Friday 30 May 2008

Post-Rant Remorse

Yesterday's post was more grim than I had meant it to be. It has left me feeling guilty and a little bit nauseous, but then again that could be the beer working its way out of my system after last night's gig. I had never meant to exorcise any long-laying demons, or to make my mother and father sound like demons themselves. It was just out of me before I realised what I was saying. I've thought about deleting it, but that would be contradictory to my attempt at real honesty. I am bracing myself for the fallout of AJ reading it.

Feeling much brighter today. As if he could sense I was at my wit's end, dad called me yesterday evening. He told me AJ has been calling him daily and checking in and he is working hard to assure her all is well. It was one of the nicest, longest conversations I have had with him in a long time. It gave me room to stop worrying for a while, to think about something else.

I am refocused on all things PhD as I prepare for my confirmation seminar and conference coming up next month and begin to actually face the workload I have accumulated while I worried about my in-laws, my uterus and my parents. I'm beside myself with stress, but it is a nice kind of stress because I am in control of the stressor - an uncommon and delightful feeling these days. I think I am actually starting to find my feet in this whole process, realising that I actually do have the right to be here - that it was my hard work and intellect that landed me the gig and not just some fluke twist of fate. I have started to read drafts and feel proud of what lies on the pages. Mustn't get too comfortable, though. This is no time for resting on laurels given that the upcoming seminar determines whether or not I am permitted to continue with my research.

I am growing to love academia even more than I thought I would. Hard work and incessant criticism aside, my days are also filled with long coffee breaks and meandering conversations about topics I wouldn't dare broach with most people. I am surrounded by people from a plethora of countries and backgrounds. Afternoons are packed with reading - an activity I have always regarded as my absolute favourite thing to do. It is a gift, really, loving what you do. Such a rare thing. All you have to do is push past the stress of the deadlines and the red marks and the sleepless nights spent getting in and out of bed to write down random ideas popping into your half-sleeping mind. This academic love-fest may seem out of place, but shifting my gaze on such things has just helped me put all of the other business in perspective. Permitted some distance so I could make a less emotional, irrational assessment of what lies ahead and what came before.

All of the other stuff will work itself out, it will come in time. I finished a book on Wednesday night - Douglas Coupland's Girlfriend in a Coma. There is a part of the novel that talks about how people in the world have forgotten that they are part of something, about the lack of connection. I don't feel that in my life. I feel a part of everything - maybe too much sometimes. Maybe crawling inside myself to avoid thinking about the things that hurt is a mistake, will only make things worse in the end. Being too involved is what has made me who I am, being a small part of something bigger has helped to direct and inspire me. Cutting away from the first relationships that taught me how to be a part of something will only deteriorate my ability to be a part of anything else. If that makes any sense at all. It makes sense to me, anyway. Maybe Mr. Coupland can say it better...
"Sometimes I think the people to feel saddest for are people who once knew what profoundness was, but who lost or became numb to the sensation of wonder—people who closed the doors that lead us into the secret world—or who had the doors closed for them by time and neglect and decisions made in times of weakness." - Douglas Coupland

Wednesday 28 May 2008

The Needy Needing the Needy: Why I am a cold hearted bitch

I spoke to Bill today. Bill is what I call my dad when he is not acting very dad-like, when I have to play some other role in his life besides daughter. It was the first time I had spoken to him since the confrontation - which, by the way, went something like this (note - AJ had spoken to him first and done all the hard work):

Bill: Don't even start with me, I already got a lecture from your sister.

Me: I'm not lecturing you, I'm worried about you.

Bill: Blah blah blah, justifications for drug use and drinking...AJ is overreacting and always worries too much anyway...I was only 19 when you were born and I have the right to do things now I would have done when I was in my 20's if I hadn't been a father...I get up and go to work every day...My family has nothing better to do than gossip about me.

Me: Please don't patronise me by pretending I don't know my own father and changes in his behaviour...I'm worried about you...I want you to be around and sober when I have a family...I will support you through whatever you need to do but you have to own up to this...

Bill: I have already started to cut myself off from those loser friends...I'll change, everything will be fine...I don't need AA or any other support...Tell your sister to stop overreacting...I have to go now.

Me: I love you, that's why this is so important. I love you too much to just shut up and watch things get worse.

Bill: I have to go (voice breaking).

The whole conversation lasted about 20 minutes. He had become quite adept at excusing/justifying his behaviour, which scared me more than anything. Most of it was what I expected, I suppose. AJ was delighted - perhaps everything was fine? We agreed that we would just need to trust him for now.

So with that in mind I phoned him. He answered the phone, sounding groggy, and immediately explained why he sounded groggy. We exchanged pleasantries, he told me about the marching band he is a member of and how well they are doing and chatted about my house. We never mentioned the previous conversation or anything discussed therein. I was relieved it didn't come up.

I am starting to doubt myself a little, thinking about all of the things that seemed like such clear indications of his addiction now and trying to explain them in other ways. This would be easier than facing what I believe to be the truth. We all do that, really, find ways to avoid facing the truth. It will slap us all in the face eventually. It always does. You can't hide from what is real forever. Or can you?

Sometimes I look at my father's life and wonder if there is any point in doing the right thing, looking after yourself or minding your money. Bill doesn't do any of those things, yet he seems to be able to lie to himself enough to sustain some semblance of a life. Maybe I should let him live the way he wants to live. I mean, in reality, he could either hit bottom and start finally recognising the problems. Or maybe the problems are all from the point of view I have developed as a result of my new found 'middle-class' status? No. That's bullshit. He is screwing things up. Fact is, he doesn't care because he doesn't have anything to lose anymore.

