We believe that everyone should believe in something

So my cousin found this little thing that we wrote when we were 14 called "We Believe." We attempted to write down the things that we believed in at that age - some of these are from advertisements that we had hanging on our walls - others of them, I am honestly not sure where they came from. We made them up I guess. I remember when we wrote this. It won't be as funny to all of you, but when my cousin and I read it now, 17 years later, we were pretty much rolling on the floor laughing. So have a laugh if you want to - these are the things we believed in at 14. This was just one of the many silly things we did.

We Believe

We believe in truth.

We believe we can sometimes lie.

We believe it should just go.

We believe there is a man in the moon.

We believe that peace is possible, maybe.

We believe that imagination is a doorway to understanding.

We believe that this commercial is good.

We believe that music is a bridge of expression.

We believe that poetry doesn't have to be written.

We believe that lust is necessary.

We believe that we are all alone out here.

We believe that we are candles.

We believe that people make their own heaven or hell.

We believe little kids know more than adults.

We believe you should feel not think.

We believe that things should be visually appealing.

We believe that Fig Newton's aren't just a cookie.

We believe that people shouldn't ask so many questions.

We believe that everyone should believe in something.

We believe that God is not judgmental.

We believe in the right to choose.

We believe that the news is breakfast for your head.

We believe if you have to be lost, you should make the most of it.

We believe that you have to have the ball to play the game.

We think we believe that black is not the absence of color, but we are not sure.

We believe that there is emotion after all.

We believe that pain is real.

We believe that rage is productive.

We believe that men should feel like shit.

We believe that anger should not be controlled.

We believe that silence is gray.

We believe that panic is art.

We believe that apathy is everything instead of nothing.

We believe that tomorrow may never come.

We believe that coldness is an emotional state.

We believe that sexy is a state of mind.

We believe we are victims.

We believe you should say you are sorry.

We believe that people can be on different ends of the same wavelength.

We believe there is something west of imagination.

We believe you don't have to get it.

We believe in the power of touch.

We believe that they want to steal our thoughts.

We believe we may die tonight.

We believe in the child inside.

We believe that what used to look wrong, now looks right.

We believe you are soaking in it.

We believe in songs about a boy.

We believe you should stand out in a dark crowded room.

We believe size isn't everything.

We believe temptations are to be yielded to.

We believe you should try them on first.

We believe in the rain.

We believe you are never to young to start.

We believe you should use your noodle.

We believe you can't find yourself until you lose yourself.

We believe we are lost.

We believe no one can be completely satisfied.

We believe we are collecting dust.

We believe there is a picture in every cloud.

We believe forgiveness comes with time.

We don't believe in time.

We believe in other peoples dreams.

We believe that wisdom comes with experience, not with age.

We believe real men should cry, often.

We believe that everyone is Venus in the dark.

We believe you should look to the cookie.

We believe that beauty can't be defined.

We believe in kindling our spirits.

We believe that love is a game.

We believe that if something looks too good to be true, it is.

We believe that it is fun being us.

We believe that 1,200 bodies can be buried in 1 acre of land.

We believe in purity.

We believe we are all invisible.

We believe in spontaneous combustion.

We believe you should always show your true self.

We believe we might be.

We believe there is sex in cyberspace.

We believe there are things we see for the first time again and again.

We believe the walls tell the story.

We believe that green is the color of war.

We believe in existentialism.

We believe we have run dry.

We believe you can defy reality.

We believe you are never really free from yourself.

We believe you should hang on to your horizontal.

We believe in shared ecstasy.

We believe it is a hell of a long way home.

We believe there is intelligent life out there.

We believe that every song is a prayer.

We believe that the sky tonight is the color of tears.

We believe we should sleep forever.

We believe that love is a nightmare created by someone else in a parallel universe.

We believe we die little deaths every day.

We believe we should all dissolve and simplify.

We believe there is no such thing as making love, it should be there already.

We believe everything is the way it is because it is.

We believe everyone should have at least one.

We believe that if you don't feel pain, you can't feel pleasure.

We believe that insanity is the key to survival.

We believe that other people are the icing on the cake, but the cake should be you.

We believe everyone is an island.

We believe that no one can do everyone, but everyone can do someone.

We believe it doesn't sound how it feels.

We believe it tastes green.

