Don't Hate Me 'Cause I'm Indie and You're Punk

In Real Life

When I was thirteen I went to my first Unitarian youth conference. I arrived at the UU church in Aptos with a few close friends and with no idea that I'd be meeting 80 or so people that would change my fucking life. I spent the next eight years devoted to that community- organizing, mentoring, participating and holding. It was cuddle puddles and 4am talks of spirituality, sexuality, social justice and which semi permanent hair dye was the longest lasting (Special Effects still wins, BTW) and days of sleeping as little as possible to soak up the amazingness of the people around me and the feeling of safety that came in that space. When I aged out at twenty one after deaning our week long Summer camp with my two best friends, I was ready. It wasn't my space anymore and it was time to let the youth I tried so hard to mentor as well as I remembered being mentored step up and take my place.

I was a left with a hole in my heart much larger than the one that causes my murmur. Don't get me wrong, those people are still my closest friends and I still very much identify as a Unitarian (even if my current church attendance record is about once a year), but that feeling of community, that feeling of (yes, I'm going there) intention has been missing from my life.

Last weekend I met 59 other bloggers in Las Vegas. 59 other people who also in some way expose themselves for the entire internet to judge. 59 other people who I felt like I already knew without having even met the majority of them before this past weekend IN REAL LIFE.

We use that term a lot, us bloggers, IRL, as if the internet isn't our real life. It's funny, because I think for so many of us it is. The internet is where I'm unabashedly me. Where I am all the things I keep myself from being "too" in real life. Too emotional, too excited, too passionate, too ready to break into dance at the slightest provocation while wearing a sequined dress, too, too, too. The magic of meeting internet people in the real world is that they already know the real version. I don't feel like I have to impress anybody or hide anything because, look, EVERYTHING ABOUT ME IS RIGHT HERE ON THIS BLOG, from my worst decisions to my best decisions, from my struggling with my childhood to my thankfulness for my supportive family, from the bell jar days to the days where I want to shout from the rooftop that life is wonderful, it's all here. All of it. So trying to pretend to be anyone else is just stupid.

So this weekend I got to relax into being me. I got to meet some of the most wonderful, supportive, silly people I know of existing. I spent as much time awake as possible and went to sleep Sunday morning with the sun rising and the birds chirping, only to wake up a few hours later and have to say goodbye. The kind of goodbye that was filled with happy sadness.

And as I left Las Vegas and headed for a mini visit in California, I realized I had found my people again. I realized that this blog and the community I get to be part of because of it has done for me what church conferences did for me as a teenager. It has helped me grow and gain confidence and support others even when exposing the weakest version of myself. It's helped me stay in touch with who I am while nudging me towards the person I want to be. It's given me a whole helluva lot of people to whom I would say my guest room is always open and I'm always available for talking in the midst of a crisis.

When Lara picked me up in San Francisco and asked me if I was sad the weekend was over, I said "Remember that end of con feeling? When you were sad that you had to leave everyone but ready to not be sleeping on a church floor anymore? It was like that. Except Vegas was the church floor".

To my fellow BiSC-uits, I can't wait to see you in real real life because I'm sure as hell not waiting an entire year for the church floor that is Vegas, let's plan a get together soon.

Like, maybe tomorrow.

Exhaustion

Las Vegas and California. Waiting on the plane to get home. Las Vegas was AH-MAZING. I'm still surprised at how little attachment I feel to California. It's familiar and full of things I love but it's not home. Given my constant desire to leave it, I don't know if it ever was. But the people I love are there and there is a very happy thing and a very sad thing happening right now and I could really use a teleporter.

Timshel

I'm finding one of the products of getting older is being able to distinguish between the different types of sad. The hurt sad. The bell jar sad. The grief sad. The grief sad and the bell jar sad used to be indistuingishable, interwoven, one always seemed to create the other if it went on for long enough.

I am sad and I have not been sleeping well but the world hasn't closed in yet. I have no problem going to work though I am a little spacey and easily frustrated. So far, I haven't even had the urge to cry on the train. I am sad. Grieving. But is tolerable and it will pass. That's what I can tell you ten years after my father celebrated his last birthday. Ten years, and I can finally tell you, I can finally believe, this too shall pass.

May, 3rd 2002, my father turned 38 and it's strange because now 38 is just far enough away that I can't picture it, but close enough to understand how young it really is.

My father was a good man who made bad choices. He was without pretense. He was caring and loving and compassionate. He was a drug dealer and a drug addict. He never hid his choices from me, but he never wanted my choices to be the same. I think a lot of his choices were built around making sure that my choices didn't have to be the same. He wanted the world for me. I was the world for him.

