I went to hear a friend of mine play in a "Nebraska" tribute concert last week. In it local musicians played songs from the Bruce Springsteen album. My friend just happened to be singing the song "Highway Patrolman," my favourite song on the album. She has an incredible voice, one that puts you in mind of Tori Amos, Feist, or Regina Spektor - so anything she sings tears at your gut a bit. But hearing her sing the lyrics to that particular song got to me a bit more than it had previously. There is a line in "Highway Patrolman" that is repeated over and over again - A man turns his back on his family, he just ain't no good. Each time she sang it I found it harder to bare.
So many times I have questioned how much is too much when family is concerned. How many betrayals or hurtful words? How many abandonments in times of peril? How much criticism, in jest or otherwise? How much does one tolerate before coming to the conclusion that being away from the people who brought you into this world is a better place to be than near them?
My parents were good parents in so many ways. They sacrificed so I could have things I wanted and needed, they told me they loved me, they stayed civil to each other where possible so that my sister and I would not end up in the middle of a custody battle. When I told my mother of the abuse I was experiencing at the hands of her boyfriend, she left him without taking time to ask any questions. My father attended every sporting event, school play and academic awards ceremony the school put on. They kept me clean, housed and fed every day of my life. They did the very best they could do. But they also threw things at me and called me names when they were angry, they tried to take their own life and told me it was my fault. They spent my college fund from my grandmother on their own education and never paid it back. They promised to help me pay for college and instead took out a loan in my name and never paid it - leaving me in debt, with bad credit and having to drop out of school. They told me they hated the person I had become and that it was no wonder the people I loved were ashamed of me. They told my husband "It's a good thing she's pretty, because otherwise she would be impossible to put up with." But I forgive the bad things, because I know it was the very best that they could do.
When I turned 18 I left home and never looked back. The panic attacks stopped then. The compulsion to starve myself left me. I felt safe and steady for the first time in my life. My sister, who has dubbed herself the family caretaker, criticizes my failure to return home. She says I am ashamed of my family and where I come from, that I think I am better than them. She is partially right. But it is not them I am ashamed of, it is who I become when I am around them. Instantaneously I am defensive, self-conscious and panicked. I want to lock myself in the bathroom and throw up until I feel better. I want to crawl into bed and wake up when they are all gone. I want to jump up and down and scream "let me talk! I am important too!" I want to scoop my brother up and take him away with me so he doesn't grow up to be afraid of his own shadow, convinced that nothing he does is good enough and that he is somehow emotionally stunted or deranged.
These days when I'm home I am faced with parents who can't pay their own bills, who are manic depressive but refuse to seek treatment, who are home and hungover in the middle of the work day, who are in so much debt they can't get normal credit to buy a car but still go regularly to the casino for the weekend. I have to walk on eggshells while I try to figure out what mood my mother is in, or make sure I don't call too late in the evening in case my dad is drunk (or worse). But when I am away, my family and I are protected by the novelty of our interaction. My relationship with mom, dad, sister and brother can be based on when we want to see and speak to each other. Mum and I can talk when she feels like it (usually about once per month). She can look at photos of me and send me cards, pretending we have that lovely mother-daughter thing she has always wanted. Dad and I can talk when he has a lull in his social schedule. He can continue to see me as the 16 year-old who thought he was the sun and the moon, who curled up in his lap to watch Dawson's Creek and eat Ben and Jerry's together. Far away from me, my sister thinks that I am a bit of a sage to ask advice of. We can leave little private jokes on Facebook and reminisce about childhood memories. My brother finds me to be something of an exotic creature living in a far off land - someone to talk about during show-and-tell and who sends him presents in the mail. I like this version of my relationship with them. Being near them just means reverting to...(see above).
A man turns his back on his family, he just ain't no good.
Is this me? Have I walked out because of such little things? Have I closed the door on the people who gave me life and made me who I am because sometimes they yelled at me? I didn't get beaten, or molested, or starved. They certainly gave me a better life than they had. What kind of a woman says "I am better off without them," even if that is how she really feels? How do I make myself a better person, so that I can love the person I am both with and without them? Is it wrong to take the easy way out?
AJ, if you are reading this, I love you, mom and dad so much. I just hate myself when you're around.
Wednesday 27 February 2008
Wednesday 20 February 2008
Rekindled?
I love that I have had the opportunity to live in so many different places in my life and experience so many different things. I know I would not be the person I am today without all of these places/people/things. The downside of being quasi-nomadic for so long is that sometimes you can feel disconnected from the people who had previously been so much a part of your life. So often I think about the friendships that have been cut short or worn thin by my relocation and I question whether it has all been worth what I have lost along the way.
But then something happens to show me how wrong I have been.