If I could feel that way again

I've been thinking about what it's like to be 1 1/2. No, of course I don't remember. It's on my mind because I've been with my nephew all week and spending time with him brings up a lot of things for me. About my own childhood especially, about the way I am now, about his future which I worry about because I want his life to be filled only with good things and it makes me think about what we didn't have. I look at this little tiny person, and it saddens me the way we were treated growing up.

Why I love to spend time with him is because he has no real awareness of anything other than the moment. True, if you take something away from him he remembers a little while later that he still wants it, but he is very much present. He's too little really to exist outside of right now. Whereas I, as an adult, exist everywhere but right now most of the time. The past and the future - but never the moment. I want to be that way in the world - where the most exciting and important thing is the thing right in front of me and nothing exists outside of my immediate attention. Maybe what I really want is to be free of adult things like worry and anxiety and fear of the future and sadness. But there is no way to be free of those things. I still want to be present and focused and I want to enjoy it. This is something that has been a struggle all of my adult life.

My nephew is wild and silly and makes goofy faces and says the cutest things. And you chase him and he runs behind the cardboard box and you pretend you can't see him and sneak up on him and he laughs and he says "more" "more" "more" until you do it again, but it sounds more like "mo" "mo" "mo." What I want to remember is what it's like to be that unaware of myself in the world. To not be aware of the fact that people are making judgments about me, looking at me, liking me or not liking me. I love the way a really little kid can be totally silly and goofy and not care at all what someone thinks, to not even be aware that someone may be thinking anything. I've realized though that people aren't paying as much attention to me as I always would have thought (how self-centered of me right?). People are too self absorbed to care what I'm doing or what I look like or how I'm behaving, but that of feeling of everyone is looking at me has never really gone away.

I'm a pretty shy person. That's probably the way most people would describe me - pretty shy and extremely quiet, not at all outgoing. I'm fairly self-conscious and I am pretty uncomfortable in my own skin. I won't play Cranium. I hate that game. I basically hate game playing because it just seems to be an opportunity for me to embarrass myself. I don't do well in large groups of people that I don't know. I'm always the one sitting there saying nothing. I'm more of an observer. I'm much better one on one with people. It's interesting though, because not everyone has that assessment of me. Some people would say that I'm not quiet at all. It depends I guess and honestly that part of me has changed a lot. I am a lot more comfortable. I have learned not to care as much what people think, or not to worry about it and obsess over it.

But from the time I can remember, all I can remember is being painfully shy and terribly uncomfortable around people, no matter who they were. I was always uncomfortable around pretty much everyone. When I watch my nephew play and just be who he is - I wonder, was I ever that silly, that goofy, did I ever not worry about what people thought of me, did I ever not have that awareness coloring everything I did? Ever since I can remember, I have been terrified of being myself, even as a very little kid. And I always thought I had to be a certain thing or a certain way to get someone to like me because of course no one would just like me for who I am. For most of my life I have walked around with the feeling of - if only you knew me - I mean really knew the real me, you wouldn't be my friend. Why do I think that? I don't know. It's some combination of low self esteem and a fear of abandonment I suppose.

Anyway, I wish I could be the way he is in the world and not have that awareness of myself that makes me overly self-conscious and terrified to be me. I just wish I could remember what that feels like.

I choked on the words, at the least the ones that came out anyway

My mother called me yesterday, to make a plan to see me while I'm in town. I had half hoped she wouldn't. Sometimes I don't bother to tell her that I'm even coming into town. I guess I must have mentioned this a while ago. She said, "when do I get to see you?" I thought, I could think of a nicer way to express a desire to spend time with me. My mother is very abrasive and abrupt. Caring and concern, sympathy, empathy, love - these are not things that ever come across when talking to her. I told her it would have to be breakfast - all of my other time is all booked up beyond capacity. We settled on Sunday, 9:30.

Dread would be the wrong word. But the truth is, I don't want to go. I just don't. I'll do it, but I don't want to. And here I am again caught up in the pull between doing what I want to do and doing what I feel obligated to do. The time I spend with her is out of a feeling of obligation, it almost always has been. It isn't enjoyable, it's uncomfortable.

Every time I talk to her, she sounds miserably sad and unhappy, and half the time, she is drunk. Of course she will not have been drinking by breakfast - not noticeably anyway. She's been lying to me for a while about whether she is even drinking these days.

