Grr...attitude

Generally, I think I'm sort-of half-and-half on the half-full/half-empty thing. Like half "things are so great", and half "but why did THIS PART go wrong??" I feel lucky and grateful a lot, which I think I express. Sincerely. But when facing mixed blessings, maybe I've been a bit...cranky and cynical. Not my most endearing qualities. For example, when someone offered to give up their own time and personal life to help me cope with what is most likely going to be a pretty rough week, and did so in the most AMAZINGLY KIND WAY...I'm afraid I wasted a little time thinking it might be motivated solely by the proselytizing opportunities. Possibly that is because the BIG thing to worry about, like WHY ANYONE NEEDS TO MAKE THAT OFFER AT ALL, is so monumental that being cynical was easier. Time to say, "Duh, self! Get over your, er, self." So, in the spirit of opening myself up to the kindness that has been thrown so ENORMOUSLY in front of us all, I want to open my arms wide and say THANK YOU: To my Internet friends: Thanks. Even though we've never met, your supportive words provide a touching little bubble of good feeling that buoys me up daily. Thank you to my family, who has been IMMENSELY supportive to Jamie, even though they don't know him very well. The phone calls, advice, offers of help and yes, the prayers, are tremendously important to us. Thank you to Jamie's family, who have been very kind to me, and, some of them, SO VERY STUPENDOUSLY nice to Jamie since his diagnosis. Jamie doesn't see or speak to most of his family all that much. There's a lot of complicated history there. But they mean so much to him, and when his family does something nice like come visit and make a fuss over him, it is a HUGE, MOVING, VERY BIG DEAL. (You know who you are!) Thank you to my group of amazing friends. So many of you have made some great offers and just been generally supportive and kind and solicitous. And a few of you have listened to me go berserk over this latest development. Which I wish were anomalous to this one thing, but you know me well enough to know that my head spins around and I yak endlessly over trivialities too. Ahem. I hope to never need to repay in kind some day - but if the need arises, I'm 1000% there. Because I owe you all. A lot.

Spin Cycle: Loose change

This week's Spin is about CHANGE. And since I think of myself as having had multiple incarnations, I decided to just pick one changed thing I miss.

This is Liz.

She's my BFF. From forever ago. We worked in the Lipstick Trenches together putting ourselves through college. Liz lives in Denver being a psych nurse at an outpatient mental health facility. Often she is the emergency-omg-I-forgot-to-take-my-meds-there-are-snakes-on-me nurse. Sitting here in my cozy faux-asian office with mood lighting and rice-paper/bamboo walls at The Swoosh, I think Liz's career=DIFFICULT. Now that I have kids, I don't see Lizzie very much. Only once in the past 3 years. Last night we had our annual 3+ hour phone marathon critiquing the Oscars. Our take: Perhaps Sophia Loren had the WORST Oscar Dress of 2009, but her body is amazing. And, to be perverse in our logic, botox needs to go, because all those immobile 20-year-old faces were creepy (cough cough...Alicia Keys). But the CHANGE that I'm writing about is that, before kids, before Jamie, the way I got to see Lizzie was ROAD TRIP!

Me alone in my car for a day each way, unless I took detours. I once stood on the Wyoming highway replacing all the belts in my 20-year-old Subaru because one broke and took all the others out with it. I had 50 cassettes (see 20-year-old-Subaru) I'd compiled of Road Trip Music.

Since Jamie/kids/etc. the number of times I've driven anywhere far alone=zero. I miss it. And my favorite bobo.

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¡op uɐɔ ı ʇɐɥʍ ʞool

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Because? My boyfriend Davey in his saxiest incarnation (sez me).

Chris

A couple of weeks ago, I went out to the garage to track down some files left in my filing cabinet. Because a filing cabinet, in a garage, in Oregon...a state which gets an average 8 months of rain? Not the best place to leave paper items you want to ever see again.

Like my adoption records. Or marriage certificates (and divorce papers). It was a trip, because we've moved a lot and I hadn't seen many of those files and photos and letters for about 10 years. One of the best discoveries was an entire folder full of the kindest, hardest letters, circa 1986, from my friend Chris.

Excerpt:

"...I'm not going to kill myself. Although I sometimes think it would be nice. I felt sick all last night. And I couldn't sleep...I'm going nuts, Becky! Crazy!! I scream silently for help. I wish it would STOP!...I'm safe at school. Sort of. The feelings don't go away. It's ruining me. What do you think of me? Am I awful? What do you think of the vestle (sic) clean white boy who is all American, Mom's dream, funny all the time? Now that he's shown to be a corroding pervert and a....I can't write it. I'm so scared. It sounds terrible. The nights are worse because I'm forced to think. God is trying to help me. He is giving me confidence. I love him. Mike told Melonie that you told me that she admires me. If she only knew. If she only knew. {sigh} Goodnight, with all the love I have left, Chris."