He told me once that the only thing I could ever do to disappoint him was not come home. My parents love to do this to me. Place all their stock in me doing exactly what they need me to do. When he thought it was temporary, Bill could not have been more supportive of my move to Ireland - "go and experience things for yourself" he said. What he meant was "go and get it out of your system then come back here and provide me with some more purpose and direction for my life." I have always felt the consequences of "leaving" my parents. When I was twelve I "left" my mother by choosing to live with my dad. Two weeks she later climbed into a bathtub with a bottle full of pain pills and made her first attempt at suicide. It was my fault, she would later tell me. Without us, her life had no purpose. I had abandoned her, and so she tried to abandon me. Bill is the same, even though he would never admit it. I've lost count of the amount of times he says he has "nothing to go back to" or that he has no real family outside of my sister and I. For as long as I can remember, my mother has told me that having me saved her life - that if I had never been born she would have killed herself years ago, either intentionally or through drink and drugs. I remember her saying this to me when I was very young, and continuing to say it throughout my adult life. Dad is forever saying that he doesn't care about anything or anyone except AJ and I, that we are the only things that matter in the world. They think what they are doing is letting me know how important I am to them. What I think they are actually doing is making me responsible (in my own mind) for their well being.

Call me one of those people who blames their miserable existence on their parents, but I think I have been fair to them in previous writing so I am just going to say it now. Weren't they supposed to be responsible for my well-being? The adult in me recognises the pain my parents experienced throughout their lives, especially their childhoods. The social worker in me sees that they were both abandoned by their fathers, hit when they did things wrong (and sometimes when they didn't), were surrounded by alcoholism, poverty and despair. I know that they are doing the best they can. But the daughter in me is just fed up with it all. Just as I must now cope with the consequences of my upbringing, surely they must cope with their own? I recognise and accept that eventually the tables turn and children look after their parents, but I was hoping for a bit longer in the role of dependent child. I can't remember a time in my life when I didn't feel like I needed to be there for them, look after them. Or if I wasn't looking after them, I was feeling guilty and horrible about it. I know that all parents need their children, I just think that they should be careful to hide that need - to not make it so burdensome. I want to love them, honour them, respect them. I want to still need them.

After my grandmother died, my mother completely lost it. The day before the funeral she locked me in the car with her, sitting in the parking lot of Barnes and Noble for almost two hours. She told me that she regretted not saying so many things to her mother, so she was going to say them to me. Her way of ensuring there would be no secrets between us. She mechanically described her suicide attempts in great detail, the thoughts going through her mind at the time, how she felt about me when she was at her worst. I felt like my skin was crawling, like I was going to be sick. I had imagined those moments so many times before, and now she was giving me the details to imagine them in high definition. I lit a cigarette to distract her attention - force her to start chastising me for smoking instead of continuing, but she ignored it. She told me I had to know, even though it was hard. It was the same justification she gave when I was thirteen and she came into the dressing room an hour before my school play and told me about the abortion she had the year before, and how she believed breast cancer was her punishment. Sitting there in a smoke-filled Honda Civic my mother did what she had always done - she got the things she needed to say off her chest regardless of the consequences for the recipient of those weights. When I resisted, told her I couldn't listen anymore, she told me I hated her. She told me that she always knew I would never be the kind of daughter she deserved - that her only hope now was having grandchildren who would love her... but I was depriving her of that too, probably intentionally knowing me. It hurt less than you might think, because I stopped needing my mother a long time ago.

Since I was a teenager I have been bracing myself for my mother's death, anticipating it with every phone call or bad mood. I made myself ready to accept a motherless existence from a young age. Every extra bit of time I have with her is just a bonus. At the moment she is doing extremely well. Great job, happy, together. But I have seen that before in her and I no longer trust it, no completely. Now I feel like I am doing the same all over again. Except now I have to ready myself for losing Bill; Dad. Figuratively and literally. I already lost what we used to have. I already know he'll not forgive me for leaving and not coming back. Perhaps if all of this had happened before my mother's nightmare years I would be more sad, more empathic. Instead I just feel like skipping all of the pain, sadness, worry and drama and going straight to brace-mode. Cold, emotionless, willing to just ignore the truth so I can avoid the pain that goes along with it. I don't want to do it, but I can feel myself being pulled in that direction.

Reading this back to myself now I feel like such a hard bitch. I am ashamed of myself for feeling this way. But at the same time I can't worry and fret and feel guilty anymore. I don't have it in me - she has drained me of all of that. I have nothing left to offer Dad except the truth; that if he doesn't sort things out, I might just have to get used to life without him.

Thursday 22 May 2008

self imagined

Last week's weather has left me blue, even after a few days of sunshine. It's amazing the way a dreary day can leave you with a sense of foreboding, as if the pathetic fallacy favoured by gothic writers were true somehow.

I think I have always been quick to latch on to the things that seem the most romantic - my life as a Bronte heroine, the film which seems to be telling the story of a character so much like myself, the song that I could have written had I only found the words. To a romantic, idealist dreamer, the world is just the setting for the epic of your own life. An egocentric little narrative in which everyone else is just playing a part in your story. As a child I took this notion as far as to imagine a soundtrack to certain events as they unraveled. I remember sitting in the car, watching scenery fly by, and imagining a shot of me looking pensive with something like this playing in the background - blocking out the sounds of real life. Then I woke up from this daydream and realised that my life is my life. Not a film, not a great love story, not a timeless novel.

Sometimes I wonder how much unrealistic expectations have shaped who I am now. Expectations and approval have pretty much dictated every breath I have taken since I was old enough to understand what it was. I told someone recently that I was a chameleon. I am. In fact,it is the only thing I can say with any certainty about my personality - that I adapt it to suit the time, place, or person to which I am nearest.

