(Christmas) Things My Mother Taught Me

As I've spent the past week skipping through the snowy streets of Christmastime in New York City, watching cheesy movies on Lifetime and ABC Family, and helping my Dad decorate our house for the first time in a couple of years, my thoughts have turned to my mom more than a few times. For the first time in awhile, they've all brought me smiles. My mom, of course, taught me innumerable lessons about an array of what life has to offer, but over the past few days, I've become keenly aware of what she taught me about Christmas. Without further ado, the (Christmas) things my mother taught me:

1) How to wrap gifts (and how to wrap them in such a way as to disguise their contents from prying eyes...)

2) To not eat too much raw cookie dough. The raw eggs could make me sick, but more importantly, if I ate the cookie dough, there wouldn't be enough for cookies!

3) To hang the heaviest ornaments on the backs of the thickest branches.

4) To hang the soft ornaments on the bottom, so that they'd be the ones to take the fall if the cat played with the tree!

5) To guard the presents under the tree with a toy soldier.

6) To be asleep by midnight, or Santa wouldn't come!

7) To always leave milk and cookies to tide Santa over on his long flight.

8) To buy my Christmas presents well ahead of time - and then leisurely stroll through the malls to check out the decorations (and people-watch) on Christmas Eve.

9) To always include Pooh Bear in the Christmas festivities.

10) To make a scavenger hunt out of the best gift I was giving.

11) To eat cookies and drink lime sherbet punch for dinner on Christmas Eve.

12) To read 'Twas the Night Before Christmas...on Christmas Eve.

13) To check the Christmas lights BEFORE hanging them up.

14) To give to the Salvation Army.

15) To avoid fruit cake.

16) To never lose my belief in Santa.

17) To take joy from the lights, the smells, the energy.

18) That the best present EVER is a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles play sewer system.

19) That old angels never lose their place on the tops of trees.

...and probably many more...

Thanks, Mom, and Merry Christmas to everyone!

Part II: Constructing Artificial Walls

So, back a couple of months ago, I decided to start sharing some sort of loosely chronological autobiography, as it relates to my mental state today. It's been awhile since I've felt like adding another installment, but a somewhat unexpected and certainly welcome event today has stirred my writing juices. So, without further ado for those with so much patience as to endure my particularly self-directed musings, here is the second installment of I don't know how many. Maybe the second of two? Who knows? One of my many hopes, in addition of course to gaining some clarity for myself, is that some part of this will make sense to someone else. Note: Photo 1 is of me at 7 years old, just before I cut all my hair off. Photo 2 is of me at around 16, a couple years before I'd grow it out again.

Part II: Constructing Artificial Walls

Growing out my hair was one of the most difficult things I've ever done. That seemed a positively ridiculous sentence to write - after all, it's not as if I really had to DO anything. Nature does a pretty good job of that on its own. The absence of bi-monthly haircuts and buzzers on my neck, however, signaled a sea change in the way I had lived my life over the previous 10 years. And at that point, 10 years made up more than half of my experience as a human being. On top of my own knowledge of the change on the horizon, I was dealing with the fact that it was wildly visible to everyone else. I couldn't hide the fact that I was trying to fit in a little better - and as important as it is to all of us to find a way to fit in, it's equally as embarrassing to look like we're trying. Fitting in with seemingly zero effort is the gold standard. In any case, I remember thinking how everyone, including my parents, could watch this all go down. I was suddenly openly vulnerable, and worse, clearly admitting that there was something about me that needed changing. I also looked terrible for awhile in the interim. Today, I cringe at the photos from that summer and the beginning of my sophomore year in college. No matter how you cut it (pun intended...!), half-grown-out hair is just unattractive.

Once my hair had grown out to a reasonable and socially acceptable length, I began to feel some semblance of relief and a slight surge in confidence. I still had to stop and think upon entering a public bathroom, and several times in the beginning, I was surprised when no one took special note of me. Using public restrooms in peace was a newly acquired right that had the tinge of finally being allowed to drive or vote or eat a cookie without asking first. It was absurd, really, but that's how society rolls. Still, I struggled. My transformation had of course been obvious to everyone, and I endured countless comments to the tune of , "Oh! You grew out your hair!" These were all well-intentioned, but I quickly tired of them. They became a source of embarrassment as they pinpointed my now normal haircut as being out of the ordinary for me while also highlighting the deviance of my previous look. All I wanted was to walk into a room...any room...without being noticed.

So while my hair had grown out, and the surprised comments slowly waned, my wardrobe remained static for awhile. For my entire life, I'd been comfortable in soccer shorts, t-shirts, and baggy jeans. The most pressing problems solved for the time being, I was in no hurry to complete the transformation. I felt like it would truly mean I was selling out. I finally was persuaded to buy a few things to go "out" in, as I'd begun to discover a social life in college thanks to the confidence gained from my hair episode. I bought a dress or two to wear to special occasions, and I couldn't help but think I looked sort of good when I wore them. My friends, shocked when I would show up dressed up, would often compliment me as well. That attention was difficult to deal with, but at least it was positive reinforcement.

One of my many clothing hang-ups during my childhood had been the knowledge that I would just look sort of ridiculous in girls' clothes. Crazy as it sounds, for a time I would have looked like a boy in girls' clothing. Try that on for messing with a little girl's head. In any case, my feminine wardrobe consisted of a handful of items that I wore to bars or banquets. On a day-to-day basis, I wore basketball shorts and t-shirts right up through my senior year in college and beyond. I now cringe at THOSE photos, because by then, I'd begun to look pretty ridiculous in baggy shorts and shirts. The problem was, I didn't really know what to buy or where girls my age bought clothes, and I was certainly far too embarrassed to ask anyone by this point. Plus, a new wardrobe would cost a lot of money, and I felt bad asking my parents to foot the bill for what I thought to be such an insignificant thing. I was still of the practice of sifting through people based on how they treated my outward appearance and I wasn't quite ready to figure all of that out some other way.

Things truly began to change in the summer of 2008, about a year after I'd suddenly and tragically lost my mom. For a variety of reasons, I was ready to begin to finish what I'd started. Unfortunately, I'd lost my opportunity for motherly clothing consultation - I'd be going this alone. Sifting through the array of unfamiliar clothing items on the women's side of stores, I began to realize another reason why I'd kept my distance and stuck to men's clothes - women's clothes were infinitely more complicated. I had to adjust to new sizing and then seeing a completely new me in the dressing room mirror. While I've succeeded in some areas at this point, it's a year and a half later, and I still don't know what to wear out on my feet on a snowy night in Boston. I still haven't come close to perfecting the art of "layering". I still can't be bothered to carry a purse on my shoulder (why, exactly, am I expected to carry something everywhere I go?) I've been heckled many times by my friends about my "casual" style. And while it's true that I've always been a pretty casual person, the heart of the matter is that casual is about as far as I've gotten in navigating the jungle of women's clothing. For those people to whom that sounds silly, just imagine suddenly switching to the other side of the clothing store - would YOU have any idea what to buy? The paucity of nicer clothes in my closet is not for lack of effort or desire.

As with my hair, my semblance of a new wardrobe has been a blessing and a curse. My confidence has again taken a positive leap, but I become severely frustrated with all the attention I get when I do try something new. If I look particularly good, it must always "mean" something, and I've become heavily self-conscious about what I choose to wear in public and what image that projects. I still have no desire to go to a bar and be noticed for my clothes or what they may or may not reveal. So, as my title alludes to, I've learned how to fashion artificial barriers between myself and others in the absence of physical ones. The last several close relationships I've formed with people have begun as love-hate heckling battles. Eventually, I give in and let these people know how much I really do care about them - in a birthday card or during a particularly rough patch - but not before I've tested them over and over and over again. Some people, quite understandably, are just not up for the months of feigned hostility.

Those who truly know me - who either met me before everything changed or who have endured my subconscious "test" - know that I'm about as soft as they come. I'm faaaaar from perfect, but without trying to sound full of myself, the fact is that 99 times out of a hundred, I'll put my friends first. I'll quite literally do almost anything for them. With those people, I enjoy some pretty awesome relationships. They're the people who keep me alive and remind me constantly of who I am. The problem is that very few people ever get to see that side of me. Meet me in a bar or at a party, and I'll be as standoffish as they come. I've been told that I quite literally look "stiff" in such situations, and I wouldn't be surprised. You have to be willing to give me multiple chances to get to the good stuff, and that's just not fair - for me or for anyone else. But that seems to be the aftershock of all the mental mess with which I struggled growing up - and you'll never hear that story in person until I let you into my life (or until you read my blog). I'm hoping that maybe, in putting all of this into writing, I'm learning to open myself up a bit more to people at the outset, as some of my current and amazing friends have suggested I do. The reward is certainly worth it in the end, but the mental block is still hard to budge. It turns out that hair and clothes were only the beginning.