The conversation will inevitably turn to something I don't want to discuss, like breast cancer, my relationship situation, my fertility - her favorite topics. When these things come up, it is like being poked with a sharp, searing hot stick, repeatedly, and she just keeps jabbing me with it. Then the conversation will turn to her misery, it always does. And I will find myself unable to bite my tongue. Then we will be talking about AA and recovery and why she won't get some help. Just like I do every year, once a year, I will tell her again that to change our relationship, she will have to take responsibility. I'll talk until I turn blue in the face and then I'll leave and she'll go home and drink. Like I've said, there is nothing else I can do to help her. I know that.

I'm just afraid that one of these times, I'm not going to be able to control what I'm saying. One of these times I am going to tell her everything about how I feel - about our childhood, about the way she treated me, about how horrible it was, about how messed up I feel, about how cheated I feel. I could go on and on and on and on. One of these times, it's just going to come out. The only problem is, what's the point? She doesn't care. I've never even gotten an apology out of her, for anything that happened.

The most my mother has ever been willing or able to say in the way of taking responsibility is this, she actually said this to me once, a couple of years ago, "I know I was a terrible mother, but you are an adult so that's your problem now. It's your problem to deal with whatever issues you have because of it." Yes, on the one hand, that's right - my issues are my responsibility, most certainly. But she is not absolved.

At the end of the conversation, she said, "I'll see you this weekend. I'm looking forward to it."

There was a long pause. An obviously long pause. A noticeably long and misplaced pause. An uncomfortable pause. "I am too," I said choking on the words. I didn't mean them.

The nostalgia

Occasionally I am overwhelmed by an intense feeling of homesickness. I just feel this need to go home. Except home is here, where I live now, and the home I feel homesick for is just a figment of my imagination. This home that I long for is an idea - it's what I imagine a home that I would want to return to would be like. And this feeling - it's what I imagine homesickness feels like - though I can't say I know for sure. I am going "home" next Thursday - but by home I just mean to the town I was born and raised in. It's been a long time since I've had a home to go home to.

The home of my childhood is long gone - sold when my parents got divorced in 2000 - and the bits and pieces of my childhood that still remained there are gone also. My brother went to help my dad clean it out before it was sold. My mom had already taken everything she wanted when she left. She left behind more than one mess that needed to be cleaned up. I didn't show up to help. I can't remember why. Maybe I was out of town, or maybe I just didn't feel the need to show up. It was all thrown out - all the toys, all the finger paintings, everything. My childhood thrown away with the rest of the trash because I didn't show up to claim it. There are some photographs, my brother has those I think. And memories, that I would trade in for different ones if I could. But the tangible evidence is gone.

I was looking through old photographs today. Printed ones - before everything was digital. Now I don't even print photos, they just go onto my computer and never get printed. There were pictures of my best friend Heather and I. My graduation photos, my senior picture. I am almost unrecognizable. I used to look at that photo and see myself. Now I don't recognize the person.






And then there was this one, from 27 years ago - I was three. Little tiny me, before it all went so horribly wrong all around me. Knowing what I know now, my heart breaks for her.

There must just be some part of me

There must just be this part of me that holds out hope that some how, one way or another, at some point, eventually - things are going to be different with my mother. Things are going to be different because she is going change. She is going to change and apologize and some how she is going to be the mother I deserved or that I would have wanted. On some days the past seems more resolved than others. On a lot of days what I feel is forgiveness for her, and pity. There are days when I don't feel completely angry. But lately I feel angry about it. Like we got screwed and it wasn't fair.

I had this really messed up dream a couple of days ago. In this dream my mother took my brother and I on a trip (which would never in a million years happen), and she told us she was dying and that she just found out and she would be dead in a week. Now in reality I have imagined this moment - not the moment of my mother telling me she is dying - but the moment when I hear about her death. Of course it is always hard to imagine what something is going to feel like, I mean, you can't really know until the actual moment. But when I anticipate the moment, my reaction is, that I have no reaction, I don't feel anything, I don't care. I know how horrible this probably sounds and I'm sure it makes me sound like a terrible person. I have had times in my life, including recently, where I have felt like if my mother did die, I wouldn't care.

Well, in the dream - I went hysterical. I actually woke up with tears on my face. I was sobbing and saying this isn't right, it can't end this way, things aren't right and they can't end this way. Things need to be resolved. We need more time, we need to fix this.

What does this mean? Does this mean that I'm just not over it? Or that I actually need to do something? The sad fact is, my mother is never going to be different and resolution to the situation falls on her - cause there is nothing I can do and it isn't my responsibility. I think I've done everything I can do - except changing myself. My sponsor always tells me that my part of that - my part of the situation with my parents is simply expecting them to be different. So if I stop expecting that, then I won't be disappointed when everything is just the same. That's my part of that resentment and anger - expecting her to be someone she is incapable of being.

