The Unbridled Rantings of a Jaded Idealist

Cliches are cliche for a reason - But that doesn't make me feel like less of an ass for using them

2009-11-05T17:13:00.006Z

I am still alive. I still have meandering trains of thought which overwhelm me and which I need to sometimes get down on (the proverbial) paper. The difference now is that I am a working mother living in an unfinished house and struggling to raise an 8 month old boy without secondary carers and without the (immediate and physical) support of my extended family. Time is short, and blogging has slipped to the bottom of an already badly suffering priority list. But as I crawl out from my babymoon and begin to allow time for things in my life which existed before my son, I have missed my writing. There is only one problem - I don't know what the hell to write about. This can only be attributed to one fact. I am happy. For the first time in my life - and this is not an exaggeration - my psyche has been pretty quiet.

Ladies and gentlemen, I think that I am content. I think that I am finally satisfied.

Maybe it is a phase, perhaps I can attribute it to the oxytocin released into my system from the breastfeeding. Maybe I have entered a stage of temporary madness. Whatever it is, it is foreign. But God it is comfortable. I could get used to this. Whatever is an obsessive misery addict like myself to do with such emotion? It is not that I don't feel stressed anymore, because stress is a pretty permanent fixture in my present life. It's not that I never feel sad or angry. It's just that for the first time in my life I am not looking for the next thing. Not telling myself that things will be great if I could just do X or if I just had X. I feel like I have everything I need, like anything else is just gravy. I don't need tomorrow to come quickly because I am perfectly happy to see what happens today. Some of the more Zen readers in my small audience may know this feeling well, but it is a new one for me. It is a feeling that I genuinely never believed I would know.

Once, about four years ago, I came home from a disastrous day at work and ran myself a bath. I climbed in, lit some candles, and drank a bottle of Chablis in just under an hour. Drunk as I was, I can remember that night so clearly. I sat there in the dark, weeping, and telling myself that some people just were not meant to be happy. Some of us were supposed to always feel like something is lacking, regardless of whatever joys entered our lives. I accepted then and there that I was one of those people. That I would never know what it was like to just feel all right. For days afterwords I listened to sad songs and buoyed myself with the comfort of self-awareness. Since then I have had plenty of happiness in my life, but until now I remained fairly convinced of the "epiphany" I had that night.

But to quote the Monkees, "now I'm a believer." Some people find God, I found motherhood. Please don't misunderstand me here. I have not suddenly decided life is worth living because I have a child. I have not placed my entire self-worth on the tiny shoulders of my poor, unsuspecting son. Milo's birth is not the reason, it was simply the catalyst. A moment of clarity in a previously foggy life. How incredible, and embarrassing, to think that all this time all I needed was for someone to drag me out of my own head and force me to focus on something else entirely. By stepping outside of myself in order to better care for this tiny creature who needed me so badly, I was forced to take a good long look at my life. And it is good. It has always been good, even when it was bad. I am lucky, I am blessed, and for once I am finally grateful.

Kind friends, do not despair. I have not become a child-obsessed, happy-clapping optimist who quotes "Chicken Soup for the Soul" (God I hate that shit). But I am happy. Welcome to the Unbridled Rantings of a Jaded, but Contented, Idealist. I hope satisfaction makes me more, rather than less, interesting.

A Song for Milo

2009-04-14T20:47:00.002+01:00

Three days before Milo was born, I heard Ash play this song at a concert in the Ulster Hall. I had never heard it before, but I immediately fell in love with the lyrics. The day Milo was born I could hear it playing over and over again. It felt like a love song to him. So here is my first dedication to my son - and a glimpse into just how enamored I am during this 'babymoon.'

Adding 'Mother' to my List of Titles

2009-04-14T20:15:00.002+01:00

My absence can be explained in a word; or rather in a name - Milo.

On the 12th of March my life changed forever when my son Milo finally made his debut. In a dimly lit room, sitting in a warm birthing pool and holding my husband's hand, I experienced the most brutal/bittersweet pain and the most intense relief of my life. Milo was born into the water and placed into my waiting arms in a whirlwind, and within moments he had opened his dark eyes and looked at me with an odd recognition. I wept, of course - with exhaustion, and relief, and love, and a million other raw emotions. It is a moment I would re-live over and over again for the rest of my life if given the chance. My body is covered in goosebumps at the mere memory of it. Never a fan of greeting card sentiments, I am suddenly lost for non-cliched phrases or words to describe what the last five weeks have been like. I can't stop looking at him, holding him, talking about him or thinking about him. I have daydreams about his life, about what he will be like and what things he will do. I watch him sleep and wait eagerly for him to wait sometimes - other times I pray he will sleep a bit longer so I (and my poor breasts) can have a few moments alone.

Suddenly life feels very short - days seem to blend into each other and I wonder where each moment has gone. Already I feel the ache of a mother watching her child grow before her eyes and begging the time to slow down long enough for me to enjoy it. I am breaking all of my own rules already. My determination to use cloth diapers and cotton wool and water died before week three as I struggled to change my son without a screaming fit and a room covered in poo. My fear of allowing a newborn to share my bed was lost after several nights of only 20 minutes of uninterrupted sleep. My disgust for the use of pacifiers went out the window when I realised that my child can sometimes only be comforted by suckling at my breast - which is already weary from overuse by such an eager eater.

I find myself checking to see if he is breathing, taking his temperature without much cause, and watching intently to see if I can notice any odd or disturbing movements or color changes. Suddenly I am aware of what it feels like to have something in your life that you CAN'T be without, CAN'T survive the loss of. The fear can be overwhelming if explored too fully, and so instead I try to push it as far out of my mind as possible.

Although I have brief moments of feeling bad or embarrassed about being so engrossed in motherhood and so unable to think about much else - I have decided to embrace this short time I have where my baby and I are still almost one person. I will grapple back the other aspects of my persona in time, I will develop new aspects as well. For now I am reveling in this new part of me. This new title - mother.

On being defensive

2009-02-25T13:12:00.004Z

I have often been described as a drama queen. In fact, my family have had me firmly slotted in to this role for as long as I can remember. I must admit that I have certainly played up to the expectation in the past - in the not so distant past if I am completely honest - but it is only as I get older that I have started to question my "natural" over-dramatic reaction to things. While I once accepted that I am "too emotional," or "hot-tempered," I have started to find myself taking time to analyse things before reacting or being able to laugh at myself more often. Perhaps I am not burdened with genetic programming to be forever kicking and screaming and shouting at the injustice of my life and the world in general?

There is a comfort in accepting yourself for who you "really" are, even if you hate that person. A lazy, easy comfort which means you don't have to change certain behaviours. I have been thinking about this a lot lately as my sister has been going through a bit of soul searching - which has led to her searching the souls around her as well. Suddenly someone other than me is questioning my parents' reactions and behaviours, and because I am not the one doing the questioning my parents are responding to this line of questioning to me. The over arching theme in these responses - Defensiveness.

The more questions my sister asks, the more she demands changes in their lives or answers for their past, the further they both plant themselves on the back foot. My mother defends her commitment to motherhood, my father his lifestyle choices - both of them defending their parenting practices to me unsolicited. They are angry and caught off guard, they react quickly and with little reason. They are behaving, well, a bit like I used to. Given further thought, I realise that this behaviour is something that has existed as standard in my family for as long as I can remember. Everyone is always defending themselves, always justifying and reacting before and accusation can even be made. All of us ensuring that we will be the first to strike, lest we be struck upon ourselves. A family who should have a throw cushion with the motto "The best offense is a good defense" embroidered on it.

I have been thinking about what underlies my defensiveness, about what makes me react the most negatively and with the intense need to protect my image/actions/behaviours/personality. It didn't take long to make the connection between my greatest insecurities and the things about me I defend the most. We react this way to protect the fact that deep down we are petrified it is the truth - the truth we have the most difficult time facing about ourselves. For me it is the implication that I am stupid, cruel, unattractive, oversensitive or false in any way. So obvious, as these are the insecurities that creep in when I am left alone for too long. I fight so no one can see that the very things they are insinuating (or not, but that I have percieved them to be) are the cold dark truths I am trying to hide from everyone else.

Not long ago I would have labeled my parents' defensiveness as cruelty and a failure to keep their temper/sense of humour in check when dealing with their children. Today I am starting to look at how scared they must be that the things my sister is touching on, that I touched on so many years ago, are actually true. What fears and insecurities go through my father's head when lies down at night? Is he afraid that a terrible diet and a lifelong battle with obesity will be the end of him? Does he think he is no longer of any use to his daughters now that they have grown up and built lives that he wasn't able to give them as children? And what about my mother - what fears are keeping her awake? Does she worry that her children will never forgive her for past indiscretions? That she will be alone forever? That people only loved her because she was young and beautiful? That she doesn't know how to be a good mother? It is frightening, saddening and incapacitating to think of my parents with such insecurities, with any level of fear or self-doubt.

But perhaps the thing I find the most difficult is how a family full of people who are so unsure of their own value, so desperate to defend their own insecurities, can fight past this heated reaction to find a common ground. Who better could understand my need to feel attractive in order to be valued than my ageing mother - the woman from whom I learned such behaviour? Who could know my need to hide any trace of not knowing the answer better than my father - who is more insecure about his lack of education than anyone I have ever met? Who better to share my concerns about not being a good parent with than my sister, who was raised in the same house and with the same unsure parents that I had? We all have so much support and advice and direction that we could offer each other.

If only we could stop trying to convince each other that we have no insecurities or faults at all.

Full up

2009-02-09T15:50:00.004Z

I am so full of baby right now. Physically and mentally and emotionally full of this baby. There is little time and space in my life for anything else, and he/she hasn't even come out of the womb yet. The closer the due date gets (we're just about four weeks away now) the more consumed I am with how I am going to keep my baby safe, how I am going to deliver him safely, how I am going to get him home safely and feed him and clothe him and bathe him safely. No one and nothing else matters at all, not even myself. I am overwhelmed with my apathy towards everything I usually hold dear as I brace myself for this change, brace myself for the seismic shift that is about to occur in my life.

There is plenty of room to worry about normality, though. Is it normal to gain this much weight? Is it normal to have Braxton-Hicks contractions for this long? Is it normal to think about the baby morning noon and night? Is it normal for the baby to kick that way or this way? Is it normal that I care so god damned much about being normal? Under typical circumstances, I find the 'norm' to be dull and almost offensive. I fight against it, hoping to challenge or surpass it. And yet now all I want is for someone to tell me that this pain is normal, that this worry is normal, that this anxiety is normal. That I am normal and the baby is normal.