Gracias Por Todos

In a rare moment of quiet, the little boy climbs up beside me on the couch. Computer in my lap, I instinctively divert my attention to him. "What's up? Que pasa?" I ask him. He quickly wraps his little arms around me, brushes a delicate little boy kiss against my cheek, and softly whispers, "Gracias por todos." A split-second later, he's leaping off the couch to join his brother in running their customary laps through the halls of the house, and I'm left stammering, "De nada...," wondering what exactly I did to deserve this gratitude. One simple tear forms in my right eye.

There were many moments over the Thanksgiving holiday that I will remember fondly for years to come. Holiday decorating, puppy kisses, sunsets, piano concerts, fantastic meals... But it was this little boy's "thanks" that made it all make sense for me. I hadn't really done anything special for him - played with him in the park a little, listened to him recount stories about IncrediBoy (or something) and The Hulk...nothing that really demanded much of me. It occurred to me, though, that kids are blessedly immune from the complexity that makes adult life rich, but sometimes unnecessarily confusing. The small moments were more than sufficient for my young friend, just as they had been in making the week so special for me.

I realized then that the same simplicity applies to my logic when I thank someone. The things that we all do for each other on a daily basis may not shake the world, but each one that even minutely improves a life usually elicits a "thank you." The point is that we have no idea how our seemingly small actions impact those around us. Something that seems second nature to us - whether it's helping a little boy make it across the monkey bars or taking an hour out of the day to make it to lunch with a friend - might actually mean more than we know to someone else. Even as adults, the simple things still matter as much as they always have. Maybe we'd all be a little happier if we were able to clearly see how important the little things we do are in other people's lives.

Waking Up

In the midst of the storm that took me over during the past several months, one of the most difficult things to live with has been the loss of enjoyment in things that had previously made my life so rich. I'd always mused over the self-same question that shows up on so many psychological assessments. I never believed it was actually possible until, of course, it actually DID happen. The small things like gorgeous sunny days or favorite foods, jokes on TV or in movies, the ability to laugh at myself and make others laugh along with me. More complex things like learning, conquering fears, and spending time with the people I love. All of those things are parts of the person that I am, and missing any one of them makes me feel less than whole.

I've been asked when I knew I was sick, as opposed to assuming I was in a slump that just required some perseverance on my part. There were many such glimpses of moments, and it really wasn't until my mind was able to collapse them into a coherent whole that I really knew and began to actively seek a way out. Thankfully, I've noticed many of the red flags slowly receding over the past month or so, chief among them the inability to enjoy the stuff of which life is made.

One of my favorite things in the entire world - maybe, in reality, my absolute favorite thing, if such a thing is possible to decide at 24- is to ride trains, specifically in new places, and more specifically, with my iPod accompanying the scene laid before me. If I could construct the perfect trip, I'd take trains around the world - across Europe, through the Himalayas and Siberia, bisecting Australia and through the plains of Africa. Some of the greatest memories of my life have occurred on train journeys - waking up, bleary-eyed, to the sun rising over the Swiss Alps, spotting my first windmill in the Netherlands, being consumed by the majesty of a glimpse of Mt. Fuji rising from the clouds, hanging off the side of open cars in India, summer breeze softening my face as I watch the world go by. Fatefully, my iPod somehow always picked the perfect song to go with the scenery. If the movies get anything right on a consistent basis, it's that life's just better with a soundtrack. So when my go-to perfect scenario - trains and landscapes and music and writing about all of those things - ceased its healing powers this summer in Japan, one of those many red flags arose in my mind. I may not have wanted to acknowledge it at the time, but it was there, staring me in the face, tripping up my feet and my tongue and my brain.

I haven't had the opportunity to test out a train journey since returning to the U.S., but today, I remembered music. It's occupied the middle of my mind for the past several weeks - I've missed it like I miss a good friend I haven't seen in months. (After all, my blog is titled after nothing other than a song...) I've wanted to reconnect, but there have literally been times when I've opened up iTunes, only to close it again in fear that I would still find myself unable to enjoy it like I know I do. It's been like picking up the phone to call a long-lost friend and chickening out at the last moment for fear that they will no longer be what they once were to you. But today, I remember. Today, I find myself smiling, bobbing my head to the beat like an idiot...but a happy idiot! Enjoying the upbeat songs along with the sad ones. It's almost like I can breathe a little easier. It's sort of amazing. (By the way, OneRepublic earns some major life points here - it's their just-released sophomore album, so ironically and aptly and perfectly entitled "Waking Up", that has played such a significant role in re-energizing this part of my person. Maybe it's all just a big coincidence, but there's always the chance that it's not...)

In any case, I realize in writing this that the terrible failure that I thought my attempt at "figuring out my life" in Japan had been, may have instead just been a terrifying success. Every time I've gone abroad, I've come away with some new insights into life and the world. In India, especially, my mind operated at twice or ten times its usual capacity, decluttered of the stuff of first world life in the West. I approached the trip to Japan believing this type of thinking to be a necessity for me. I needed an epiphany, and the best way I've ever known to find one is to go halfway around the world. The problem was that I didn't figure several confounding factors into the mix (Japan is NOT India, for example. There are about a dozen times more stimuli there than at home...), I pressured myself, and I failed to realize that my epiphany might not come in the form in which I expected it. I spent much of my time in Japan feeling like my head was floating in the clouds - and not the good kind. These clouds were hazy and gray and heavy on my shoulders. I returned home in much worse condition than when I'd left, my head still in a daze as I tried to compute how everything could have gone so wrong.

It hit me tonight that I DID get my epiphany in Japan - it just wasn't the epiphany that I wanted - the one that would immediately fix my problems and enlighten my life. My epiphany was that series of red flags. Spending a month with the same 5 people (myself included) as the only company magnified my red flags to the degree that they became inescapable. It wasn't what I wanted, especially as I was internalizing the atomic bomb sites or the sight of Tokyo from the zenith of the Park Hyatt or the utter wonder and raw power of Mt. Fuji's summit. But it's what I got, and I can see now, it's what I needed. Had I remained at home, carelessly slogging through life as it was, turning a blind eye to symptoms I wanted to imagine I didn't have - I might never have faced up to the reality of consolidating it all in my mind. As painful as it was, I needed to get punched squarely in the face several times. I needed other people to tell me something was wrong with me - multiple times. I needed to yell and scream and cry and drag my feet without understanding why. I needed things to hurt badly - to bleed so that I could see the red. I didn't leave Japan with some quick fix, some beautiful notion of how to cure the world's ills. Instead, I left on the brink of a cliff - one which dared me to jump, or do something drastic enough to save me from the edge. Now, I'm ever so grateful. Now, I have my soundtrack back, along with so much else.

I have a long way to go still, but where I am now is so much better than the edge of that cliff, and it's given me reason to move towards the mountains again. Hefty metaphors aside, at this point, I want to take a second to thank all of those people who have more than put up with me through all of this. You know who you are. When you're where I woke up to find myself, EVERY little thing counts, the bad and the good. I was fully capable of producing the bad myself - it was my friends who tipped the balance with the good. From enduring - and so kindly - responding to frantic emails and text messages to sitting beside me as I cried to shaking me when I needed a wake-up call and hugging me for as long as I needed - I am left without the words to tell you how much you mean to me. It's not at all extreme to say that you've saved me.

Up to the ledge, put out my hands
Get to the bones of where I'd land
Trade in my fears, trade in my thoughts
They disappear behind your walls.

- OneRepublic, "Passenger"

From "Waking Up", Nov. 2009

Lessons in Sympathy

I'll be honest. Psychology major that I was, I never really comprehended the idea of depression as a legitimate physiological illness. Like much of psychology, the evidence just always seemed a little too circumstantial for my taste. I sympathized with the large percentage of the population that at one point suffers from depression, but I never truly considered it an illness. Everyone feels "depressed" once in a while - I just figured that "depression" was a long-term case. Serotonin and norepinephrine be damned.

Then it happened to me and my perceptions have begun to shift dramatically. The difference between sympathy and empathy is everything. When you reach a state where you are constitutionally unable to control your racing mind, where you try desperately to figure out what's wrong but can't put a finger on anything specific, where you feel like you're making everyone else around you miserable, and where trying desperately to enjoy the obviously good times in life only results in more misery - when you reach that state, you know you're more than just really sad. Saying that I was sick began to feel less like a bad excuse and more like the truth that might be my only path back to normalcy.

It seems like this lesson keeps recurring in my life. You really can't ever know what someone's life is like until you've been in their shoes. Where I would have felt badly for those suffering from depression prior to all this, I still would have blamed them somewhere in the back of my head. It just isn't real - it can't be real - until you've experienced it for yourself. And that goes for more than just depression. The only thing we can really do when sympathy is our only option is to remember this and to prevent ourselves from judging situations and behaviors we can't and don't understand. It's a lesson I need to remember on a much more regular basis.