But sometimes in my heart of hearts I still think "You loved me more than anything, you loved me so much that friends of yours I'd never even met would come up to me at the memorial to tell me, to ask me about things in my life I'd barely remembered telling you but it wasn't enough, it still wasn't enough was it? Not enought to pull yourself together. Not enough to walk away from that high".

And I know, I know that's not how addiction works. And I know he died in a motorcycle accident. But I know he was driving that motorcyle too fast because of other poor decisions. And I know that he rarely did anything without the best of intentions. I know he made the choices he felt he had to make. I know he felt the weight of the world on his shoulders, I know the depression, the anxiety. I know the things that have been passed from generation to generation. I empathize too much to be angry. Maybe I'll never make it through all the stages of grief. I am a sad person and I am a hurt person, but I am almost never an angry person.

I miss you, daddy. There were always other choices. I didn't need the whole world, I just needed you to be happy and safe in it.

Do Justice. Love Mercy. Walk Humbly.

Love is the doctrine of this church, the quest for truth its sacrament and service its prayer. To dwell together in peace; to seek knowledge in freedom; to serve humanity in fellowship, thus do we covenant together.

Faith. It's not a word I struggle with, but it's a word I feel I'm supposed to. My dad's side of the family are Jews of the non practicing sort. I was raised Unitarian Universalist in a congregation that fired a minister basically for talking about God too much. Also, his sermons were actually the most boring, rambling things I have every heard in my life. AND he wasn't very supportive of our high school youth group, we theorized it was because more people showed up when we lead service than when he did. Actual true story. So maybe just not a good fit overall.

That really here nor there, though.

I wasn't really raised in a family or a faith that is down with the G.O.D. (except for the UUs that are, we're big on the personal belief systems in Unitarian Universalism*) and for a long time I identified as agnostic. I wasn't willing to totally discount the presence of a capital "G" God, but s/he didn't really factor into my personal belief system. These days, I've changed my mind.

I am an atheist. I'm not a militant atheist. I don't believe that science has all the answers. I do believe that religion can be a marvelous force for good. I do have faith.

I have faith that people are basically good.

I have faith in the inherent worth and dignity of every person.

I have faith in nonviolence. I have faith that there are things worth dieing for, but none that are worth killing for.

I have faith in compassion. Always. Always compassion, justice and equity.

I have faith that we are all connected, that tomorrow is another day, that everything will be ok. I think god is the feeling of the sun on your skin after a long winter, reading the words for something you felt to be true but could never say, the ocean, service work. I have faith in faith- that it helps people, that it heals. I have faith that when you say your faith in capital "G" God sustains you that you mean the same thing I mean when I say my faith in capital "H" Humanity sustains me. I have faith in Western medicine and neti pots and yoga. I have faith that some day my prince will come.

I have faith that I am the person in charge of my own happiness.

And I have faith you are the person in charge of yours.

 

*This post should probably include a disclaimer than in no way do my beliefs speak for all UUs. Except for the UUs they do speak for. Look, this is the only stuff we can agree on. We would like less mention of God except for those of us that would like more. Some of us would prefer we only ever mention the Goddess. We basically can only agree on the importance of coffee hour and committees. It's a great religion.

This post was written as part of The Scintilla Project. Prompts can be found here.

The parts of me I've lost.

Sidenote: I feel like this post is only grasping at what I want to say. It's not quite there yet.

Vulnerability. Oh I am vulnerable. I am oh so so so so vulnerable.

It hurts, living, it hurts constantly. Like my skin is being rubbed by sandpaper. Except for the moments it doesn't, the moments of sitting on my roof on a warm Spring day eating pineapple until my lips bleed. If this isn't nice, I don't know what is.

You will never know this.

I am a feelings person. I feel everything, dramatically, immensely, personally. But I am (mostly) a quiet, contained person, a tense person, a small, apple cheeked, dimpled woman with a sharp edge.

I loathe innocence and softness in others. I don't relate. I resent it. "Don't you understand?" I want to scream at them, "Don't you understand that the world is a cold, hard and lonely place, there are beautiful people in it, but even the beautiful people leave at some point, somehow, always. I should know, I don't think I'm a beautiful person, but I know I'm always leaving, be careful of people like me. And some people, most people, they're just masquerading, don't ever EVER be the first to show your soft underbelly".