Though it isn't always on my mind, rarely actually, there must be a part of me that just wishes it had all been different and could be different now. On my most days I don't even know that I wish for that. How do I stop wishing for that?

The fall makes me sad for other reasons

The fall and the spring - the times of year that evoke the most emotion - and the times of year that I most associate with unresolved issues in my life. The spring because it is my birthday - that time of year when I engage in the greatest reflection - where I look at my life and all of the ways that it doesn't meet my expectations. The fall makes me sad for other reasons. I associate the fall with family - I don't know why. I think of the holidays, the smell of wood burning in fireplaces, hot apple cider, sitting around with family, playing games or cards, laughing, remembering - these are not my memories. Where did they come from? They are just the things that I think of when I think of fall. Can you miss something you've never had? I think so.

Thanksgiving and Christmas have always been the times of year that I have dreaded the most on some level - there is hope followed by disappointment, followed by hope and then more disappointment. Eventually there is simply anticipation, followed by disappointment. The disappointment is unwavering. When I was a kid I dreaded these things because of the behavior of my father's family and because my mom was drunk and embarrassing on nearly every occasion. As an adult I dread it because I have no where to go to celebrate these times of family togetherness. No real family to share it with.

Until a few years ago - I choose to participate in the dysfunction that is my father's family for things like Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter. I participated because I didn't know what else to do. It's almost like it doesn't matter how horrible it is, or how judgmental they are of you - you keep going because you just desperately want something that resembles a family. You just settle I guess. It's just like in other areas of my life - I'll settle for what I can get, just to say that I have something. Every year it is different and painful. A couple of years ago I decided not to go anymore. This was a step in the right direction I think - choosing not to participate was a healthier choice. I feel bad, in some ways, because I don't think my father understands. And I feel angry because all these years I have always thought that my father's family has simply felt justified in their treatment of us and my mother. They've always just believed that they were right by pushing my mother out of the family and treating her terribly. My mom is obviously not a saint - but their behavior when I was a kid was uncalled for and unacceptable. It was inexcusable. So I choose now not to excuse it by showing up and pretending.

Last year a friend, not a close friend, but a friend, took me to her parents' for Thanksgiving. I would otherwise have spent it alone. I think she felt sorry for me. A couple of years ago - I did spend Christmas alone actually. I sat on my couch in my pajamas all day and then ate spaghetti for dinner - it was the only thing I really had in the house and I hadn't bothered to go to the store in time. Last year I spent Christmas Eve at my sister-in-law's parents' house and then drove home Christmas morning - I didn't want to intrude on their otherwise family occasion. I know that I am always welcome there and they have never been anything but really nice and caring and welcoming to me - but I think I will always feel like I just don't quite belong there.

I feel like a charity case - I'm the extra person that shows up to dinner because someone felt sorry for me. I don't want to be that person. You would think on the one hand that it would make me feel good to have somewhere to go - and I am grateful for people's kindness, however, it stings in a way, almost more - to show up at someone else's house and listen to someone else's stories, and think about how you don't belong there. People always say - you get to make your own family - choose the friends you want to hang out with on the holidays. Everyone I know goes home to their families or has a family of their own. And frankly, I guess I haven't been that good at forming close friendships since living here. I know a lot of people. None of them know me. I'll save that for another post.

My relationship with my mother has come to a deafening halt I think. I have contemplated this moment all my life - the moment that I would no longer feel weighed down by her. And I have always known that I would be okay - that I would be absolutely fine if my mother never spoke to me again. That isn't the part that makes me sad. It doesn't sadden me that this woman, who thinks I am terrible anyway and always has, doesn't really want to be a mother to me or have much to do with me at all. It saddens me simply that she isn't someone else. If I am angry about anything, it is simply that I don't have someone else for a mother. The severance has been incomplete though. She called my brother, to see my nephew on the video chat - she never mentioned me or mentioned the money. My brother just said that she sounded sad. I am out from under her I think, but not free of her completely.

I am not sure what I'll do about the holidays this year. Thanksgiving I think I'll spend alone. Christmas I am worried about actually. I am close to my brother and sister-in-law and one cousin. And I know that I will see my brother and sister-in-law in December, when they are in town, but I will only get limited time with them. They have so much family on her side and so many people to see - I always feel like the one that gets left out. Of all of the sister-in-laws, I am the least important, I will see them probably the least. It makes me sad, because they are all I've got. But I can't be selfish I guess.

