My Story

It’s so crazy who is allowed to tell their stories.  

I miss my uncle.  I remember him regaling us nightly with captivating stories from his adventures at work.  He was always the hero of these stories, and he perhaps as a result became my hero.  The love and comfort he provided me? - was honestly what saved me from feeling completely broken off this world.  He was dynamic, and loving, authentic, and smart.  It took about a year for me to even feel anything but grief after he died.  That was two years ago now.

How about this pandemic, huh?  I’m just gonna say it: I’m kinda enjoying myself.  I mean it’s all in the perspective, right?  Gotta find silver linings.  No more waking up at 5AM to not exercise and make breakfasts; driving 3 hours a day in commute.  Now I wake at 2 even when I’m so tired and battle week long migraines from staring at screens.  And people are dying.

Feeling alone.  Lucky, but still we’re all profoundly isolated.  Facing demons.  I’m personally trying to rethink everything so I can emerge like a good white woman should (biodegradable laundry detergent on subscription, reusable plastic sealed in happy bees wax, glass jars everywhere again...  There’s even talk of composting.  But there’s little escape suddenly from control issues, power issues, tempers.

I have no physical prowess.  I used to feel strong but I no longer feel even that gender dysphoric compensation.  I’m long passed wearing anything but flats, my hair is what it is and the answer to which “lines” would be the ones to grace my face?  Turned out to be wonder lines.

As a teacher somewhere I realized I am not the “expert” teacher.  I am the relatable support.  I’m a Special Education Generalist, which means I’m an expert of nothing, but I know how to learn.  This works only if I’m honest.  Only if I stay ethical.  That means no lying.  That means facing the fallout of every mistake.  Asking for forgiveness.

See, this is Hell.  Realizing this I started to feel crazy.  Friends go with you so far, but in the end - it’s party banter.  It’s become much, much more for me.  I began to see that if we choose our own realities than I must have chosen this pandemic.  Smh... stupid!  But then I had to really think - was that true?  All this suffering I sometimes “see” - am I creating that?  Choosing that??  Energizing that???

A “friend” strongly suggested therapy.  So this has been fun.  My wife and I had similar childhoods.  We both emerged siding with patriarchal judgments as opposed to apathetic feelings.  But there’s a lot there for both of us.  I’m all about truth because it took me so long to uncover it, but, like packing up my uncle’s house felt, there are these boxed issues all around me: grief.  abandonment, isolation, rape.  

So I’ve come to learn, that I have control issues.  My property became my boundary.  2020 became the year I became an expert.  All those floundering years of college when I majored in philosophy and learned the nuances of epistemology - I knew the only thing to fear was that nobody knew.  Everyone is fallible.  Nobody cares enough.  

Maybe it stemmed from my issues.  Maybe it’s energized by thought.  There is nobody I trust.  There is nobody, anyone, always trusts.

So I face the fears.  I have rules.  Boundaries!  I have power over my wife and children.  (She’s gonna lose it on me when this makes it’s way to her!)  But I did.  I do.  Thank God.  She empowers me.  

So do they, my beautiful boys.  I haven’t screwed them up yet enough to ruin that.

We are hunkered.  We are remote.  We have schedules.  We adapt.  We learn.  We are thriving despite...

I think maybe therapy has lead me back to this creative drive.  I have no illusions of grandeur.  I do have an intense appreciation for the process.  The only way to face a world-wide epidemically-proportioned fear of death is to live.  Access the only thing we ever know we can - the moment.  Face the issues.  Employ patience.  Find something worth anything to leave behind if it comes to it.

So I’m reaching out.  Sharing my truths if I can.  Trying to do no harm (really tripping over that one!)  Attending the questions.  What if there are no homosexuals in Heaven?  What if pride really goeth before the fall?  Maybe everything I’ve come to have faith in is bullshit.  What if it’s not?  How far can I stretch my solipsistic existence?  With all the power I can muster, what can I trust?  How can I grow to become trustworthy?  Do my stories have merit?

I’d be nothing without her.  I’d have zero access to me.  That really wasn’t a choice I made.  It was an amazing connective discovery.  Having children expanded it.  Maybe this is Hell.  Does that mean we give up?  I say no.  Am I right?