What is it like to not feel like that? What would it be like to gain my vulnerability back? I don't know. I lost it so very long ago. I think it's somewhere in West Oakland, between a fence I climbed and a bedroom I was thrown across. Don't ever ask me for memories of your father, little brother.

It's a catch 22 you see, I would trade the loneliness of this impenetrable fortress for things like snuggles on the couch at the end of a long day and nightly shared meals if you proved you were trustworthy but would you take the time to prove you are trustworthy to a woman who only ever offers vague glimpses of who she is?

This post was written as part of The Scintilla Project, prompts can be found here.

It's a treacherous road with a desolated view

 Tumbalalaika is my grandmother singing me to sleep and Where Have all the Flowers Gone is her playing the piano in the sunlit living room of my great grandparents' house in the Berkeley hills.

A musical snowglobe with a basket of roses played the song played at my mother's (unsuccesful) rehab graduation and kept me company in the years she was gone.

"You're going to really like this," my father says as he puts the bright orange CD into the stereo and skips to I'm Just a Girl. Sunny summer Sunday mornings with the top down, driving me home on highway 1.

Mayonaise for the boy I spent three weeks kissing in Ireland when I was 14.

Years of late night singalongs in the Mendocino Woodlands and the smell of campfire lingering in my clothes for days are comprised of Obla Di Obla Da and Down by the Riverside.

Staying up all night next to the fire in the dining hall in the same Woodlands, with friends so close I still think of them as my family, is yelling along to Buddy Holly which is also: my first concert, Paris with Corina (another Weezer concert) endless car singalongs and dinner parties in my Berkeley apartment.

Lara and Corina are I Will Survive and the Josie and the Pussycats soundtrack. Stuck in traffic before the Rainbow Tunnel headed towards a Unitarian Universalist youth conference on a rare warm sunny day in San Francisco. Late night cookie bakes. Planning Sunday service.

Golden Age is rain on the roof of Jacob's room junior year of high school. It's panic attacks and aching and loss and grief and comfort and safety all wrapped in one. It's my favorite song and I rarely listen to it because it hurts. It hurts like you couldn't even imagine. Sometimes I don't even know how I got through that first year after my father died.

India when I was eighteen is obviously Redemption Song. The Garden State soundtrack is my return and the next semester in Turkey.

Our tiny, damp and cold (but cheap) apartment in San Francisco was Not a Pretty Girl, while I rocked out to Twin Cinema in the culinary classroom and walked towards the streetcar in the fog humming To Be Young is to Be Sad.

The truth is, I could keep doing this all night, almost every post on this blog for the last three years has been titled with song lyrics, each one awakening a very specific feeling. I'm one of those people. You know the ones, the ones that can't possibly get by on only the 16 gigs their iPhone allows, the ones that listen to albums with the shades drawn and the lights off, whole albums always, songs are meant to be listenened to in album order or on a playlist but never an album on shuffle (shudder), the ones who sometimes replay a song if a conversation interrupted really listening to it, the ones who devour new albums like they've never heard music before... One memory and one song? Impossible. I could more easily give you the soundtrack to my entire life.

But if you really must know, Summertime will always make me cry.

This post was written as part of The Scintilla Project, prompts can be found here.

On Adulthood

I don't really understand this whole not thinking of one's self as an adult thing.

Lightbulb Moments I never had:

• I am responsible for myself now.
• Adults are imperfect.
• I am an adult

I hold these truths to be self evident.

My dad used to describe me as 13 going on 30.

My family feels the need to remind me that I don't have to do everything by myself.

Being an adult was all I ever wanted to be and I wouldn't trade being in control of my life for any part of childhood or adolescence. It was all I ever wanted and I will gladly take it, bills and monthly budgets and ten hour work days and all.

Because I don't trust anyone else to take care of anything ever.

Maybe when I do, that'll be the real adult moment.

Maybe adulthood is backwards for me.

This post is written as part of the Scintilla Project prompts can be found here.

Letting Trouble into my Bed (Part Two)

"Have you ever been hospitalized for drinking too much?" Trouble asks me.

"No, I've never been hospitalized at all, actually"

"Have you?" he asks his roommate.

It's my first time meeting his roommate, he's been antagonistic to me right from the start with such gems as "lesbians are jealous of your haircut" and "you don't belong in Astoria, move to Brooklyn" but I'm sitting on the same side of the table with Trouble, oddly ok with this situation in which he keeps seemingly choosing me over his childhood friend.

"No, some of us can hold our liquor" the roommate responds in a tone of voice that implies there is definitely a story here.

