Cringe

     To my Faithful Followers:  I apologize for my absence.  I have been in a funk. 

     You see, a few weeks ago, I was on the phone with my cou-sis (that’s not a typo – it’s my word for a cousin who is more like a sister to me) chatting about all sorts of things.  As we were about to hang up, she casually asked if I was still “doing the blog thing.”  I was a little taken aback; I had assumed that she was a loyal reader.  After an awkward pause, I answered – probably a bit snippily – that, of course, I was still posting on my blog. Why?  Another awkward silence, then she cautiously answered that she had stopped reading after the first few posts because each entry made her “cringe.” 

     “Is my writing that bad?” I asked, only half-jokingly.

     “No, no, no!  It’s not that at all.  It’s just that your disclosures make me uncomfortable.  I know what you went through; heck, I went through most of it with you.  And what I didn’t experience in your house, I underwent at my own house.  But I don’t think we need to yell those things from a rooftop. It’s not stuff I am proud of.  So when I read your blog, I imagine what other people will think and I fear that they will judge you and the family because of it.”

     I thought carefully about what my response would be.  I could see her point, but, to be honest, I didn’t care.  This was my life and my truth.

     “T.,” I started slowly.  “You are entitled to your own opinion.  When I started the blog, I said that I longed to live a life of transparency and that I would no longer be cowed by fear or shame or guilt.  I realize that people may judge me because of the life I have led or the things that I have done.  That is their prerogative, but I choose to no longer judge myself, and I choose to move past the limitations of my background.  The past is over and done with.”

     I could tell she was still unconvinced.  And it was not my job to convince her.  Still, the conversation bothered me.  Under the guise of concern about the judgment of others, I felt her judgment.  Despite my defiance on the phone, I found myself retreating, doubting, getting depressed.  And I did what I said I wouldn’t do – I stopped writing.

     Then something jarred me back to the keyboard – Tyler Perry’s disclosure of the abuse that he suffered as a child.  I, obviously, don’t know Tyler Perry, so what I’m about to say is going to sound quite silly:  I am very proud of him for coming forward like that.  Here is a person who acknowledges that he didn’t spring fully grown into the success he has.   

He had his trials, tribulations and events that others told him should remain hidden.  But he stepped into the light; even knowing that he would probably be ridiculed by some of the Black bloggers.  (One site insinuated that he was gay because he admitted to being sexually abused by a man as a child.  Frankly, it makes no difference to me whether he is gay or not.  I think it’s more contemptible to worship rappers who unabashedly call women “bitches” and “hos” than to love someone of the same sex.  But that’s just me.  And it’s probably a rant best reserved for another post.)

     In any event, I am back.  And I promise not to hold back -- even if it makes some people cringe.

The Grateful Mind

My house looks like a war zone.

In the middle of renovating the bathroom, Big Bren decided that he positively couldn't stand the front door and ripped out the old one, along with the walls surrounding it.  In the meantime, the main bathroom is still gutted and out of commission, which means that I am stuck with two little boys making a mess in my shower and peeing all over the bathroom in my room.  (That's as disgusting as it sounds.  How boys cannot aim their penises into a hole as wide as a toilet is beyond me.  I can take cleaning their bathroom once or twice a week, but I cannot stand going to the bathroom and -- if I happen not to look down first -- sitting in a puddle of someone else's urine.)

I was (and am) tempted to nag.  It was driving me crazy to walk through (the now gorgeous) front door and see a toilet in my foyer.  There is a thick layer of dust on everything; as soon as I wipe it off, more comes down from all the sanding and scraping that Big Bren is doing.  And I was losing my mind over the fact that he didn't finish one task before beginning the other, so that now both are in limbo -- the door is unpainted and the walls around it are just sheetrock, while the bathroom is still not complete.

Sitting in the living room, looking at the mess, I felt a sense of despair.  I felt like this was all there was ever going to be.  I was never going to be able to clean all this up.  The bathroom was never going to be finished.  I would be stuck in this dusty purgatory forever!  (Cue novela music for the drama queen.)

Then, suddenly, I was standing outside of myself, seeing how positively ridiculous I was being.  Here Big Bren was, trying to make our home nicer and better, and I wanted to cry over dust!  A few months from now, I will be entertaining in my new and improved home, the dust will be long gone and I won't even remember how uncomfortable the renovation period was.  Big Bren has done other work in the house -- he put in new floors, gutted and renovated another bathroom, he changed the stairs, remodeled the kitchen and designed a new fireplace. And he did it a little at a time over the past five years.  Ask me today and I cannot remember the details of any of the times he did the work.