I do it here with my writing. The way I set up my blog, the themes I choose. I don't write completely for myself anymore - I write so that people will read it. The content is true, but it's filtered - sometimes sugared or watered down, topics carefully edited in case people are tired to listening to the same shit from me over and over again. If I wrote this just for me, the last few months would have been filled with blogs about my miscarriage, not just passing references. I wouldn't write about trying to be more cheery or muddling through, I would write about being angry and fucking fed up. But I am too afraid of sounding like I am whining, too afraid that no one will read it and tell me what to think next. Ask me about the state of the world, about my research, about other people - I am clever, thoughtful and analytical. When it comes to the topic of myself I just can't seem to think independently. I need you to tell me the answer. Fucking hell, I am exhausted from being like this. The worst part of self-awareness is knowing how little control you have over those things of which you are aware. I feel weak, insecure, lonely, unoriginal - typical. And wouldn't that just be the worst thing to be ? Typical. I have fought my whole life against being typical. Always have to be exceptional, better, the best. It has served me well to some extent. I am successful, on track for a good life.

At least I think it's a good life. One of those 'having it all' kind of lives. You know the kind of lives I'm talking about, where I have the great job and the big house and the husband that everyone likes and the well-behaved, good-looking kids and the summer holidays in the south of France. It's the kind of life I have always wanted. I think. Is it? Or has this other life escaped me? That one where I travel around the world, write poetry and play music, have a rootless non-conformist existence. I don't even remember which one I wanted anymore. Which one is me and which one is someone else. I can't have both - I missed that boat the day I decided 26 was a good age to get married and buy a big house which would eat every penny I earn for the next 35 years. And I certainly can't have that life and a child - and having a child is one of the only things I feel certain I want, have always wanted.

In the back of my address book I scribbled a note to myself nearly eight years ago.
Looking inside myself
I am blinded
by the image of what I might have been
if I had just been
just a little less like me.

All this time later here I am, feeling exactly the same. My adaptability is a double-edged sword, making available to me so many opportunities and strengths yet burdening me with a blurred image of self. It's like a person who tells a lie when they are a child and continues to tell it. Eventually it just becomes the truth. How much of me started out as a lie? How much of what my husband loves, what my friends admire, what my parents are proud of began as fabrication?

Was I ever myself at all?

Monday 19 May 2008

Unfunny

I can be fun. Seriously, I can. I have a good sense of humour, I'm capable of making people laugh, and I laugh often. However this aspect of my personality seems to constantly evade my FG persona. Reading my blog, I imagine one might picture a dark, gloomy figure. The Eeyore of her generation. "Oh, bother" I think to myself when I re-read some of my essays, "what a terrible bore am I."

Oh, but it is such a chore to talk about funny things. Funny things are for doing, for living and experiencing. I put all of my happy and funny energy into those activities, whereas my sad and angry energy is best ventilated through a keyboard and sent off into the great unknown so I can rid myself of it once and for all. When I'm funny, it is usually a spontaneous and often unintentional thing - I think I am laughed at rather than laughed with. Either that or I'm sarcastic. Neither of those kinds of funny translate well in writing. Some people are gifted with a lightness of being which permeates their every action, can convey that lightness through all manner of media. I, however, am just better at the serious stuff. Recently I was reading this post and I was endlessly entertained. I wish I had such a gift, to be able to make someone who doesn't know you just laugh out loud and continue to giggle about it throughout the day.

But, alas, I am who I am. I have far too much self-knowledge to think I could write hilariously funny posts or that I would suddenly stop needing this space to be a place to air my frustrations with the world. So you're stuck with me, all of my ranting and raving and crying and whimpering.

That said, there will be no whining and whimpering today. I had a great weekend. Max whisked me off for a well-timed trip to Donegal. We stayed in a caravan and ate far too much BBQ'd food (what is it about a BBQ that makes you feel like one portion of everything is just not enough?), we watched more Mighty Boosh and took long strolls on this beach
which we essentially had all to ourselves. We played boules, built a sandcastle, hunted for crabs and played fetch with the dog. I put my feet in the Atlantic Ocean and imagined I was touching home somehow. Max got a sunburn in spite of my constant nagging for him to use sunblock, and I remained that special translucent shade of white reserved for those people born to Scandinavian ancestors. At night we drank pear flavoured cider and curled up with the dog in between us for warmth. Max did his usual "hey, I'm cool and down with the kids" routine to try and hush the teenagers in the caravan park after midnight, and we laughed at how un-punk a nearly thirty year-old man in his pyjama bottoms and slippers using phrases such as "lady friends" must seem to a pack of 15 year-olds.

One of the nicest parts of the weekend was talking about having a family again. We've been almost afraid to talk about kids since the Dark Day - at least I have anyway. But we were surrounded by it there on that beach. I caught Max watching a father dipping a toddler's toes in the water while the baby laughed wildly. The entire beach was full of such scenes, couples pushing a pram and calling for other little ones to catch up as the splashed through the water dragging a child's fishing net full of seashells. "That's us next," he said, hopefully. I just squeezed his hand. I think I am starting to believe him again, though, and the last month has done nothing if not show me how ready I am for a family. For the first time since the miscarriage we talked about what we would be like as parents, how I would inevitably end up the practical mom while Max played the cool dad, how I would read to them every night and how it would seriously detract from the amount of time I spent reading to Max (much to his chagrin), how beautiful a baby would be with his curls and my eyes and his long cow-lashes.