"Have you?" I try to keep my voice cool while every part of me is certain and terrified of the answer.

"Yeah, a couple of months ago. We went out to dinner and then we went to club and then I woke up in the hospital. I know I got there in an ambulance because I read the chart and it said the NYPD called an ambulance for me. I mean, I was just really drunk. I don't know, a couple of days later all my muscles were sore and maybe I fell down some stairs or something"

I don't even know what I said in response. I don't know if I said anything. I think roommate maybe told me I should move to Brooklyn again and the conversation changed.

Later in the evening, "I don't know what's going on, I just get home from work and immediately want to start drinking".

I wanted to talk to him about it, you know I wanted to talk to him about it, if you know me or have read this blog for any significant amount of time you know, but I couldn't, because his roommate was there and later we were back at his house and drunk and well, the other "you know".

It was a strange evening, the first time the majority of our conversation wasn't banter and flirtation. I'm not sure why I got to meet his roommate, if it's just because it was the first time his roommate was around when we had plans or if it was a sort of exchange for me letting him into my room. The way he distracted roommate when roommate kept heckling me and the walking back to his house without the customary "are you coming over", arms around each others waists as he assures me that I shouldn't take roommate personally felt strangely more relationship-y than dates I've been on with guys I hoped to date. He was apologetic and just enough more inebriated than me to seem vulnerable and a little adorable. Time spent in bed involved a lot more give and take than once a month FWB normally involves. Instead of being clever, we were both being silly.

Something switched. I stopped being able to pretend that all the not texting him and not being facebook friends with him and not knowing if I'll actually see him again in about four weeks matters. They're flimsy boundaries. A way to pretend I'm not being reckless.

But do you understand? Do you understand what those moments of vulnerability, those comments about alcohol abuse mean to me? Do you understand my sudden overwhelming urge to not so much date him, as fix him?

Months ago, after our first date our mutual friend asked if I had heard from him.

"No, haven't heard from him at all in a couple of weeks"

"Gah, Trouble is like that. He can kind of be an ass. He's never actually committed to a girl, I don't know what's wrong with him, but he's hurt in some way. He's always been like that"

"YOU TOLD ME TO DATE HIM"

"I thought maybe you would be the one that changed him"

"Why didn't you tell me that was the plan?! That is the worst plan. I would've known better, I probably would've still slept with him but I would not have let myself like him so much"

And yet, here we are, months later and I think I can fix him. It's me, because I'm just that caring and loving and compassionate. Because I know how to take care of people better than themselves. Because of the narcissism of codependency.

I feel like my body is being wrenched apart. My head pulling one way and my heart the other. Every bit of my screaming "NO" and at the same time "YES" because I can see it. I can see every beautiful self destructive second of it. I can see the swirling, pulling downward spiral of every action forgiven, the begging, the pleading, the problem solving. I can see myself feeling martyred and vindicated. I can see the raw emotional clash if I let him in and he let me in and the delicious damage that would ensue. I can see it all. The happiness and the tears. The lovely, lovely extremes.

I don't think he'd ever let me in, thankfully,  because I don't think I have the strength to walk away.

And sitting in Central Park after spending a few hours at MoMA with a very nice boy, thinking about Trouble being hospitalized instead of thinking about that boy, is when I realized I needed to follow through with my New Year's resolution of finding an Al Anon meeting. The exact phrase "I need to go to a meeting" ran through my head and  I almost laughed. And then I almost cried, like I'm doing now.

Because I have to admit that I am powerless.

And it has very little to do with Trouble.

This one's for my family 'cause I guess I know exactly who I am

Lessons from my family.

Put your money where your mouth is

Donate that money. Do those volunteer hours. Shop local if you can. Support businesses/products you believe in. Sign that petition. Pick up a sign and march your heart out. Vote. If you are unhappy, do something. Change the world in whatever way you can.

From each their ability to each their need

Yes, that's kind of parapharsed and it's Marx. Get over it. I give my spare change to homeless people. I will use my unlimited fare card to swipe other people into the subway if I'm on my way out. I don't make much but I still donate to charitable organizations because there are people that need the money more than me and as my father once said when he was living in an apartment in the tenderloin "there is nothing that can happen to me that is worse then what I see when I walk out that door every day". I truly believe that society is responsible for keeping people from falling through the cracks. I am fond of my tax return but I'd rather the government keep it and give us all healthcare. I think it's stupid to imprison drug addicts instead of providing them with actual help. Actually, I think in general it's stupid that our prison system focuses on punishment instead of rehabilitation, especially the juvenile justice system.