I will see my dad briefly around Christmas - probably with my brother, sister-in-law and nephew. My dad will write me a check, right in front of me - because he lacks the forethought I guess to purchase a card and write the check out in advance - and buying me an actual gift would be unthinkable. I always want to say dad, just keep the money - this isn't even what this occasion is supposed to be about and I don't need it anyway. It's like he knows no other way to express whatever it is he feels for us - it is terribly unclear actually. A good example of my father is the following - I think I posted a story once about the Christmas that I actually purchased the card for myself, that my father gave me a check in. No wonder it seems that no one cares really. My dad asked me to purchase my own Christmas card. I guess I could have purchased a card that said all these wonderful things - how much he loved me and what a great daughter I am, and how proud he is - I just bought a blank one.

That same year, that I purchased the cards (I also purchased my brother's card from my dad), I purchased my brother and sister-in-law's Christmas gifts from our mother on the Internet with my mother's credit card, right in front of them. We laughed about it. But it wasn't really funny. On the topic of card buying - it's always an interesting experience when I have to purchase a card for one of my parents. I stand there in the card isle - nothing seems appropriate - none of the cards seem to apply to my situation. Do they make happy mother's day cards that apply to the circumstances in which I grew up? I stand there in the isle, and I never know whether to laugh or cry, so I laugh.

I am sad about the fall - more sad than normal. One might suggest that this is yet another example of my expectations gone afoul. Where did I ever get the idea that birthdays were supposed to be great and holidays about gathering with family and enjoying the time together? I'm not sure where I got those ideas.

Home Again

Tomorrow I am going home to Michigan for a long weekend. I have mixed feelings about this. In fact, I am feeling rather like I did last September, when I wrote this post about feeling homesick. I don't know what it is exactly to feel homesick - it is something I imagine - I imagine what it must feel like to have a place that evokes a feeling of comfort unlike any other. I don't actually have such a place. It exists only in my imagination.

It is really with a pretty deep sense of sadness that I go to this place called "home" tomorrow. I haven't been there in three months - it was something that sounded like a good idea when I planned it. It sounded like a good idea in the same way that picking up the telephone and calling my mother sometimes sounds like a good idea - because you have this moment of so desperately wanting the person who picks up the phone to be someone other than they are - that for a second, you fool yourself into thinking maybe just maybe, maybe just this one time, she will be who you want her to be. Maybe just once going home will be what I imagine going home is supposed to be. I am disappointed before I get there.

Much of what exits there, which isn't much, I would prefer to leave behind. The memories, most of the people, most of the experiences. Most of it I would like to forget. There are days when I appreciate my story for just exactly what it is - just a story, with a lot of parts - just a story, not good or bad, just a fact. But there are moments when I so desperately wish my story were something other than it is. There are moments when I would trade in my strength, resiliency, independence - all of the things that I am, for another story, a happy story. I think of home as a place where there was a lot of lying, a lot of pretending, a lot of trying to live up to other peoples' real and imagined expectations, and consistently failing, among other things. My trips home feel like they are all about pretending. Pretending to be something other than I am - to be accepted and to be loved. Only sometimes do I ever have the thought that I would rather not be loved than be who you want me to be.

For some reason going home this time doesn't feel the same as it has in the past though. I have no illusions about it, hence the sadness I guess because I have given up the hope of ever having different memories. Even when it is painful, the memories, the experiences, it is sometimes, just briefly, more painful when you let go of them. I feel much more myself these days - something I never felt I was when I was in that town, ever. I don't really know how to go there and be me. I feel like I am going home as a different person this time. I can't explain how, I just know it isn't the same and it won't be the same experience. Some of the hope is lost, and with it, some of the possibilities. I don't feel like pretending and the only thing I know about not pretending, about being honest, about being true to who you are - is that pain follows.

I don't think I've ever felt such sadness before going home, such a feeling of loss, such an intense need for that feeling of comfort that I have only ever been able to imagine.

A Bunch of Stuff Cut Up On a Plate

Sorry for not posting - I'm going to try to post more!