My wedding took place in Washington, DC 18 months ago. The photographer sent me the proofs, but not the album and package and has failed to respond to my enquiries since in spite of the fact that I have paid him in full. In a moment of sheer frustration, I sent an email to everyone in my address book asking them to send an email to the photographer to demand that he contact me. Within one hour more than 20 emails had been sent, three phone calls had been made and one person had offered to physically go to the photographer's office. I got my response. Even after I sent another email telling everyone that their efforts had been victorious I continued to recieve messages wishing me luck and promising further action if I needed it.
These messages were not from people I talk to everyday. Some of them are friends to whom I only send a Christmas card each year. All of them had a special place in my life at one point or another, but most of them are estranged and often distant. Frankly I had felt a little guilty even asking for their help considering my poor record of correspondence. Still, over something as silly as wedding photos and asking nothing in return, they all chipped in. This may seem really insignificant, but knowing that all I need to do is ask and my whole support network will be there is an overwhelming feeling. One that I have not felt in a long time.
Hoorah for lifelong friends.
But then something happens to show me how wrong I have been.
My wedding took place in Washington, DC 18 months ago. The photographer sent me the proofs, but not the album and package and has failed to respond to my enquiries since in spite of the fact that I have paid him in full. In a moment of sheer frustration, I sent an email to everyone in my address book asking them to send an email to the photographer to demand that he contact me. Within one hour more than 20 emails had been sent, three phone calls had been made and one person had offered to physically go to the photographer's office. I got my response. Even after I sent another email telling everyone that their efforts had been victorious I continued to recieve messages wishing me luck and promising further action if I needed it.
These messages were not from people I talk to everyday. Some of them are friends to whom I only send a Christmas card each year. All of them had a special place in my life at one point or another, but most of them are estranged and often distant. Frankly I had felt a little guilty even asking for their help considering my poor record of correspondence. Still, over something as silly as wedding photos and asking nothing in return, they all chipped in. This may seem really insignificant, but knowing that all I need to do is ask and my whole support network will be there is an overwhelming feeling. One that I have not felt in a long time.
Hoorah for lifelong friends.
Monday 18 February 2008
Dreaming of Private Places for Private Things
It seems these days that my writer's block has extended beyond my PhD and into the world of blogging. I have been so inside my own head lately, unable to put pen to paper or even articulate how I am feeling. Anyone who knows me would find this hard to fathom, and I am not sure what is bringing it on. Perhaps it is a failure to disseminate for myself what I am actually thinking. Maybe it is just because everything is so jumbled saying it aloud would just seem confused and unstable. Most of the time I have emotions instead of thoughts, a feeling (good or bad) without any understanding of what it means.
Whatever the cause, the most recent result is that I've been plagued by strange and recurrent dreams which point again to the conclusion that I am suppressing something somewhere (or that I ate too much cheese before I went to bed). Over and over again I dream of trying desperately to find somewhere private in which to do something I am ashamed of people seeing me do, but feel desperate to do anyway. It is always the same things: sex (usually with a woman), masturbation, or going to the bathroom - a gamut which has left me even more confused over the dreams' contents. The majority of the dream is taken up by a frantic search for a private location. I always get caught in the act because of a faulty door/lock, but I usually continue with the activity in spite of my embarassment because the compulsion to carry out the act is so strong. I wake up feeling drained and unsatisfied, feelings which sometimes linger for hours at a time. I have had dreams with a similar theme occasionally for a couple of years now, but they are more intense and frequent than ever before. Coupled with my failure to communicate in any way, I feel as though I might explode.
That is not to say that I am unhappy - I have been feeling fairly cheerful these days. There just seems to be something looming, something I can't put my finger on, and it has left me jumbled. I suppose there is also the distinct possibility that I am making excuses for not getting work on my PhD finished in a timely fashion by extending the problem to my personal life. I love a good excuse for procrastination! I think there is more to it than that, though. And while my husband thinks my dreams are simply the products of an overactive sex drive, I think there is more to those as well. Any dream analysts out there? My emotional block might well be a cry for spiritual guidance, but for now I would settle for feeling clear-headed enough to write a draft of my lit review.
Whatever the cause, the most recent result is that I've been plagued by strange and recurrent dreams which point again to the conclusion that I am suppressing something somewhere (or that I ate too much cheese before I went to bed). Over and over again I dream of trying desperately to find somewhere private in which to do something I am ashamed of people seeing me do, but feel desperate to do anyway. It is always the same things: sex (usually with a woman), masturbation, or going to the bathroom - a gamut which has left me even more confused over the dreams' contents. The majority of the dream is taken up by a frantic search for a private location. I always get caught in the act because of a faulty door/lock, but I usually continue with the activity in spite of my embarassment because the compulsion to carry out the act is so strong. I wake up feeling drained and unsatisfied, feelings which sometimes linger for hours at a time. I have had dreams with a similar theme occasionally for a couple of years now, but they are more intense and frequent than ever before. Coupled with my failure to communicate in any way, I feel as though I might explode.