Then we went back to such shenanigans as putting these sunglasses on the dog and seeing who could bring the other one down the hardest in a wrestling match, because we're not parents yet and therefore completely entitled to act like children. Even the drive home was wonderful, listening to the summer-y sounds of The Divine Comedy and watching the seemingly hundreds of shades of green fly by the window. Occasionally Max would reach over and squeeze my hand, or I would catch him humming along to songs he pretends to dislike, and I felt truly happy with the life we have started to make with each other.

In spite of having sand in places sand should never be, it was the perfect way to spend a weekend.

Thursday 15 May 2008

Do the Right Thing - Or Else.

The concept of doing what is "right" is not a foreign one to me, but lately it is a notion I hear bandied about with great frequency. Doing the right thing has always appealed to me, but it is where the definition of "right" comes from that leaves me vexed. If one is expected to live life by these codes of right and wrong, to adhere to behavioural norms and act in accordance to a certain value set, who exactly gets to determine what those norms and values are? And just because something is right when held up against those values, what is to say anything outside of those values is wrong?

I am talking in circles here, but bear with me.

When I talk about right and wrong, I am generally speaking about treating other people with respect and dignity. Do no harm, be kind whenever you can, etc. But it seems that what is "right" has somehow become interchangeable with what is "proper," "polite," or "socially acceptable." The right thing appears to be dictated by a rigid set of cultural or religious rules - to be challenged only at one's peril. For an example, I revert to the first of many family scandals I have caused since meeting my in-laws five years ago; the Great Tea Fiasco of 2003.

It was a Friday evening, around 8pm. I was not long in Northern Ireland, three months at the most. After a 7 day work-week I had put on my ballet video and donned a leotard and sweats for a bit of exercise in the living room. There was a knock on the door. Horrified at the prospect of anyone seeing me sweaty and scantily clad, I reluctantly opened the door to find Max's uncle. He was dropping off a housewarming gift on his way home(he had to pass our house to get to his). Still embarrassed, I thanked Uncle James profusely for the gift and chatted politely about the weather for a few moments. He left, awkwardly waving goodbye as he walked down the drive. I thought he was behaving rather cool-ly towards the end, but this silly American was still clueless as to why.

I realise there are some of you who are already cringing at my mistake. Someone called to my door and I didn't invite them in and offer then a cup of tea. With this, the greatest of all Irish faux-pas, I started the family gossiping for weeks. Before long most of Max's family had disclosed to his mother that I had done the same to them on one occasion or another. Auntie Agnes had called to collect a scarf one of the children had left - I kept her at the door, Auntie Noreen had called to see if I needed a lift to mass one day - I kept her at the door, Uncle Stewart had been invited in when he called round - but went thirsty as I didn't offer him a cuppa. There was no end to my inappropriate behaviour! I clearly had no shame!

I tried to defend myself, to point out that I hadn't realised the unwritten rules of hospitality which demand you invite someone into your home however messy your sitting room is or however tired/inappropriately dressed you are. I informed them that in my family if someone wanted to come in the would just say they wanted to come in, so I assumed they were all just stopping by for a moment and leaving. In a final act of desperation (stupidity) I insisted that where I come from, it is considered rude to arrive at someone's house unannounced, so really I was not the impolite one at all. Nothing could persuade my new family that it was an innocent mistake and not reason for excommunication from the entire clan. Their reasoning - I should have known to invite them in, because it was the right thing to do.

Over the years I have learned that there are many more right and wrong things to do:
Go to mass on Sunday. Why? It is the right thing to do.
Don't ever talk about money. Why? It is not right.
Always keep biscuits in your house even if you don't like them or eat them. Why? Right thing to do.
Don't talk about your feelings/cry in front of people. Why? It makes people uncomfortable and therefore is not right.
Always go along with what your elders tell you to do. Why? Right thing.
Staying in your job even though you're miserable, nodding and smiling politely even when you disagree, attending Sunday dinner and eating what your given even if you don't like meat = Right.
Complaining to waitstaff when your food is cold, arriving at a party without a bottle of wine, telling someone you disagree with them (if they happen to be older/more powerful than you), talking politics = Wrong.

I think you get the point.

More and more I feel like the term "doing what is right" is just a way to force assimilation to a certain way of life. If you do the right thing, you decrease your chances of being labeled an "other." But what of my definition of right? What if I believe challenging and questioning everything is the right thing to do? What if I believe in a grey area - that there is no right or wrong answer to most questions? The notion of right just looms there in the background, the all mighty trump card which can be pulled out to enforce compliance wherever necessary. The rebel in me wants to strut around doing the opposite of it all, just to get a reaction, just to show that the world will not crumble if we don't all do what we're told. And what a frightening notion that would be to my new family and many of my friends - not doing what you're told.

Max really struggles with this concept. It seems sometimes he waiting there with bated breath for the next set of instructions. I never saw that side of him before we moved back here. He is so defiant when deciding what clothes to wear or what music to listen to, when choosing friends or political parties - but he is so afraid to put a foot out of line when it comes to living his life in front of his parents. And I am slowly but surely becoming just as compliant. It's why we got married in the church, why we always keep biscuits in the cupboard, and why I let my father-in-law treat me like a lesser creature than him.

I am not condemning people of faith, people who have moral codes they use to guide them through their lives. I am not even condemning a set of shared manners and common courtesy. But there has got to be some give; we have to be accepting of other ways, and we have got to know why we do these things - beyond just accepting that they are "right." Without even those most simple of buts, surely we are all just a pack of lemmings running happily towards the nearest cliff.

Monday 12 May 2008

The Comfort of a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

At the age of 21, I went to a therapist. I had seen therapists before, but never of my own volition. Therapy had always been an unwelcome response to a bad event - I had to see one when my mother was ill, when I started having anxiety attacks, when I could no longer manage my impulse to restrict my food or make myself sick. I hated all of them, never worked with them. I tried to find ways to outsmart them, tell them what they wanted to hear so they would leave me alone and discharge me from their service. And it worked.