Every day this week I have come home from work and eaten a giant bowl of vinegar and lettuce - one of my favorite snacks from childhood. Late at night, long after my mom went to bed, me, my brother and my dad would eat. This was almost a nightly ritual I think. Sometimes my dad would make a giant pot of potato soup, other times we had sardines in mustard sauce on crackers, sometimes pickled pigs feet, or chicken gizzards. These were the usual suspects. My other favorites include cocktail onions and green olives on little plastic cocktail mixer sticks - the alcoholic neighbor taught us to eat this - or carrots dipped in mayo and ketchup mixed, or hor doeuvres - which were made of bread, mustard, relish and american cheese - toasted. EEEWWW.

Anyway, did everyone eat this weird stuff? We had no rules about food in my house as a kid. We ate whatever we wanted whenever we wanted it. We also used to drink pop and coffee instead of water basically. In 7th grade I ate ramen noodles every day for breakfast. In fact, I never ate breakfast food until I was an adult. I think my favorite breakfast as a kid was last night's dinner, ramen noodles, or Spaghetti O's - and a cup of coffee with a few chocolate chip cookies dipped in it. Still a favorite. I was a serious coffee drinker at the age of 8 - I drank it black, no cream, no sugar. Every morning from the time I was 8 until I was in law school. I was a much more serious coffee drinker then - now I drink only lattes, if at all.

Eating vinegar and lettuce brings back memories from childhood. My other favorites were my mom's tomato soup, my mom's canned tomatoes nuked in a mug with a lot of salt, anything pickled and green popsicles. For lunch we frequently used to eat what we called "a bunch of stuff cut up on a plate." This is exactly what you think it is - a bunch of stuff - it could be anything - cut up on a plate. Usually lunch meat, cheese, maybe some of those little canned hot dogs that come in water (eeeewww) (are those actually hot dogs?), a couple of cookies, some pickles, some olives, maybe some fruit etc. I also used to drink vinegar and pickle juice - Heather and I called the pickle juice "dill wine." Ha ha ha.

Anyway, my mom used to like to tell people that my brother and I invented the food fight - only we didn't throw the food. Every week when my mom brought the groceries home, my brother and I would divide everything up and then use it to barter with one another for what we wanted. For example, I would "sell" my brother the chance to watch Leave it to Beaver on my day to pick the t.v. shows in exchange for the last green popsicle. We had this weird rule about the t.v. and the front seat of the car. If it was his day to ride in the front seat, it was my day to pick the t.v. shows that got watched on the living room t.v. This seems absurd to me now - partly because we had 5 televisions in the house - and riding in the front seat, at the age of 8? Nowadays, kids are supposed to ride in booster seats until they are like 15 - we used to ride in the front, no seat belt! Actually, one time, I rode all the way to Cedar Point on the floor of the back seat of the car! What were my parents thinking?

Angels Everywhere (And Ann Saves Thanksgiving)

I just thought I would write a quick post to let those of you who were worried know that I did not spend thanksgiving alone eating frozen pizza. As much as I wanted to, I didn't. My friend Ann from AA took me and another person from the program to her parent's house. It was a case of giving in actually. An instance of okay, I'll do what I should do, instead of what I want to do. A lot of the time I know what I should do, and I just don't do it. So I went. Dinner was good, Ann's family was nice and it was nice to be with people instead of alone. In some ways though, it made me sad. It was sad not to be with the people I wanted to be with. It was sad to sit around and listen to other people's stories - to listen to other people laugh and to try to laugh with them, and to wish that I had stories like their stories.

My brother and I laugh about things sometimes, but like I have said, I think sometimes I laugh when I really want to cry, or when I really should cry. Laughing is easier. It hurts less I guess, to laugh about it. When I think of Thanksgiving I think of my aunt Ellie - and I miss her. I miss her and I miss aunt Vi. I miss "my turn" playing dominoes at Vi's house - where the food always tasted better. I wish I could go back there - to when I didn't know what I know now - but wishing that I knew differently. I might have had a little more appreciation. Some times you just have to wish that certain people know how you feel, because you never told them. Some times you hope they can hear you when you talk to God. Some times you hope that they are the ones listening because they know you and maybe they understand. You hope they feel what you feel. If I could have angels watching over me, I would choose aunt Ellie and aunt Vi.

