Oh no we didn't.

I am aware that I use my sense of humor as a coping mechanism when shit starts hitting the fan, but I never expected to literally find myself breaking down into hysterical fits of laughter last night while watching election results roll in. 

I have done my very best to avoid political discussion of any kind with anyone not living in my home, and I didn't really feel anxious about the whole thing until suddenly half the east coast was red. And at first I thought, well, the south is always red, just wait. But then there was just... more red. And more. And some more for good measure. So much red. All the red, everywhere. 

Today we are looking around in confusion, wondering what to tell our kids, and all manner of other ridiculously important things that have no right to even be questioned at this point, like deportation and walls and civil liberties and misogyny and sexual health. AGAIN. I don't understand how we got dragged back to this ugly, uncertain, hopeless place. 

This morning I read a post by a complete stranger that was one of the most naive, candy coated garbage sentiments I have read in a while. "Maybe it won't be as bad as everyone thinks! Maybe this is actually going to be good for us!" It produced yet another involuntary peel of laughter from deep within the place my heart used to lie, mostly unbroken. Then I cried. 

The thing is, though, I think that's also the moment I felt a tiny sliver of hope sneak in. Not because I have any hope that "maybe it won't be so bad." But because maybe this IS going to, eventually, be good for us. 

I say that because the issues here aren't just targeted at one group this time. It's not just about women's issues. It's not just about gay rights. It's not just about the black community. It's not just about immigration. It's about ALL of those things, together. We are all in this shit together. I hope we stand, united, and kick some ass. Or, maybe that's my own level of naivity peeking through. I don't know yet. It's all the hope I have to cling to right  this second, though.

When words fail, music speaks.

Music is a language we share in my house. My kids mostly listen to vastly different music than I do, but that doesn't ever stop us from having a random dance party in the kitchen when something randomly plays, and demands us to play, too. It's The Go Go's, or Taylor Swift, or even Emenim. We've sung along in the car together to Imogen Heap, and U2, and Jack Johnson, and Coldplay. The other day my daughter shared a song with me, and I followed it up with a song new to her. I raised a boy who played the trumpet in band, and the younger two want drums. Give us things to bang on loudly, they ask. And I'm kind of excited about that.

No, don't get me wrong; I'm absolutely not looking forward to those first painful few months where it all always sounds like an endless river of noise made specifically to drown out every last bit of sanity in my brain that I will cling to in hopes of not tossing those drums onto the bonfire in the back yard one sunny afternoon. I'm not looking forward at all to the eventual competition it will surely turn into; who can drive mom crazy first; best; longest without being threatened with bodily harm. And then, the competition will turn against each other--who's playing better. Because their first critics are always going to be each other. And they spare no criticism, as siblings do, I guess.

What I am looking forward to, though, is seeing the language of music expanded in our home. To see them pick up an entirely different level of sophistication in the pronunciation of this thing that moves our hearts, our feet, our mouths. To share the rhythm of their learning and to see the doors in their lives opening, music leading the way. I don't expect them to be musicians, but to appreciate yet another universal language, like math, that connects their lives to the rest of the giant world they have yet to discover.

Sorry, neighbors.
(We're also planning on getting a piano.)
;)

A love letter

I haven't seen her in a long time, but I remember still, "my therapist says" that sometimes you have to accept that some people in your life that are very important to you are never going to have the relationship with you that you expect, or need. That you either accept that they are flawed, just like you, and love them anyway, or you cut them loose. Either option seems to take a colossal amount of strength. When you're sitting across the table from this person that you love, will always love with your whole being, and  are faced with this excruciating dillema, it's all too easy to try your very best to hold on; to eat all the garbage they dish out despite the health warnings; to declare that unconditional love means loving through the hurt and unfairness. Because, afterall, you aren't without your flaws, too, right? And aren't they showinging you the same measure of unconditional love?

What are they showing you when they use slurs to your face, and make you feel inadequate as a person capable of caring for another living being, and less than, and doomed? Is that what unconditional love is? "You are all of these really horrible things, and I want you to feel every second of loathing, but I love you, too." Is that the gist of it? Is there some primer to the varying levels of unconditional love that I perhaps missed the day they handed them out? Yes; no?