Now for the good part - in terms of all that brain chemistry stuff of which I was so suspicious as an undergrad. From the experience that I've had so far, it's true. An imbalance in those chemicals really can mess you up, just like a virus can make your head hurt and your temperature rise. Your brain CAN be sick, and restoring the balance can be enough to help bring you back to life. I'm not there yet, but I'm on the way, and feeling like I'm off that terrifying roller coaster is a tremendous relief. No longer feeling like I'm completely crazy and unable to understand why has also been crucial. And I'm truly beginning to understand the undeniable connection between the events in a person's life and her health. But more than anything, I'm learning to appreciate the beauty of feeling like myself. You never know what you have until it's gone...

My Life in Ruins

The movie title has struck me multiple times in the past few days with a kind of dark humor. “Haha!” I think. Someone made a movie about my life. Of course, the “In Ruins” part in the actual motion picture refers to the setting, somewhere in Rome or Greece or ancient somewhere. It’s a clever play on words for what is probably a middle-of-the-road romantic comedy. Regardless, its title is terrifyingly poignant for me at this point in my life.

“How the HELL did I get here?” I ask myself multiple times on a daily basis. I was, at one point, in a land far far away and a time long long ago, the wonder child. Life was mapped out perfectly for me. Everyone told me how wonderful I was going to be, how lucky I was to be me, and I believed it all. Maybe too much. I’ve spent so much time trying to blame my current state on my surroundings that I’ve probably neglected myself in the process. Somewhere along the road, I went wrong.

For example, my mother died. I couldn’t help that and I certainly could not have seen it coming, but I could have responded to it better than I did. My answer was to be the rock in my family, the one who didn’t shed a tear at my mom’s memorial service, even though I was arguably the person closest to her. My answer was to work at the TIP camp I dearly loved. A week after she collapsed in front of my face. Working there was completely and fully my decision. People allowed me to make that decision however I saw fit, perhaps softly nudging me to take a break if I needed it. At that point, I was all adrenaline. What would I do with a break? Cry? THAT would be unproductive. I was damned if an insignificant little thing like my mom’s sudden death was going to keep me from being a resident and teaching assistant for this camp that I, may I repeat, dearly loved. Mom’s death wasn’t going to eff up anything else in my life. Things were already effed up enough as it was. I made it through that camp, admittedly not enjoying it as much as I would have, but certainly finding some solace in the constant company of the students and staff. I rarely cried..and certainly not in front of anyone else.

My answer after camp was over was to find a job as quickly as possible, live in a new apartment, buy a new car, adopt a new cat. If my mom was going to be out of my life, then my life would be ENTIRELY different. I would just somehow turn a page and everything would function as it had before. How sadly mistaken I was.

The job worked for awhile. I displaced all my energy into refugees and their plight, which seemed far worse than my own. My interpreter’s brother was even killed in Burma while I was working with her. See, my problems weren’t anything compared to these people! I had money to pay the rent in a nice apartment complex, money to pay the bills, money to pay for DVR service, money to buy a car and care for two cats. Money does not buy happiness. Bet you’ve never heard that before…

A few months in, I was exhausted. A few more months in, and I was taking bathroom breaks at work to cry. No matter how hard I tried to trick myself into thinking that my situation wasn’t that bad, that I could somehow skip over it all…the truth was that I was just horribly kidding myself.

Had I dealt with my mom’s death back then instead of burying it in the TIP camp or my refugee resettlement job, things might be vastly different now. I might not have felt a desperate urge to run away to the unknown, fail myself out of a postbac program, and grasp at unwilling straws.Those failings wouldn’t be compounding the ironic weight I feel from the absence of my mom. If only I’d cried when it was okay to do so. Now it’s two years and almost 4 months later, and even I sometimes forget why I feel inexplicably horrible on the 15^th of every month. If I can’t even remember, how can I expect anyone else to do so? I love my mom beyond any words I could ever imagine. She’s the most wonderful person I’ve ever known or will ever know. But if I could ask her anything, it would be to go back to the beginning and teach me how to cry.

Loyalty

I really don't understand what the problem is with people...whether the problem is with just the people I know, or people in general, or me.

A caveat: Before anyone reads this and gets unduly angry with me...unless otherwise indicated, hypotheticals in this post are purely hypothetical and don't relate to anyone specifically. They're a mixture of literally hundreds of situations involving dozens of people over a number of years.

I was always raised with the understanding that I was never to let anyone down if I could help it, including myself. As a kid, that meant always going to school, always making my sports practices and games, always going to a friend's house or party if I'd said I would, no matter what else came up that might have sounded better. If I committed to play on a soccer team, I'd better not miss a game unless I was basically hospitalized - even if I had a ton of homework on my plate. I'd made a commitment to my coach and teammates with the understanding that I would have to sacrifice a little bit of myself. My assumption - and I would hypothesize that this is the major source of my problem now - was that they would sacrifice a little bit of themselves in return.

Case in point: I played middle school soccer and in the middle school band. My dad used to attend a yearly magistrates' conference for work, and in the years when it took place in a locale more exciting than Gastonia, NC (that is, most years), the family would go along for the ride. We'd hike through the mountains or hang out on the beach while Dad attended his conference. In my 8th grade year, my dad's state conference was being held in the Outer Banks of North Carolina. None of the family had ever been, and so we were all excited at the prospect of going. The problem arose when I realized that the conference conflicted with both a soccer game and a school band performance. I'd made a commitment in both cases that I didn't feel like I could break. And so, in what everyone else treated as a shocking move on my part, I spent a few days at my best friend's house while my family gallivanted off to the beach. Over the course of those few days, I managed to contract poision ivy, and ultimately was unable to even play in the soccer game (and was in some serious pain for about a week). I did my part in the band concert, playing the snare drum and faking it as best I could on the bells (oops!) To this day, I'm a lifelong resident of North Carolina and still have not been to the Outer Banks. Everyone tells me I should really see Jockey's Ridge.

Even my mom thought I was nuts when I announced my decision to hang around school rather than accompany my family on a trip to the beach. What right-minded 13-year-old makes that decision (this raises the question of whether any 13-year-old is ever in his right mind, but for the sake of argument...) But the fact of the matter was, this was what she had ingrained in me. Sure, the beach sounded better than school. But I was a starting forward on the soccer team and had my part to play in the band like everyone else. I'd promised to go to Party A, so even when sexier Party B came strolling along, I stuck to Party A. I'm beginning to wonder if this is a character flaw...this undying commitment to others. Would anyone else on that soccer team or in that band have made the same decision for me? I'll never forget the moment in my life when I truly began to doubt that they would have. I was on the phone with my best friend, and she had to step away for a second. Half an hour later, I was still hanging on the line, utterly shocked that she could actually forget me and promising myself that I would hang up if she didn't pick the phone back up in a minute or 5 or 10. I eventually hung up after about 45 minutes and spent the rest of the night in a daze trying to figure out how she could completely forget to come back to the phone. The next time I saw her, I had to remind her that she'd left me hanging. She laughed. I laughed. Haha...you forgot about me! No big deal! Was this loyalty, or some sort of confounded self-absorbance on my part? Or maybe just simply naivete.

That phone call has occurred over and over again in my life. Maybe not the actual case of being forgotten on the other end of the phone, but plenty of instances of lacking commitment and empty words on the part of people I know. I take everything that my friends say seriously. If someone promises to call in an hour or tomorrow or next week, I assume they're going to make that call. If someone says they want to hear about thus and such, I assume they're going to make the time to listen. If someone says we're going to watch a movie tonight, or go out tomorrow, or take a trip to Europe in 6 months, I start searching for cheap deals to Prague...because when I say those things to someone, I mean them. And if I can't commit to something right away, I make sure to indicate as much. At the VERY least, if I tell you I'm going to meet you tonight, and for some reason out of my control I cannot, I let you know that as soon as possible instead of letting you infinitely wonder why you haven't heard from me.

As I said, I guess a large part of this is just naivete on my part. I try to be as considerate as possible of others, and so I expect the same from them. I'm beginning to think that's especially stupid in my 20s, as everyone seems to be out to take care of #1, and I suppose rightfully so. When else is it so acceptable and so beneficial to be selfish? Certainly not after the kids are on the way. I'm just curious as to why I seem to lag behind all of my peers in forgetting those lessons that were hammered into us in kindergarten. Sharing our toys. Saying "please" and "thank you" and "I'm sorry". Finishing our coloring book page in progress, even if the next one looks more interesting. Abiding by the Golden Rule. When was it that I was supposed to forget? How did I miss the sign?