I almost started crying during the toast when Ann talked about how much her sister meant to her over the past year and how much she had helped her. I thought about all of the people who have helped me over the past year and how they don't know that they helped me and how I can't really tell them. It made me sad. I wanted to tell Ann how much it meant to me that she would go to all the trouble to drag me to Thanksgiving. Or to tell Heather how much I love her and how I cried and cried when I read her comment to my "Unhappy Thanksgiving" post. Or how I miss my brother even though I talk to him all the time, because I haven't seen him since February. How I miss walking with Claire and all of the conversations we had over miles and miles of walking. How Jodie is supportive no matter what I tell her I am doing. How touched I am that Pam wants to present me with my token on my anniversary. How much Patricia's card meant to me - and that I carried it in my purse for weeks. I could go on and on - all of these things that I can't tell people. How amazed I am, that people I don't even know show up again and again. These people, these almost strangers, they show up for each other no matter what. They are like angels everywhere.

Unhappy Thanksgiving

The holidays have always been a particularly bad time for me. I don't know how old I was when I first realized that my family does not deal with holidays in a normal way. It isn't a time of fun and sharing and togetherness. It has always seemed like a chore, so why bother participating. Why do these people who outwardly seem to hate each other, want to buy gifts for each other anyway? You might say that it isn't about the gifts, it's about being together. But not in this family. I have always complained about how terrible it is and how badly it makes me feel, but what's the alternative? I have almost always participated anyway because otherwise I have no where to go and no one to spend the holidays with. I always thought it was better to have a crappy family than none at all. Only recently have I realized that it is ever so slightly less painful, to just stay home alone. Two years ago, I actually spent Christmas Day alone because I didn't have anywhere to go. I sat all day in front of the t.v. and ate spaghetti for dinner. This Thanksgiving, I will do the same thing. Maybe I'll eat frozen pizza instead.

It all started when I was a kid and a certain part of the family stopped attending holidays and birthdays if they were at my parent's house. Confusing to a little kid- why does the whole family go to her birthday and no one comes to mine? Eventually, we stopped attending theirs because my mother was made to feel so unwelcome that there just wasn't any point. It was obvious that we weren't wanted there. Finally, when my brother was old enough to drive, we started participating again, although I never felt welcome and I still don't today. Eventually, once I was an adult, my parents divorced, my dad re-inserted himself into the family, cockeyed I think, and the same old traditions of judgment, lack of acceptance, exclusion and just being down right mean fester. There is usually a lot of talking behind the backs of other people, some are invited while others aren't, certain people only show up if the holiday is at a certain person's house, people are picked on, jokes are made. Some people I am sure leave feeling just satisfied with themselves and their behavior. I leave feeling disgusted, sad and hurt. That is what transpires on my dad's side of the family. My mom's is a different story - equally sad.

I have decided, finally, not to participate anymore. This year I have used the excuse that I can't leave Chicago because I have to be at the hospital for radiation on Wed. and Fri. But the truth is, I could have worked around that. I could have rescheduled. But it's the perfect excuse to not have to go participate in the horror that is my "family" on a holiday. People will say, "don't you have friends you can spend the holiday with?" Yes, I do - if I am willing to admit that I have no where to go, and someone else feels just sorry enough for me that they invite me to tag along to their family dinner. Then I can sit there in some other mother's or grandmother's house and watch their family and wish that I had one. I don't want to be that person, who sits at the stranger's dinner table and makes up a story about why I don't have anywhere to go. One that is less sad than the truth, and something that sounds reasonable. I don't think I have it in me this year. I would rather stay home than be the person who is there because someone felt sorry for me. All of the pieces of my family have places to be and people to be with, except me. All I wanted was to go to Germany and spend Thanksgiving with my brother and sister-in-law. Instead I'm going to sit here alone and think about how much fun they are having in Germany. How nice it must be to have family you like and people to be with. They are my family and I am really just sad and angry that I don't get to be there.

To My Best Friend Heather

My fondest memories of childhood, the things that make me smile and laugh the most, are the times that I spent with my best friend Heather. I am blessed to have someone in my life who has been there forever, who knows everything about me and who I can tell anything to. I don’t think most people have a friendship like this one and I consider myself really lucky. Heather and I met when we were three and we’ve been friends ever since. She was the one person when I was growing up that I could have over to the house without worrying that she would find out what was really going on there. She may have been the only person that I ever had over to the house. She spent quite a bit of time there actually and although I don’t remember talking much as kids about what was going on when no one was looking, I think it was because we didn’t have to.