Is this what I have to look forward to in motherhood? A resignation to being known and behaving only as some one's mother? A life filled with hoping for normal? It is the antithesis of what I have always strove for. And yet it feels so comfortable, so right at this moment in time. If for a moment I am distracted from all things baby I feel guilty and panicked. I am overwhelmed with love for this tiny person, am so excited to meet him that I can hardly take it. I talk to him as though he is another person living in my house with us, as though he could answer me back.

I think I will just try to enjoy this time, this feeling of fullness. I remember what the emptiness feels like, and I don't want to know that again. Those who know and love me will understand my retreat from the real world, from my other self. I am sure she will re-emerge someday soon. Stronger, better - warmed and shaped by the love of a child and the wisdom of motherhood.

Will you bear with me until then?

The Un-birthday

2008-12-15T15:08:00.003Z

No long posts today. Just an acknowledgment. Today would have been Grace's, the baby I miscarried in April, due date. I have been dreading it weepily for weeks now, wondering exactly how one deals with such a day. Better to let it pass without incident? After all she was so new, according to medical text books she barely existed. Just another of the 10-25% of pregnancies that end in the first trimester.

So much seems to have transpired since April. Each new day that comes with my current pregnancy is a wonder. I must admit to sometimes hovering nervously outside myself, watching my belly grow and wondering when it will all be taken away from me. Yet in spite of the time elapsed and the things which have taken place since, the rawness of that loss grates on me some days. Each time someone asks me "is this your first?" and I give them the standard, non-depressing answer of "yes." But it's not. This is not my first baby, not the first little life I longed for and loved. Each answer of "yes" to queries about first child status is like a betrayal to that tiny creature that I had for such a short time.

This day feels like a betrayal as well. Just its existence seems wrong, as though there is no purpose for it now that there will be no baby born on this day. I wait for someone to remember, but I know no one will except me. Silly, stupid me and my refusal to just let go of it, quietly humming that old Skeeter Davis song and feeling guilty if I have a moment of happiness on this day of quiet remembrance.

Fuck it. It's my grief. It would have been our day. I don't care who finds me silly or over-dramatic. I know my loss could have been greater, that I could have grown to know and love that child even more and to have really experienced pain when she was taken from me. I know that other women have suffered immeasurably, that their pain is something I could not (and please, God, will not) understand. But that thought doesn't diminish what I feel right now, which is angry. And sad. And screwed out of a moment that would have been so beautiful. I love this new baby, March 15th is a day I look forward to with great hope and anticipation. I have worked hard not to let my first experience mar this one. But I need to acknowledge this day, the first day I looked forward to with that same hope and anticipation.

So happy birthday, Grace. I loved those brief moments when you were with me. You were my first baby, and while I have said goodbye I will never forget you. I will not forget that you showed me how ready I was to be a mother, how much I wanted to know the joys of having a family. I will not forget that you helped me learn how to heal myself after grief. I hope that there is a time and place somewhere that you still exist, and that someday I will know you there.

Home is where the [insert answer here, please] is.

2008-12-01T14:18:00.008Z

I'm back, or somewhat back. I have been reading but not writing, observing but doing very little participating these days. I didn't think I could possibly be any more inside my own head than I was before my pregnancy, but somehow this introversion and introspection continues. The most horrible thing about it is how inarticulate I have become in expressing what happens to me during these times of soul searching. Once I could fill page after page with my musings on life, sadness, happiness or self-doubt. Now I am constantly lost for words, or even lost for the desire to find them.

Not to say that I have been unhappy. I have had more moments of contentment in the past five months than I think I have ever experienced before. Suddenly there is a wave of acceptance that the life I have is the life I want, that I am where I need to be. With one important factor changed - the location. Yes, that tyrant of emotion Homesickness has reared her ugly head again. And lately she possesses a fury and determination that doesn't allow me to write her off as easily as I have in other battles. There are several elements to my homesickness, some stronger than others, some more familiar than others. Some are real, some imagined. All are conspiring to disrupt my little bubble of contentedness - this happy little world where I love my husband more than I thought I ever would, where I rub my bump reassuringly to send my little one off to sleep after hours of kicking and flip-flopping, where I am respected at home and at work, where I have time and space to do the things I find important, where I am a wife and a mother-to-be building the family I have always wanted.

The first factor is the physical environment. I miss the seasons - all four of them. I miss winters full of snow and ice and hot cocoa; crisp, cold and sunny mornings; long underwear and LL Bean Boots. I miss springtime that is not drowned in rain and hampered by regularly cold and dark days - real spring where you can feel the weather changing and see the green starting to find its way back into the Earth. I miss summer. Hot summer days spent at the beach or on a blanket in the park. Days when the heat is so strong you think you can't bear it, but then the thunderstorms come in a torrent. They are over in minutes, but have stayed long enough to break the heat and leave you with a beautiful summer evening to spend alone in a hammock or on the patio of your favourite bar with friends. I miss Fall - not Autumn, Fall - and all of the beauty that the changing of the leaves brings. I miss playing in leave piles, apple picking and hay rides.

I also miss the beauty and convenience of the places I called home before Belfast. In Maine I was minutes from the ocean, from the river, from the little reservoir with an island. In Washington, DC I was surrounded by the beauty and bustle of the nation's capital. Living in Dupont Circle meant that art, food, culture and an exquisite variety of people were just outside my front door. I could spend all day strolling through (free) museums at the National Mall, or read in the unfathomable quiet of the Library of Congress. I felt constantly in the middle of something - of protests and movements, of history as it happened, of a city that was truly alive and bursting with energy and potential.

But these environmental factors are minimal concerns in the grander picture. Belfast may be a bit dreary sometimes, but it has its own beauties and charms. I have grown to love it, to feel pride in its ability to change and grow and regenerate. I will continue to adjust to the rainy summers and the snow-less winters without too much fuss. No, Homesickness' grandest weapon is the power of the relationships she represents.

It might sound contradictory to some of my previous posts, saying I miss the relationships in my life at home. Many of them have been riddled with strife and misunderstanding. But it was my strife and misunderstanding! There is something so extraordinary about being surrounded by people who know you - who have always known you. When someone has seen you at your worst and your best, knows every dirty detail and every little secret, it provides a sense of freedom that doesn't exist in any other relationship. My husband shares this with me, and for that I am truly grateful. But in Belfast he is a solitary member of this exclusive club. I want those people I can call at 1am back, for better or for worse. In times like these, the most unlikely of things starts to happen. The very things I have tried to get away from become the things I long for the most. How strange that I would miss things like people laughing at loud bodily functions, or family members willing to fight and shout at each other in a direct and confrontational way? As a teenager I longed for trips to Europe, cultured holidays. Now I would give anything to spend the weekend at a cheesy campground with all of my family, crude jokes and all, gathered round the campfire til the wee hours of the morning.

I have made difficult decisions in my life, but they are decisions that I think reflect the person I have always felt comfortable being - in spite of this, sometimes I just want the opportunity to slip back into my previous life. Like those jeans with the holes in the knee that you just can't get rid of because they are too comfortable, and because they have lasted with you through so much. I have worked hard to kid myself into thinking that living away from my family isn't a choice, that it is what I need to do to make the best life for me and my husband and our new family. But lately I have been thinking a lot about how deliberate that choice has been and whether or not it was the right one. I hate that my mother and father are watching my bump grow through a series of digital photographs, that my child will be almost 9 months old before she meets my sister and brother - or anyone in my family outside my parents. I worry about sharing holidays, about what will happen if my parents fall ill and can no longer care for themselves, about my children feeling closer to my husbands' friends and family than they will to mine. I feel like I am missing out on so much - my brother growing up, the chance to run to my mother's house when I need someone to look after me for a couple of hours, being able to stop by and see my father unannounced.

How does one ever know if the decisions they make in their lives were for the best? How do you know where you belong? How do I get through feeling like this when the homesickness sets in? How do I figure out once and for all where home is?

Under my skin

2008-10-22T15:33:00.004+01:00

My posts have been so inconsistent lately. Part of this has been a complete lack of time, deadlines I can barely keep up with and a house move that required most of my attention for a while. But a large part of it has been the shift in focus my life has taken. As though to prepare me for a lifetime of thinking of someone else first, this little person growing inside me has monopolised my thoughts and emotions for the last four months now. I can't write about much else, because in my life currently everything points back to baby. And for some reason, I can't find the words to write about this baby.

Some of the things I have been feeling have been wonderful. That first moment when I saw my little bean in the ultra sound was like nothing I had ever felt before. There he (for the purposes of this blog) was; he had arms and legs and a heartbeat, he was dancing and moving around, he was alive. Just as my miscarriage introduced me to the pain of true and uncontrollable grief, that tiny picture of a twelve-week old embryo gave me my first encounter with true relief and joy. In my attempts to keep myself calm during moments of panic - those times when the cramps I felt didn't feel right, or when I was worried I wasn't sick enough - I talked to my baby. I told him how much I loved him already, how I couldn't wait to meet him. I promised him things I am not even sure I could ever provide, but that I was certain I would try harder than I have ever tried at anything before. I named him, I rubbed my belly to soothe him, I prayed for him and pleaded with him. This made me feel closer to him than I felt to most of the people around me - and yet he seemed so unreal and so far away.

The first time I heard his heartbeat, the first time I felt him moving around inside me, the first time I let it truly sink in that this baby may actually be real - all of these moments have left me moved and overwhelmed, frightened and exhilarated, in ways I have never experienced before and could never really articulate. I have felt grateful every single day since I saw that pink line on a pregnancy test in July. Genuinely, humbly and heartbreakingly grateful. I was almost prepared for the intensity of those emotions, nearly prepared for the joy I would feel given the weight of the grief my previous loss had filled me with. But there were many things for which I was unprepared - many things that no one told me to expect.

The loneliness came first. Ironic, isn't it? For the first time in my life I am technically never alone, and yet I feel so isolated from the people around me. Suddenly it is as though I can't relate to anyone. Friends planning vacations or talking about going out for drinks seem so distant from my new life, my new priorities. I am all at once bored by and jealous of their lives. Small jibes of "you're hardly the first woman to ever be pregnant" or rolled eyes if I have to leave a party early have left me feeling misunderstood and, if I'm honest, a little pissed off. There seems to be a general acceptance that because so many people experience pregnancy, those who are pregnant have no right to visibly feel sick/tired/overwhelmed/incontinent/irritable. Just sit there and look cute, glowing and bumpy. I have never been one who is able to sit quietly and not react, so withdrawal has been my immediate response. Most of the time I would just rather be alone, and yet I yearn for company.

Introspection has taken over these days. My head has filled up with questions - Will I be a good mother? Will I be able to breastfeed? Will my child love me when he becomes a teenager? Will he move far away and leave me here with the life I have set up almost solely for him? The darker questions are harder still. Will I resent my child for the life I am giving up in order to have him? Have I done this too soon? Will I be mean or abusive? Neglectful and inattentive as I focus on the career that has for so long been my baby? Will I be jealous of this child as I fight him for my husband's attention? Will my husband still love me when I no longer fit in to the image of youth and beauty he has attached to me?