But when I was 21 it was my decision. I started to be honest about why I was there and what I needed to figure out, and for once the counsellor said exactly what I had always been thinking. In our second session, as I sat rattling off the events of my life as though I were reading a grocery list, Dr. J paused, drew in a breath and said matter of factly "I know you are struggling right now, but you are better off than I might have expected you to be. A lot of people who have dealt with those issues have ended up with drug problems or completely unable to cope." I feigned shock at her statement, while deep inside I felt relief at someone pointing out what I had feared from the age of 13. You see, I had been walking a tightrope up to then. I knew the life I wanted, and I knew the life I was afraid of - but I was certain I was destined for the latter. Later that year, I could no longer sustain my tuition payments and was forced to drop out of college. Finally, I thought, proof that this better life is not for people like me.

The next two years were a blur. I moved into a bedsit and distanced myself from the idea of ever going back to college and my dreams of doing something great. After years of refusing to touch alcohol or cigarettes I started drinking every night of the week and smoking a pack a day. I made no plans, I saved no money. I had one night stands and cut myself off from my college friends. This was it, this was the life that people like me were meant to have. I was lonely, depressed, self-loathing and self-destructive. But I was calm. For once in my life I was able to shed the anxiety that everything good I had was about to be taken away from me, that someone would identify me as trying to 'pass' as a normal person and tell the world I was an impostor. Now I could fit in with the family who used to give us Pepsi in shot glasses at parties when we were kids, so we wouldn't feel left out. Now I wouldn't have to attend stupid classes and seminars with people who had accents and clothes more posh than mine, who drove cars more expensive than my mother's house and whose parents were doctors and lawyers. There was a reason no one in my family had gone to college before my mom, right? And look what good my mom's college degree did her. For once, I could relax. I had finally stopped fighting my destiny.

What is it that makes failure feel so much safer than success? Why do we feel undeserving of happiness? I suppose for me it was because it seemed so foreign. In my life, drama and crisis were commonplace. Struggling was the norm, and therefore it was comforting. If you grow accustomed to fire-fighting, living a fire-free life is unfamiliar. Crisis is unpleasant, but at least it isn't the unknown - at least there isn't that low level anxiety underpinning happiness as you wait for everything to blow up in your face.

I know now the ridiculousness of that way of thinking. To not strive for something better in life because you don't think you deserve it or you're afraid it will be taken away is the height of madness - it is also the antithesis of everything I was brought up to believe. My parents never stopped telling me all of the great things I was capable of, things that they expected from me. But for whatever reason I let the chance that I might not do those things hang like an albatross around my neck. Looking at my father now, I wonder has he fallen into the black hole of his self-fulfilling prophecy - finally let his albatross drag him overboard.

Dad watched his biological father abandon his life and family for alcohol. Before he was even school aged his father chose drink over him. His mother married another alcoholic; a functional one, but an alcoholic none the less. Dad's half-brother has two failed marriages, a failed business and a laundry list of DUI convictions behind him as a result of his alcohol addiction. His uncle, with whom he is close, spent time in prison on drugs charges. No one talked about these things in our family, except my dad. He was the one who finally said "no more" when my grandfather continually called me by the wrong name and drank in front of us, he was the one who told my uncle that his drinking - and not his wife - was the cause of his divorce, he was the one who told his step-father that his drinking was ruining his health. My father never drank in front of us, regularly condemned alcohol in excess and told us in no uncertain terms the consequences we would face should we become involved in drug or alcohol abuse. But maybe, like me, he grew tired of staving off the life he believed he was condemned to given the circumstances around him. Maybe he too felt like an impostor as he attended PTA meetings with wealthy soccer moms, tried to scrape together money he didn't have to buy clothes for his children so we would fit in amongst the children of well-off mothers and fathers, or attempted to maintain friendships with men and women educated to post-graduate level knowing he had not finished high school.

Thinking about this brings to mind a time when I was 18 and I stood in our kitchen singing Landslide to my father in preparation for a school talent show. He teared up as I sang. I thought then he was crying because he was proud of me, but listening to that song now I wonder if it was the words that moved him. Was he facing a fear that the people he was remaining strong for, the two children who gave him reason to remain firmly rooted in the "good life," were about to leave him? Did he believe that without us he would no longer be able to hold it together? Perhaps my father believed that ending up like his father(s) was inevitable, just as I have always worried that I would eventually succumb to the same mental health problems that torture my mother. Maybe those first nights of heavy drinking and drug use gave him the same sense of relief that those two years of chaos gave me - you no longer have to be afraid of becoming something once you have become it.

I could just be making excuses, grappling for answers to a question I never thought I would have to ask myself - why is my father choosing a life he so vehemently condemned? A life that could (and is starting to) take him away from the people he loves most? But if I am right, if he has let himself ease into the comfort of his perceived destiny, then maybe there is hope. There has to be hope because I didn't get strong enough to see the light through the trees all on my own. Someone gave me that quality - he taught me how to see that something greater awaited me. Maybe what dad needs most right now is for AJ and I to remind him of the man we know him to be, remind him that that is his real fate: being a father to two women who love and cherish him, and who expect from him all of the same wild and wonderful things he expects from them.

Saturday 10 May 2008

My Father's Eyes

I am a daddy's girl. I have always been a daddy's girl. Da-da was my first word, I never went anywhere without holding my daddy's hand (right up until I was about 14), and I always thought I was lucky to have the best dad the world had ever seen.