The result is, it seems, me getting constantly (but ever so politely) stomped into the ground. Phone calls don't arrive, plans are cancelled, promises devoid of meaning. When someone says, "I'll call Tuesday" or "I'll see you this weekend", 8 times out of 10, they're just saying it. It's automatic. While I stew Tuesday night because that call never came, that person has actually never thought again of his statement. In fact, if the statement were resurrected, he would probably have no memory of ever having made it. Now, there are of course those 2 times out of 10 when something actually does come up, when, as my current best friend says, "people have situations to live through." I understand this. No one's life is all about me. Those situations are disappointing, but they don't stab me in the gut. This post is not about them.

The other, seemingly more positive, result is that people state "loyalty" as a reason for enjoying my company. Loyalty. It's the reason people buy golden retrievers or shop at the local hardware store instead of Lowe's. It might sound good on paper, but in my mind, it's only a euphemism for "good dog." You know I won't bite, even if you leave me by myself in the house for a few days with no food. I'll come running to give you kisses, tail wagging and eyes bright, the next time you step through my door. I'm too dumb and too desperate to know better. You really do love me, I know that. You do all the textbook things often enough that I don't doubt that. And in a pinch, you'd be there to take me to the vet. I know that, too. You'd be crushed if anything ever happened to me, and when it ultimately does, you're beside yourself for a few days. In a classic case of not knowing what you had until it's gone, you realize you desperately miss me. So you head out to the animal shelter and find a new puppy, bring him home. You still think of me fondly now and then, but the acute pain fades pretty quickly. I've been replaced.

If the above paragraph seems overly dramatic, it is. But it's meant to make a point. Whether I'm accurate or not about the way people feel about me (or anyone else in their lives, for that matter), the fact remains that from what I've seen, people tend to treat each other with less than that Golden Rule. I'm pretty sure I'm not the only person hurt by false promises. Maybe I should just stop taking everyone at face value, or just stop having faith in people altogether, but what am I left with then? I've wondered many times if I should become as flaky as those around me, but time and again I've found myself incapable of that. It's just not in my constitution. It throws me entirely off balance. And what good is tit for tat anyway?

Again, whether the problem is with me not seeing that apparently blatant sign everyone else saw sometime between high school and college or with society as a whole (should that sign even exist?), I don't know. To be sure, I have a number of friends I can count on, especially when it counts, and I am infinitely grateful for them. Many of them have gone out of their way for me on several occasions, and I would never want to diminish the meaning of those people or those instances. But while this post may seem excessively harsh and angry, the truth remains that those day to day disappointments add up. I'm no saint, and I'd never deserve the right to cast the first stone. I'm just honestly curious as to where my mindset went wrong, and if there's anyone else who wonders the same thing.

Therapy

Once again, I have not written for awhile. I've thought about it many times, but my recent thoughts have often been far too intense and convoluted to share in a blog. At the same time, I need to write now, more than ever. I'll do something I rarely have done...and realize I need to do a lot more of...and that is admit that I am struggling. I know everyone has their demons to fight at some point in life. Everyone has a story. I'm not naive or self-centered enough to think I'm at all alone, however much feeling this far down can certainly make one feel very alone.

If you've stumbled across this particular entry, I think I'd ask you to view it as a chapter in an autobiography. It's a little less weird that way. For me, the next several posts will be the beginning of what I hope will eventually result in a lot of healing. I am seeking some professional guidance through this particular struggle, but before I land on someone's couch, I think it will be helpful to get some of my thoughts in order. I did not intend on publishing what follows when I first began to write it, but as I wrote it, I began to see that NOT sharing it is perhaps part and parcel of my seminal problem. I've touched on this fear of total honesty before. So here is the first part of what I'll call Chapter 1, for anyone who's interested. For anyone who knows me well, I'm guessing none of this will be much of a surprise anyway...

Part I : Beyond “Tomboy”

As far as I can tell, the problems began with the freedom my parents gave me to “be myself” when I was a kid. This meant being allowed to wear whatever I wanted, play and play with whatever and whomever I wanted, and cut my hair however I wanted. I was inclined, for whatever reason, to dress, play and style my hair like a boy. Most of my friends growing up were boys, so I was essentially socialized as a little boy. I played sports with the boys and thrived off of competition. I sucked up pain, emotional and physical, and rarely shared feelings with anyone. If I’d shown weakness, I would have been tossed from the club, relegated to loneliness or worse, the world of dolls and pink things. I distinctly remember a couple episodes of demonstrated “toughness” from my early youth. Both occurred in first grade. In one instance, I refused to color in a picture of a flower, declaring to my teacher that I HATED flowers. When Easter rolled around, the class dressed paper bunnies with cut-outs from wallpaper. I battled my teacher over my right to dress mine in shorts instead of a skirt. She refused to allow it. I cringed every time I walked into my classroom, spying my embattled, beskirted bunny hanging on the wall. My resolve only grew stronger from there. My entire sense of self-worth was based off of achievement, and as a kid, this worked out well for me. I was better than my peers at nearly everything I tried and made nearly perfect grades. I scored goals, won swim meets, and was one of only three girls in the county who could shoot a 3-pointer. I was perfectly behaved at school (other than bunny-type incidents). My parents had nothing to complain about, so they didn’t. When I wanted to cut my hair outrageously short in 3^rd grade, they didn’t bat an eye. When I insisted on wearing slacks and a tie to my sports banquets, my dad provided the tie. They were of the “hands-off” school of parenting, as they had both been parented to death as kids. I appreciated this as a kid and understand it now, but I am becoming increasingly aware of the foundation that this helped lay for my current troubles.

I learned early on that something was wrong with me when I constantly got berated for walking into girls’ bathrooms. My sister, 4 years my junior, would be forced to defend me and my presence there. As a kid, I handled this situation by avoiding it as often as possible. I did everything I could to avoid public bathrooms, from developing a habit of going to the bathroom before I walked out the door to holding it for unbelievable amounts of time on long outings. My mother worried for my health when I would refuse to go to the bathroom, but the public humiliation was much worse for me than the physical pain. Anyone who witnessed this situation or heard this story marveled at my “bravery” for “being myself” in the face of such scrutiny and disapproval. While well-intentioned, I hated this form of praise and found it to be blatantly untrue. I was no martyr and I didn’t want to be. I was a coward who couldn’t even walk into a bathroom.

As I got older, I became more and more aware of what an oddball I was. No one cares about an 8-year-old girl running around in Umbros and a T-shirt, but they certainly do care once you’re 18 and in polos and cargo shorts. That was my freshman year of college. I’d spent several miserable years in middle and high school, although I still excelled academically. My middle school years were full of boy bands, weekly visits to the movies to see Titanic, and a still-intense obsession with Dawson’s Creek – facts that people who know me today are surprised to learn. I also co-starred with my newfound best friend on the school’s county championship soccer team. From the outside, I had it all, but in reality, I didn’t really fit anywhere. I was terrified to attend middle school dances – not because of the normal fear of judgment that plagues 12-year-olds, but because I didn’t feel like I would belong. I’d show up in a sweater and khakis, and God knew no boy would dance with me. Soccer and a little bit of theater provided some fun and acceptance, and my blessed favorite 6^th grade teacher managed to find the perfect niche for me as the school’s football statistician.

By my freshman year in high school, sports had slowly begun to elude me for a number of reasons and I instead immersed myself in other pursuits, although I played golf until I graduated. A social life was relatively unimportant to me, and in later years I’ve been shocked to find out about the parties that went on at my acquaintances’ homes in high school. I didn’t drink, didn’t smoke, and might have gone “out” to a movie 3 or 4 times in high school. I didn’t even have a curfew. I had the best friend I’d had in middle school and spent most of my free time hanging out at her house…playing softball or soccer…or attending her select sports competitions. My other best friend in high school was my history teacher. I would arrive at school ridiculously early…as early as 7am…to hang out with him. It was a relationship based on mutual need, from what I can gather now. He had a hard time fitting in with anyone at the school. I also had a hard time fitting in and was excessively intellectually mature for my age. Both of us caught quite a bit of criticism, and fairly so in a school where the high school football coach had been “let go” for having an affair with the student body president. Looking back once again, it’s pretty clear that my parents should have stepped in here as well. I know I would have heard the bells and whistles going off if my child were skipping out of the house an hour before she had to so that she could hang out with a teacher every morning. But I’m also pretty sure my mother was relieved to see me connect with someone so well, and thus allowed the visits to continue.