In her book about pregnancy, Naomi Wolfe talks about grieving for the woman who inevitably ceases to be when you become a mother. This is not a feeling I anticipated, but I find it haunts me a little more every day. Reality starts to hit hard when you're pregnant. Gone are the days when I could trick myself into thinking that a baby would not interrupt my plans too much, not throw my life into a complete disarray. Already I have been utterly merged with this little being. People no longer ask how I am without prefacing it with a glance or reference to my abdomen. What they mean is how is the baby, the pregnancy. Even the gifts I received for my birthday today have revolved around the baby - maternity clothes, stretch mark cream, essential oils to help with the symptoms of pregnancy (would you give your friend cold medicine for his birthday because you knew he had a cold?). This baby and I are now one in the same. There is no me without him, no him without me. For someone so fiercely independent, attaching another person on to every part of my life and being is frightening and frustrating, alien and profound.

My body and my life are no longer my own. Near-strangers and acquaintances suddenly find it ok to ask me about my breasts, my urinary habits and my moods. They question my dietary choices and chastise me for ordering a coffee (before they realise it's decaf). Suddenly the most intimate decisions I have ever made (Will I breastfeed? Will I find out the sex? Will I stay at home or return to work? Do I want more than one?) are fair game for every Tom Dick and Harry. My belly is the property of everyone, and most people do not hesitate to put their hands on my lower abdomen in such a way that would have caused my husband to punch them four months ago. Now he glows with pride as they man-handle me, beaming the silly grin of a father-to-be.

In a nutshell, I feel as though I have ceased to be myself. And while I know that when this baby is born I will become a new, better, happier version of myself - I can't help but mourn for the person I was before I became some one's mother. This ambivalence is crazy-making. Never at any point to I wish to no longer be pregnant - nor do I cease to be grateful for this miracle that is taking place in and around me. I already love my child more than I love myself, would already die in his place, and I long for his arrival with each breath. Even as I write this I can feel him moving about, reassuring me that all of this uncertainty will wither in the face of his presence - the person I have waited for since before I knew who I was waiting for, the love of my life.

Even still, will you afford me this brief moment of silence to say goodbye to my life before him? To cry for my privacy, my independence, my marriage as I know it, my stomach and breasts? Will you all think me horrible if every day, just for a moment, I remember fondly a time when I was the only person in my own skin?

Love Song for my Sister

2008-10-07T17:48:00.010+01:00

My sister is a marvel. Sometimes a charmer in every sense of the word, sometimes a torture hard to bear for more than ten minutes. She is all at once wildly funny and frightfully infuriating - stubborn as an ox but as overly sensitive as a small child. There are times when you would think she is the most street wise person you have ever met, and others when her naivety would shock and bewilder you. She is beautiful in the best way that a woman can be beautiful - in that quiet and unassuming way, as though she would never truly believe you thought her anything other than plain. In her twenty-six years on this planet, I have loved her and hated her more than any other person in my life. Lately her life is changing - or rather she has started to notice her life in a completely different way. It is weird and wonderful, and heartbreaking to watch her go through it. My mother said she is in a cocoon...I guess I can allow for my mother to be right on occasion.

AJ was the most beautiful baby I have ever seen, perfectly formed and immediately adorable - not like her wrinkled and alien-looking peers. My mother loves to tell me of how I used to carry her around and tell everyone she was "my baby," and barely a photo exists of the two of us in those first three years where I am not kissing or hugging her (although she is often seen resisting). If you asked me to tell the story of our lives from my perspective, I would use those photos as a visual depiction of our relationship throughout childhood and adolescence. A big sister who was desperate to love and cuddle and mother (but only in the way she wanted) - a little sister scrambling (fighting, kicking) to stand by herself.

I have written before about the problems I had with my sister. We were such polar opposites, so adamant that we would not be alike. While I donned a tutu and danced ballet recitals in the hallway with my hair trailing elegantly down my back, AJ chopped her hair off and donned a baseball cap - introducing herself to people as my brother. When I made my first communion I reveled in the white dress and gloves - AJ wore a suit and tie. My parents, in either an amazing act of insight or as a demonstration of their lack of knowing what else to do, chose to ignore her push towards all things masculine. They never passed comment on it or indicated that it was in any way different from the norm. For years I was convinced my sister had been going through some gender identity crisis - I realise now it was probably just an attempt to be the person in our family who was not me...and to do that as loudly as possible. Eventually AJ stopped playing with matchbox cars and GI Joes. She grew her hair out and stopped telling people that when she grew up she wanted to be a boy, but she did not cease to take every action possible to be the person in our family who was not me. While I people pleased, brought home impeccable report cards and danced in ballet recitals, AJ feigned apathy to her teachers and became a sporting legend. I gleaned attention by listing accomplishments and oozing politeness, AJ made everyone laugh and held an audience in the palm of her hand while telling stories. I followed every rule to the point of the ridiculous, AJ broke them whatever chance she got. Whether we knew it or not, we were determined to be different, and with that difference came a rocky and fragile relationship that would haunt us for years to come.

What AJ perhaps didn't realise during all of this was how much I wanted her to like me. How desperate I had been for her approval. While I grinned with pride at being called brainy, pretty or polite by others, from my sister I saw it as a barrier to our relationship. I wanted to braid her hair and tell her about boys, to sit up at night talking after our parents shut the lights out. I wanted to tell her deep dark secrets that I would normally only write in my diary, and to defend her honour to anyone who dared try to do her harm. I wanted to be a big sister, in that ridiculous and romantic "ya ya sisterhood" bullshit way that people have sisters. I remember when I was about 13 I watched the movie Beaches. It was glorious, the way these two women loved each other. I cried the whole way through, reassured that even if parents split up and lovers leave and people get divorced, there would always be that one woman who would love you forever and never leave you. I decided (perhaps before then) that AJ was the only woman fit for that job. Surely your own flesh and blood would be the only person capable for such a task. After all, who better to understand me than the girl who shared every part of my girlhood? Who had the same embarrassing parent stories, who knew what it was like to live in my skin? Yes, AJ was my forever friend. The wind beneath my naive, romantic, controlling, perfectionist little wings.

And therein lies perhaps the biggest problem with our relationship. I wanted my sister to fit into my idea of sisterhood. Braid hair, don't shoot hoops. Watch girlie movies, not slasher flicks. Hug and kiss to show affection, don't hi-five or punch arms. The more she didn't fit into my little "sister" box, the more resentful I grew of our fragmented relationship. I held AJ to the same ridiculous standards to which I held myself. And she just didn't live up to them.

Problem number two, and perhaps what AJ would see as our biggest problem, is that I just couldn't stop mothering her. I was so sure something horrible was awaiting us both out there, and I no longer trusted that my parents would keep it from us. I dubbed myself my sister's protector. Just as I would work hard to ensure I raised myself out of the life I hated, I would make damn sure she came with me. On my terms. Whether she liked it or not. Cue several years of a child, less than two years older than the younger child, telling said younger child what to do/not do/say/not say/etc ad infinitum. Who wouldn't understand her rebellion against me? After all I held her to standards far stricter and higher than my parents ever held her to. Instead I watched her drift further away from me. And to make matters worse, almost as if to prove she was capable of it with anyone but me, I watched her be that heroic friend I was waiting for to almost everyone she met. The low point for me was when she, at the age of 18, told me we should just make an agreement to not ask one another to be each other's maids of honour when we got married - because she already had someone else in mind for the job.

After I left home, distance provided a bit of relief from our fighting. Eventually we even started sending each other cards and notes, but I managed to blow that too. AJ would send me some beautifully written card about how much she loved me and how she always looked up to me, and in my overzealous excitement I would call her and insist we talk about our feelings. Once again I could not let her love me in the way she was able - I needed Barbara Hershey or nothing at all! My vision clouded by a romantic notion of what I expected her to be, I couldn't see the relationship that was growing right in front of me.

Two years ago I asked AJ to be my maid of honour in spite of our previous vow. She accepted, and I repaid her by making her feel bad about not doing enough for the wedding and answering "yes" when she asked if I would've chosen my friend Colleen if she had not been my sister. In reality, I could not have picked someone better for the moments leading up to my long walk down the aisle. In the months before the wedding, AJ slaved over a scrapbook full of pictures of childhood scenes and our family. When I was waiting for the limousine to take me to the church, AJ broke my nervous silence with ridiculous jokes and held my dress while I went to the bathroom. In the car, when my feet hurt, she and my father rubbed them and tried to stretch out my shoes. She did everything she should have done and more - and I ignored it because it wasn't the way I had pictured it in my head.

I don't know what has changed, but lately AJ and I have been becoming closer. The more I analyse it, the more I think it is because she is becoming more emotional and open. A bit more like me. I am both elated and guilt ridden by our new found friendship - and worried that it could end or change at any moment. Living without it before was difficult, living without it now that I realise how wonderful it is would be unbearable. I get giddy waiting for our Tuesday night phone calls, but try hard to rein myself in so she can't see my excitement. There are times when I feel exploitative, as though I am taking advantage of her vulnerability right now and using it to fulfill this happy little sister dream I always had. But then other times, when I can hear how genuine she sounds when she tells me how she hates to miss my calls or when she sends me notes to say she loves me for no reason, I think I can relax into this new found relationship for good.

AJ hates it when I address her directly in this blog, in fact she hates it when I write about her at all. I just needed someone to know that while I never got my Beaches moment, never got to give her a facial or gossip with her about her first kiss, I really think what we have ended up with is so much better. We have both grown into ourselves on our own, and yet we still feel pulled to each other. I have always loved my sister because she was my sister, but I can't tell you how much better it is to be able to love her as a woman and a friend.

So with that said, and knowing that she will likely punish me for it later, I dedicate this song to my beautiful, strong, hilarious, intelligent, compassionate and loyal sister AJ. It's not Wind Beneath my Wings - that would be far too predictable and not at all you. I have already told you you're my hero - but there's a few things I have left out along the way. I promise to keep trying to fill in the gaps the best I can.

From this Blog to God's Ears?

2008-09-16T17:50:00.006+01:00

Disclaimer: This blog is about religion. Maybe not religion, perhaps more about faith and power and families and all of the baggage that comes along with religion. I just think all things God need a warning these days. The fact that I believe the previous statement probably says more about how I feel about religion than this blog ever could...

