forget sometimes and when i remember i'm stung and can't believe it and get weird and touchy and i never know and have never known how to act about it.
i've done everything that felt right for him, that i could have, and yet it feels like the biggest shortcoming of my life.
it was tuesday night. dh was at work and i was settling in to some snacks and some tv. i was really happy. after dark i got a call from him. "can you come pick me up?" he asked. he never ever ever comes home early from work--he pretty much never skips work, not when he's sick an not for pretty much any reason, so i asked him if he was okay. "no," he said, "my father is dead."
i asked him if he was kidding and started shaking uncontrollably. i got in the car and drove to his work and it's kind of a miracle i wasn't in an accident, i was numb and couldn't really see. dh was waiting for me. i got out of the car. he was focused and he meant business. we agreed to drive up to his mom's right away, threw some things in a bag, and left around nine. he insisted on driving, i think so his mind would have something to focus on. he seemed unshaken and deliberate.
when we got to the house there were a few people there. hugs were exchanged and we were waiting for my mother in law's inactive son in law to show up, i don't remember why, before she was going to get a priesthood blessing. she was the plainest and most level-headed i had ever or have ever seen her. it was weird how clear we all were. two of dh's siblings were on a long-planned vacation to somewhere tropical. they had just arrived there and would eventually decide not to return before they had planned, having delayed the decision until an actual funeral date was set. two other siblings lived out of state, one of them young and broke. the only other sibling came to the house soon after, but i don't remember if it was that night or if it was the next day. i think she waited to drive the next morning and arrive first thing.
we stayed up late that night. people were in and out of the house and i don't have any idea what was said. it was really late when suddenly dh and i found ourselves alone together in the living room of his childhood home. we went toward the stairs down to his old room to stay the night, and right when he was about to descend he turned around to face me and buried his face in my shoulder. i know exactly what my husband looks like--of course i do--but in that split second when he looked in my eyes with that ache i saw him like he was years ago, skinny and young and just different somehow, especially his hair. he gripped me and sobbed and cried and cried. we stayed this way for a while, and i was glad the room remained empty and still. i asked him if he wanted to go down to the bed, and he said yes. there he cried some more, crying out in pain, especially that no one would tell him how his dad had died because the cause of death wasn't (and actually still isn't) definitive.
the next morning we all left without really eating or showering to go to the accident site. it was a really beautiful day and the scene was gruesome. officials followed us around all day as we retraced the last steps and collected the facts and the things we needed.
the worst part of that day was the news crew. when we came back from the accident site there were two news crews outside their family home. dh and i were both grateful we had arrived first and before everyone else, his mom and his sister. i stood back as dh asked them who they were and what they wanted, and amicably but pretty much told them that maybe later they could have an interview. they did leave before anyone got there. dh told me he wanted to tell them to fuck the hell off, which i never would have guessed by how nice he was to them. before they left he had given them his phone number, which i guess was a mistake because they wouldn't stop calling him. not when he was greeting guests at the door for his mom, not when we went to the store to get chips, not when he asked them to please lay off. they wanted him to give them an interview around the home and just give some memories and details of his dad's life. when he declined they said that sometimes lds families ask their bishop to represent the family and give a statement, and maybe dh could ask him. (bishop later declined unless dh and the family really wanted him to.) i don't think they ever got what they wanted. i don't remember what finally got them to shut up and back off.
we drove back and forth so much that all the trips run together. my mother in law decided to have the funeral the next week instead of that weekend for some reason. i think she was just not ready. the house was always gurgling, full of visitors in and out all the time, plus more and more family all the time. the flow of people seriously delayed any plans or preparations, none of which were made really until the last, unavoidable second, but all the people seemed to comfort my mother in law. dh and i were grateful for our last hold out in his old room. we could go in and lock the door and just forget them all for a moment. it was really the only thing that kept us holding things together. we left all the events, including the public viewing, early and didn't say much to anyone. we locked the door and no one came looking for us. we stayed in there for hours, just being quiet. we had a lot of sex, i don't know why. it was like this unspoken thing, it just happened that way. the house was so full of people that it actually took time to cross a room, but in that bedroom we talked about the people and even laughed and rolled our eyes at the crazy or the family drama but talked almost nothing about the funeral or about what had happened.
the day of the actual funeral we pulled up with our dress clothes and dh's somewhat long-lost brother from texas, along with his wife and step daughter were crossing the street. for some reason i remember i was wearing my "votes for women" shirt. my brother in law called me a communist feminist with a big smile. someone said, "what's wrong with that?" i wanted to say, "hella nothing," but instead i just said "nothing" and smiled. dh's siblings were raised in the church but only his one brother (not the one from texas) was still in the church. so i constantly have this feeling of wanting to impress them/kind of tell them how i actually feel about the church, but they are so respectful and good at pleasantly avoiding the topic that it never really came up, and right then, seeing them for the first time since their father had died, just felt like the wrongest time to say "hella nothing." during the entire funeral there was this weird unspoken dynamic, buried deep. my mother in law wanted all of her inactive children to have spiritual experiences--purposefully planning activities and events around that, making a point of it. her inactive children, just having lost their father, i think wanted nothing to do with it. i guess i can't say whether or not they had spiritual experiences, but all the talk of the celestial kingdom and forever families and priesthood and temples fell so strangely flat. like, it just all happened in such a way that it even sounded weird to me, a somewhat still believing mormon. like a funeral was the last place in the world for religion. a lot of their extended family has also left the church, and everyone was walking on eggshells trying to remember a man still very much active in the gospel but with so many important people in his life that knew and understood him wholly but, ironically, not on that level.
the siblings gave the most beautiful life sketch. they took turns reading out of a hilarious and wonderful biography of their dad. my mother in law had talked for days about how she had written the perfect talk, which brought in the gospel but didn't harp on it, trying to be sensitive to the many in the room that didn't believe as they did. as far as i can remember, the talk was entirely about the plan of salvation.