My heart, it just bled all over your computer.

Feminism is not a dirty word

I come from a long line of feminists (one of my grandmothers has a "Votes for Women" pin that's been passed down and the other can be seen yelling about childcare in the movie Berkeley in the Sixties*) and I'm not afraid to use that word to describe myself. As I wrote before: "being a modern liberal woman isn't about fitting into a neat man hating, power bitch box, it's about choices. It's about living your life in the way that you find most empowering. It's about being able to stick to your guns without having to apologize and it's about facepunching double standards".

Never cross a picket line

My daddy was a longshoreman. His daddy was a longshoreman. When I turned 18, I took all the tests to inherit my father's book even though I didn't go that route. My grandfather, his brother and all of his sons are contractors. My grandma is a nurse. We do believe in unions, and we don't cross picket lines.

It's always better to be overdressed than underdressed

I probably mostly choose to believe this piece of wisdom from my grandmother because I like wearing pretty clothes. But also, I would rather present myself to the world as somebody who puts in the extra effort.

Home is where they always have to take you in

This is one of my father's sayings. He valued family immensely, even if he wasn't on the best terms with somebody. I think part of what I learned from him is that your family isn't just your blood relatives. Your family is the people you trust, the people you would give the shirt off your back and who would do the same for you. The people that support you and the people that take you in when you have nowhere else to go. I think I have a lot of homes by this standard. I am blessed.

I am a product of my upbringing and I am 100% happy with it. Thank you, to my entire family for making me the kind of person that cares, I don't want to be any other kind.

*This movie is oddly on Netflix instant watch, I think my great grandfather, great grandmother and at least one of my great uncles also have appearances.

Everything is fine, everything has always been fine, we've always been at war with EastAsia

It's a fine line for me between self isolation and self care. I spent a lot of last year self isolating, getting through on a day by day basis. Spending so much time with my family last month has made me realize how much moving across country has stripped away all the stress, all the "taking care of" and all the "setting a good example" that I used to hide behind.

Guys, when you strip away "the one that always holds it together and never asks for help"? There's a world of hurt under there. Abandonment hurt. Codependency issues. Anxiety.  I'm not saying these things for sympathy or pity, I'm just saying that right now, these are the things I'm struggling with. These are the things I'm finally letting myself feel. I have worked so fucking fuckity fuck hard to be everything my parents were not. My eyes have been so focused on the prize of a normal, stable, responsible life that I willingly ignored my emotional instability.

Yes, I know it's always been there. There's no pretending when a significant other says things like "Are you getting out of bed today? You're acting like a depressed person" or when you've spent hours curled in a ball sobbing like the world is ending. When I bring a significant other to meet my family, it's not to see if they can handle my family or if my family likes them, it's to see if they can handle me when I'm around my family. Every muscle in my body tenses and you can feel (and hear) the stress radiating from my body. I am not fun. Unless you give me some valium or some booze. I wish that were a joke.

So no, I didn't actually think I was as normal and well adjusted as I convince people I am (seriously, if I had a dollar for every "but you're so normal!" or "you're so together"...) but I think I had myself convinced I had done a lot more dealing than I actually had. I had myself convinced I had the issues UNDER CONTROL.

Guess what? They're really not under control. I mean, maybe, maybe I've got my shit more together than a lot of people wrestling with the same demons. But basically all that means is, at least I'm not an addict myself. That's no way to live life. I'm tired of defining myself as somebody who is doing pretty ok FOR WHERE THEY CAME FROM. I just want to be somebody who is doing really well. Period. No excuses.

When I decided that today was going to be a down day after a month of doing all the things, it wasn't about lying in bed and watching tv and taking a break from my emotions and my life, it was about doing the things that help me feel more together and healthier. I cleaned, I organized, did yoga, meditated, finally put my bed frame together and finished reading 1Q84. Did I watch some tv? Yeah. Did I check twitter obsessively? Is that even a question? Did I also choose to schedule a date tomorrow after work instead of today when it could've been at a more normal time and I'm sure the guy would've liked to see me sooner? Yes. Because y'know what? I had shit I needed to do and a self that needed some care and it turns out people don't actually get mad at you for saying that.

I'm working on learning the difference between when I'm just using excuses to talk myself out of something and when I legitimately need to say "no I need some time for myself right now". I think part of that might be having to show real life people (not just people who read this blog) that I'm vulnerable and sometimes I need help. I don't know if I know how to do that, in fact, I'm actually 100% certain I don't, but twenty six seems about time to learn.