That is not to say that I am unhappy - I have been feeling fairly cheerful these days. There just seems to be something looming, something I can't put my finger on, and it has left me jumbled. I suppose there is also the distinct possibility that I am making excuses for not getting work on my PhD finished in a timely fashion by extending the problem to my personal life. I love a good excuse for procrastination! I think there is more to it than that, though. And while my husband thinks my dreams are simply the products of an overactive sex drive, I think there is more to those as well. Any dream analysts out there? My emotional block might well be a cry for spiritual guidance, but for now I would settle for feeling clear-headed enough to write a draft of my lit review.
Thursday 7 February 2008
Mock the Week
These are the highlights. Seriously.
Friday night I went over to my friend's house and hung out with his girlfriend, CE. She drank a bottle of Bailey's (a sequence of straight Bailey's Irish Cream on ice in pint glasses) in the course of 1.5 hours and proceeded to tell me about her week in work. I have no idea what happened in her work other than the fact that her colleague was a "bitch" and her boyfriend was "to-o-otally" tired all week. She also informed me that she is applying for a Masters in Human Rights Law, which "fucking rocks!" (she has no law degree, a requirement for the course) and plans to write her dissertation on the connection between ethnicity/immigration and policing in Northern Ireland. "That would be interesting" I say, thinking she is referring to the police's response to hate crime in NI, which has been criticised of late. She then explains further..."cause like, if people are dealing with police in their home countries that are like, evil, then we have to deal with it because they move here. Isn't that awesome! I just was sitting there on the bus and it totally came to me." I wouldn't be so judgemental, but this is all coming from a woman who six months ago refused to move to Birmingham because "there are too many muslims there" and she doesn't want to live somewhere where she is a minority" (she is a hispanic-American living in Belfast).
Saturday night I went to another friend's house for a party. CE, the human rights whiz kid, drank so much that she feel down the stairs. She then proceeded to cry hysterically for about two hours while refusing to go home or to bed. I meanwhile listened to a dentist, who was dressed like a 'punk' and wore a prayer scarf as a fasion accessory, tell me about the evils of American politics. This happens to me a lot. People here love to tell me about George Bush as if I had never heard of him before or like I am his best friend. Someone once made reference to September 11th in conversation by asking if I had heard of "the time when terrorists attacked those buildings in New York."
Sunday was superbowl time, and being a New England girl I settled in to watch the Pats go undefeated. I realised later that there is truth to my friend Pat's theory that all Boston teams have benefitted greatly from my not supporting them.
Monday I spent the day working on the house with my friend RP. This was my favourite part of the week. RP told me about a girl she met in Amsterdam that is in Belfast now filming a documentary/arthouse film about a "neo-classical, electronic, dance/performace art piece" that they are on the road with at present. Not being an artist myself I asked RP what the hell she was talking about. She said it was like Bjork's more weird stuff. Apparently RP was asked to find them a horse and a helium tank to be used in filming. RP always has stories like this. She once told me about a man who came up to her in a bar and said she was "so hot" that asked her to hold his beer, went to the bathroom, came back and told her "I just put a condom on for you." RP insists that not only is this true, but that she later saw him kissing another woman after using a similar line.
Tuesday I went to my mate SM's house for 'pancake Tuesday.' I was surrounded by off duty police (SM's husband OM is a recently qualified police officer). I accidentally called a German man by the wrong name in spite of having had a 2 hour long conversation with him at the last SM/OM party. More discouraging was the fact that I realised that I had spoken about the German welfare system for 2 hours (while drunk)to someone who speaks so little English that he struggled to answer me when I asked him how he was doing and where his girlfriend was. The highlight of the night was when OM produced his gun, which had no safety, in the kitchen and the boys ooh'd and ahhh'd over it. I had to leave because I am a 'big dirty hippy' (one of OM's many colorful descriptions of my political/social ideologies), and being in a house with a gun simultaneously freaks me out and pisses me off. I tried to stay up and watch the results of Super Tuesday. It was not quite as super as I had hoped (although Obama supporters really showed their muscle, yay!), and the time difference meant I couldn't even stay awake until the polls closed.
Wednesday I spent the evening convincing my husband that a Ralph Nader presidency would be the answer to the world's ills. He is getting there, but can't understand why I love Nader so much but still get excited when Obama does well. I told him I am an idealist, not a fantasist, and I have to take it where I can get it. He said I was a bit of a hypocrite.