before the funeral had started, my parents and both sets of grandparents had arrived. my own cancer-patient of a dad, leaning on my mom all the way to shuffle slowly along, met us in the viewing area but quickly said he felt uncomfortable being around my father in law's body and they again shuffled off. after the funeral was over, i met them briefly outside by the hearse. my brother was getting home from his mission in the next week or two, and after my mom reminded me sweetly and with strength to remember to take care of myself as well, with my hand outstretched and everything i said loudly something like, 'i will! and we'll see you again next week at the next party!!!" even in the moment i said it, i couldn't believe what i'd said. it was the most obnoxious, annoying, insensitive, weirdest, cruelest thing i had ever said, with weeping family and friends filing out of the doors on either side of me. and somehow, i had no control over it. i was way more messed up than i could grasp, and it just came out.
after the funeral i admitted to dh the worst of it. in order to keep from crying during the entire funeral--from the moment we first walked in to the viewing through every talk and finally to the release in the procession out to the hearse, i had loudly and as cartoonish-ly as possibly sang to myself in my head: "trolololo lo lolo lo lolo lo lolo lo lolo lo! trolololoLOOOO!" you know, exactly the way this guy sings it. the closer i came to crying the more exuberantly i sang it. i belted it when dh's sweetest, softer sister cried at he podium. when an older sibling of my father in law's sobbed loudly behind me right before the family prayer. even during my dh's beautiful solo song that he arrange himself, i sang it to keep from shedding more than a few tears. the thing about me is that when i cry, i cry for hours. i knew if i began crying at that funeral, i literally wouldn't stop crying for hours. i was in a weird, even removed and out of body-like fog those days, sad but not upset. but underneath something roared. when i told dh about the trololo, i was relieved that he laughed, understanding and even finding it hilarious. but i don't think i'll ever forgive myself for purposefully not feeling during my father in law's funeral what i really owed him.
several weeks later that something came bursting out. we were at home in our own bed and i was overcome. i sobbed and heaved just wanted to passed out. my sweet felt the grief mostly at night while i was asleep. i didn't even know he was up for hours crying unless he told me later. but right then in the middle of our okay evening i cried for the first time since my father in law had died. i sobbed about how life wasn't supposed to be like this. we were supposed to have dads and they weren't supposed to leave us--both of us. it wasn't okay and it wasn't fair, i sobbed and screamed.
i still have no idea how to act about it, and i still pretty much do nothing. i was with dh every step of the way but i didn't really feel (or wouldn't even feign to feel, feeling unworthy,) his grief. i was there, and yet it's like it didn't even happen to me. people kept giving me their condolences and it was like they were asking me if i was santa. i would shake and harden at the mention of it, but i couldn't fathom that it really happened. and i still feel like i let dh down in a grand and unforgivable way, even though i know that's not true and that we will carry this together all our lives. there is no way to know how to love someone in grief. there is on way you can begin to touch that grief. even as the most intimate person in their life, it will exist in on a plane you know exists but can't find.
sometimes i make a teasing joke about his dad, just like we did when he was alive, but it will be just gray enough that things get awkward or dh goes serious. somehow once "elf" quotes were flying someone said, "i hope you find your dad!" and dh and i just started saying it all the time, i don't even know why--we just thought it was hilarious, and i said it to dh just once as he was getting out of the car to pick up our pizza. he turned around and looked me squarely but kindly in the eye and said, "no, i won't," before giving me what i knew was a hurt smile and closing the car door. there are the hard moments that i think are still good--when the siblings are all together and they remember their dad. or even when we were with my family and dh accepted a father's blessing from my father and there was just this spirit in the room.
i can't pretend to know what dh thinks and feels and suspect i am very much separated from it, even though i supposed i may know some type of it soon enough. it's almost like i forget sometimes and when i remember i'm stung and can't believe it and get weird and touchy and i never know and have never known how to act about it.
i've done everything that felt right for him, that i could have, and yet it feels like the biggest shortcoming of my life.
burning through Wild and excited for the movie. except i really really really really really really wish they would have had brooke smith play cheryl.
one of the guys at my work is in a family ward bishopric. i overhead him talking to someone else about dreading priesthood session because of the women coming to the stake centers to watch it. he said they are expecting "them" to "infiltrate all the stake centers in the county" and that the bishoprics and stake presidents have been told to make their plans on how to handle it "by word of mouth only." (what?? no more paper trail for church PR and the local leaders that 'aren't' involved? but everyone has been enjoying that so much! aka tearing you to f'ing shreds.) apparently his stake presidency decided to set up a tv set in the relief society room where any women could watch it instead of causing a scene in the stake center.
going back to my crappy job tomorrow to hire and train my fifth new employee in four months (thanks boss for your crappy rules).
but it doesn't matter. i've got all the thunderstorms of fall. and there are exciting things happening around here.
also, the look on my mother-in-law's face when i told her i'm going to law school in a year and a half.
but it doesn't matter. i've got all the thunderstorms of fall. and there are exciting things happening around here.
also, the look on my mother-in-law's face when i told her i'm going to law school in a year and a half.
annoyances about job interviews:
1. please don't ask me to tell you things that are on my resume or application. i took a lot of time to be thorough and tailor my application and cover letter specifically to you, and you should really be reviewing all of that before someone comes to interview. making someone feel like they have to cover everything on their resume in one interview or they don't have a chance makes your interview irrelevant.
2. i firmly believe it is better to hire the right person and train them than to hire someone who won't fit in/has a bad attitude/just is not a good employee but has all the experience. but you still need to ask some skill or job related interview questions, not just open ended ones about life and love and happiness. if you don't, you are basing your entire decision pretty much on whether or not you like me (nervous and under pressure), which i guess is your prerogative but really sucks for inteviewees. what am i supposed to do, try to demonstrate all of the relevant knowledge and skills when you ask if there's anything else i'd like to discuss?
3. how do you convince someone that you will do a kick ass job when you don't have a zillion experience? i feel like my age is really working against me.
1. please don't ask me to tell you things that are on my resume or application. i took a lot of time to be thorough and tailor my application and cover letter specifically to you, and you should really be reviewing all of that before someone comes to interview. making someone feel like they have to cover everything on their resume in one interview or they don't have a chance makes your interview irrelevant.
2. i firmly believe it is better to hire the right person and train them than to hire someone who won't fit in/has a bad attitude/just is not a good employee but has all the experience. but you still need to ask some skill or job related interview questions, not just open ended ones about life and love and happiness. if you don't, you are basing your entire decision pretty much on whether or not you like me (nervous and under pressure), which i guess is your prerogative but really sucks for inteviewees. what am i supposed to do, try to demonstrate all of the relevant knowledge and skills when you ask if there's anything else i'd like to discuss?
