The Perfect Family

For much of my life, I had very little idea of what I wanted to do with it. When I did come up with an idea, it would likely change before it came to fruition. My solution was that I would marry a well-off guy so that I wouldn't have to make up my mind. Screw having a career! I wanted to be taken care of! He would work and get paid enough for the both of us, and I would stay home with all of our fabulous well-behaved, intelligent children. They would come into the world with smiles on their faces because I would have laid in luxury and anxiety-free bliss for the duration of my pregnancy being hand fed strawberries by my doting husband (Eh, maybe that's taking it a little too far?). These kids would have a perfect upbringing due to my staying at home with them and getting my undivided attention. They would have all the opportunities in the world. They would be well rounded, adept at both sports and the arts, street smarts, and book smarts. They would all be in the gifted and talented program and take all the AP courses in high school. Since my parents were divorced, my mom had to work 150% (200%? 250%? Just tell me when to stop, Mom!) harder to provide for us. I wanted to make sure that the family I created would never have to face the emotional pain or hardship of divorce. My sole mission was to be everything for my kids. I would NEVER get divorced. We would eat EVERY single meal together as a family and we would LIKE it! Basically, I wanted to create the "perfect" familial world. I couldn't control my upbringing, but I could control someone else's. It would be EVERYTHING for my kids that I dreamed it could have been for me.

Well, now that I am past my teenage years and early 20's, I've finally come to the realization of the absurdity of this thinking. Hearing how my friend's kids will just pull their pants down in public and start peeing on the sidewalk, I think my perfect expectations of child rearing were a little skewed! I think it finally hit me when I sat down with a family member (regrettably, at a McDonald's) several years ago who drilled into me the hard work and sacrifices that my mother made to provide for me and my sister. THAT is what love is; working an extra day (or two) of the week so that we could have piano, ballet, and swim lessons, new school clothes, a home with a nice big yard and my own room, and a family trip every summer. I spent so many years HATING my family. I wanted someone else's and I wanted to run away anywhere I could to find it! Sometimes that would mean running into the arms of some really crappy romantic relationships for the sense of family I longed for.

It's taken me a long time to get there, but I love my little messed up family. I call my mom every day and see her at least once a week. She is my fashion editor, my workout buddy, my coffee companion, my financial adviser, my thrift store scout, chocolate angel dessert chef, music teacher, and faith builder. And now, instead of yelling at each other and shoving each other around like we did as kids, my sister and me have become great friends now. And even when I thought she hated me growing up, we always put that aside when things mattered the most. When our parents fought, my sister's bedroom was my safe haven. When one of my hamsters died, she was always there to put her arm around me. I look to her for advice on everything from reading a recipe to major career leaps, and I like to look to her and her wife's loving example of marriage in my own.

"This is a post about family, but you haven't talked about your dad yet," you might be wondering. I guess I've been avoiding it. As a little girl, he was perfect in my eyes. I lived for the few days I could see him, and I mourned the days that I couldn't. He made mistakes that I was too young to remember or understand. It was those same mistakes that destroyed his marriage that, repeated later in life, would shatter our relationship in my adulthood and cause me to walk down the aisle in my wedding dress alone. How do you forgive the unforgivable? It's taken hours and hours of therapy, but I've accepted that my relationship with my dad will never be what it was or what I want it to be now. He can never be what I expect of him, and he refuses to change. So that leaves me with two options: I take him out of my life, or I accept the imperfect version that he is. I chose the second option. It is a shell of what our relationship used to be, and he will forever be kept at an arm's length away from my heart because of the choices he's made. But this is my family, and I own it in spite of every awkward Father's Day and Christmas present exchange. I would rather have a flawed relationship than none at all.

I remember one night having a slumber party on the floor of my sister's bedroom when I was about seven years old while my parents fought downstairs. We had the boombox going and Linda Perry/4 Non Blondes' song "What's Up" was playing. I just loved that song- I still do. I'll leave you here with the lyrics to ponder.

P.S. All you have to Google is "Hey ey ey ey ey Hey ey ey song" and it will miraculously come up! Google is a genius!

Listen to it while you are reading the lyrics:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6NXnxTNIWkc

P.P.S. This post was supposed to be about being childless by choice. I'm not sure what happened. Guess you better tune in next week!