Heartbreaking. And since you don't know Chris, you just have to take my word that you would be hard pressed to find a dearer, kinder boy. Every letter of his from this time contains some measure of that self-loathing and pain.

When we were there, in high school, in Salt Lake City, Chris & I were misfits for different reasons, but ended up in similar places. His support, constant irony, and sense of the ridiculous (and the finite nature of high school) kept me sane and optimistic.

I was...awkward physically and socially, with parents trying to convince me college was where good, plain girls like me go to find husbands - as quickly as possible. I wanted SO MUCH more for myself than I was getting. More encouragement. More freedom. More opportunities of all kinds. More room to just figure out what I wanted to do and who I wanted to be once I was away from the constant control. Like a LOT of people, I wanted out Out OUT - NOW!!! College couldn't sweep me away soon enough!

Conversely, Chris was an absolute golden boy, and my opposite in many, many ways: Class president. Lead in all the school plays. Handsome. Perfect teeth. Perfect hair. Snappy dresser. And closeted. SUPER closeted. He wanted in In IN! FOREVER!!!!

It's hard to describe to people outside of that world all of the ways in which being a gay Mormon man is simply impossible. Not only because everyone around you subscribes to a sort-of basic fundy-homophobe-going-to-hell belief-system (and so do you, probably), but also because that is a world which in particular provides both secular and metaphysical rewards to faithful, heterosexual men.

I don't think Mormon women have it all that great. The messages they get are a mixture of subservience, polygamy-in-the-afterlife, having-babies-is-your-calling, being-a-helpmeet-is-fun. Whee. Plus bad underwear. I'm always surprised that many women are fulfilled in that world. But they are...and that's another topic.

Obedient Mormon men, however, are constantly being promoted to higher and higher echelons within that structure. They're told that faithful men are like gods, both figuratively and, in their afterlife, literally. All the wives they can support in that post-life-godhood. And greater community standing, jobs, houses, leadership roles, etc. in this life.

It's not easy to walk away from being constantly told how great and important you are, and how many gifts you will receive in this life and the one after, particularly if leaving meant existing in an unknown, chaotic world which you've been told leads to hell, misery, corruption, self-loathing and complete social ostracization by everyone you care about...

Also in the 1980's, gay=AIDS=death. It wasn't a great, promising time to come out and experience the naked panoply of hot, gay, man-love.

So Chris was suffering. A lot. And I was figuring out that, contrary to the rumors I'd heard, being gay didn't actually seem to mean all that much of anything disgusting, abnormal or corrupt, news which fit right in with my growing resentment of religious hypocrisy.

I also was figuring out that the key difference for Chris was that he'd have a hell of a lot harder road to happiness than my own average one of angst and rebellion.

Re-reading those letters was sweet. Bittersweet, sometimes, but...also moving and delightful. Today I xeroxed the entire folder and mailed the copies to New York. To Chris, who is now all fabulous, demi-famous, completely out, acting and directing edgy off-Broadway theater, living with his long-term love, Desmond, and, most importantly, loving life.

High school=sucked...but that seems to be one of it's key functions. Oppression=very sucky. Suffering=also sucky. Having your parents cut you off because you are gay/atheist/not-them=very very sucky.

Lifelong friendships+freedom+love=NOT SUCKY.

Summahtime!

Being home rules! It's hot, the kids play zombies and indoor skiing on the bunkbed-slide, and yesterday played MUD PUDDLE with some friends.



RULES, I say, RULZZZZZZ!!

Ahem. So far, so good.

And now I need to buy a bicycle. With our rebate check. Or a fraction thereof.

I want this:



but will probably get this:Summmmmer! WOOO!

Useless

A few of my friends are simultaneously going through some tough times. And...I think I suck at being a great support when things are rough. Maybe this is typical?

In my family, there's a lot of "things will be fine, we love you" response to general personal angst, but the underlying message usually seems to be "suck it up, whiner".

Also, I think Mormon culture, or just the general post-pioneer-post-Depression-era stoicism of where-and-how I was raised, religious culture aside, tends to want to paint a smiley face on pain. Preferably with lipstick.

See? Pain feels better post-lipstick, Mother T, no?

I find this in my parenting as well. It's taken (and will continue to take) some time and work to just...let the sadness happen with the kids. Let them be where they are, without trying to fix, coddle or cajole them. And know that sometimes, they just need to be sad...until they aren't, anymore.

With my friends, though, I'm not sure where or how to be.

Maybe it's because I've been on the wrong end of suicidally down, and so I take long-term depression really seriously. Or maybe it IS my desire to see everyone up and happy and all right with the world.

At any rate, I'm in the midst of trying to be loving and present, without being overbearing, overcheerful, over-fixit or over-serious. To several people at once. Sans lipstick. Plus love.

Ahhhh...what is there to scream about with lovely Farrah hair?

Clearly I'm awesome at it...(yikes!)