When I was little, dad used to call me 'Velcro,' because I was always attached to him. He is massive, 6"5 and pushing 250 pounds, and I used to love to curl up in his lap and bury my head in his chest. It felt like such a safe place, warm and soft. He smelled like Irish Spring soap, cigarettes and Polo cologne. He has a deep voice and a hearty laugh, and sitting in his lap you could feel his whole chest shake when he spoke. I look almost exactly like him, always have, and I remember being very proud of looking like him. Whenever people commented on my green eyes I would tell them with pride "they're my dad's eyes. They're just like his." Dad was always the funniest person I knew, as well. He could make anyone laugh without even trying. One more reason to be proud. Everyone wanted to be friends with my dad; the funniest, tallest, cuddliest man in the world who had green eyes, listened to the Cure and wore Red Chuck Taylor All-Stars when he picked me up from school.

My dad didn't live with us when we were young, but we saw him every weekend and sometimes during the week. He took us shopping and out to dinner. He bought us bikes and let us shift the gears of his pick up truck while he drove. When I was 13 years old, I begged him to let me live with him and eventually he did. My mom insisted that as soon as he had to enforce rules he would cease to be the great hero I believed him to be - but she was mistaken. I still thought he could do no wrong.

Living with dad was just what I hoped it would be. I woke up each morning to the smell of hazelnut coffee brewing and the sound of dad ironing my school clothes. He took time off from work to make sure he never missed one of my field hockey/basketball/softball/lacrosse games. He made scrambled eggs, french toast and bacon for dinner and never pestered me about doing my homework because he knew I would have it done. When I was 16, he let me have his car and bought himself an older less expensive one. He picked out my prom dresses, listened to me go on and on about my day at school, and didn't shout too much when I broke my curfew. We would stay in together on a Friday night and watch movies, snuggled up on the couch as if I were still six years old. On the day I graduated from high school, he gave me the refinished hope chest that had belonged to his grandmother and we cried - him holding me so tight I thought he would break my ribs. When he dropped me off at college later that year, my grandmother said he had to pull over several time on his way home because he was so upset. On my wedding day, I practically had to hold him up during the father/daughter dance as we both sobbed our way through Into the Mystic. I'm not saying he was perfect, but I loved him. He was my daddy.

Then things started to change. I know - things are supposed to change. I am an adult now and my father has a life of his own. But in the last few years, I began to notice that the man who had never had a drink in front of me before I was 18 was suddenly drinking all the time. When he came to visit me three years ago, I could hardly get him out of the pub - and the visit ended with me confronting him and him leaving in the middle of the night without a note. The day before my wedding, I stayed in his hotel room. He came in at four in the morning, so drunk he couldn't even talk, and passed out in his clothes with the lights on. An hour before my wedding, my husband had to usher him out of the hotel bar to get changed when he found him doing whiskey shots in his shorts and t-shirt. No matter what time of day it is when I phone him, he is never in work and always seems out of it or tired. Yes, I suppose when I think about it I have known something was wrong for a long time now.

Last night, my sister AJ called me. She had pre-warned me that it was going to be 'heavy,' so I braced myself. She told me that dad has a drinking problem (no shock there), that her fiance had seen dad doing cocaine (OK, shocking - but maybe he just did it that once...), and that our uncle has confirmed that he has a problem with drugs (Oh. Shit). No, I wanted to say, not my dad! Not my perfect dad with the gold-green eyes who listens to the Cure and smells good and wears red Chuck-Taylors. Not the man who held my hand at a Red Sox game and told me that the greatest thing he had ever done in his life was have my sister and I. Not the man who held me up and told me to smile as I walked down the aisle to my husband. He wouldn't do that! But unfortunately it has been so long since I have seen that man, so instead I just sighed and said "I had a feeling."

I had a feeling? How could I have had a feeling and just let it go? For ten years I have been working with people with addictions. I know the warning signs, I know the destructive results, I know what they need to do to get help. I had a feeling? Was I just going to wait until he was too strung out to function? Wait until he, like his own father, became so ill that he forgot the names of his children and grandchildren? When did I think it would have been an appropriate time to say or do something? When he drove home drunk some night and killed someone else or himself? No, no action necessary here. I had a feeling, but hey - he's a grown man right? I am sure he can handle it.

And poor AJ. Poor AJ who until now has managed to live in her happy little bubble, unaware that her parents were human and fallible. Poor, poor AJ who still secretly thinks our parents might get back together, who plans to fix all of our parents' financial problems when she finishes school and gets a job. For once, not only did I fail to shield her from the mess that is our family - I am taking a back seat and letting her face the music first. Because if I am really, really honest with myself, I am not sure I would confront him if she weren't going to. How can I? How can I tell him I know that he has become exactly the thing he has fought so hard not to become? The thing he has hated his whole life? How can I let myself acknowledge that the man who called me Velcro and picked out my prom dress and told me I could be anything I wanted is spending all his money on drink and cocaine, can't hold down a job and has been lying to us? I know that I have to do it, but I am not so naive that I don't know what I am about to lose - and that is the most frightening part of telling him that I know what's going on.

My friend once teased that my life was like an episode of Jerry Springer. After this I am starting to think he is right. "I love my manic depressive mom and coke head dad - but I had to get away because I got an eating disorder and became a neurotic perfectionist" could be the title. Or maybe "Every time one of my parents finally manages to stop screwing up their life, the other one starts screwing up theirs - and I am so selfish all I can think about is how it affects me." Maybe if we all went on TV and duked it out we could finally get some resolution to it all. Maybe if I hadn't seen this coming for so long I could be as sad and sympathetic as AJ seems to be. But right now I have to say I am more mad than anything. I don't know who I am mad at, but I am definitely pissed off. Pissed at my family for ignoring the signs, pissed at myself for seeing the signs and doing nothing about it, pissed at my grandfather for setting my dad up for a life of addiction, and pissed as hell at my father for taking away that man who smelled like cologne and cigarettes who used to let me climb up his legs to do back flips and danced with me in the kitchen.