3. how do you convince someone that you will do a kick ass job when you don't have a zillion experience? i feel like my age is really working against me.
Starting on October 9th, I am going read my way through 50 Essays Guaranteed to Make You a Better Person. I don't really know anything about flavorwire, and I try not to take direction on how to be a better person from random internet dump sites, but I stumbled upon this and as I was looking at the essays and they are actually pretty hefty and come well recommended.
I'm going to be reading one essay a day, from one to 50, and that way I will finish my last essay on Thanksgiving Day. I originally wanted to do a 50 post series on my public blog (which sounds really pretentious when I write it out), doing a quick response to one a day, but a lot of the essays have adult themes and I just don't need that controversy shit during the holidays, so I'll be posting here instead. Most of the essays are pretty short and can be found online, and after a few dead hours at work, I've found a hard copy of all of them! There is just something about a hard copy.
One of my new year's resolutions was to read one scholarly article a day, and I have failed miserably aka pretty much haven't tried. So this will be like a mini resolution come true, and a good way to ease into hitting the books for law school.
I'm going to be reading one essay a day, from one to 50, and that way I will finish my last essay on Thanksgiving Day. I originally wanted to do a 50 post series on my public blog (which sounds really pretentious when I write it out), doing a quick response to one a day, but a lot of the essays have adult themes and I just don't need that controversy shit during the holidays, so I'll be posting here instead. Most of the essays are pretty short and can be found online, and after a few dead hours at work, I've found a hard copy of all of them! There is just something about a hard copy.
One of my new year's resolutions was to read one scholarly article a day, and I have failed miserably aka pretty much haven't tried. So this will be like a mini resolution come true, and a good way to ease into hitting the books for law school.
"are you happy working here? is there something in your relationship with me or your job that has you upset?"
this is what my boss asked me after he told me to close the door at the end of our one on one meeting. i was pretty surprised he was asking, but also not. i don't put on a fake smile for him anymore and i don't pretend to be stellar-amazeballs-happy with the shitty stuff that goes on. but having made peace with two and a half years of shitty situations, i looked him in the eyes and said, "no. everything is fine."
everything IS fine. i'm looking for a new job and my life is getting better. i know things are getting better because i have direction again, i can do my dishes and keep my kitchen clean, i am getting out of bed earlier, i've been to the gym and i've been eating at home, and my to do list is full of things that i'm actually excited about again. i have energy and i am excited to do things after work. for two years these things have been unthinkable and my life has been a mess, but finally, at least right now, things are going so well.
i could have told him everything. or even just started with one thing. maybe if i was planning on staying here i would have. but i don't need to be friends with him. i'm professional, i get all my work done, and i'm dependable. i have expressed my concerns and my opinions all along the way, and he not only lightly but frankly and in a very straight forward way dismissed them all--i don't owe him anything, and i don't think he deserves much else. who knows, maybe now he will take me seriously as a professional person, or listen to me when i speak up.
it was almost admirable and maybe in another world touching that he would ask me, but i honestly believe things never could have turned out differently and that he will never be less of a huge asshole. i knew it was a shallow inquiry when he finished the conversation by stating more than asking, throwing it in my face in his passive aggressive way, "oh okay, so my feelings are just completely unfounded then." like a statement to me that if i wasn't going to budge then he wasn't going to give a fuck.
sorry bro. i stopped caring about the pain you cause me a long time ago. and look how much better everything is getting because of that.
this is what my boss asked me after he told me to close the door at the end of our one on one meeting. i was pretty surprised he was asking, but also not. i don't put on a fake smile for him anymore and i don't pretend to be stellar-amazeballs-happy with the shitty stuff that goes on. but having made peace with two and a half years of shitty situations, i looked him in the eyes and said, "no. everything is fine."
everything IS fine. i'm looking for a new job and my life is getting better. i know things are getting better because i have direction again, i can do my dishes and keep my kitchen clean, i am getting out of bed earlier, i've been to the gym and i've been eating at home, and my to do list is full of things that i'm actually excited about again. i have energy and i am excited to do things after work. for two years these things have been unthinkable and my life has been a mess, but finally, at least right now, things are going so well.
i could have told him everything. or even just started with one thing. maybe if i was planning on staying here i would have. but i don't need to be friends with him. i'm professional, i get all my work done, and i'm dependable. i have expressed my concerns and my opinions all along the way, and he not only lightly but frankly and in a very straight forward way dismissed them all--i don't owe him anything, and i don't think he deserves much else. who knows, maybe now he will take me seriously as a professional person, or listen to me when i speak up.
it was almost admirable and maybe in another world touching that he would ask me, but i honestly believe things never could have turned out differently and that he will never be less of a huge asshole. i knew it was a shallow inquiry when he finished the conversation by stating more than asking, throwing it in my face in his passive aggressive way, "oh okay, so my feelings are just completely unfounded then." like a statement to me that if i wasn't going to budge then he wasn't going to give a fuck.
sorry bro. i stopped caring about the pain you cause me a long time ago. and look how much better everything is getting because of that.
1:30 am and not even kind if tired. How does this happen?
The more I read other people's blogs the more I want to blog, so hello. I also have this problem where when I discover the blog of someone I know I just read all of it. Like I read it for days and weeks and depending on how long they've been blogging and how slow life is, maybe read their entire blog. So that's creepy.
I have been in deep clean the apartment mode. My favorite part is that my office space is getting really awesome, and I'm really excited about it. And I am finally ready to send stuff to DI and get rid of vaguely sentimental crap that I've had for years for no reason. Which is huge, because then change will fill the space and I've needed change for two years.
My least favorite part is that I keep finding holes in the walls of our apartment where fittings go in. Like washer and sink pipe attachments and even places where molding should go. It's like the contractor just cut out a way too huge rough hole for it and never closed it. Is that normal? The number and variety of spiders we have seen around is unreal, and I'm convinced they come out of those holes. Plus I can't see at night since I'm not wearing my contacts (super crappy glasses and -10.00 prescription contacts aka blind) so I can't see spiders and I bet they are looking at me right. now. The other morning I was lucky enough to "see"(a blob) and suspect there was a black spider the size of a silver dollar scuttling around stuck in the tub when I was in the bathroom so I could put my contacts in and get rid of it.