We haven’t lived in the same city since we were seven, so I find it extraordinary that we have remained friends over all these years. Our parents drove us back and forth in the summers and for school holidays. Before she moved, I remember riding around the block on my big wheel to get to her house, and my dad lifting her over the back fence in the raspberry patch so she could get home. We spent weeks at each other’s houses and I would cry and cry when I had to go home. No matter what has happened in our lives, what we have been doing, where we’ve been living, she has been a constant in my life. Being diagnosed with breast cancer sort of prompted me to evaluate my life in a way that I think most people only do when they are older. What do I regret, what do I love, what am I grateful for, what do I wish for, what would I change, how can I live differently? It has made me realize the value of certain people in my life and how important it is to share with these people what they mean to you. I have an appreciation, like only some people can have, of just exactly how everything can change in a split second.

One of my favorite things to do with Heather over the years has been to sit around and talk about the silly things we did when we were kids. We laugh and laugh. To other people these stories probably aren’t all that funny, but they make me laugh, they make me cry, and they are my favorite memories of my childhood.

There are so many stories, 26 years worth. There was the time we crushed a box of cheerios on her parent’s kitchen floor by stomping on them. The time we washed rocks from the driveway and tried to sell them. The time we locked my brother in the corner – two doors came together when they were both open and we put my brother in there and tied the doorknobs together. Actually – in reality, my brother must have gone in willingly. There was the time we made a refrigerator in her bedroom out of a cardboard box and a fan and kept pickles in it. And the time we locked our selves in my parent’s bathroom to drink pickle juice and called it “dill wine” and then hid the jar in the closet when my mom knocked on the door. We used to sled down the stairs at my parent's house in sleeping bags.

We had this thing we called the “fund” and Heather used to lug it to my house every time she came. Every time we saw each other, we counted the fund and added to it. It consisted entirely of change and at its peak I think we had about $125. Every time we saw each other we would take some money out of the fund and go to the corner store and buy tons of candy – jolly ranchers when they used to come in the long flat sticks. We used to buy all the Garfield comic books and read them together. And for some reason, we took a lot of walks. We would get together and walk for what seemed like hours, talking about everything. There was the time we went to the Lilith Fair concert, got soaked, I lost my shoes, we ran to the car - were covered in mud by the time we got there, we stripped down to almost nothing because we had driven her mom's brand new car, got stuck in accident traffic on the way home and went through the Taco Bell drive through at 3 a.m. in our underwear. Even now, things happen that make me laugh when I think about them. Recently when Heather visited me – we sat at my dining room table for what I think was a total of about 9 hours doing a jig saw puzzle, saying almost nothing to each other the entire time. I think she is the only person I could do this with.

Anyway, in twenty-six years, Heather and I have only gotten in to one fight that I can think of. We must have been 7 because it was before she moved away. We got into a fight over the stuffed Garfield animals we were playing with – I wanted hers because hers could wear underwear.

Much of my life I have felt like no one knows me, no one knows the real me, with the exception of Heather. She has been there through everything, the good and the bad, and everything in between. I would be lost without you.

Homesick For a Place That Doesn't Exist

For the first time in my life, I feel homesick - a deep sense of longing for the comfort and safety of childhood. I feel homesick for a place that doesn't exist. It doesn't exist because the home that I grew up in is not the kind of home that you long for or miss. It isn't a place that you ever look forward to returning to - it's a place you hope to get out of, you dread going back to, and you spend a lifetime trying to get over it. What I long for is just an idea, a fabrication. It's a figment of my imagination built out of other peoples’ stories.

I wonder sometimes what it would be like to go home to a place where I still had a bedroom that still had my own things in it. The benign remnants of my childhood like old art work, favorite toys and books - things that might evoke fond memories or make me laugh. There isn't much left, only photographs really. Photographs and memories – but they are memories that can't quite be trusted.

I like to think sometimes that I escaped my childhood and in escaping, I left it all behind. The exact moment that I thought I had escaped was when I first moved to Chicago after graduating from undergrad. It was only a matter of time before I realized that the past had beaten me to Chicago and already unpacked and settled in before I even got there. I hadn’t escaped - I had merely survived, which is entirely different.

My home is here in Chicago, or wherever I go, but it isn’t where I came from. What is left of my childhood exists really only in my mind, and is recreated sometimes when I spend time with close family and friends who have known me my entire life. We laugh about it sometimes, but the truth is, I don’t ever really know whether to laugh or cry. I just miss a time and a place where I could feel safe and secure, free from worry and anxiety and the things in life that children shouldn’t have to deal with. I miss these things that I’ve never had and I miss them tremendously for some reason. I’m homesick for a place that I can only imagine and a place that doesn’t really exist.