I was too busy with schoolwork, clubs, sports practices, and other various extracurriculars to pay much attention to the oddities of my social life. Once again, there was little for my parents to complain about, so they didn’t. On the inside, however, I was beginning to feel like I might be missing something. By the time I’d graduated from high school, I still had not come close to having a boyfriend. I hadn’t even come close to being kissed. I danced with my first boy at the end of my 10^th grade year – at his going away party. Despite my lack of socialization, I knew these things probably should have happened. I’d crushed on 3 or 4 boys in high school, two of whom I admired from afar for years and one of whom was my male best friend, Marc, that first dance. But other than Marc traveling up to take me to senior prom after he’d moved away, nothing romantic ever came my way. At the same time, I understood what was going on. Who would ever want to date me? I was mistaken for a boy on a regular basis and could not have possibly been attractive to the opposite sex. If I were a boy, I wouldn’t date me, either. Dating me would require putting up with all the bullshit I put up with on a daily basis. It would require knowing that assumptions were being made about you the second someone laid eyes on you. It would require constantly being on the defensive like I had begun to be. I began to use my unconventional appearance as a tool to test everyone I met. If people could like me despite my appearance, they were worth hanging on to. Why should I change my appearance to make people happy, and how could I ever judge people’s intentions if I did?!

The consequences of my appearance began to take a more and more severe toll on my self-image as I tread into the depths of adolescence. Being a teenager is tough enough on anybody – the expectations, the lack of respect, the awkwardness, the acne – it can be downright miserable if you glaringly don’t fit in. I began to fear meeting people, as doing so inevitably involved an exchange wherein a current friend or family member or I had to explain to the new person that I was indeed a girl. My dad would get especially angry in these circumstances, glaring at whoever the unsuspecting, well-intentioned soul was and hissing, “SHE’S my DAUGHTER.” This led to several awkward conversations in which I asked him to please calm down in such situations. People didn’t mean to insult me – they couldn’t really be blamed, after all. I’d have made the same mistake if I were them. In any case, that wasn’t the best way to make a first impression. I also dreaded fresh substitute teachers, who would always pause and give me a half-confused, half-annoyed look when I answered to “Megan” on the roll call. The situation was especially ridiculous given my reputation as a near-perfect student. A few kids would giggle in class, and someone would usually confirm that I was, in fact, who I said I was. Then there was the bathroom comment at a Burger King on our way to the beach one summer. As per usual, my presence in the girls’ bathroom had been questioned. I assured the interrogator that I was a girl. She shrugged her shoulders: “The boys and the girls – they all look the same these days.” Or the soccer referee incident at a tournament in Winston-Salem. The ref openly questioned my presence on the team, commenting to me as he walked past, “Well, I’ve seen girls on boys’ teams, but never a boy on a girls’ team!” I told my coach and my mom. Both were furious and both had a word with the ref. I played horrendously that day. As it turned out, it would be my last game with the select soccer team that I’d come to love – my only semblance of normal socialization in high school. I seemingly let all of these things roll off my shoulders, but in reality, every instance weighed me down just a little more. I never spoke to anyone about it – I was far too embarrassed and far too emotionally inexpressive to do such a thing. Looking back, that contrived toughness caused far more problems than it solved. When I eventually DID begin to talk about the emotional pain that had been inflicted on me, I realized that most people had just been waiting for me to address the issue. People weren’t stupid – they knew I didn’t just forget the comments that were made to and about me. I should have given my family and true friends a lot more credit a lot sooner.

So I got to 18 and my freshman year in college. Things were going pretty well by outside standards – I was at Duke on a full scholarship. But it was then that it began to become clear how socially stunted I really was. I had no desire to drink and in fact mounted a personal crusade against it in my mind for reasons I don’t really understand. Neither of my parents influenced me in that direction, and in fact, I think they probably would have preferred me to be a little more of a loose cannon. In any case, I went off to Duke knowing all of one person – a calculated move since I’d been so miserable in high school. I was determined for things to be different in college. Since I didn’t drink, I rarely went out in those first few months. I was still quite content to stay in on a Friday night, even if the rest of the dorm was out partying. I made friends with pretty like-minded people and judged everyone else. Now that I look back, I’m wondering if part of the crusade against drinking had to do with a fear of the social scene that accompanied it. I knew I wouldn’t fit in with the Greek element and I certainly was not prepared to go out dancing at clubs. I didn’t look the part, so I wouldn’t even attempt it.

Then came the summer of 2003. I lived with 6 other BN scholars in 2 apartments in Columbia, SC. I worked at an internship for a non-profit called Family Connection, which served the needs of parents of disabled kids. Here was a field where I’d excelled in middle school – working with disabled kids. They don’t tend to judge you like everyone else does, and I think I found some respite myself in the time I spent with them. In any case, the internship itself was miserable except for a family with whom I conducted regular home visits. The summer came to a head when I was sent to spend a week shadowing in the various departments of a local hospital. I spent the first day in the children’s cancer ward, trying to grasp the terror their parents must have been facing. Day 2 was to be spent in the surgery waiting room – until I was actually sent in to watch a spinal fusion surgery. Day 3 was to be spent on an ER shift – until I received a call a few hours before informing me that the hospital would rather I not return. This resulted in long talks with the director of Family Connection, a woman named Pat Head (haha) and my scholarship advisor about why I was not invited to complete my shadowing. This further resulted in Pat Head berating me for the way I looked. “You look like a 12-year-old boy,” she told me. That scar still bleeds today. It made the most pacifistic kid in our apartment so angry that he swore and then threatened to beat Pat Head if he ever saw her. The crux of the matter was this – the hospital had been uncomfortable with my appearance. Girls who look like boys are not accepted in Columbia, SC. In her tirade, Pat Head succeeded in making me feel like the outcast who made all the other outcasts feel better about themselves. In a roundabout way, though, she did me a favor. Her grossly inappropriate behavior caused me to bleed – and in doing so, began to allow me to release the 10 years of pent-up anger, confusion and frustration that had begun to severely weigh me down. I talked about everything with friends for the first time, in conversations that lasted into the wee wee hours of the morning. I no longer cared whether or not I was awake for work in the morning. But those conversations were life savers. As I alluded to before, I was shocked to find out that my friends were wholly unshocked to hear all I had to say. They reassured me that I was fine in their eyes and that Pat Head could go to hell. At the same time, they gently nudged me into transforming my appearance – for my own sake. The thought of being able to walk into a bathroom free of criticism finally trumped my desire to test people with my looks. I’d have to find another medium for that, and as it turned out, I certainly would. I began to grow out my hair, with no promise of changing anything else. After all, I could always cut that hair off again.

The Climb

I am going to be a prolific writer tonight, which does not say good things about my mental state. I hope this post, however, will counteract the negativity in the last post. For I am askew at the moment not only because of the uncertainties elucidated in that post, but also because I cannot decipher whether those uncertainties are even important.

Today, before I drove to the Oak Island version of my home, I visited a friend. If you know me well enough to spend your precious time reading this blog, then you know who that friend is. Enough said.

As I sit here contemplating my life and as I sat with my friend today, it occurred to me that I am very lucky to be worrying about how I'm going to define my present "home". At this moment, I'm thinking what an asshole I am to be complaining about having to choose from multiple homes when there are people on the planet who do not even have one. It feels like I'm hoarding them. As I sat with my friend today, who fights a daily battle to conquer the mundane life activities which many of the rest of us take for granted, I once again thought, "How dare I depress myself over my perceived 'struggles'? If she's strong enough to wake up every morning and face this frustrating, utterly unfair bullshit, then why the hell am I walking around with my mouth turned upside down and my tail between my legs? Be grateful for all you do have, Megan. Be grateful for this friend, who unknowingly (and, might I add, knowingly, through her writing) reminds you of what is important. Be grateful for all the people who answer the phone when you call for help. Be grateful for the freedom to even worry about these things you're so worried about."

I could launch into several paragraphs about how this friend is an inspiration to me, my friends, her family, all of us. But for several reasons, I will not. Most of all, I might never stop writing. Secondly, it would embarrass her, and she'd destroy me at arm wrestling next time I visit. But seriously, the fact is that she never asked for her lot in life. None of us did. If I'm going to sit here feeling sorry for the privileges with which I've been blessed, then I don't even deserve to have those privileges. My friend perseveres every day so that she can overcome this horribly traumatic wrench that life has thrown her way - because she is the type of person who knows no differently. The point is that I have the choice to either follow her lead and battle through my own stuff or spend time feeling bad about the caliber of importance my stuff has in comparison to hers - or anyone else's.

So the point I'm trying to make, I think, is that things just aren't fair, and until I learn to accept that, I won't be getting anywhere. Feeling lousy because my battles aren't tough enough one second and lousy because they seem too tough the next is simply unproductive and results in a lot of...lousiness. This is where I take my cue from my friend. As amazing as she has been throughout this whole terrible ordeal, she's also been absolutely human. She's been understandably angry, indescribably confused, utterly fearful. And still, for the past 8.5 months, she has been uncommonly patient as she slowly rebuilds all of the pieces of her body that no one had ever thought could become so unglued. Through all of those unsettling feelings of weakness, she has fought.