Also I will go on record saying that I don't know what everyone really thinks but a good boob day is way better than a good hair day. Or maybe that's just me and this is tmi.
The more I read other people's blogs the more I want to blog, so hello. I also have this problem where when I discover the blog of someone I know I just read all of it. Like I read it for days and weeks and depending on how long they've been blogging and how slow life is, maybe read their entire blog. So that's creepy.
I have been in deep clean the apartment mode. My favorite part is that my office space is getting really awesome, and I'm really excited about it. And I am finally ready to send stuff to DI and get rid of vaguely sentimental crap that I've had for years for no reason. Which is huge, because then change will fill the space and I've needed change for two years.
My least favorite part is that I keep finding holes in the walls of our apartment where fittings go in. Like washer and sink pipe attachments and even places where molding should go. It's like the contractor just cut out a way too huge rough hole for it and never closed it. Is that normal? The number and variety of spiders we have seen around is unreal, and I'm convinced they come out of those holes. Plus I can't see at night since I'm not wearing my contacts (super crappy glasses and -10.00 prescription contacts aka blind) so I can't see spiders and I bet they are looking at me right. now. The other morning I was lucky enough to "see"(a blob) and suspect there was a black spider the size of a silver dollar scuttling around stuck in the tub when I was in the bathroom so I could put my contacts in and get rid of it.
Also I will go on record saying that I don't know what everyone really thinks but a good boob day is way better than a good hair day. Or maybe that's just me and this is tmi.
i'm starting to second guess myself and feel regret.
i'm still looking for a new job but university job offerings
slow way down once school begins. i haven't found anything new to apply to in
weeks. i really need a masters degree or specific experience to do anything
more, or at least that is how i feel. it kills me to think that i won't find
anything else until i have more schooling because that will be years and years
from now.
what i am most bitter toward my boss about is how he has
made me second guess myself. when i began working here i was so ambitious, so
determined to do well and have a fantastic team. my reputation soared in a few
short months. people i didn't even know on campus knew my name. the weirdest
thing about it is that i was just doing my job. to me, a job isn't worth doing
if you're not giving everything you've got. which is maybe why i'm so
miserable, half assing things right now. then the set backs set in--everyone
telling me to stop changing things or to go easier on my employees or to leave
them alone altogether. i was gradually but very deliberately slowed down and
held back by everyone around me. i became very depressed. work was a waking
terror. and while things are very different and much calmer now (even if my
relationship with my boss is worse), i have none of that fire. i work maybe one
or two honest hours a day--all the work i'm given--and then i just hibernate
and survive for the other six. every day. i don't feel like taking on any new
projects or pushing things to improve or change because i was so beat down for
it last time. and my boss let it all happen. looking back, i did everything
right. i was right. and maybe i didn't have the management experience to know
how to get everyone 100% on board, but that doesn't change the fact that i was
right about policies and implementations and expectations and growth. i was
dynamite. i was really wonderful at my job. and not only is that gone now, but
i am afraid to make any kind of move unless i upset everyone around me, my boss
chief among them. he tells me exactly how to do everything, even down to how
and where i physically write things on my reports. he tells me exactly what to
list, to highlight this and that, and then circle it all AND initial it to show
i was really conscious of what i was doing. (which is bs. and stupid. and i hate
that shit.)
i'm not saying i'm brilliant or anything because i'm just
not, but i was incredibly hard working and genuinely excited about my job. now
my focus is to convince someone else to hire me, and i am just full of doubt.
what did i do that was really valuable? do i share my ambitions or hide them
because they were all essentially failed projects?
the worst is that i can't be happy with what's going on now.
i've been thinking a lot about happiness. i hate it when people say, "you
can choose how you feel and you can choose your attitude," because i think
that can get fake fast and lead you to convince yourself that your feelings
aren't valid. but i think you can choose how you live your life and by doing
that you are better able to meet the consequences, good or bad. i want to
connect to the people around me. i want to have a connection with my employees
and help them. but since there's no natural life or innovation in my job or
theirs i don't want to seem contrived or push too hard or make things awkward.
i want to come to work and not loathe everyone because of things they said or
did once that contributed to my irrelevancy here. i really want to be fulfilled
and improve my job and myself with it.
but i don't think my boss deserves good work or even a smile
or a kind word, because all those things build up this illusion for and
reassure him that everything is fine when it's not. and so much horrible shit
has happened to me here. it's like if i try to make things okay and make peace
and be industrious i will be saying that i've forgotten or didn't care or that
everything that's happened to me here was okay, and it wasn't.
i want that peace and i want comfortable work relationships.
more than anything, i want to work hard. but i feel like my boss just wants me
to show up and be a robot and not say a word.
my mom and i don't talk about feminism. sometimes it is on
the cusp of our conversation, or implied in something we say, but we never
really talk about it.
i've been pretty worried about how my mom would take my
decisions about my life and my family. we went to lunch together just the two
of us and she said she was going to ask me "the dreaded question." it
was around the time of kate kelly and i was imagining the worst. but what she
wanted to know was if i wanted to have kids but felt like i couldn't/felt
trapped/felt upset because i'm working full-time. i made a comment a while back
around extended family--i was complaining about something and the punch line
was that i needed to provide for my family. i think maybe i was talking about
wishing i could quit my job but not being able to. i think it had her worried.
but when i told her i was totally fine with it and not quite ready, she was
relieved and happy for me.
that was all before i knew i wanted to go to law school. i
told dh how worried i was about what my parents would say. they have said harsh
words about other women in my family that have worked outside the home and put
off having children. i wasn't planning on telling them for a long time, or even
after i had applied and if i got in. but we were visiting them recently and
even though my dad had gone to bed, the rest of us were sitting around in the
living room, talking, waiting for one of my brothers to get home from work at
1:30am. my mom and i were sitting on the floor. we were all so sleepy and
happy. my mom told us she was going to bed and to be good but she stayed
sitting there. there was a quiet lull and that's when i was into the dim room,
'i'm going to apply to law school.'