Leaving us at today. Today I led discussion seminars for undergraduate Criminology students on Social Policy. Sixty 18-25 year olds who could not find a connection between social exclusion issues and criminal justice issues. When I threw out the devil's advocate statement "all offenders are bad people, there is nothing we can do to rehabilitate them and so we should just lock them up and keep them there" in an attempt to spark interesting debate, some of them agreed with 'me.' No one challenged the statement. Ladies and gentlemen, the future of the UK criminal justice sector.
Tomorrow I am off to the ballet. Perhaps a bit of culture in my life will balance me out after a week of, well, nothing really.
Friday night I went over to my friend's house and hung out with his girlfriend, CE. She drank a bottle of Bailey's (a sequence of straight Bailey's Irish Cream on ice in pint glasses) in the course of 1.5 hours and proceeded to tell me about her week in work. I have no idea what happened in her work other than the fact that her colleague was a "bitch" and her boyfriend was "to-o-otally" tired all week. She also informed me that she is applying for a Masters in Human Rights Law, which "fucking rocks!" (she has no law degree, a requirement for the course) and plans to write her dissertation on the connection between ethnicity/immigration and policing in Northern Ireland. "That would be interesting" I say, thinking she is referring to the police's response to hate crime in NI, which has been criticised of late. She then explains further..."cause like, if people are dealing with police in their home countries that are like, evil, then we have to deal with it because they move here. Isn't that awesome! I just was sitting there on the bus and it totally came to me." I wouldn't be so judgemental, but this is all coming from a woman who six months ago refused to move to Birmingham because "there are too many muslims there" and she doesn't want to live somewhere where she is a minority" (she is a hispanic-American living in Belfast).
Saturday night I went to another friend's house for a party. CE, the human rights whiz kid, drank so much that she feel down the stairs. She then proceeded to cry hysterically for about two hours while refusing to go home or to bed. I meanwhile listened to a dentist, who was dressed like a 'punk' and wore a prayer scarf as a fasion accessory, tell me about the evils of American politics. This happens to me a lot. People here love to tell me about George Bush as if I had never heard of him before or like I am his best friend. Someone once made reference to September 11th in conversation by asking if I had heard of "the time when terrorists attacked those buildings in New York."
Sunday was superbowl time, and being a New England girl I settled in to watch the Pats go undefeated. I realised later that there is truth to my friend Pat's theory that all Boston teams have benefitted greatly from my not supporting them.
Monday I spent the day working on the house with my friend RP. This was my favourite part of the week. RP told me about a girl she met in Amsterdam that is in Belfast now filming a documentary/arthouse film about a "neo-classical, electronic, dance/performace art piece" that they are on the road with at present. Not being an artist myself I asked RP what the hell she was talking about. She said it was like Bjork's more weird stuff. Apparently RP was asked to find them a horse and a helium tank to be used in filming. RP always has stories like this. She once told me about a man who came up to her in a bar and said she was "so hot" that asked her to hold his beer, went to the bathroom, came back and told her "I just put a condom on for you." RP insists that not only is this true, but that she later saw him kissing another woman after using a similar line.
Tuesday I went to my mate SM's house for 'pancake Tuesday.' I was surrounded by off duty police (SM's husband OM is a recently qualified police officer). I accidentally called a German man by the wrong name in spite of having had a 2 hour long conversation with him at the last SM/OM party. More discouraging was the fact that I realised that I had spoken about the German welfare system for 2 hours (while drunk)to someone who speaks so little English that he struggled to answer me when I asked him how he was doing and where his girlfriend was. The highlight of the night was when OM produced his gun, which had no safety, in the kitchen and the boys ooh'd and ahhh'd over it. I had to leave because I am a 'big dirty hippy' (one of OM's many colorful descriptions of my political/social ideologies), and being in a house with a gun simultaneously freaks me out and pisses me off. I tried to stay up and watch the results of Super Tuesday. It was not quite as super as I had hoped (although Obama supporters really showed their muscle, yay!), and the time difference meant I couldn't even stay awake until the polls closed.
Wednesday I spent the evening convincing my husband that a Ralph Nader presidency would be the answer to the world's ills. He is getting there, but can't understand why I love Nader so much but still get excited when Obama does well. I told him I am an idealist, not a fantasist, and I have to take it where I can get it. He said I was a bit of a hypocrite.
Leaving us at today. Today I led discussion seminars for undergraduate Criminology students on Social Policy. Sixty 18-25 year olds who could not find a connection between social exclusion issues and criminal justice issues. When I threw out the devil's advocate statement "all offenders are bad people, there is nothing we can do to rehabilitate them and so we should just lock them up and keep them there" in an attempt to spark interesting debate, some of them agreed with 'me.' No one challenged the statement. Ladies and gentlemen, the future of the UK criminal justice sector.
Tomorrow I am off to the ballet. Perhaps a bit of culture in my life will balance me out after a week of, well, nothing really.
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