I was baptised and raised Roman Catholic. The degree to which this was a factor in my life varied based on my mother's constantly changing attitude towards her faith. But regardless of whether my mother always adhered to the Catholic teachings, the power of the church was ever-present in our lives. My mother considered the family priest, Father Joe, one of her closest friends and confidants. When Father Joe told my mom to do something - she did it. When my mother and father(then 17 and 19, respectively) attended pre-marriage meetings with Father Joe he explained the evils of sex before marriage - my father was promptly cut off. When mom and dad could not decide on a name for me, Father Joe was enlisted and helped my mother choose a name. Father Joe baptised all three of my mother's children and both my sister and I made our first communions and reconciliations under his guidance. We were sent to Catholic school in spite of my parents having no realistic way of paying for it. My mother saw the church as her support, her beacon of hope. When she was feeling lost and vulnerable, we would visit Father Joe - sometimes staying for days at a time with him in the rectory. When my mother needed money, Father Joe sent her some. When my mother locked herself in the bathroom and took an overdose of prescription pain pills, she called Father Joe for her last rites.

Fortunately Father Joe called the ambulance instead.

Given my background, it was no real surprise to me that telling my mother we were not planning on Christening our unborn baby in the Catholic church would lead to a certain level of disappointment. It was the defensive, enraged and irrational reaction that I was more shocked by. My mother used all manner of emotional devices to convince me I was making a terrible mistake - including the implication that my faithless child might grow up to be a sociopath with no concept of right and wrong. She pleaded with me to recognise the good of the church in spite of its flaws, to remember that Catholicism had to be a good thing, because Father Joe had been sucha good man. She even insisted that she would have the baby christened in spite of me, that it was too important to leave to one of my whims. She suggested politely that I find some other way to be "defiant" against cultural norms, one with less significant repercussions for my family.

Being raised in the church myself, I know the power that the institution has over its followers. My mother has been told of purgatory - of the need to erase original sin that follows each of us into this world. I would be lying if I said the same nagging fear hadn't crept into my own mind at one moment or another. But instead of being led by that fear, I have been angered by it. Frustrated in a church that would imply that my child's soul could suffer at my failure to adhere to their rituals, furious at the emotional blackmail that seems to be behind the act - an attempt to ensure future generations of followers and patrons. In fact, there are a lot of things about the Catholic church I get angry about if I think about them too much.

I'll take this opportunity to say that this will NOT be a church bashing session. Catholicism has given me many great things in my life. There is no doubt that my strong sense of right and wrong was a product of my mother's religious belief. Father Joe, the man I describe above, instilled in me a great sense of hope and and love - and let's not forget that he saved my mother's life. Another priest, the University Chaplain and the man who married my husband and I - Father Rob - helped me regain a sense of self-worth when I was 20 years old that I otherwise may have taken years to find. He also gave me the words that acted as my greatest comfort during the miscarriage that nearly ate me alive 6 months ago. No, I would never claim that no good can come from Catholicism or from any organised faith.

But I can recognise the bad as well. I can tally up the things I think and feel - and know - and I can weigh them against what the church tries to enforce. And the majority of the time, I just can't balance them. I can't get past the church as a power structure, one that has grave potential to inhibit and exploit. The same girl that felt loved and cared for by a priest was also petrified of hell and the devil, afraid to even think "bad" thoughts in case divine retribution were to follow. Although Father Rob helped that young woman regain some sense of self-worth, much of that self-worth would not have been lost if it were not for the guilt she had amassed over not being perfect in they eyes of her family, and especially of God. I have listened to sermons and homilies which condemned the lifestyles of people I loved. I listened to my Grandmother (the most faithful person I have ever known) tell of her excommunication from the church after divorcing the man who abandoned her and their three children. I have watched my mother put money she could not afford to sacrifice into the collection basket, only to look around at the grandeur of the church and the size of the rectory. I have sat in silence while an institution I supported openly and unapolegetically discriminated against my gender, where abusers of children were covered for and excused.

Finally, after years of turning a blind (faithful) eye to these offences, I began to ask the questions which led me to my decision. Would I tolerate these abuses from anyone else? If I had a friend who was openly homophobic, who was bigoted against other faiths and harshly judgemental of those who did not adhere to the same moral codes as them - how long would I put up with such a friend? If a school hired teachers who went on to abuse children in their care, and then covered for and refused to fire those teachers - would I continue to send my children to that school? Would I not be demanding the punishment of all involved in that cover up? If a charity asked me for donations to help sustain itself, and then used my money to buy over-the-top, fancy new offices while calling for its patrons to live humble and simple lives - would I still give them money? If a company used scare tactics and manipulation of truth to convince me and my loved ones to buy their products, would I not boycott their goods and try to find another provider?

Basically, if the Catholic church had been anything other than the Catholic church, I would have held it to account. I don't support people, politicians, businesses or organisations whose practices are at odds with my morals and beliefs - why do I continue to be a member of a church whose practices are at odds with my morals and beliefs? When my children are born, I like to think I will go out of my way to keep those kind of negative influences out of their lives. Why then should one of my first acts as a parent be to commit them to a life of serving a church which may well be that same kind of influence? It no longer makes sense to me, and I can no longer justify it as a rational act.

I am not saying that I don't want to teach my children to have faith in something greater than themselves and other human beings. I remember very well that believing in God and Heaven was a great comfort to me as a child. My mother once told me that God has a plan for everyone. I loved believing this, feeling like I had some great purpose to fulfill. I felt safer with the idea that God was looking out for me and my family, reassured that those who I loved were not lost forever when they left this Earth. Praying gave me a sense of control over things against which I felt powerless, and faith gave me strength and confidence at so many times in my life. I have not ever been ready or willing to let go of those things, nor have I ever felt I had evidence against the existence of God - whatever form he/she/it might take. I want my children to know those comforts, I want them to have faith and hope.

I just can't allow them to be made to feel like that faith and hope is dependent on their conformity to a rigid set of man-made rules and regulations.

So you see my dilemma. A modern dilemma, I suppose, and one which I assume is not new or surprising to any of you. How do you raise hopeful and faithful children outside the confines of a church community? How do you find a faith community that works for you and your family? Or is this all the same as telling my children there is an Easter Bunny, Tooth Fairy or Santa Clause? Should I let them learn the realities of life without the safety net of God and Heaven and all things hopeful?

When it was just me, I was happy to take a lifetime to answer this question. Now I feel like I need a five month crash course.

They F***k You Up... But By God You Help Them Sometimes

2008-09-08T15:03:00.002+01:00

Please pardon the absence. Life lately has been a mess of family visits, catching up at work, and trying to get through the day without at least one nap. And frankly, after my last post (you remember, my declaration of hope for family relations?), I was embarrassed to have to chronicle the reality of my mother's trip to Ireland. It was a visit that raised within me questions I had asked before so many times, but been afraid to answer for fear of knowing the truth.

Do people have the capacity for real change? And if they do, can the people they are closest to ever recognise and accept that change?

I often pride myself on the changes I have made over the years. Once obsessed with traditional success at any cost, I have begun to recognise the value of non-material things in life and to seek those successes instead. Once the owner of a short fuse that could be ignited with little more than an awkward glance - I now work hard to maintain a cool and calm demeanor when dealing with difficult situations. There are many more, just as there were once so many things I hated about myself. Slowly, and deliberately (and frankly, not without help from some unlikely sources) I have begun to weed out those parts of me of which I had been ashamed - the ultimate goal of "better person-hood" looming there in front of me, my carrot on a stick.

Max, my husband, once made the argument that perhaps I had not changed anything other than the way I looked at myself - that maybe I wasn't so bad to begin with. I love him for the suggestion that I might have been less flawed than I had thought, but at the same time resented his failure to acknowledge my hard work. But with my family, it is a different story. I regularly accuse them (both verbally and otherwise) of not seeing me as I am now, of refusing to look past that emotionally unstable 16 year-old who hated herself and most others around her. They regularly accuse me of being ashamed of them and of where I came from. Is this the penalty for self-improvement? Am I actually ashamed of the people who produced the person I have tried to hard to change?

It is a mess of unanswerable questions, and sometimes I think I should get some real problems so I would have less time to think about such tosh. I mean, the fact that a leading psychologist wrote a book about parents entitled They Fuck You Up, inspired by a Larkin poem of the same subject is an indicator that I am not alone in my boo-hooing about the life I was given and the people who gave it to me. But here is where I implore you, just as I spent a week imploring my mother, to understand that is NOT what I am concerned with.

My life was my life, it has made me who I am. I am not a boring person, I am not a cruel person, I am not a stupid person, I am not a lonely or socially incapable person. I have a roof over my head, a life-partner I love, and a family on the way. What I need now is to somehow make this horrible cycle of fighting and resentment stop once and for all, to make my family see that I don't hate them and make my mother see that I don't carry around a big ball of angry because she screwed up occasionally when I was younger.

What I DO need her to acknowledge is that sometimes she screws up NOW. When I see her, I need her to see past all of the traits she hates about herself that she inadvertently handed on to me - and to instead see the things she managed to spare me in spite of suffering them herself for so many years. I need her to stop expecting me to hate her, to blame her and to fight against her regardless of what my actual responses might be. Why do we need to stay trapped in this cycle of who did what to who, or who hates who more? Why can't the decisions I have made be about me, and not be some rebellion against her?

When I saw my mother in the airport on that first day, the first thing I thought to myself was that she was more beautiful than I had remembered. I was watching her sitting there talking to my brother, oblivious to the approaching audience, and I thought "I can't believe I had forgotten how pretty she is." When I hugged her I smelled that familiar smell of cigarettes and original flavour chewing gum, and marveled for the millionth time at the softness of her hair and face in spite of years of dying her locks and refusing to invest in proper face cream. I reveled in her laugh, the way I often do, surprised that even now I could be startled by the loudness of her cackle juxtaposed with the tiny-ness of her voice. Standing in front her, nearly 28 years old and soon to be a mother myself, I was amazed by my own mother's youth - by her green corduroys and trendy brown Keds. It was so easy to forget in that moment that this 5'4" woman, with wrists and hands as small as a child's, had been through so much. Even harder to remember how much she had frightened me, and how large and overpowering she had seemed for so many years. But most of all I was surprised that after years of noticing only how many wrinkles she had gained, or her neglectful lack of make-up, or the fillings in her teeth, I could finally see how beautiful she was - and had always been.