'that is a wonderful idea. i am so proud of you. you would
be so great at that,' my mom said. and the relief i felt was indescribable. dh
was across the floor out of my mom's sight and he gave me a thumbs up under the
coffee table.
later on the same trip we were talking about the grandkids
that would someday come (my parents don't have any yet). my two brothers next
in age are probably both getting married next summer, and we talk about it
constantly. my mom was saying how excited she was to see my brothers with their
kids and started listing off predictions-- for the youngest of us three, six
daughters, since he is a rough and tumble no nonsense man. for my brother just
younger than me, five boys, because he is so loving and would do great with a
big family. i held my breath and i knew what was coming. i was scared. and for
me, she said, "two sons."
i smiled and we both knew that she was, in a way, saying
that she understood and accepted me. i can't think of anyone in our extended
family or extended extended family that has two kids. we are a family of big
families. but i knew then that my mom understood me and that everything was
going to be ok, and no one would think poorly of me, when i was ready.
these small moments have been immeasurably healing and
reassuring. i can't stop thinking today about how grateful i am for my mom and
for our quiet understanding.
i've written and flat out deleted a couple blog posts today which i guess really defeats the point. but there is one thing from this week that i want to remember.
this weekend i found out one of my former employees that i have written a lot about on this blog, along with her husband who also worked for the same department, is getting divorced. they were married around the same time as dh and i but that has virtually no significance to me. this is a pair of people that hit my hate list hard and easily and often. this girl was seriously the bane of my existence for several months. our work drama flowed into my personal life and caused me a lot of problems and depression. and i took a lot of that out here.
when i learned about their divorce i was completely shocked. they lost a baby together and seemed to be really into each other, even if they had really different personalities. this guy had come and personally yelled at me about how i made his wife feel several times. he always seemed overbearing to me (when she was pregnant he would bring her bags of food and tell her what to eat when, except he wasn't really nice about it), but they at least seemed pretty fused together.
something i've been thinking a lot about lately is how when something bad happens to someone, people who never really liked them or were neutral toward them suddenly act like they were friends all along and like they care so much. maybe it makes me coldhearted, but i think this is incredibly fake and maybe part of what makes people in crisis feel even more alone and i don't want to be one of those people, so i'm not going to pretend like i'm torn up for this couple when i frankly didn't think they were really good a good match and i honestly didn't even think her husband was a good person.
but something in me is aching over this. some part of me is so sad. i don't know if it's because dh and i have had our troubles, like anyone, and seeing that a marriage can really be gone that quick was sobering. i don't know if i'm aching for the version of this girl that i once connected with. like, we really used to talk. she really, really listened to me when i needed it a few times. one day when she was newly married she asked me timidly how to brown meat. we were once really vulnerable with each other.
i very consciously put my supervisor relationships over my friendships at work. i work with peers and i'm not a lot of fun. this is first because of my personality and second because the last time i did that things just went so wrong. so this may not be entirely related, but this thing happens in my life where every friend i have ends up being my enemy. this wasn't always true in college (hello lovely ladies reading this) (although it did happen with SEVERAL close college friends) and isn't true now, frankly, because i haven't made new friends after my old ones left. i don't know if it's because i'm so introverted or because i'm lazy or what but i have a really difficult time building and keeping meaningful friendships. most of the time i don't care, or at least i think i don't. i'm a perfect loner and i love my space, but sometimes i also wish i had that talent to look at someone and see the good in them. to look at someone and embrace them completely even if if you sometimes disagree with them. i guess it's not even necessarily that i want a lot of friends because socializing is really terrifying and draining to me. i just wish i was softer, more open, more fun, more trustworthy. as i've come to accept being an introvert, i'm starting to worry that i am just going to have a friendship-less life.
i think there's a dissonance in my life between caring about individual voices and humanity and generosity and then just not being a likable person. does it matter if you're generous if you're not likable? i don't know why i'm depressed about their divorce or why this is all coming out at the same time. maybe it's just that i feel ironically close to their relationship because i watched it all happen and i was so sad a person i was getting along with disappeared right before my eyes.
like, how much more could this not be about me? but it is affecting me so much.
this weekend i found out one of my former employees that i have written a lot about on this blog, along with her husband who also worked for the same department, is getting divorced. they were married around the same time as dh and i but that has virtually no significance to me. this is a pair of people that hit my hate list hard and easily and often. this girl was seriously the bane of my existence for several months. our work drama flowed into my personal life and caused me a lot of problems and depression. and i took a lot of that out here.
when i learned about their divorce i was completely shocked. they lost a baby together and seemed to be really into each other, even if they had really different personalities. this guy had come and personally yelled at me about how i made his wife feel several times. he always seemed overbearing to me (when she was pregnant he would bring her bags of food and tell her what to eat when, except he wasn't really nice about it), but they at least seemed pretty fused together.
something i've been thinking a lot about lately is how when something bad happens to someone, people who never really liked them or were neutral toward them suddenly act like they were friends all along and like they care so much. maybe it makes me coldhearted, but i think this is incredibly fake and maybe part of what makes people in crisis feel even more alone and i don't want to be one of those people, so i'm not going to pretend like i'm torn up for this couple when i frankly didn't think they were really good a good match and i honestly didn't even think her husband was a good person.
but something in me is aching over this. some part of me is so sad. i don't know if it's because dh and i have had our troubles, like anyone, and seeing that a marriage can really be gone that quick was sobering. i don't know if i'm aching for the version of this girl that i once connected with. like, we really used to talk. she really, really listened to me when i needed it a few times. one day when she was newly married she asked me timidly how to brown meat. we were once really vulnerable with each other.
i very consciously put my supervisor relationships over my friendships at work. i work with peers and i'm not a lot of fun. this is first because of my personality and second because the last time i did that things just went so wrong. so this may not be entirely related, but this thing happens in my life where every friend i have ends up being my enemy. this wasn't always true in college (hello lovely ladies reading this) (although it did happen with SEVERAL close college friends) and isn't true now, frankly, because i haven't made new friends after my old ones left. i don't know if it's because i'm so introverted or because i'm lazy or what but i have a really difficult time building and keeping meaningful friendships. most of the time i don't care, or at least i think i don't. i'm a perfect loner and i love my space, but sometimes i also wish i had that talent to look at someone and see the good in them. to look at someone and embrace them completely even if if you sometimes disagree with them. i guess it's not even necessarily that i want a lot of friends because socializing is really terrifying and draining to me. i just wish i was softer, more open, more fun, more trustworthy. as i've come to accept being an introvert, i'm starting to worry that i am just going to have a friendship-less life.