It is THIS that I learn today. As nasty as things may get around me, I cannot afford to float. I don't have that luxury - none of us do. Life, in all its undulations, is at once beautiful and appalling. Things might not even happen for a reason, after all. Perhaps they just happen, and it's our job to figure out how to make it all work, whatever our circumstances. I think I like the latter approach to life better, as it suggests the necessity for active participation in determining our fates. Even if it's wrong, and we could just sit idly and watch the world go by, what's the use (or fun...or humanity) in that? Perhaps this is the reason we struggle so mightily, even though the payoff is never guaranteed and always limited to the remainder of a lifetime.

To the friend who is the subject of this post - I of course say thank you. Not just because you fight every day to regain life as you (and those who love you) know it. But because you do so honestly, and because while you grit your teeth in battle, you smile. You had a deeper understanding than any of us about the REALLY important things in life long before this ridiculousness happened to you, and you were already busy teaching us. You didn't need to fight a battle to become the person everyone looked to - you already were.

Come Home

My slacker self still has a few posts to make to round out the Japan blog, but life has unsurprisingly intervened in the meantime. And thus I find it necessary to resurrect this blog. Writing seems to be the best remedy when I'm on the verge of relocating to a hole in the ground.

I'm feeling particularly sorry for myself at the moment, and it sort of sucks, as I'd been feeling pretty solid over the past few days of familiar Durham debauchery and heart to hearts with Duke buddies. As my mom always used to say whenever I got my head down, "this too shall pass," (or, depending on the situation, "JUST DIVE ON THE FLOOR LIKE WOJO!!!!") and she tended to always be right. Regardless, it still sucks in the moment.

"It" is the fact that I just arrived at home. "Home" began to take on an entirely new meaning when I started my freshman year of college. Not only did my heart, mind, and thus...mouth...begin to confuse college as "home", but my family moved that summer from the only city I'd ever really known as home. Of course, we all went "home" for Thanksgiving and Christmas breaks, but calling Oak Island "home" was a matter of convenience for me. I knew no one other than my family and our rotating menagerie of animals, and thus more accurately felt like I was on vacation instead of home. "Vacation" was still good. I'd arrive at my house, sometimes just for a weekend, greeted by my dogs and cats and my mother with a margarita in hand for me. Unlike at school, I didn't have to worry about hunting down my next meal (not that Duke Food Points didn't make things brainlessly easy as it was). My mom, who complained bitterly throughout my childhood about the mountains of laundry burying her on weekends, would OFFER to do my laundry. I'd vegetate in front of our big screen TV, go out to a few restaurants and movies with the family, and otherwise do absolutely nothing. The house was basically a resort hotel, and I tended to get used to it pretty quickly and sometimes even dread heading back to the Gothic Wonderland (that feeling usually passed as soon as I'd get back and run into 600 friends, all ready to cause some trouble). Regardless, the house...what most people would refer to as my "home", was ultimately relaxing.

By the end of college, when signing my lease for my new apartment in Durham, I knew the city so well and had so many friends around that I had frequently started to confuse it as "home". Then Mom died, and I truly learned what it meant to feel slightly out of place...everywhere. Potential homes at that point included 1) Gastonia, a place that had not at all agreed with my parents and with which I was so out of touch by that point that it could only be described as "home" if one appended "town", 2) Durham, a city I knew well, full of friends and my dear alma mater, but also the location of Mom's last breath, and too recent an acquisition in my life to shake the "adopted" prefix from "home", and 3) Oak Island, the location of the house I loved but had never really lived in, the "home" of my father, sister and pets, but lacking too many connections to really ever become anything more than my "home" preceded by "vacation". And with the loss of Mom, the word "vacation" silently slipped from my vocabulary altogether.

Fast forward to December. I added another potential "home" to the mix, admittedly with the hope of making it fit into that four-letter word without any qualifying appendages. 4) Boston. Location of my attempt at jump-starting in the year AM 1.5, or A year and a half After Mom. Its most appealing initial quality was its difference from everything. Mom didn't die there. She didn't live there, either. I didn't go to school there. Or grow up there. Or vacation there as a kid. It was almost purely as Augustana croons, a place "where no one knows my name." I could have a fresh start off my couch in Durham, in a big city full of 20-somethings and opportunities. The Red Sox. The American Revolution. New England at my fingertips. Also bitterly cold in December, but nowhere's perfect. Boston was the Promised Land, and to top it all off, I was starting out with some friends, including one of my very best. Things were going to be perfect.

It seems to be a theme in life, however, that expectations are the root of much evil. Assuming I could dive headfirst into Boston...and postbac predental school...and snow shoveling...and "Masshole" abruptness...and come up swimming a perfect Butterfly stroke without first desperately treading water was STUPID on my part. I have, indeed, diagnosed a pattern in my life that involves blindly diving into things headfirst: Exhibit A - My first trip abroad, at 14, to play soccer with strangers in Sweden and Finland (couldn't I have just taken a nice family trip to Canada?), Exhibit B - My first job as a camp counselor, looking after a cabin of 8 severely disabled teenaged girls (shouldn't I have just done like, a soccer day camp first?), Exhibit C - My first trip to India, to the very southern tip, to work construction, in the middle of the summer (so many convoluted things about this that I'll pass on explicating...) I'd done all of these things on a whim, without really considering their consequences, and they'd all turned out for the best, enhanced my life, made me a more marketable, compassionate, interesting person. So, why not Boston, too? What I failed to recognize about Boston was that it required an entire, and permanent, change in my life. It wasn't just a summer event, or study abroad, or even a job I could quit. It was verging on a new life, with of course the safety net that I already had some friends and could always call on people back "home" (wherever that was). In any case, I dove in headfirst, so blinded by my "wisdom" and excitement about jump-starting my life again that I failed to notice I was diving head-first into the shallow end of the pool. I promptly smashed my head against the concrete floor and floated along, rather breathless, for awhile. Thankfully, those Boston friends and those "home" friends sitting around the pool took turns holding my head above water, and I have thus survived. But not without a pretty nasty welt on my head and a few battle scars on my ego.

That's it for the metaphor, I promise. Anyway, on to today. I arrive on my island, my quiet little (boring, yet beautiful) island. I've missed the NC coast. Maine and Massachusetts are pretty, but they can't match the NC coast. It smells like marshland. I look up to the sky and yes, there are the stars. One can forget they exist in the city. I walk into my house, am greeted by a barrage of puppy kisses and kitty meows...the welcoming committee that can always be counted on. I head upstairs to say hello to my own cats, Journey and India, who I'd abandoned for a month and a half for my Japan trip. Journey essentially says, "HI, MOM!!!!" India stares at me disapprovingly, but throws me a bone and reluctantly lets me pet her for a second. She'll forgive me, but she's going to make me pay for my sins first. And then I make the mistake of looking up. This was Mom's room. It contains nearly all of Mom's stuff. I rarely go up here anymore, so the shock of this room hasn't worn off like the shock of her car or the shock of the house as a unit. 26 months later, to the date, and I still can't stand in this room. I'm really pissed and I have to leave, shaking my body as I close the door as if that physical act is somehow going to shake the disturbance off.

"Home." I've confused the term so much in my own head that I have to clarify it for people now. To those in Boston, me going "home" from the bar means, obviously, my apartment in Boston. Me flying "home" means Duke and Durham. I keep having to remind people that I'm not actually from Durham. I'm "from" Oak Island. But not really. I moved there. I "grew up" in Gastonia. (Except I'm now also beginning to question whether I've actually completed the process of "growing up.") To those in Durham, "home" means whoever's apartment I'm staying at, or Boston, or Oak Island, or back to Charlotte and Gastonia. When I leave Oak Island, there is no doubt I'll at some point describe the trip as "going home" to Boston.