Wednesday 7 May 2008

A Bit of a Dorothy Moment

I think it's easy to be romantic about the things you have left behind, but these days I have been remembering my home town with a nostalgia that leaves me more than a little homesick. Maybe it is a result of finally deciding to settle here, seeing the house that will become my new family home start to come together and becoming more and more habitable by the day. Maybe it's just because when you go through a rough patch you start to miss the familiar - those things that will remain unchanged regardless of whatever tragedy or mishap that may occur. Whatever the reason, I am enjoying looking back on the more wholesome aspects of my childhood in Maine.

Anyone who has been to New England can confirm there is something just a little magical about it. Rocky coastlines, evergreen forests, tiny fishing villages and fall foliage - a Normal Rockwell painting if e'er there was one. In spite of some of my sometimes unflattering descriptions of growing up, my physical environment was always picturesque. My mother fought hard to bring us out of the town and into the countryside, and from the age of 8 or 9 I was firmly rooted in a little village surrounded by the ocean on one side and the Piscataqua River on the other. The town had it's own country park full of wooded, riverside walks and a historical manor house surrounded by lush gardens. We may have always lived in tiny flats, but our back garden was the entire town. In the warmer months my sister AJ and I could walk or cycle everywhere, given the complete lack of a crime rate and the proximity of the majority of our friends.


Autumn in Maine is one of my favourite things in the world. Warm afternoons and cool evenings, apple picking trips with the whole family. Every so often you would get a day warm enough to go swimming again, and we would rush home from school to get to the pond before it was too late. In October the leaves would begin to turn, and the whole town came alive with bright reds, oranges and yellows. There is nothing more spectacular than New England trees in the Autumn.

At Halloween time we would go on hayrides and choose pumpkins. We raked the falling leaves into a great heap and jumped in them until we were exhausted. We sported our new winter clothes and braced ourselves for the first snow, which was undoubtedly not far away. November brought Thanksgiving, and the entire family piled around my grandmother's not-big-enough table and fought while eating more turkey and pie than one would think humanly possible. I coveted my seat at the grown-up table (the only one out of all the grandchildren) and waited for my grandfather's annual condemnation of the holiday: "All day cooking and its gone in ten fucking minutes!"

In Maine, winter comes in hard and fast. The first snow has usually been and gone before November, and by December you are wading through piles up to your calves. At my grandmother's house, AJ and I dug tunnels with the help our uncles and pretended we lived in an igloo. Snowy mornings were full of anticipation, as you never knew if school would be cancelled. We would refuse to get dressed before listening to the radio, determined that the would announce our school district amongst those who had cancelled classes. If a snow day was granted, we went sledding down whatever hills we could find, bundled from head to toe in endless layers of long-johns, sweaters and insulated coats. One of my friends had a hill in her back garden, and we would clamber to get there as soon as we could. After sledding, we would file into her living room, unloading our wet clothes on the wood stove and sitting patiently while her mother made hot chocolate. I think my favourite thing about winter in Maine is the sound. Snow crunching under your feet, icicles falling from trees, snow drifts falling from the roof - and the best of all, the complete stillness of a winter road, not yet fit for driving.


As much as winter was wonderful, it can be far too long. By March I was itching to shed my layers and feel the sunshine on my bare arms again. Spring comes late, but it comes none the less. After months of white roads and bare trees, the sight of green again is so exciting it's hard to stay indoors.

At Easter time AJ and I spent hours colouring hard-boiled eggs with our cousins, and eating them until we were sick to our stomachs. On Easter morning our dad and uncles would hide hollow plastic eggs all around the garden, filled with spare change (or sometimes a note mocking you for having found no cash). We used to sweep paths on the barely used road for our bicycles, pretending they were a network of highways featuring gas stations, schools and offices. We hunted for pine cones, leaves and acorns in the woods. In the later months of spring we picked strawberries and blackberries and brought them home to our papa, who mixed them with ice cream in the blender to make homemade shakes. But the very best thing about spring was that summer was on the way...

Summer was a dream. There was always at least one parent willing to take you to the beach for the day, and the afternoons were spent hunting through tide pools or swimming in the Atlantic Ocean - at temperatures so cold only a child would brave them.

There were homemade ice creams stands juxtaposed with the local Dairy Queen, and one or the other was a regular stop after a long and hard fought softball game. As we got older, we were allowed to ride our bikes to the local swimming pond with our friends. Climbing down the steep banks, we raced into the water and out to the island which featured a rope swing hung from a rather feeble tree. I was always too frightened to try the rope but I sprawled out on the island, looking back at the tree lined shore and laughing at whatever daring acrobatics were occurring. As a teenager we snuck out to the pond for night swims and the occasional (OK, only one occasion) skinny dip. The sky in a small town is so full of stars, and on a clear night the moon was plenty of light to see by. But my favourite part of summer was always the annual July 4th camping trip. Grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins all piled on to one campsite - swimming and canoeing all day, laying on the docks to dry off in the sunshine, BBQs for dinner and staying up later than usual to sit around the campfire. I remember when I was a child summer seemed so long, and I lapped up every moment of it.

Sometimes when I think about staying in Belfast, I think about my children missing out on all of these incredible things. I worry that I will never take them apple picking or sledding, that they won't know how amazing it is to look up every night and be able to pick out the constellations in a clear, starry sky. But then I remember how lucky I am to be able to share with my children both the life I knew than and the life I know now. They will get to see fall foliage and the Mourne Mountains, experience the joys of living in what is becoming a culturally vibrant city as well as the tranquility of a small country town. The joy of having to homes is just that - having two places you love and where you are loved. And that has got to be a good thing.