i think there's a dissonance in my life between caring about individual voices and humanity and generosity and then just not being a likable person. does it matter if you're generous if you're not likable? i don't know why i'm depressed about their divorce or why this is all coming out at the same time. maybe it's just that i feel ironically close to their relationship because i watched it all happen and i was so sad a person i was getting along with disappeared right before my eyes.
like, how much more could this not be about me? but it is affecting me so much.
woke up feeling pretty good after being so sick yesterday. get ready and immediately feel like i am definitely going to barf. decide, for some ungodly reason, that going in to work is the right thing to do even though my job sucks a.
been at work for 30 seconds, haven't barfed yet, and one of my bosses calls me into his office. he wants me to show him how to rotate his als challenge video. after showing me a bunch of other als challenge videos.
get back to my desk. another coworker wants me to show him how to make two-sided copies for his young men activity tonight.
nope, shouldn't have come to work today.
been at work for 30 seconds, haven't barfed yet, and one of my bosses calls me into his office. he wants me to show him how to rotate his als challenge video. after showing me a bunch of other als challenge videos.
get back to my desk. another coworker wants me to show him how to make two-sided copies for his young men activity tonight.
nope, shouldn't have come to work today.
i got the impression, even in college, that mormons are discouraged from gaining too much learning. especially from the scriptures with all the condemnations toward the "learned". there are of course plenty of quotes to support the idea that mormons need learning, especially in current times to keep up the american-professional, capable, self-supporting, go-into-all-the-world image. but i feel like there have always been qualifiers. like, women should get an education, but not too much of an education that they think for themselves or work or even want to work outside the home. and righteous men will get an education to support themselves but definitely not become worldly or heaven forbid, think that their way is above god's way aka that there is something more, and definitely a butt load more questions, beyond the simple, superficial groupthink they are fed at church. nevermind that jesus was a scholar and all the church leaders are decorated scholars and that intelligence is the glory of god. just be careful everyone! learning too much will make you evil.
i'm cynical of religion, but i'm not trying to put down religion; after all, i am a religious person. but you have to admit that being an educated person comes with disillusionment. it comes with a need to question and halt and think and actually say that things that don't make sense don't make sense. like, even stuff you've been taught all your life as a mormon person, you might realize and say they don't make sense because they don't. and instead of getting a genuine conversation or admittance of unknowingness from the church, we are told to simmer down and stop gaining knowledge about that thing and facts are essentially ignored over the good word of the brethren.
i guess my point is--is education undermined to protect people from that disillusionment? is it in the end truly better to be intellectually clumsy, even disrespectful and potentially violent toward other human beings, and a little clueless, in order to be believing with no doubts? without wavering? i believe it's possible to be completely believing and still questioning (just take kate kelly! oh wait...) but why are we taught to be "like little children" instead of like grown adults with the ability to cultivate their own minds and characters and wade through the shit of the church? is that level of intelligence and compassion not worth it because the church doesn't believe the masses are smart enough or not trustworthy enough to be encouraged to have that journey? instead, we are all encouraged to be identical, polished, educated but not necessarily intelligent people who will carry on the good work without making waves.
is it truly better to be obedient than compassionate? so much better to see in black and white than gray that the church pretends like gray doesn't exist?
i'm cynical of religion, but i'm not trying to put down religion; after all, i am a religious person. but you have to admit that being an educated person comes with disillusionment. it comes with a need to question and halt and think and actually say that things that don't make sense don't make sense. like, even stuff you've been taught all your life as a mormon person, you might realize and say they don't make sense because they don't. and instead of getting a genuine conversation or admittance of unknowingness from the church, we are told to simmer down and stop gaining knowledge about that thing and facts are essentially ignored over the good word of the brethren.
i guess my point is--is education undermined to protect people from that disillusionment? is it in the end truly better to be intellectually clumsy, even disrespectful and potentially violent toward other human beings, and a little clueless, in order to be believing with no doubts? without wavering? i believe it's possible to be completely believing and still questioning (just take kate kelly! oh wait...) but why are we taught to be "like little children" instead of like grown adults with the ability to cultivate their own minds and characters and wade through the shit of the church? is that level of intelligence and compassion not worth it because the church doesn't believe the masses are smart enough or not trustworthy enough to be encouraged to have that journey? instead, we are all encouraged to be identical, polished, educated but not necessarily intelligent people who will carry on the good work without making waves.
is it truly better to be obedient than compassionate? so much better to see in black and white than gray that the church pretends like gray doesn't exist?
have i ever mentioned on here how much i hate it when parents give their sons biblical names on purpose? like, i know everyone has biblical names, not just mormon guys, but it still gets to me. i guess because of how obvious it is that people who really care about giving their sons biblical names don't give any shits about giving their daughters biblical names, or if they do, they run out of women's names that they like in like two seconds.
my two brothers closest to me in age have biblical names with really cool stories about how my mom felt impressed about what to name them and impressed about their purposes and missions on earth, that a titular tie to the gospel legacy would benefit and suit them. when i asked her about my name, she said she picked it because she "just liked it." which is fine. i like my name and i'm not bitter about not having a name as old as humanity, but it does bother me that men get this grand, spiritual experience with their name and that there is virtually no such treatment for women.
it probably makes me an ass, but i will go out of my way to make sure my sons don't have biblical names. i don't want my daughters to feel like they are less. and i'm not going to painstakingly give every single kid i have a strong bible name, because to me that is #sorighteous, #soblessed. so i guess that's my unwarranted judgement for the day.
my two brothers closest to me in age have biblical names with really cool stories about how my mom felt impressed about what to name them and impressed about their purposes and missions on earth, that a titular tie to the gospel legacy would benefit and suit them. when i asked her about my name, she said she picked it because she "just liked it." which is fine. i like my name and i'm not bitter about not having a name as old as humanity, but it does bother me that men get this grand, spiritual experience with their name and that there is virtually no such treatment for women.
it probably makes me an ass, but i will go out of my way to make sure my sons don't have biblical names. i don't want my daughters to feel like they are less. and i'm not going to painstakingly give every single kid i have a strong bible name, because to me that is #sorighteous, #soblessed. so i guess that's my unwarranted judgement for the day.