I used to count these many versions of "home" as a gift. I mean, home is a good thing - multiples of it must be even better, right? The truth, I am finding, seems not to be so simple. This confusion has become, I am realizing acutely on this trip, a serious problem. Maybe even the central problem. Multiple friends in Durham: "When are you coming home?" as in Durham, or at least NC. They all see this Boston thing as an experiment, I guess, and they're not altogether incorrect. Texts from friends in Boston: "When are you coming home?" as in Boston. My actionable daily life resides in Boston at the moment, and there is no reason for any of them to think my home is anywhere else. My dad on the phone, as I vacillate on when I'm driving to the coast from Durham and Charlotte: "When are you coming home?" as in Oak Island. What remains of my family is in Oak Island, my house is there, my dogs are there. It's where I'm expected for Christmas. Clearly, to my dad, it's my home. The reality is so much more complicated for me that I feel out of place in all of these homes. I have constructed Durham in my head as my past and my current guilty pleasure. It's like a drug that I go back to when I don't want to deal with real life anymore. I relax in Durham more than anywhere else; I am more myself there than anywhere else. But I can't hang on to the past there and I can't live in a place where I have to pass the ER where my mom died on a regular basis. Not to mention, the friends are slowly dispersing. Boston. I'm not a Northerner, never will be. I'm dreading winter and I miss Bojangles'. My accent is funny and noticeable there. I'd hoped to find a niche this past spring with school, but that was not to be. I still feel like I'm grasping at straws, trying to find the one that leads to oxygen. As a result, I try too hard in Boston and am less than myself in the process. My behavior is erratic and often inexplicable to those I care about the most. I run the risk of running off those same people who saved me from drowning in the kiddie pool. I'm reduced at this point to floating in Boston as I had been in Durham, unless I can pull up some major bootstraps. Oak Island. Lonely, too many physical reminders of Mom, zero friends. Also, I realized today at a gas station that I suddenly feel more out of place in Podunk, Dirty South than in Portland, ME. Tattoos and country twang proved more of a culture shock than anything in Japan. I immediately caught myself thinking, "I don't want to raise my kids in this environment." Of course, to stave off this pessimistic roll I'm on, I also feel in some part "at home" in all of these places (and in my childhood home around Charlotte as well).

It's as if I'm a teenager again, trying to figure out where the hell I belong in this mess. Multiple homes is not so cute an idea anymore. I'm not against finding a piece of home in multiple places, but I need desperately to find one that will take a clear lead. None of this wishy-washy bullshit. The Japanese seemed to love superlatives, bestowing them upon everything from Buddha to the longest wooden hall. In this, as in much of their philosophy, I'm beginning to think they're correct in believing there is something sacred and important and stabilizing about calling something the "best." It's a decisive identifier, and "decisive" is something I could use right now about as much as "home." And so the search begins, or now consciously continues, for my best home.

Man in the Mirror

This past week has been rather tumultuous for a variety of disconnected reasons. I've often found myself just feeling off-balance, and not always knowing exactly why. It's just been...one of those weeks.

The week, of course, culminated with the deaths of Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson. In all honesty, I had zero connection to Farrah Fawcett and was not at all affected by her passing, as sad as it was. The King of Pop, however, is a different story. His passing, I feel, marks the Elvis moment for my generation. And while I certainly won't compare the death of Michael Jackson to that of President Kennedy, I am fairly certain that it was one of those moments I will always remember...I'll be able to tell my kids exactly where I was and what I was doing when the news broke.

My purpose in writing this post is twofold - first, as a sort of ode to Michael Jackson; second, as a study and criticism of all of us who are producing odes to Michael Jackson. Contradictory and self-effacing...yeah. But why should I assume that my reaction is all that different from anyone else's?

As for the former purpose...My first glimpse into MJ's death occurred via Facebook (suffice it to say that I could write an entire blog post analyzing that fact alone). It took a few minutes for the more reputable news agencies (CNN, etc.) to catch onto the news. While TMZ entertainment was reporting Jackson's death, Wolf Blitzer was still busy filling time by insulting Americans' knowledge with a description of comas and cardiac arrest. Within a few minutes, however, everyone was on the same page - at the age of 50, he was gone. Just like that. I found myself far more moved than I would have imagined had anyone asked me what my reaction to such a thing would be. That night, while driving through the first legitimate summer night in Boston, I rolled down the windows and turned up the Michael Jackson tribute playing on the radio, rediscovering and appreciating his songs like never before. It was a simple case of "you don't know what you have until it's gone" syndrome. As I've had time to think about my reaction, I realized that it actually makes much more sense than I originally thought. Two of my very first memories in life involve James Taylor and Michael Jackson. As a young, impressionable child growing up in the '80s, I declared myself a Michael Jackson fan, sight unseen, music unheard. I remember watching the Super Bowl halftime show one year, when I asked my mom who that crazy lady was performing onstage. "That's your hero, Michael Jackson..." she replied. Oh.

As my music tastes matured and I actually had a clue what I was listening to, I can't ever say that I was ever a legitimate MJ fan. I had a special appreciation for the song he wrote for the Free Willy ending, and of course, any self-respecting human being appreciates Thriller, but that was about the extent of it. As I've listened to and downloaded songs over the past few days, I've begun to develop far more of an appreciation for the man's art. Like Elvis and JFK before him, personal missteps or not, he was an icon and a household name. My kids, should they ever exist, will never understand.

Now to the latter purpose. All of these tributes, personal and commercial, leave a weird taste in my mouth. On the one hand, they're well-deserved, and certainly understandable considering the sudden circumstances behind Jackson's death. But I also feel as if this is a particularly sad case of "too little, too late." Why is it that we can only truly praise people once they're gone? Why is it that we can only forgive a man the error of his humanity once he is no longer here to defend himself? Jackson was far from a saint, engaged in many a reprehensible activity, and was likely a prime contributor to his own early demise - but why is it only now that we give him credit for the good in his life? I've proven myself no better at this than anyone else, which is why this question is all the more interesting to me. Why are we so adept at honoring people in death?

Secondly, the shock surrounding Jackson's sudden passing is telling. The man died at 50 from cardiac arrest. I've watched an otherwise healthy 53-year-old die from the same. I've watched a basketball-playing 21-year-old die from the same. People die before they're supposed to all the time. We don't all live to be 78.11 years old, and yet most of us conduct our lives as if we will undoubtedly live to 78.11. Worse, we expect everyone around us to live to 78.11 and treat them accordingly. It's okay to fight today...they'll be around to make up with tomorrow. As jaded as I probably am at this point, the fact is that sometimes that's just not the case. And singing someone's praises in death just isn't the same as doing so when they can actually hear the song.

"Who I Am, Who I'm Not, and Who I Wanna Be..."

This promises to be an excessively personal post - one which violates my rules for submission into the blogosphere. Fair warning to all. But that, as any who read further will find, is exactly the point today.

Where an actor's job is to be something other than what he really is, a musician's job is to be painfully, brutally honest about his life. Such was my friend's observation to me as we sat on this blustery, rainy June day waiting for The Fray to begin their set. It was one of those insights that continues to softly play with my mind hours and days after its origin. For one thing, it is a thoughtful and unique way of looking at these arts. As polar opposites, perhaps? It explains the horrendous musicians-cum-actors and vice-versa who are poisoning entertainment these days. Further, it pokes at the psyches of the people who might become involved in said professions in the first place. The escapists and the brutally honest ones. I've always been a better actor. I've always wished to be a musician.

As I stood watching The Fray, and specifically frontman Isaac, I often found myself taken aback in awe. At the end of several songs, it literally looked like Isaac's breath had been taken out of him, that he didn't want to end a song, as if he was actually, physically connected with the music. I'd stop belting out the song at that point, drown out the crowd noise around me, and just watch Isaac. The end of "How to Save a Life", in particular, gave me goose bumps, my eyes glued to Isaac and his piano as if the 10,000 people around me simply did not exist. Isaac wasn't putting on a show - he was feeling this stuff for the umpteenth time - the pain of the story that brought him to write that song - the same song that strikes at specific events in my life every time I hear it. Yes, this was honesty, on a grand scale, a baring of part of this man's soul. It's why, I now understand, songwriters sometimes guard their music so closely. It's why we beg them so desperately to share their music. It's honesty to which we can relate, but which we do not have to bare ourselves. It's the honesty we can admit to ourselves, if not to the outside world. It's publicly sanctioned and approved. It's why I, the actress, delight in listening to music, but do not write it (at least not for public consumption).

When I was in Kindergarten, I was taught that honesty meant telling the truth if you'd done something wrong - not lying. When I was in grade school, it meant taking your test by yourself -not cheating. When I was in high school and college, it meant citing your sources - not stealing (credit to The Fray for my blog title, by the way...). Not having really engaged in any of those activities, I considered myself an honest person. As an adult, I'm learning there are a few more elements to this concept we treat as so elementary. Honesty is all those things - not lying, not cheating, not stealing - but it's more than an opposing force. It's a positive entity in and of itself that, in my head, loosely translates to "dealing with stuff," or, to use a negative once more "not pretending"..."not acting." It's what Isaac is doing when he's crooning for The Fray. To use an example from real life, it's what we don't do when we turn our heads away from Darfur or Dubai, pretending that genocide and exploitation do not exist. It's what we didn't do when we were busy kidding ourselves that the Holocaust wasn't real. It's what I'm not doing when I tell myself "Everything's ok" when it's not.