This paragraph may seem oddly placed, but my perceptions of beauty have always been a tell-tale sign of my emotions. I have never been able to look at someone whose behaviour upset me and see them as beautiful. Likewise, many people in my life have grown more and more beautiful to me as we have grown closer. When I first met Max, I shrugged off his advances at first because I simply did not find him attractive. I find that almost impossible to believe now, nearly seven years later, as when I look at him I can't believe my luck that someone so handsome and kind wasn't snapped up before I came around. When I was a child I thought my mother was the most beautiful woman alive. My beliefs were not based on maternal adoration alone - no, my mother was a stunningly beautiful woman. My father, who can barely stand to be in the same room as my mother, would still say that my mother's beauty was unrivaled when they met. During the worst of my mother's temper, I would never have seen the tiny bird-like frame she actually possessed. She seemed larger than life, her teeth a bit sharper and her eyes a bit wilder. But after my mother left, I began to notice my mother's diminutive stature more and more. I did not as cute, as many of her male suitors did, but as meek and frail. While others insisted she had the face of a teenager, I thought she had too many wrinkles for her age. I thought her lips were too thin and that she looked almost pitiable when she walked into a room. I dreaded being told I looked like her, for I was far more proud of my tall frame and strong jawline which I had inherited from my father. I couldn't see her as beautiful, delicate or enviable, because I couldn't afford to see her that way. I needed her to be weak, or cruel, or pitiful, or unkind, or crazy - because then it would be OK for me to resent her the way I did.

So when I saw her in the airport and thought she was beautiful, I knew I had forgiven her. I knew I was ready to see her as a person, better still as a person who I would want to be around. I thought that maybe, just maybe, all those years of going to her and wishing that she would be the mother I needed and getting rebuffed were over. Now we could understand each other, respect each other, like each other.

But life is life, and not a feelgood summer flick.

We danced around each other for a while, me restraining my "tone" as much as possible, attempting to bite my tongue when she said something critical or interrupted what I was saying to point out the nearest floral display. If she were writing this I am sure she could tell you of many things she bit her tongue about, or many annoying habits which I possess that she had to ignore politely. But it wasn't long before the facade was broken, and frustrations became outbursts. I became convinced that she was trying to turn my brother against me, she became convinced that my husband hated her because I told him to. There were tears, mostly mine (as my mother rarely cries publicly), there was pleading for her to see my point of view. There were harsh words and condemnations of personality traits - blame allocated to each other for our failure to get along. There was even an implication or two that I would undoubtedly not be the best mother I could if I didn't change certain things about myself. We smoothed things over enough to get through the trip, but in spite of my several attempts at long and honest heart-to-hearts, no resolution was reached.

So at the end of her visit I was left feeling the way I often feel after seeing my mother. Drained. Sad. Relieved that she's gone. Guilty. Ungrateful. Emotionally unstable. Etc. It's not entirely her fault. It's not entirely my fault. It's not her mother's fault or her father's fault, or my father's fault or my father's mother's fault. We're just human, and I just don't know if either of us is ever going to be willing to change enough to be the person the other one needs us to be - or to accept each other for who we are.

Any pointers, sane people?

Repressed Memories

2008-08-06T16:16:00.004+01:00

Do you trust your memory? I don't mean trust your memory in the sense of trusting that you'll not forget to pick up milk on the way home - I mean trust that the things you remember are true? That they actually happened the way you see them replayed in your mind? I have often wondered if I am a revisionist, if I simply remember things the way I want or need to remember them in order to justify this behaviour or that fear in my life. So many of the major events in my life are surrounded by contradictory viewpoints - my mother remembers it one way, my sister another way, both of them the opposite of what I remember. Historically I have been quick to doubt myself (although quietly, and without showing them I have any skepticism about my version of events), but now I wonder if it is simply something we all do. Are none of us completely right? Is the truth somewhere in between our individual versions? Do we simply shut out the things we cannot face?

My memory is long and detailed, full of sensory images that queue the vision each time I encounter that smell/sight/sound again. The first memory I have is from when I was two years old. I was sitting in a tiny bedroom on my Aunt's knee. I had a fever, I was eating a bag of potato chips. Mum and Dad were fighting - just out of sight but within earshot. Mom is angry because I was sick and Dad wants to take me to his mother's house to fix it. My mother wants to know why Dad doesn't trust her judgement, Dad thinks she is silly and just wants a second opinion. Eventually an ultimatum of some kind is handed out, and Dad leaves. It occurs to me that Dad is gone forever, and that this fight is all my fault. My mother comes in and shouts at my Aunt for giving me chips.

I have always remembered this day. Years later, when I was thirteen, I would ask my Aunt about that night. I told her the story and she was shocked at how much I knew. It turns out this was the fight that eventually ended my parents marriage, they were divorced within a year. There were things I left out - my sister was there too, only six months old and laying in a bassinet nearby. There were things I added in - I always remembered it taking place in a house we didn't live in until several years later. I am fairly certain the emotions I "experienced" in the memory were ones I inserted later in life, once I had a greater understanding of what that moment in time had meant. None the less it taught me to trust my memory, to count it as one of my strengths.

I leaned on that confidence in years to come, when the many battles between my mother and I raged on into a full blown war. She countered every memory I threw at her, challenging my interpretation of every argument and event down to what I had for breakfast that morning. I remained steadfast in my self-belief. I would threaten her with tape-recorders, convinced that if I taped these conversations and played them back to her I would be vindicated and she would be shamed into confession. "I don't remember that" became my mother's defense, the weapon of choice in her arsenal. Because if she couldn't remember it, it never happened. Eventually she started to break me.

After all, I lied all the time.

My days at school were filled with elaborate stories, little exaggerations to cover the absence of normality occurring within my home life. Why don't I have to pay for school lunches? [Because my family was poor and we got free lunches] Because I am so silly with money that my mother comes in every week and pre-pays my lunches, of course! What does my mom do for a living? [Cleans houses and waits tables] She runs her own business, but I don't really understand what she does. What's that? My mother cleans your parents' house? [Of course she does, this is a small fucking town and all of you rich kids have parents who hire housekeepers] Oh she was helping out a friend who was sick for a while, she is really nice like that.

As I got older, and the problems at home became more serious (and more embarrassing for a teenager), the lies became more elaborate. After all, I was now covering for a suicidal mother, daily panic attacks and a burgeoning eating disorder. I could barely keep up with the fibs myself anymore. How could I trust my memory now?

My sister has always used her memory differently - by ignoring it, pretending it doesn't exist. For years she managed to shut out an entire portion of her youth and teenage life. The times I looked to her for back up were riddled with her parroting my mother's "I don't remembers" as though they were in on this great scheme together. It maddened me, pushed a distance between us that I couldn't (wouldn't) explain for many years. Soon my "memory" became a liability, the thing the family could cling to in order to prove I was negative, that I thought I was better than them. My falsification of childhood events were simply the result of some emotional defect, an odd need to justify the cold space between me and my loved-ones.

That's how I saw it, anyway.

But recently, the tides have been turning. My most recent confrontation with my mother resulted in an apology - her first apology (as far as I can remember). For the first time she acknowledged the wrongs, admitted to them, and admitted the effect they must have had on me. It was liberating, frightening, confusing. Next, AJ began to accept my versions of events. Once again I was left standing, mouth agape, wondering whether I had won or lost - or why and when I started fighting in the first place.

This validation is a double edged sword - I feel relieved that I can trust myself again, hopeful for the future of these relationships in my life. Yet at the same time there is this guilt. Why couldn't I have just let it go? My new and infantile experience with motherhood has opened my eyes to the panic and scope for disaster that being a parent brings. My poor mother - just a child when I was born, sick for most of her adult life, abandoned by everyone she loved - why couldn't I have just forgiven her without making her admit to all those mistakes? And AJ - why did I need her to re-live all that pain with me? Why could I not just be happy that she couldn't remember the things I had tried my whole life to forget?

I never anticipated the day when my family would see me as right, as having figured it out before them. I had grown accustomed to my role as the drama-queen, the black sheep. But now that time is here, where do we go with it? How do we start to climb over that vast chasm I have worked so hard to widen over the years?

I don't know, really. What I do know is that standing here, looking out to them from this precipice, I am petrified. But I am also excited, eager, and ready to embrace the family that I have always loved so much but have been too afraid to let love me.

Baby Blues?

2008-07-30T12:55:00.003+01:00

I guess I will just write about how I have been feeling lately. In a word - obsessed. I am obsessed with this pregnancy. Every time I feel a pain or movement or wave of nausea, I analyse it. I am doing my damnedest to stay positive here, I swear I am. But I just can't relax. Monday I went for an early scan (ultrasound). They call it a "reassurance scan" to appease women who have miscarried before - let them see the heartbeat, know that everything is fine and they don't have some horrible toothed creature where there womb should be that just devours little babies up and leaves you void of the chance of carrying to term forever. Because that is what it feels like when you lose a baby - like you are some freak that can't do the one thing that every other woman on the planet can do. Like your body is betraying you, fighting against you at every turn.

Anyway, we saw the baby (I am calling it the baby, not the embryo or fetus. This is part of my positivity - get over it). It was tiny. 4.6mm long, barely any shape at all that we could see, just a little round blob next to another round blob. The silence in the room petrified me, I held my breath as I waited for someone to tell me there was no heartbeat, that the pregnancy was not viable, that my baby was lost again. But then the midwife pointed to the first little blob, the little 4.6mm long dot. It was flashing, expanding and contracting. It's heart was beating. I wept. I couldn't stop weeping so they kept having to wait until I could see again to show me the screen properly. For the first time in two weeks - no, if I am honest, it was the first time in four months - I could breathe. Baby was ok. I was ok. Everything was going to be ok.

I walked around on a high, untouchable. There was nothing anyone could do or say that could possibly take away the joy that Max and I felt on Monday afternoon. We stared at our little scan picture for hours, refusing to put it down for more than five minutes in case it suddenly ceased to exist. We were going to be parents, really. Nothing was going to take that away from us this time. Monday and Tuesday nights were free from nightmares and panic attacks (the first of their kind in more than two weeks). I smiled to myself as I sat on the bathroom floor feeling like I was going to puke, because I knew that it would all be worth it now that I had a healthy baby with a healthy heartbeat.

Then this morning, as I went on to one of those silly little baby websites for expecting mums, I read a story of a woman who had a scan at 6 weeks - healthy, scan at 8 weeks - no heartbeat. I told myself it was one woman, and that one woman was not me. I listed all of the statistics back to myself - the vast majority of women who miscarry once have healthy second pregnancies, if you hear a heartbeat at 6 weeks you are 85% sure to carry the pregnancy to term. But then the other information sunk in. The family history - my Gram's string of miscarriages. My constant problems with my reproductive system since the age of 11. Some weird notion that I am just not meant to be happy or have the things in my life that I want - so why should this be any different?

What the hell is wrong with me? Can't I just be happy and relax? If I am going to carry this baby to term, I will do it regardless of statistics or family history or my bizarre obsession with failure. I will have this baby in spite of my tendency towards stress and panic, in spite of my absent-minded consumption of cream cheese three days ago or the fact that I got my hair coloured before I knew I was pregnant. And I will do it without having to worry every moment of every day about something going terribly wrong.

I'm just not sure how, yet.