cw: suicide
i was having a new girl marathon by myself when my parents called to tell me my uncle, who was still young, with his youngest daughter being only a few months old, had passed away. i sobbed. i cried. i felt true grief. they told me he passed away in a car crash that afternoon while his family was out of town.
fast forward an hour or so and my parents called back. he hadn't died in a car crash, they said, he had actually taken his own life. they had decided since they first told me that the older kids were mature enough to be told the truth. (please note that i was 22--not like i was 9 or something). he had taken his life while his wife was out of state with the kids. he had had a big presentation coming up for work, and the social anxiety had gotten to him.
after i found out what had actually happened i didn't cry a tear until the funeral. i was dazed, stricken. i remember just lying in my bed and staring at the wall.
fast forward another few weeks until after the funeral (and after my wedding). turns out, my uncle had sent a text to his wife, my aunt, right before he took his life. in it, he explained to her that he had felt for a while that the church was not true, explaining some details in particular. he expressed his deep sadness and helplessness, but said he couldn't go on feeling how he felt. (this was the first time anyone had heard that he was unhappy, since he had always been very active. all of our very large family is extremely active and "happy" in the gospel, at least as far as i know, beyond myself.)
i wonder and hurt for his children; how long will they go without knowing the truth, both about how their father died and how he felt about the church? it's not my decision of what and when to tell them anything, of course, and i can respect their mom's decision, but in such turbulent times in the church it is overwhelmingly dark to cover up the true reason why their dad left us. even if my family believes he was depressed or anxious or something, being depressed or anxious doesn't convince you the church isn't true. probably no one will talk about how overwhelmed he must have felt. that he might have felt so much pressure from the church/his family that the only way he saw out was the saddest one. maybe his kids are too young and their testimonies too young to know this, but what if no one ever tells them and they find out on accident one day? how is that going to protect them?
i don't know why i'm thinking about this this morning.
fast forward an hour or so and my parents called back. he hadn't died in a car crash, they said, he had actually taken his own life. they had decided since they first told me that the older kids were mature enough to be told the truth. (please note that i was 22--not like i was 9 or something). he had taken his life while his wife was out of state with the kids. he had had a big presentation coming up for work, and the social anxiety had gotten to him.
after i found out what had actually happened i didn't cry a tear until the funeral. i was dazed, stricken. i remember just lying in my bed and staring at the wall.
fast forward another few weeks until after the funeral (and after my wedding). turns out, my uncle had sent a text to his wife, my aunt, right before he took his life. in it, he explained to her that he had felt for a while that the church was not true, explaining some details in particular. he expressed his deep sadness and helplessness, but said he couldn't go on feeling how he felt. (this was the first time anyone had heard that he was unhappy, since he had always been very active. all of our very large family is extremely active and "happy" in the gospel, at least as far as i know, beyond myself.)
i wonder and hurt for his children; how long will they go without knowing the truth, both about how their father died and how he felt about the church? it's not my decision of what and when to tell them anything, of course, and i can respect their mom's decision, but in such turbulent times in the church it is overwhelmingly dark to cover up the true reason why their dad left us. even if my family believes he was depressed or anxious or something, being depressed or anxious doesn't convince you the church isn't true. probably no one will talk about how overwhelmed he must have felt. that he might have felt so much pressure from the church/his family that the only way he saw out was the saddest one. maybe his kids are too young and their testimonies too young to know this, but what if no one ever tells them and they find out on accident one day? how is that going to protect them?
i don't know why i'm thinking about this this morning.
today i had a digital job interview with a really reputable company. that's right, when i "entered" the interview i saw the questions for 30 seconds and then it recorded my video answers.
except, it was LITERALLY two minutes long. like, there was one question with a two minute time limit. which i didn't know in advance, or else i wouldn't have stressed about it for so long, and probably would have done it a long time ago.
pack up and go home everybody. just keep the job you have or go back to school because the job search world is seriously too weird.
except, it was LITERALLY two minutes long. like, there was one question with a two minute time limit. which i didn't know in advance, or else i wouldn't have stressed about it for so long, and probably would have done it a long time ago.
pack up and go home everybody. just keep the job you have or go back to school because the job search world is seriously too weird.
manic pixie dream girl
in high school, i dreamed of being a manic pixie dream girl. actually, more of a hilary duff-manic pixie dream girl crossbreed. elizabethtown came out when i was 15, and i just crushed so hard on it. i loved it. i still own the movie, and while i'm now aware that it is generally considered to be a terrible movie, (yeah, and yeah) there will always be a special place in my heart for it since it meant so much to me in my life at that moment.
like, to be a manic pixie dream girl, you just make up your own fashion sense and make up your own style of life and make up your own humor and be quirky and THAT'S IT, everyone will love you and the 'right' people will float in and out of your life. you'll have transient but meaningful friends, meet-cute lovers, and a charming, artsy, tag line life. i thought that was the greatest. and i always felt like i had transient friends (until the CA group), meet-cute lovers (even including my husband), and a charming, artsy, tag line life. even if it was mostly private and i wasn't actually a MPDG, i was in my mind in the way that for some reason mattered to me.
to be fair, the combination of my introverted but comfortable personality and a vague MPDG dream did result in a positive: me having self confidence and a boldness to march to the beat of my own drum, which i don't regret. but what happens when you don't have a quirky or "you do you" impulse to act on? what happens when you just want "a d v e n t u r e" in your life (which, just wanting that makes you feel like a manic pixie dream girl) but nothing you can think of would be genuine or worth it or interesting?
blogs are dying. sometimes i still really want to write on my public blog. sometimes i want to "bring it back." there's a really toxic blog culture, but i never felt sucked into that. i genuinely enjoyed experimenting with my writing and throwing a bit of myself out there, especially as an introvert. it gave me a lot of personal satisfaction, an outlet to talk about difficult things in my life, and yes, it even egged me on. i was a really private person who had a way to make really private things public in a way that was healthy and stimulating for me. like, when i did interesting things i could write about them on my blog and it infused life into me. but now blogs are dying and life is different, i'm different. i feel like i need to hold my cards so close to my chest. all the things i could be saying or developing in myself stay bottled up or come out as unpleasant, angry rants here.
i'm in a funk in life and i have been for years, and at the times that i have the gumption and will power to move on and change everything i can't because i genuinely don't know what i want. and it was easier when i wanted to be a manic pixie dream girl.