Sunday 4 May 2008

Lazy Days are Here to Stay

Yesterday I did nothing productive whatsoever. It was glorious.

I got up early, made myself some eggs and lounged around watching terrible Saturday morning television in my pyjamas. Then I showered and went for a walk in the nearby park. Not for exercise, either. I walked at a snail's pace, taking in the smell of hyacinth and occasionally stopping to let kids pass on their bikes. I took my shoes off and sat on the grass, people watching and thinking about what I need to get done this week. The walk was followed by more mindless television, series one DVD of he Mighty Boosh - a show none of my friends understand or think is funny but which I have been known to laugh at so hard that I have shot coffee out my nose - and laying on the settee with my eyes closed listening to Sarah Vaughn. I left my dishes in the sink for hours, ate nothing but snack food, and uttered no words other than the occasional singing along to 'September Song.' I declined invitations to a BBQ and trip to the cinema and instead turned off my phone and barred myself from the computer. I drew the curtains before it was dark and sat in candlelight watching the visually stunning, weak plotted film Marie Antoinette. I shouted at the screen TV when my favourite singer got bad comments from the judges of I'd Do Anything. I ate Jaffa Cakes and a whole bar of Green and Blacks dark chocolate with orange and spices. It was an entire day of things I have not felt I could do since we moved in with Max's parents six months ago, and it was heavenly.

It's funny how we can all get so caught up in our days and lives being full and productive. We must not indulge lethargy, must always keep moving forward. I remember when I was in school I joined every club and sport that was on offer, petrified of missing out or wasting any of my time. In college I continued to join things, do things. I volunteered and worked full time while studying and doing internships. After college I got a 9-5 job and felt the need to utilise every spare moment by taking on two more jobs, nights and weekends as a bartender. Since moving to Ireland, weekends and days off are allocated carefully - one day for socialising and catching up on friend commitments, one day for house work and errands. Living with Max's family it became even more necessary to run around like a headless chicken, making certain I did not appear to be 'doing nothing.' Life is too short to waste precious time, right?

Wrong.

Life is too short not to waste time. Surely a day of sitting around and pampering yourself is a day well spent. Isn't a well rested person is a happier, healthier, kinder and more productive person? A person far better equipped to contribute the the lives and world around her? I have spent my whole life running forward toward some unknown goalpost - every benchmark I have reached quickly set to the side as I raced to the next one. Time to slow down, I say. Time to smell the hyacinth, laugh at two men talking absolute rubbish on the television, to drown out the beautiful voices of jazz legends with my out-of-tune warbling. After all this time I have somehow managed to convince myself that the world will not collapse around me if I sleep every once in a while. Next stop - a four day working week!

Thursday 1 May 2008

For Better or for Worse

Max and I are in a fight. He isn't aware of it yet, and perhaps will never even realise we were fighting, but we are.

This is fairly common practice for me and Max. It usually goes a little something like this...He does something to anger or hurt me, I get a little quiet and cold in order to draw attention to the fact that he has hurt/angered me, he doesn't notice I'm hurt/angry which makes me even more hurt/angry, he continues on in a delightful oblivion until I get tired of giving him the cold shoulder and either: a.)explode in a fit of rage; b.)just decide to get over it as I'm tired of acting mad; c.)forget what I was angry about. Not quite sure which way this one will pan out, but it's looking like c considering he phoned me last night to tell me something interesting and I forgot to be cold and aloof. Damn it! No going back now.

Truth be told I have been mad at him since I moved out and I've just been waiting for an excuse to show it. I mean, honestly, why is he OK with being away from me each night? Shouldn't a man want to be with his wife? And for the love of God, we are too old and too married to be playing stupid relationship games like this. Max thinks living apart is a big adventure, like we can pretend we're dating again and it will be exciting. Problem being that we're going on his definition of dating. In my universe, if we were dating again I would be taken out to dinner and bought flowers, he would be calling me at all hours to tell me how much he missed me, and he would find it impossible to stop hugging and kissing me in public. That's what it was like when we were dating. Instead, he gets to have his mum cook him dinner and clean up after him, play video games and watch football all night, and call round to see me for some action when he gets bored.

If he had been like this when we were dating, I can assure you there would have been no wedding.

I have been feeling bad for being hard on Max, defending him relentlessly to my parents and friends (and even to myself), but I think I'm doing no one any favours by not being honest. I always tell myself that men and women are different, think differently and feel differently. I have used that defense over and over again when Max forgets to buy me a graduation card, doesn't notice when I'm feeling under the weather, or seems physically incapable of making the bed. But I am starting to get tired of being the one who always makes concessions. Surely if I can recognise that Max needs/wants something to be a certain way and I accept that, he can occasionally do the same. I realise that when he has had a long day at work he needs me to leave him alone for about an hour, that first thing in the morning he doesn't like to talk until he's read the news headlines on his phone and brushed his teeth. After seven years, shouldn't he know that I can't sleep when he's not around? That I feel better when we're apart if I get to talk to him on the phone for a few minutes? That when I have had a hard day, I need to talk about it? Give and take, right? I thought that's what marriage is made of.

All I need to do to know that his behaviour is not atypical is listen to one of my friends talk about her partner for more than ten minutes. I realise there are worse attributes in a life-partner and that Max is a real keeper. He makes me laugh over and over again, forgives me when I lose my temper or make stupid mistakes, and tells me all the time how lucky he thinks he is to have found me. When it comes down to it, I know he would do anything I asked of him.

Is it just too demanding to say that sometimes I would like to not have to ask?