Because, as a mother, I have a very different idea of what that all is supposed to mean. Things like: you may choose a path that is completely unexpected, but I am absolutely going to be there to cheer you on, to pull you up when you fall, to be the ear you need to listen, to be the arms you need to hug, to tell you how amazing you are, to learn from you the things you want to teach me, to share with you the things I think are important, and to understand that you are not an extension of me. You are your own person. That to help you grow to be confident in yourself, I am confident in myself enough to know that when you don't agree with me, it isn't a rejection of ME, but a step toward your own independence and happiness and truth. That I won't fixate on our differences, and instead celebrate them as much as our similarities, for you are my love letter to life, and I hope to be a part of yours. Rather than some abstract eternity, the stories you tell of me to your children, to your grandchildren, to your great-grandchildren, are how I plan to live on, and so those stories must be exceptional and full of love, and heartfelt, for how else will they know of the great love that they have descended from and are a part of? There is no one else's opinion that matters to me more than yours, no matter who you love, or what career has chosen you, or what clothes you wear, or what shade your skin is, or what your tattoos look like, or what music you listen to, or what your favorite movie is. You are forever my love letter to the universe. Unconditionally.

So I don't understand love labled as "unconditional" if that isn't it.

Because, as I mentioned an entry or two ago, I still very much feel like a kid. My not so average Joe had to go before I was ready to loosen my grip, and I still need as much unconditional love from the rest of my family as I can get, regardless of who, where, what, when, and why my life takes me; I, too, am deserving of truly unconditional love. It has taken my whole life up to this point, a therapist or two, amazing friends and my best friend slash heroic husband, and exactly two glasses of wine, to realize that I deserve it, too. I have an entire lifetime of memories to remind me of what I don't deserve, or want, or need in my life. I don't want to be "a good girl," and I don't need to go pick a switch off the orange tree, or ask you if you're done yet after I feel the welts rise on my legs from a metal coat hanger, or wonder why there is no one on God's entire green earth that I can talk to when I am hurt. I need someone to tell me that I don't have to try to keep the peace, to hold all of the grown up relationships together at the expense of my own safety and sanity. That I don't have to get in the car with my drunk biological father and scream at the oncoming lights as he swerves into the other lane of traffic, or be the one to make all the phone calls to try to get him to interact with me, or anyone else in my family that leaves it up to me, to hear them say they just don't have time for me, or to have to hear about how much you still find them handsome, or fun, or that I should give them a call, yet again. I don't need to hear that I have to try to shove myself into the door of one more church after years of hearing that no matter what I do, and even though Jesus made me too, I'm going to burn in hell because I love one too many genders.

I am enough. I am my own person, and I matter, and I have written my love letters across the ethos of the world, and they will carry me through an eternity of unconditional love. And. It feels. Pretty. Damned. Good. I hope you wake up in time to scawl your post script.

Love, Me.
Love me.
Love=Me.

(Yeah, it's all the same.)

Venus and Mars, and a sky full of stars

You know, I'm just about 100% sick of hearing about the whole feminism thing. I just want the opportunity to get on with the business of being a human female while enjoying the ability to make every single last decision of my own accord without some guy standing there judging or giving his unsolicited opinion. Or even some other woman, for that matter. What works for my life may not work for anyone else's, and I'm okay with that... so why do they insist we try to jam ourselves into whatever mold they fancy at the time?

I'm sick of the term "mansplain," and I'm sick of the men trying to explain who, when, why, how, and what a woman should do with her vagina, her wardrobe, her hair and makeup, her attitude, her life. I'm sick of the ridiculous disrespect that has made women literally fear walking down the street alone at night, or in broad daylight, because of what some man may do, which of course, she will be blamed for due to the length of her skirt or the tightness of her shirt, or no reason at all. I'm sick of the school dress code restrictions that grow ever increasingly tighter as the staff lose their grip on their responsibilities to actually educate their students, placing the blame on a girl in skinny jeans when a boy refuses to keep his eyes or hands to himself. I'm sick of the phrase "boys will be boys," and the wink and nod and dismissal that follows. I'm sick of the way women are viewed as the weaker sex, yet blamed for men "giving in to temptation," or however they wish to phrase the stupidity they have just indulged in.

I'm sick of being from Venus, while men reside on Mars. Because all of this means that women and men will never have whatever conversation that needs to occur in order for this to all stop happening. We will never understand each other, and we will never stop the blame game. We will never stop being victims, or victimised, or feel comfortable in our own skin, or proud of who we are, or proud of our partners. How can we, when we are making each other feel judged at every turn and assumed to be a person who utterly lacks control of their own actions, thoughts, behavior, and feelings?

Women can be just as brutally stupid as men in all of the above aspects, too, so don't think I am giving my own gender a get out of jail free card. I am also very grateful that almost all of the people I know and love don't fall under any of this crap. I am just sick of all of us having to deal with the fallout every single day.

Don't we all have anything better, more important, to do?
I know I sure do.