like, to be a manic pixie dream girl, you just make up your own fashion sense and make up your own style of life and make up your own humor and be quirky and THAT'S IT, everyone will love you and the 'right' people will float in and out of your life. you'll have transient but meaningful friends, meet-cute lovers, and a charming, artsy, tag line life. i thought that was the greatest. and i always felt like i had transient friends (until the CA group), meet-cute lovers (even including my husband), and a charming, artsy, tag line life. even if it was mostly private and i wasn't actually a MPDG, i was in my mind in the way that for some reason mattered to me.
to be fair, the combination of my introverted but comfortable personality and a vague MPDG dream did result in a positive: me having self confidence and a boldness to march to the beat of my own drum, which i don't regret. but what happens when you don't have a quirky or "you do you" impulse to act on? what happens when you just want "a d v e n t u r e" in your life (which, just wanting that makes you feel like a manic pixie dream girl) but nothing you can think of would be genuine or worth it or interesting?
blogs are dying. sometimes i still really want to write on my public blog. sometimes i want to "bring it back." there's a really toxic blog culture, but i never felt sucked into that. i genuinely enjoyed experimenting with my writing and throwing a bit of myself out there, especially as an introvert. it gave me a lot of personal satisfaction, an outlet to talk about difficult things in my life, and yes, it even egged me on. i was a really private person who had a way to make really private things public in a way that was healthy and stimulating for me. like, when i did interesting things i could write about them on my blog and it infused life into me. but now blogs are dying and life is different, i'm different. i feel like i need to hold my cards so close to my chest. all the things i could be saying or developing in myself stay bottled up or come out as unpleasant, angry rants here.
i'm in a funk in life and i have been for years, and at the times that i have the gumption and will power to move on and change everything i can't because i genuinely don't know what i want. and it was easier when i wanted to be a manic pixie dream girl.
when my 22 year old male employee hasn't heard of/doesn't know what menopause is, you know society is failing women. i mean, this kid is considered a prime bachelor in his community, eligible to enter into a serious intimate relationship with a woman, but he has never heard of menopause? it's like that one time i had a co-worker who had to explain to her 25 year old boyfriend what a period was. she thought it was ADORBS. i thought it was a very bad sign. they broke up.
also, guys fixing their balls through their pants in public: stop. srsly just stop, and go to the bathroom. especially if it's not an easy fix and you have to dig in there. if women were always readjusting and touching their breasts in public, people would throw pissy fits. even if the sexualization isn't there for men like it is for women, it is still not okay to play with your genitals in public.
also, guys fixing their balls through their pants in public: stop. srsly just stop, and go to the bathroom. especially if it's not an easy fix and you have to dig in there. if women were always readjusting and touching their breasts in public, people would throw pissy fits. even if the sexualization isn't there for men like it is for women, it is still not okay to play with your genitals in public.
in our last work retreat--the one where i worked in the kitchen the entire time--our big wig boss decided to roll out a new culture for our division. his new, great idea was to be 'the wolfpack.' the entire idea is to have really effective teamwork, but from the beginning, this was pretty stupid to me because literally the only reason wolves wolfpack is to kill stuff. but whatever.
over time we got wolfpack pencils, bookmarks, posters--everything. but everyone still hates the wolfpack. people make fun of it and some people joke (not so jokingly) that they're getting eaten alive by the wolfpack. so big wig had a meeting with all his upper management last week to say that everyone needs to get on board with the wolfpack and the already overwhelming and ridiculous discussion about the wolfpack is only going to intensify, complete with added meetings and worksheets.
in staff meeting this morning we were talking about it and one employee that isn't usually there raised his hand and said another employee confided in him that he has a really, really hard time with and "hates" the wolfpack. this employee's grandparents lived in germany during WWII. as their grandchild, he learned to hate 'the wolfpack' because his grandfather had constantly fought for his family, for innocent people, and for his life against the germans, who called themselves the 'wolfpack' and used that mentality. my boss's response was--and i shit you not--
"well that's what made the germans so successful."
a few people brought up some other concerns about how inherently violent it is, etc., until my boss finally shut everyone down and said he thought the employees were "intelligent" enough to realize the big whig doesn't intend negative implications to the wolfpack and that we all have to get behind it.
maybe the big wig should have been intelligent enough to have some cultural and linguistic sensitivity.
asses.
over time we got wolfpack pencils, bookmarks, posters--everything. but everyone still hates the wolfpack. people make fun of it and some people joke (not so jokingly) that they're getting eaten alive by the wolfpack. so big wig had a meeting with all his upper management last week to say that everyone needs to get on board with the wolfpack and the already overwhelming and ridiculous discussion about the wolfpack is only going to intensify, complete with added meetings and worksheets.
in staff meeting this morning we were talking about it and one employee that isn't usually there raised his hand and said another employee confided in him that he has a really, really hard time with and "hates" the wolfpack. this employee's grandparents lived in germany during WWII. as their grandchild, he learned to hate 'the wolfpack' because his grandfather had constantly fought for his family, for innocent people, and for his life against the germans, who called themselves the 'wolfpack' and used that mentality. my boss's response was--and i shit you not--
"well that's what made the germans so successful."
a few people brought up some other concerns about how inherently violent it is, etc., until my boss finally shut everyone down and said he thought the employees were "intelligent" enough to realize the big whig doesn't intend negative implications to the wolfpack and that we all have to get behind it.
maybe the big wig should have been intelligent enough to have some cultural and linguistic sensitivity.
asses.
in my dreams, here is how the next three weeks will go:
day 1 (today): complete fast
day 2: water fast (no food, water is allowed)
next 19 days, for a full 3 weeks: eat vegan, plus no sugar unless it's natural (i.e. from fruit, honey)
observations after only part of day 1: food provides so many milestones throughout my days. getting to leave work and eat lunch is some of the only sanity in my work day. right now i'm getting ready to go home, and the thought of going home and just not eating anything is kind of giving me anxiety. food is how i ease in and out of the parts of my day, and how i know the time of day or tone of day. eating is often what dh and i do together. like, if we're not going to be eating together, how will we spend time together? (i'm thinking exercise and outings.)
combine this with the fact that i took facebook off just my phone, and my life is completely different in one day.
it is all very iiiinteresting.
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