New beginnings

2008-07-16T11:43:00.004+01:00

I have had a little trouble with blogging lately. Not sure if it is to do with my new found love of crochet, patchwork and jewellery making (my god, I am turning into a middle-aged housewife) or the mood swings that have been smacking me (and poor Max) over the head for the last two weeks. Maybe it was just because I didn't have anything very interesting to report. Unlike many of you, I am no good at making the ordinary interesting. My crazy life is the key to any writing of mine that can be deemed entertaining in any form, and frankly my life has ceased to be terribly crazy lately.

For which I am very grateful, believe me.

I've been getting along with my family, with my in-laws, and with Max. My recent workplace successes mean I can relax for a while and focus on the good times ahead in PhD land. I've been offered the opportunity to go on a funded research trip to Italy in October, so that takes care of my holiday for the year. The house is nearly finished and soon I'll be sleeping in my own bed again. Life is good. And when life is good, I am dull. It is perhaps all this positivity in my life that has led to what I will tell you next.

I'm pregnant again.

Am I shitting myself? Yes. Does my pulse quicken every time I feel the slightest twinge below the belly button? Yup. Do I relentlessly check the toilet roll for any visible trace of anything that may possibly look like blood every time I use the bathroom ? You betcha!

Am I possibly one of the happiest, most relieved, and most grateful women on the planet right now? Absolutely.

I can't write anymore today, I am full of baby mush and it is pretty much all I can think about. I'll save my baby-bore status for at least a few more weeks. So wish me luck, although that positive part of me says I am not going to need it. This peanut is a sticker, and I plan to see it through to the other side.

I do, however, want to take this opportunity to send all of my positive baby energy out to Xbox and MaybeBaby. Each time I open your blog I do it with bated breath and a sincere hope I'll be reading wonderful news. All the baby-making luck in the world to you. And positive energy in general to Maria, who I just know is going to come out the other side, whatever the problem.

In Good Company

2008-07-01T16:22:00.007+01:00

I have been busy, so please excuse the long absence. The past few weeks have been wrought with stress and panic as I prepared for a seminar I knew I would pass, but could not bring myself to relax about. On the Monday morning I made it through my confirmation with flying colours, which set me up for my trip to the Netherlands with high spirits (and a bit more of that elusive confidence). I boarded the plane and arrived in a foreign country full to the brim with fear and anxiety, unsure of what to expect from a congress of seasoned academics and a city I had never even heard of.

What a fool I was.

The conference was a wonder - like summer camp for grown-ups. Imagine traveling to a foreign country and spending a week listening to people from all over the world talk about the subject you find most interesting. What a joy! And in between the sessions there were espressos at quaint canal-side cafes and three course meals on boats. I loved every moment of it.

I fell equally in love with the wondrous city of Leiden.

Full of cyclists, canals, trees, museums, windmills, fantastic architecture, and best of all - the friendliest townfolk I ever did meet. I have never been one to enjoy my own company, but in Leiden I was happy to saunter around by myself and take in the picturesque setting.

It's not Paris or Rome. There are no grand buildings or wonders of the world. But there is just something about it that feels like - for lack of a better word - home. It's beautiful and inviting, simple and elegant. It's odd, I can't even describe now what I loved about it. Perhaps those of you who have been there before can help me find the words. Those of you who have not - go. Go now! Flights into Schipol Airport are not too expensive, and it only takes 5 Euros and twenty minutes on a [very clean and efficient] train to get there.

Perhaps one of the things that made this trip so special was not the setting, or the conference, but the fact that for the very first time in my 27 years, I was alone with myself and I enjoyed it. I spent five days in mainly my own company. Sure I had the other conference delegates, and I really enjoyed my time with some of them, but I spent an awful lot more time with me. I read books, wrote an outline for a short story (which I haven't done in years), listened to music, went on a boat ride, made pitiful attempts at speaking Dutch. It was liberating.

If only it hadn't taken me 27 years to figure out that I can do things by myself.

Medical Evidence of my Taxes in Action?

2008-06-22T15:42:00.006+01:00

Just as long as I'm standing on this soapbox...

The report and its executive summary (although it is worth the time to read it all if you can bear it) can be found here.

If you feel like you need to do something, please sign the petition here and tell others about what you have read and done.

The Consequences of Language - My triumphant return to the soapbox

2008-06-17T17:46:00.010+01:00

In my high school year book, there was a section entitled "Can you imagine...?" In it, the staff of the yearbook committee got together and came up with a way to finish that sentence for each of the graduating seniors. For example: Can you imagine...Cindy Cheerleader having a bad hair day? Or: Can you imagine...Jason Jock not playing three sports? In reality, they were often much more cruel than that. I remember one girl who had a baby junior year was immortalised with ...as a nun? at the end of her sentence. Anyway, my senior yearbook read Can you imagine [Fate's Granddaughter]...without an opinion? I was quite proud of it at first. I hadn't realised it was meant as a dig. An insult referring to the "self-righteous know-it-all" status I had unknowingly acquired in my four years at a small town (sometimes small minded) high school. You see, back then I thought people appreciated the sharing of ideas and information, though I could make a difference somehow (I used to trumpet this as my theme song) - thought people would be grateful for stimulating debate and challenges. Silly, silly child.

It's nearly ten years later and I am still full of opinions, but go around spouting them less. I now hold stronger and deeper convictions, yet I have tried to step off my soapbox when talking about them. I am more cautious in my doling out of ideas, have learned how to soften the blow and coat the pill a bit. I'm not sure if this is a better or worse way to be. Occasionally, though, I feel unable to control myself. I still have my triggers - those things that unleash the Evangelist in me and send me on a mission to recruit non-members to my way of thinking once and for all. One of those triggers is the refusal to accept the danger of derogatory/degrading language.

I am not talking about political correctness. Not asking anyone to change women to womyn. I am just asking people to be aware of their daily discourse, and the potential it has to perpetuate ideas and stereotypes. It can be such simple things, things said in passing or in casual conversation - the things people barely even notice as controversial. Those are the most dangerous ones, because they seep into our consciousness and become part of the conversational landscape; then part of our thoughts, perceptions and finally, our actions. It's the passing racist joke that no one questions because there are "no black people in the room, so who are we offending?" It's "phwoar-ing" at a woman and looking her up and down, and expecting her to take it as a compliment. It's telling stories about a Polish family getting a house in a desirable area when a local person couldn't, with a general acceptance that local people are more entitled to that space...

I'll give you a recent example.

My friend, Catrina, went on a training course last week where the male trainer repeatedly commented on the weight and attractiveness of the females in the class. I was horrified by the stories she relayed, and even more horrified when she said no one was going to complain. I pleaded with her to say something, pointed out that he would likely continue to make other women feel uncomfortable and unwilling to attend a second day of training (and then receive a paycheck for his efforts!). But she didn't want to cause any trouble or seen to be making a fuss over nothing. "He was all talk," she added, "harmless enough really."

That night, when I had dinner with Trina and her family, the conversation led to a discussion of The Apprentice. I couldn't help but talk about how sexist Alan Sugar is and how disgusting it is that his sexism is paraded around on TV without reprisal while we all hail him as a business and reality TV hero (I have been reeling since last series and last week just put me over the edge). While everyone agreed that the female candidate was clearly stronger, they could not see the sexism in the decision. I pointed out Sugar's comment that Claire was clearly an incredibly savvy business woman, but he didn't think he could work with her because of her personality - she talked too much, always had an opinion, was generally mouthy (I am paraphrasing here). Yet weeks before he repeatedly failed to fire Michael, a man who was clearly not very clever and who was perhaps the most annoying man I had ever seen. Instead he had a funny fondness for him - saw a bit of gusto in his ability to argue. Trina's father was quick to interject.

"Here we go," he groaned. "Now we're not allowed to say that women are annoying to work with even when they are annoying to work with!" He put his fork down for emphasis. "The fact is, women are just harder to get along with in the workplace. They nag and complain, and then they want to be treated as equal. And we can't even say anything about it - because they're women!" He then went on to tell the story of his annoying female boss, and how impossible she is, and how they all think she is an overbearing, nit-picking moron.

This was all said with intermittent chuckles and a bit of light-heartedness. As if it was meant to be a bit of fun and in good humour. Everyone else at the table kind of laughed to themselves. "Ha ha. Listen to the funny sexist. Isn't sexism hilarious?" I imagined them all thinking. I tried to make a point by asking "How would you like it if I said that I don't like working with men because they never take on board any ideas except their own and they're arrogant and self-serving?" (this is, in fact, how I feel about one male colleague - not all men.) The point was missed - one of the brothers answered me with "I wouldn't care because I would know you are full of shit. That's just not true." More laughter. This family was truly hilarious.

You may think I've digressed, but in fact I am just about to reach my point.

Is it too much to think that conversations like this are exactly what have convinced Trina that it is not ok for her to complain about being sexually harassed at work? Everyone thinks it is all light and fun to make sexist/racist/ageist jokes as long as everyone knows we're joking - but we are ignoring the potential these "silly discussions" have to make these "isms" part of our psyches in such a way that they become tolerable through exposure. If your family makes jokes at the dinner table about how annoying it is when women complain in the workplace, the odds are the women at that table aren't going to feel very comfortable complaining in the workplace. If your friends all sit around and make racist jokes after a few drinks, what's to say that after a few more drinks, those jokes could be directed at a minority? If the newspapers keep telling you that black people are responsible for crime in society, aren't you more likely to be more afraid of a black person than you are a white person?

Maybe I am not making any sense. Maybe I am over-reacting. I just wish I could convince people that they need to be aware of what they say and how they say it. I don't want to live in a world where people don't feel they can say how they feel or go around panicking constantly that they've said the wrong thing - this sort of extreme reaction to the argument is often used as a rebuke when I point out the potential impact of poorly chosen discourse. It is not one way or the other - not as simple as either accept people making offensive or damaging comments under the guise of humour/news reporting/etc., or live in a oppressive regime of over-the-top political correctness. I don't expect people to be perfect (I once referred to "the natives" of Fiji in front of an African woman - she laughed for ages before telling me I should probably call them Fijians), but I do expect people to take responsibility for the stuff that comes out of their mouths, and start accepting that there is not often a lot of distance between what we say, and what we think/do.

Note:
I have added this link to show how complicit the media often are in this. Pay attention to how they take the a woman who is being discriminated against and validate the discrimination by attacking her character. I could have linked thousands more; including this more subtle one in today's Guardian about how nurses, a profession dominated by females, are to be judged partly on how much they smile on the job.