Twenty-five years and my life is still
Trying to get up that great big hill of hope
For a destination

I realized quickly when I knew I should
That the world was made up of this brotherhood of man
For whatever that means

And so I cry sometimes
When I'm lying in bed just to get it all out
What's in my head
And I, I am feeling a little peculiar

And so I wake in the morning
And I step outside
And I take a deep breath and I get real high
And I scream from the top of my lungs
What's going on?

And I say, hey yeah yeah, hey yeah yeah
I said hey, what's going on?

And I say, hey yeah yeah, hey yeah yeah
I said hey, what's going on?

Oh, oh oh
Oh, oh oh

And I try, oh my god do I try
I try all the time, in this institution

And I pray, oh my god do I pray
I pray every single day
For a revolution.

And so I cry sometimes
When I'm lying bed
Just to get it all out
What's in my head
And I, I am feeling a little peculiar

And so I wake in the morning
And I step outside
And I take a deep breath and I get real high
And I scream from the top of my lungs
What's going on?

And I say, hey hey hey hey
I said hey, what's going on? (Repeated a whole bunch of times)

Oh, oh oh oh

Twenty-five years and my life is still
Trying to get up that great big hill of hope
For a destination

Written by Linda Perry • Copyright © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC

As you listened to that song and read the lyrics, where did it take you? A memory? Crushed dreams? Do you feel like you are still trying to climb that hill of hope? Maybe the top of that hill is nowhere in sight. Maybe there isn't so much hope left. Maybe, after all these years, you still mourn the life that has been stolen from you for any number of reasons. We like to blame it on circumstance or our parents. Convenient, huh? We have all been placed in a family, whether we like them or not. Maybe you are like me and have seen the effects that divorce, adultery, abuse, and alcoholism can have on a family. It really bites! You can either let it suck all the life out of you, or you can tell that bag of shit to fuck off! It won't be easy. It could take years. You might need some therapy, or you might need to sever a family member out of your life. But you are NOT your family. YOU pave your own way. And cut your family a little slack, too. They are just as imperfect as you are. You are going to screw up your kids a little (a lot?) just like they did to you. Sorry, it's inevitable!

So, are you ready?

Get your butt out of bed tomorrow morning and step outside.

You may be 25 or 75,

You might still be looking for that destination,

But you keep climbing that hill of hope.

You won't be alone, and you WILL get up there.

And when you do, you go ahead and scream at the top of your lungs,

"What the FUCK is going on?!"

(Hellz, YEAH!)

If I Don't Do It, Who Will?

Today I went to the funeral of my 8th grade English teacher. Most of the memories I have of being in middle and high school include being depressed, despising my "broken" family, hacking up my body with a razor blade, and losing friends. My English teacher, however, was a bright spot in my dark world. Ever competitive at my heart, I was determined to be the top speller in his class. I was pretty bitter about being tied for first place, but it was rewarded with a Beanie Baby! Now, 18 years ago, that was pretty sweet stuff! Every time I hear Alanis Morissette's song, "Ironic," I always think of his lesson on what irony is. We went through each line of the song to determine if it was irony or not. "That's not irony!," he would say. "That's just bad luck!" I'm not sure how, but I kept running into him over the years. He would be acting in plays or directing plays that I would go see or he would come into my work (a bookstore) looking for the latest collectibles, and we would catch up. Then all of a sudden there was a car accident, days later he passed away, and I found it hard to believe I had only seen his smiling face the week before at a summer play he had directed. As I sat in the sanctuary today, I giggled to myself half wondering if the pastor might begin with, "Please silence your cell phones for the duration of the service. There aren't any Pokemon in here; I already checked."

Thinking about death is nothing new to me. I've feared it. I've fantasized about it. I've embraced it. I've attempted it. When I found out that my beloved teacher had suffered severe brain damage and would likely die, I immediately thought, "I don't deserve to live. I'm not doing anything that matters. Good people are doing great things, yet keep dying!" I wallowed in this line of suicidal thinking in the days my teacher laid unresponsive in the ICU. He had lived his too short life fully and reached so many people in both small and massive ways. "He's not done!" I pleaded with God. "What about all the people that he hasn't reached yet- the friends, the teachers, the students, the strangers, the poor, the sad? He's doing such a great job being the hands and feet of Christ. There will be a huge hole in the universe now. An emptiness that can't be filled. Take me! I am nothing! I cry too much, I sleep too much, I yell too much, I hide too much, I neglect too much. I'm not doing anything! Take me instead!"