Real honesty is a very scary thing - this facing demons, not running away from fear business. Real honesty shared is even scarier (hence my admiration for musicians). I've recognized a pattern in my relationships over the past several years that involves an awful lot of sparring, name-calling, and general I-don't-really-mean-it nastiness. Of course, in my mind, these are crucial elements in any healthy relationship (if you can't joke with your friends...who can you joke with?), but I sometimes feel as if I take them to the extreme. I seem to have this idea that throwing an "I love you" in there every now and then will convince people that I actually do love them in spite of all my posturing. Recently, I've been called on this behavior a few times - this seeming fear of ever letting anyone know how important they really are, that I really don't know if I could live without them. Or, less intensely, this apparent fear of just simply being nice - as if I don't think that's enough to bring or keep people in my life. It concerns me that maybe no one really knows me - and through no fault of anyone's but my own - because I'm just so damn afraid of being found out. What scares me even more is that maybe, as a result, I don't really know anyone else, either - again, because I haven't left myself vulnerable enough for anyone else to take a chance on me.

When, I wonder, did I construe some lesson into thinking I had to act so tough all the time? Did my rather unorthodox childhood screw with my psyche THIS much - and is it fixable before it's too late? I remember, very vividly, being in first grade and given a picture of a flower to color. I refused the flower, angrily announcing to my teacher that, "Flowers are for WIMPS!" I wish someone would have seen me then for the scared kid I obviously was.

On Coasting and Coasters

Fear. That four-letter word we're all born with, human and animal alike. God's intended life preserver. Whether human and conscious of the feeling or canine and instinctually threatening the lawn mower which clearly means us harm, fear is meant to help us survive. The funny thing is that, sometimes in doing so, it prevents us from living.

Mom died 2 years and 2 days ago. That means that I have been surviving for 733 days, living every now and then, perhaps, but mostly just suriviving. The heaviest, deepest, most paralyzing fear struck me on the day that she suddenly died. A fate worse than my worst fear landed square in my lap. I had never, for a single second, considered a life without Mom...at least not for another 20 years or so. In the days since, I have attempted to describe my mother in many different ways to many different people, always somehow falling short of explaining what she really meant to me and why her death so utterly transformed me...so terribly messed me up. My early descriptions were of her as a "net"...she'd catch me if I fell. I'd lost my safety net. Later, I'd describe her as my "brick wall". She was more than a rock. She was an infinitely extendable, impenetrable force. Today, I realize that "trampoline" might be the most apt analogy yet. She provided a surface from which I could safely leap. She caught me, even cradled me when I came back down. And then she coaxed me back up again, this time higher than the first. She provided the launch pad, but also the landing pad, and she never let me settle in any one landing for too long.

So what I lost that day, amongst a million other tangibles and intangibles, was my trampoline. It was yanked from my yard in broad daylight, replaced by a dark and often seemingly bottomless hole. I have lived rather uncomfortably in my comfort zone since then, ashamed and often bored, but nevertheless safe from harm. It's as if I fenced off the back yard and installed dark curtains in the windows so as to shield myself from the hole. Excepting what some might consider a precipitous leap in moving to Boston, I have done little to face up to the struggles in life since Mom died. For the most part, I've avoided consciously creating additional fear for myself, afraid that I would become overwhelmed and somehow implode. While I could never fairly be called an adrenaline junkie, I had begun to pride myself on living life just a little closer to the edge (quite literally, in some cases involving bus rides in India...) Losing that courage meant losing that pride, and in turn, all of the confidence that went with it. There lies the birth of a vicious cycle.

Now to the coasters part. I've been mortally afraid of roller coasters for as long as I can remember. The fear has basically been driven into my being. "My name is Megan, I'm 5'7", my eyes are hazel, I don't ride roller coasters." My parents despised theme parks when we were kids and only took us after my sister and I had nagged them into submission. I rode one coaster as a kid...the probably now-defunct Scooby Doo roller coaster at Carowinds. After much trepidation on my parents' part, Dad rode with me. I remember getting off, being more grateful than ever before for terra firma, and thinking I'd never, ever, ever go on one of those death traps again. I didn't get back on a coaster until December of 2007, at 22. My giggling sister rode Goofy's Barnstormer with me at The Magic Kingdom. I almost screamed myself out of my seat. It didn't help that we won the honor of riding in the front of the coaster. Space Mountain was most definitely out of the question. In the interim, I avoided theme parks as much as possible, capitulated when I was dragged along, spent many hours sitting by myself as my friends giddily waited in endless lines for another thriller, and presented a horrendous first impression of myself to the people I was starting college with on the first day I met them (Carowinds, of course, being their bonding location of choice). Coasters became more than a quick route to the grave...they began to symbolize a personal failure. They were a party I was invited to watch from the window.

When I received the invitation to head to Six Flags New England with some of Jose's dental school class, my natural inclination was to politely decline. Why once again subject myself to purse-holding? Why watch the party, when I could simply avoid it altogether? Something else, however, took over and made me go. Whether it was the thought of actually missing out, the sheer boredom of another day spent in front of the TV, or some supernatural force I've yet to identify, I decided to go. I'd give this whole deal one more shot. I was absolutely determined to ride another coaster, and this time, it was going to be outside of Kiddie Land.

After collecting some thoughts about how to conquer one's fear of roller coasters over the internet and popping a Dramamine to stave off any undesirable physical reactions, I joined the line with everyone for the first coaster, a moderately-sized wooden contraption that looked as if it was about to collapse, "The Thunderbolt". I knew that psyching myself out in the line was the worst thing I could do, and I was actually remarkably calm, despite verbal diarrhea indicating otherwise, until we got up to the car. Then the survival instincts kicked in. The Fear. The big drop was not quite as bad as I had remembered, but I can't say that I thoroughly enjoyed that ride. In fact, I almost cried afterward, more from the realization that maybe I really couldn't do this after all than from any actual pain. I'd spend another day toting around other people's stuff, wasting money, and worst of all, feeling like I'd failed yet again. Then came the coaster that broke down, the "Mind Eraser", the one Marlayna recommended I not ride because it actually hurt. That one broke down just before my friends were set to board, and watching them play guinea pigs and ride it first after it was fixed was legitimately one of the scariest experiences of my life. It really didn't look like another coaster was in my sights.

Until "Flashback", a short, boomerang style looping coaster, whispered to me. Sure, I'd go upside down in loops. Sure, the drop looked nasty. Sure, I'd ride half the thing backwards. But fuck it. Let's go. I'm sick of this. Jose by my side, listening to me whimper about kittens and daisies and how I wanted him to adopt my cats after my imminent demise, we backed up the initial incline. Oh shit. This was a horrendous idea. Worst yet. And there was really no way out, short possibly of screaming like a banshee and faking a heart attack. Oh crap, here we go, down the drop...it's still sending my stomach into my throat, but...I've felt that already today, so it's not so unfamiliar and scary. And wait, we're looping and...all of a sudden, my screams of terror turn to screams of joy. I catch myself shouting "Woooohoooooo!!!!" and, embarrasingly, "Yeeeeehawwww!!!" We get back to the top, prepared to fall backwards along the same track. Oh God, can I survive that? Jose asks how I'm doing...to be honest, I was loving life, but not sure how long that would last. "Wait, and I'll tell you afterwards...." Then we drop, backwards, loop, corkscrew, done. HOLY SHIT! I'VE CONQUERED YOU, BITCH!!!! I'd done it. And I was smiling. Even though it really felt like my kidney had fallen out of my back. I must have been as stiff as a...well...you know. It took awhile to build up courage again, as Flashback was such a short ride that I was convinced I couldn't survive a longer one. I couldn't manage "Bizarro", the signature thrill ride that spans the whole length of the park and boasts an enormous sheer drop. But I was joking in the wheelhouse for "The Dark Knight". "THIS IS FOR HEATH LEDGER!!!!" I yelled, as we left safety. Up, up, up, a gorgeous view of the Connecticut River, but I can't enjoy that right now because I'm about to die. Daisies, kitty cats. Oh shit, here we go....wait...wait...this is fun...I'm actually enjoying this...I'm yelling in...ecstasy again, instead of sheer terror. No, no, the ride can't be over yet! I want to do it again...

And so I conquered a few coasters. I'm still terrified of those big drops and any coaster without a shoulder harness, but...I rode 1.5 times more coasters today than ever before in my entire life. I went upside down. I went backwards. I went upside down while going backwards. And damn, if it didn't feel good. Like the running that I've dared to face again recently, I met fear in the face. I have zero idea what it was today exactly that prompted me to throw up the shades and, if not leap into the hole in my yard, at least peer over its edge, but I have an idea that it had to do with the liberation that comes from the healing power of time, the exhaustion from so many years on the sideline, the strength (and peer pressure, and testosterone-induced sense of pride) that comes from having your best friend look you in the eye at the top of a coaster and tell you it's all going to be alright, and the comfort that comes from knowing you're a few hundred feet closer to heaven, if only to visit for a split second. As out of proportion as it sounds, the symbolism marking today was utterly significant, and I'll look back to it for inspiration time and again. Mom would never have believed I rode such coasters unless she saw it with her own two eyes, and today, I'm positive that she did.