I Have Confidence! (no,seriously)

2008-06-16T12:07:00.005+01:00

I have been a ghost of a woman these past few days. I have started to count the number of people who see me and looked surprised or ask me if I am sick - it totals 10 in the last 24 hours. I am normally a terribly vain person, the kind of woman who washes and styles her hair before going to the hair salon or puts make up on to go to the local shop. But these days I barely have the energy to wash my hair and match my socks. Instead of mascara and eyeliner, my eyes are adorned with dark circles. I have an outbreak of pimples on my chin that rivals one of an oily teenager and my make-up is standing unused on my dresser - crying out "wear me!" each time I glance in the mirror to tie my unbrushed hair back. I've had heartburn for seven days straight that will not be subdued by any amount of antacid, and I have been awake into the wee hours of the morning trying to avoid shutting off the TV and facing my own thoughts. Ladies and gentlemen - the life of a procrastinating PhD student in the weeks leading up to Confirmation.

I have always been a procrastinator. Pressure of a looming deadline has always been the thing that drives me to my best work. All-nighters and panic driven research sessions have been part of my life since I was in high school, and while it has always had a horrible effect on my poor body (not to mention the unfortunate people who have to live with me) it has never failed to produce the best work. When I work on things in drips and drabs, there always feels like something is missing. I need to give birth to something - to slave over it for hours uninterrupted and feel the immense relief when it is finished. When I pour over work for hours and days at a time, there is more fluidity to the language. The ideas seem to fit together like pieces of a puzzle instead of having the appearance of a list. It just works better.

While this may have been an acceptable strategy for smaller pieces of work, with a PhD you just can't leave things to the last minute. Writing and ideas must be shaped and reshaped - sometimes smooshed into a big ball of clay and started all over again. This has been a terrible culture shock for me, the queen of procrastination. I find myself now looking at piles of notes and "think pieces" that I have done along the way to keep myself from leaving it all to the last minute, and all I want to do is chuck it all in the bin and start over again. It's not flowing, not making sense in the way I want it to make sense. I know this material so intimately, and yet the writing on the pages seems so detached and impersonal. How can I convey 9 months of my life and passion into a six page report? That, I suppose, is part of the exercise. The most important part of research is the sharing of the results, and it deserves nine months of consistent writing and re-writing, not a few hours and a few sleepless nights at the last minute.

I will admit that part of my procrastination has been fear. What will I say? How will I say it? How do I prove my research is worthy of a PhD? How can I convince a room full of experienced academics at an international conference that what I have to say is worthy of their time and consideration? I have been paralysed with feelings of inadequacy - images of an audience of disgruntled know-it-alls asking impossible questions and shooting holes in my theory, a panel of examiners shaking their heads in disbelief that I have managed to only get so far in such a length of time. I have had moments where I have literally shut off my computer screen in a panic, afraid to look at what I have written because it feels so pitiful in the face of what is required.

But alas, just when I needed a good slap in the face and glass of cold water thrown over my head to stop me shriveling into a mess of sweat tears and panic, my lead supervisor has dragged me out of my panic and back into the world of the sane and composed.

He said my paper is the strongest he has seen in a lot of years.

Shrieks of joy and delight abound! Birds are singing in the trees again and I can see the sunshine beaming through my office window. I want to do cartwheels down the hall way and shout across the car park "I AM NOT A MORON! I AM ACTUALLY QUITE CLEVER! EVEN MY SUPERVISOR THINKS SO!" And all of this at an impromptu meeting in a coffee shop. My supervisor does not hand out compliments willy-nilly, friends. I am, in fact, referring to the same man who handed me back the draft of my last paper looking like someone had bled all over it. I honestly welled up with tears when he said it. I felt like pinching myself, and I involuntarily asked "what?" just to ensure I had not heard him wrong. And I hadn't, he said it again! And then went on to say that he is not at all concerned about my confirmation, that he believes I will pass through without incident.

Armed with this new information I feel invincible. I am finally ready to write the paper I had been afraid I was incapable of producing. Oh, what a sad little girl am I to require such validation in order to move forward. I'll not dwell on that now, though. I will simply bask in the glow of my supervisor's faith in me, and my newfound faith in myself. I, my friends, am the creator of quite a fine research project (in progress). Hurrah for me!

The Need for a Proper Goodbye

2008-06-12T13:45:00.003+01:00

I was at a funeral yesterday - not of anyone with whom I was close, or who I even knew very well. But she was someone very close to someone close to me, so I was there to show my support. It was terribly sad - funerals always are, I suppose. I always struggle the most with the moment when family members first lift the coffin. There is something about them bearing the physical weight of their lost loved-one in this moment of grief. As if suddenly there was a physical manifestation of the heaviness of losing someone you hold so dear.

On our way to the cemetery, Max and I talked about what we would want done with our remains after our passing. We both agreed that the thought of being put in the ground and taking up valuable countryside was unpleasant, but that it was nice for friends and family to have a place to go if they wanted to feel the presence of a lost loved-one. Really, when you think about it, the things we do to honour our deceased aren't much about them at all. It's for us - for the living. Thinking yesterday about our recent loss, I began to feel a sick sort of jealousy for the bereaved in the church. There they were, able to listen to a priest say kind words, able to weep quietly in public and receive warm embraces and words of consolation. They threw flowers and other symbols of love into a waiting grave, they were allowed to bear the physical weight of their grief for all the world to see.

After the dark day, I cried quietly in the bathroom, careful not to upset anyone. I questioned the legitimacy of my grief given the tiny lifespan of an unnamed person whom I had never met. Oh, how there is part of me that wishes I could have donned a black dress and cried over a coffin that day, surrounded by friends and family all offering warm hugs and kind whispers.

My mother told me early on that I should do something to bring closure to my loss. That I should give my unborn child a name and say goodbye. For many reasons I have avoided doing that - fear of feeling silly or being over dramatic, fear of making it too real. Yet now, two months later, I still feel unable to let go. Still crave the comfort of my grief and wish for some sort of outlet. Max and I went shopping this morning for friends who have just had a baby. Standing there amid pink ruffles and booties I thought I would be sick. Max noticed my shaking hands when I picked up a little red dress and began walking toward the counter. He put his arm around my waist to steady me and squeezed a little while I paid for the outfit and "congratulations" card. I dropped him off at work and cried for baby in the car, the first time in several weeks. Over a dress.

Two days before we were married, Max and I met the priest to go over the ceremony. Father Rob talked about having children. He said that a family is a gift, a beautiful symbol of god's grace. I am no longer a religious woman, nor can I remember exactly what Father Rob said that day, but I do remember the feeling I had in that moment. I was so moved by what he said, and so excited to begin my life. The word "grace" stayed with me. I thought it was a beautiful way to describe a child. So, yet again taking advice from my mother at which I had previously scoffed, I am naming baby. I am not going to make a memorial or weep in a church, but I will post this poem. Just remember that I am not a poet or a writer.

Full of Grace

Faceless and formless,
the most beautiful nothing that never was.
How unimaginable that a blue line could be come a bright soul, could become three days of red
And then nothing.
If only emptiness bore visible scars,
like stretch marks.
I would wear them as badges of honour-
A memorial to a brief moment of Grace.

Where are your mourners, Grace?
Where are your flowers and wreaths?
What becomes of the mother of a blue line that became a bright soul, that became three days of red,
And then nothing?
A childless mother with no grave to weep over,
no face and name to miss.
I will remember you, though.
My moment of clarity, my glimpse of something miraculous,
My Grace.

This is my goodbye,
My love song to you.
Full of all the words I can't find,
and all the words that don't exist,
and all the sentiments that fail
to describe the love of a mother for her child.

Even if he's not the president, he can still be my boyfriend

2008-06-04T18:14:00.004+01:00

I was a little weepy this morning. No, I haven't dipped back in to the land of the miserable...these were tears of excitement, happiness and relief. I was weepy because I was watching Barack Obama's speech after surpassing the number of pledged delegates needed to clinch the nomination.

I started out supporting Ralph Nader, convinced that none of the mainstream parties would represent my views in politics. How could they? I'm so left I'm almost off the political map (my anarchist friends are convinced I am an anarchist in denial). At first I was taken with the idea of a woman as president, but realised quickly that I was unwilling to elect a woman at any cost - Hillary just didn't convince me that she wouldn't continue to make such disastrous decisions as suppressing trade union activity for Wal-Mart employees or getting into bed with corporations. Obama was appealing, but I was skeptical. I was wary of letting my emotions get the better of me and voting for a man I frankly was developing a bit of a crush on, instead of making my decision based on the facts. Yes, Nader was for me. Good old liberal, anti-capitalist Nader.

The the Race Speech happened.

I was blown away by Obama's frankness, his willingness to talk about things that politicians tend to dance around at all costs. Never had I seen a politician stand up and say what I was thinking without wondering if they were just feeding me a bunch of lines. He took my breath away. I resisted for a bit longer, but it was futile. Like so many others I let myself get carried away with the emotion of having someone use words like "hope" so willingly and unashamedly. I watched him during the debates, watched him speak with passion and humility. It's true, he doesn't always give direct solutions - that scared me at first. But by God, he is asking the questions! He is saying what needs to change, and it is all the same things that have left me ashamed and afraid for my country over the last several years. When he told the Tennessee GOP "lay my wife" I wanted to kiss him.

I know there is every chance that Obama's speeches are simply laced with rhetoric, that it is all a persona or that he is just a charismatic speaker with empty answers to the world's problems. But I believe him. I really believe him. Maybe it is just because I want to, because I need to feel proud of where I come from (or at least not have to defend myself to everyone who wants to pick a fight with me over American foreign policy). Whatever the case, I was giddy all day at the thought of hearing speeches like this for the next four (eight?) years.

On Not Getting Lost

2008-06-02T17:08:00.006+01:00

I should undoubtedly avoid all things blog at present given my impending deadlines, but it is nice to get away from work and clear the cobwebs that sometimes interfere with reading and writing. The sun is beaming through my office window and distracting me terribly. I feel like a child stuck in school on the last days before summer vacation, staring at the clock and counting the minutes until I can go home and run through the sprinklers. At the moment, going home means eating dinner and then heading straight back to work so it holds less appeal than it used to.

I have subjected myself to a ridiculous amount of self-analysis lately and that can only lead to trouble. Emotional outbursts and misinterpretation of things people say to me abound...I have become so familiar with this cycle that I knew what was coming next before it actually happened. There is always some attempt at reinvention at this point - a frustration with what I feel I must reject and yet seem unable to control. Naturally I decided to dye my hair instead, going from a natural blonde with a bit of peroxide help to a dark red-head. Voila - new me.

How odd it is that changing something about your physical appearance can make you feel better. It is a control issue, I suppose, a way of taking charge of change in a place where you can see fast and immediate results. But it always works, if only temporarily. It is another facet of my extreme personality, my tendancy to demand radical and instant change in response to feeling discontent. In a prior life I changed location (ah how my wanderlust longs for the same reaction now), but my job and relationship have me rooted firmly in Belfast. At one time I would have changed social circles as well, leaving behind the people who know the persona I am trying to shed in an attempt to create new circles which will accommodate the new me. But alas, I am an adult now and fully aware that while we must never stop striving for self-improvement, we must also accept who we are and grow to love ourselves for it. Besides, I quite like my people and would miss them far too much if I were to set bridges alight as I have in previous years.