A few days later I had a bizarre dream. I was standing outside with a coworker of mine. All of a sudden meteors plummeted to the Earth, burrowing into the ground, narrowly missing us. "What does this mean?" my friend asked. Without skipping a beat, I answered, "God is telling us he is in charge." God definitely got His message across to me. Not my will be done, but His. I am meant to be alive, and my teacher was meant to die. I may not understand why, but God makes no mistakes- He is in charge.

The truth of this one sentence spoken in my dream could not have become more clear as I listened to the four people at the funeral speak about how my teacher had touched their lives, made them laugh and smile, and shared memories and stories. His children and family carry him with them in the way they act on the love he shared with them. The teachers and students carry his many lessons on to new generations. There is not a hole in the universe as I originally thought. The torch has been passed to the people that he reached. We all carry a piece of him wherever we go. The people he didn't have a chance to reach yet will be reached by all the people that were sitting in those pews this morning. The teachers he touched will go on in his place to nurture blossoming students. The actors and directors and speech coaches will continue the legacy he left on this Earth that he can no longer carry for himself.

The question the pastor kept repeating during his message today was, "If I don't do it, who will?" I thought that if my teacher couldn't do it, then no one would! That his light would extinguish, and darkness would eternally appear where he had once shown his infectiously radiant presence. That question stirred a new purpose inside of me. "If I don't do it, who will?" I will! We will! We all will! I may not know what "it" is in my life right now, but there is an "it" and only I can do it. I'm not dead; I am alive. If I am alive, then there is still work for me to do.

So I challenge you all to ask that question of yourselves today: "If I don't do it, who will?" What is the "it" in your life? Is "it" that person you really want to get to know, but are too afraid to ask? Is "it" that family member, friend, or pet that you probably don't invest as much time in as you would like? Is "it" a great idea that's been bouncing around in your head for a while but hasn't come to fruition? There are as many "its" in the world as there are people.

Go out and find your "it." Do whatever "it" is. And like my teacher did, live it with all your being. You may not have another tomorrow to act on it.

I Don't Wanna!

Some days, I want to stay in my comfortable rut. Depression and anxiety are my constant companions. I want to be taken care of so I don't have to take care of myself. I relish the sense of calm and satisfaction I get from chewing my fingers and picking my skin until they bleed. It's like popping a fresh sheet of bubble wrap (Note to self- buy bubble wrap), but more awesome. To get healthy means exiting my comfort zone, putting forth a great deal of effort, and trying new things. It requires patience and diligence and a slew of other character traits that I don't feel I possess. It means fighting the magnetic pull my pillow has to my head. It means picking up a fruit or vegetable when all I want is a king size Reese's Fast Break and a cherry Icee (Seriously, both quite tasty). Like cleaning your house, it means getting more messy and shedding more tears, so that my life can ultimately be more content and satisfying. It means folding clothes, doing dishes, cleaning hamster cages on a regular basis, taking the dog for walks, paying bills, planning and cooking meals, flossing, exercising, and- I better stop there. You've heard the saying "All or Nothing?" Yeah, that's me. I look at the mountain of to-do lists and I give up before I try. I think I need to take it all on rather than taking one small step at a time. "Don't quit picking all at once," my therapist tells me. "Pick one body part, the left side of your face or your right arm, and don't pick that one spot."

I know that people in their 30's should not be the way I am. People in their 30's should be able to function like an adult. I'm not proud of myself. It makes me feel ashamed. Sometimes some people get so used to being my parent and caretaker that they have been conditioned to enable me. If someone else does something for me, then I don't have to. Which is great for me. I love avoiding the anxiety of being responsible and making decisions. I would rather be ignorant of my financial situation than face it and fix it. All of that has to change, though. I made the year-long commitment to learn new skills, do the therapy, and improve my ways.

Writing it down makes it real and puts it out in the open: I admittedly am incompetent and I'd like to stay that way. The people in my life can't expect little from me anymore. I will fight responsibility, I will hate the people I love, I will have tantrums, I will cry and panic, and the weight of adulthood might even make me feel like I can't go on. And when the pain becomes too much, the people I love can't help me. It's an odd but necessary requirement of my therapy. I have 24/7 access to my therapist which allows me to call her anytime I fall apart, can't stop crying, or can't keep living. I've had access to this luxury for the past three weeks, but I haven't worked up the guts to utilize it. I tell myself that I am a bother, a nuisance, that it's really not bad enough to call. No one else can change my thoughts and feelings but me, and there is no one else that can teach me the skills to rein in my feelings than the gifted talent of a great psychologist.

I don't wanna, but here I go, reluctantly off to uncharted territory.