Sometimes we need to step back and look at the bigger picture.  If you take one moment at a time, taking time to be here -- in this moment -- now, things feel so much easier.  Half of the time, our fears run away with us and we start projecting all this nonsense that has no basis in reality.

What alarmed me most about my despair was the absolute lack of gratitude with which I was seeing everything.  I should have been grateful that Big Bren was doing all this work.  I should have the foresight, the imagination, to envision what the "mess" would become.  It brought to mind a quote by Wallace D. Wattles:  "The grateful mind is constantlly fixed upon the best.  Therefore, it tends to become the best.  It takes the form or character of the best, and will receive the best."

I have to wonder whether my lack of gratitude, my lack of vision, my lack of discernment, is keeping me from moving forward in my life ...

Despojo

My closet was a mess.  I hadn’t cleaned it for almost a year.  I still had clothes in a size 4; I now wear a size 10.  (I should probably grapple with my weight issue – sooner, rather than later – but it simply is not a priority right now.)  

I’ve read the books.  I know that by holding on to things that no longer fit (my body or my life), I am creating a bottle-neck so that things that do fit cannot make it in.

At the point that I started to clean my closet, I didn’t know why the task was creating so much resistance in me.  I am not a hoarder; the rest of my home would probably be considered sparse.  My mother-in-law and mother come to my house, see designer bags they like and take them; I don’t mind.  So why my closet was in such disarray was beyond me.

I took everything out and threw it on the floor.  Now my closet and my bedroom were a mess.  Then I walked away from it all and attended to more “urgent” matters:  I went to the post office; I went to the grocery store; I took Brendan shopping for sneakers; I checked my e-mail; I read celebrity gossip on-line.  When I could no longer avoid the mess in my room, I headed back to it with a scowl on my face.

The part of me that believes in scarcity demanded that I keep my stuff; the part of me that knows there’s abundance urged me to get rid of as much as possible  -- much more would come in its stead.  As I started throwing things out, I found that my mood lightened.  I threw out everything that I hadn’t worn for more than two years.  I threw out everything that had seen better days.  I threw out anything whose fabric had pilled or that had seams that were coming loose.  My closet and my room started looking better and better.

Then came the impossible:  my journals.  Where to begin?  I had years and years of journals.  I picked one up and encountered my 20 year old self whining about my father’s indifference and emotional abuse.  The 23 year old me was obsessing about law school grades and finances.  My 25 year old self was pining away for some fool who clearly had no interest in me.  My 28 year old self was crying over some ass who’d stood me up.  From 29 to 38, I was busy cataloguing every infraction committed by Big Bren.  I found a few episodes of fun:  my friend Mindy’s bachelorette weekend in Miami; my trip to Jamaica with co-workers; my first trip to Europe with my friend, Nycol; my second trip to Europe with my mother; and hanging out with my law school buddy, Cora.  But, in between those bursts of sunshine, were long stretches of clouds and rain, usually because of some man.  Where had my life gone?  Had I really spent almost 39 years being miserable?  

I went back to my earliest journals and found that most of them were filled with longing.  Aching to be loved by my dad; yearning to have some sort of meaningful relationship with the man.  So cliché, right?  Brace yourself for more:  all of my relationships with men had been patterned on that all-encompassing need to please my dad.  I was in serial re-enactments of that love/rejection dance.  

When I thought I couldn’t possibly feel any worse about myself, it finally seeped into my consciousness that my dad simply did not like me.  He probably loved me, but he didn’t like me as a person.  Much like the person I wrote about in my previous post, I grated on his nerves.  And it was his right not to like me.  There is no rule that says you have to like your children.  Of course, the child me didn’t know any of this and each grunt he gave instead of responding to my attempts at conversation felt like a physical blow.  Every time he directed a look or a question to one of my siblings, while pretending I didn’t exist, broke my heart.  Even as a grown up, when I drove an hour out of my way to patronize his auto repair shop, only to have him charge me more than I would’ve paid had I not tried to give him the business, it hurt.  He drove a knife into my very soul when I proudly gave him a copy of the magazine that had published my first article and he – without so much as glancing at it – threw it on the table and re-focused his attention on the t.v., as if I hadn’t even spoken.

Sitting in my closet, with the chaos surrounding me, I finally released everything.  More importantly, I released him and I released that little girl inside who loved him and needed him so much.  Many years ago, I forgave him for all the ills of my childhood; for the absolute fear I felt when he drank; and for the fact that the smell of liquor can send me reeling, even today.  Although I had forgiven him, I had never released him.  I was still holding on to that need, that longing.  But when I dragged the garbage bags full of clothes, bags and books to the drop-off, I felt light.  Like a new woman.  It was a despojo – the sloughing off of the old and being renewed again.