Really I just need to get out of my own head and back into reality. I miss the lightness of contentment - these periods of frustration and self-pity are shrinking in duration, and each time I start to crave the land of the living more quickly than the time previous. I will take this as a positive step, proof that in spite of the old cliche about the leopard changing its spots I can still progress towards better reactions and coping skills. And if change takes too long, I can always just dye those pesky spots the right colour in the meantime.

Post-Rant Remorse

2008-05-30T12:56:00.006+01:00

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

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

2008-05-28T16:17:00.009+01:00

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.

self imagined

2008-05-22T12:32:00.006+01:00

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?

Unfunny

2008-05-19T13:59:00.006+01:00

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.

Do the Right Thing - Or Else.

2008-05-15T14:25:00.003+01:00

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.

The Comfort of a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

2008-05-12T14:09:00.007+01:00

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.

My Father's Eyes

2008-05-10T14:52:00.009+01:00

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.

A Bit of a Dorothy Moment

2008-05-07T14:21:00.008+01:00

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.

Lazy Days are Here to Stay

2008-05-04T14:37:00.004+01:00

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!

For Better or for Worse

2008-05-01T13:49:00.006+01:00

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?

Justice is Blind

2008-04-29T13:11:00.007+01:00

I get riled up about the news on a fairly regular basis. Max still finds it entertaining when I shout at the TV, radio or newspaper in the morning - frustrated at the headlines, or sometimes the person presenting them. Someone recently reminded me of the bumper sticker expression "if you're not outraged, you're not paying attention." Well I'm paying attention, trust me.

But yesterday was a different kind of anger, because to me it hits upon so many emotive issues for me; racism, violence, love, gun-control (or lack there of), and judicial failure. I was reminded of the story of the man who was gunned-down by police on the early morning of his wedding a year and a half ago. He was unarmed, coming out of a strip-club with his friends at the end of his bachelor party. There were no weapons found on any of the men who were shot, yet Sean Bell and his friends were fired upon more than fifty times by NY police officers. On Monday, those police were acquitted of any blame.

This is not the first time a case like this has sullied the American Criminal Justice system, and each time I've been hurt and outraged at the incidents. But this, a man murdered hours before he was to get married? A man taken away from his fiancee and child as their family prepared themselves for what should have been the happiest day of their lives. And now, after all of the pain this family has endured, they are told that the justice system believes no one was at fault. Instead of getting answers, the family has watched helplessly as Bell's criminal record and alleged behaviour at the club was used to justify his death - his past mistakes dragged out for the world to look at and judge. Just another black man with drug convictions and threatening behaviour. We can all sleep soundly knowing that it we're not racist, he was just a criminal, and the police were just doing their jobs.

Playing devil's advocate, let's say that the police were justified in being afraid for the safety of their own lives and the lives of others. I realise there were allegedly (although refuted by the defense) events leading up to the shooting that could have indicated one of the men had a weapon. But fifty shots? Fifty? Am I the only person that thinks this exceeds minimum force? How are we going to ensure that those officers won't react with the same level of violence on another occasion? What message do we send when we say it is OK to shoot four men FIFTY times without even seeing a weapon?

Then there is the issue of race. How often do we hear about incidents such as these happening to white people? Perhaps I am misinformed, but this whiffs of racial profiling to me - and isn't racial profiling just institutional racism at its worst? During my undergraduate degree in America I read a study which found that 80% of motorists stopped in New Jersey were people of colour, in spite making up only 13% of all motorists in the state. This is one simple example in a list of many that demonstrates the fact that in spite of equality legislation and the general public's perception that we live in an equal society, the colour of your skin matters. It matters even to those who are employed to protect those equal rights and freedoms we are all so proud of.

Finally, this story is one of many that reinforces my belief that constitution or not - there is no place in a civilised society for guns. If citizens are permitted to carry and have relatively easy to access weapons, how can we expect the police to manage crime without the same weapons? And if those powers who are employed to 'protect and serve' the citizens are faced daily with the threat of gun violence, isn't it only a matter of time before those fears result in an over reaction? When I over react to difficult situations in my job, people get shouted at. When the police over react, there is a body count. And no one seems to be willing to hold anyone accountable.

I am not ragging on the police. The events described here certainly not every day occurrences. Police have a difficult job, and I am sure that the majority of them do it with dignity and respect for human life. But there are greater problems to face, problems that exist in several parts of our society. Problems that will eat us all alive if we don't acknowledge and address them. The powers that be must take tragic events such as these and use them to take a good hard look at what causes them. If they don't, the Sean Bells of the world will have not only died, but they will have died in vain. Who is going to explain that to his daughter? I certainly don't want to have to explain it to mine.

The Great X-Box Scandal of 2008

2008-04-28T14:25:00.008+01:00

Well, folks - If you are tired of hearing about my bad days, swiftly proceed to the next blog on your reading list. I told myself I wouldn't write about this (probably the main reason I haven't written for a few days), but this blog is for me at the end of the day and I need to get this all out.

This week has left me feeling like one of the children in the Lemony Snicket stories, afraid to settle into happiness for fear of something lurking in the shadows. I have really been fighting to stay positive. I keep myself busy and focus on all the good I have in my life. Believe me, I do know how good I have it. I really do. I am trying to remind myself of that every day. That said, I spent all night last night in tears, and today is shaping up to be of a similar standard.

My journey back to the land of the miserable began early last week, when my mother-in-law reminded me again how ungrateful I am. Usually this is her husband's job, but apparently I had really offended her this time and she just couldn't contain it. My offence - I bought my husband an X-Box360 for his birthday.

Apparently me spending £170 (total bargain, for those of you who are unaware of its normal £230 price tag) is a slap in the face and evidence of my lack of gratitude for the endless sacrifices they are making on my behalf. I tried to explain that this was a one-off. It was meant to be a special treat after two years of tight budgeting which has included agreeing to set £20 spending limits on all presents, not having a honeymoon, not going on vacation in five years and avoiding trips home because they cost too much. I tried to say how I knew that things would be even tighter once we moved into the new house, and so I wanted to be able to give him this one gift (which he has wanted for two years) since he never buys himself anything or does anything even remotely financially indulgent or irresponsible. I tried to point out that we have no credit card debt and used some of the profits from our last house to pay off our wedding and car loans so that the only debt we now have is from a mortgage and tuition fees. I wanted her to understand that I was trying to find a way to sufficently tell Max "thank you" for how wonderful a husband he has been lately and how I couldn't make it without him.

Not good enough. Ungrateful and irresponsible. And I don't even do anything around the house to every one's lives easier after all they do for us. Don't I realise that someday I am going to have to be able to run my own home so I may as well learn how to do these things? I won't go on, although I could, because my mother-in-law is a wonderful woman who really has done a lot for me and I feel bad portraying her in her not-best light. In isolation, this would be the kind of thing you just shrug off and hope will blow over. But my defenses are down, I am barely dragging myself out of bed some mornings and I burst in to tears spontaneously at least once every other day. It is partly sleep deprivation and stress, partly a lack of personal space and the indefinite nature of my living situation, partly grief over the Dark Day that I try so hard not think about. I told mother-in-law I was sorry she felt the way she did and that I would try to do better. Then I told Max I was moving out.

I know, I know. It seems like an overreaction. But I needed it. I need to wake up each morning without the awareness that my every action is going to be scrutinised and perhaps held against me at a later date. If I don't, the "I'm sorry"s and "I'll try to do better"s will start turning into "I never wanted you to do any of this anyway, you are just control freaks who won't let your son and I make our own decisions in life"s and "Why do you expect me to conform to every thing about your family/life/culture without showing any respect or acceptance for mine?"s or even "shove your help and my gratitude up your arse"s. I don't want that. Max wants to say something, to tell his parents how much they are hurting me and that he won't stand for it, but I keep begging him not to. I know full well that it will end in an un-holy argument, leaving us with no support system and him stuck in the middle of his family and his wife. So I told Max's family that my friend Suz's husband was starting the night shift (true) and she didn't like staying on her own (also true) so I was going to spend the week with her. The week has been tense, everyone knowing I was leaving and no one talking about it. I've spent the majority of it in my room - but I made sure to clean the house before I left.

Which leads me to Drama - phase II.
My suitcases are all in Max's parents' garage full of summer clothes, so I needed a bag to pack my crap into. That's when my mother's package arrived. She sent it before the Dark Day. A box full of books about pregnancy and babies, including a 7 year memory book. I knew it was coming. Mom had tried to stop it but Amazon had already put it in the post. I resolved to put the package directly into the garage and leave it there until I needed it, but it arrived in a large white sack which seemed the perfect thing for storing all of my belongings in during the move. I figured it wouldn't hurt to take the box out of the bag. As it happened, the bag was very useful, but the box was open. I had to look, I have always been a bit of a masochist and the curiosity got the better of me. There they were, mocking me. What to Expect when you're Expecting, The Expectant Father, Baby's First Year, and Baby's Memory Book.

I flipped through the books, remembering those brief days when I was filled with the excitement that was written all over each page. I thought about the fact that if I were still pregnant I would be getting ready for my first scan, approaching the time when you can start telling everyone the good news. I imagined being able to fill out the pages with how things were developing, what names we were thinking of, how I was coping with morning sickness. I started weeping and I couldn't stop myself, I cried so hard my stomach hurt. I hadn't realised how sad I still was. Eventually I managed to calm myself down and pack the books away, reassuring myself that I would need them again someday soon.

The problem is, that "reassurance" does little to comfort me. Although I want so much to have a family, I am absolutely petrified to get pregnant again. I am a firm believer in the powerful effects the mind has on the body, and I am so afraid of what my anxiety will do to another pregnancy. What if I am not just one of the 1 in 5 women who miscarries her first pregnancy? What if there is actually something wrong? What if I worry so much about having a miscarriage when I do get pregnant that the stress and worry causes more problems? The thought of it makes me nauseous. Not that I would tell anyone these worries. They would think I was crazy, over dramatic, not able to get over something that so many women have suffered in so much more terrible ways. Hell, I think those things about myself.

I have been working so hard to put this out of my head, move on quickly and not let myself get so sad that I get depressed. Unfortunately I have ignored the warning signs that it is happening anyway, perhaps because I am trying so hard to ignore it. I can't sleep, I'm snappy and irritable, I'm smoking again. Every time I take the folic acid tablets the doctor gave me I well up, so I've stopped taking them. I'm eating like a pig but still losing weight. I think I finally have to acknowledge that I am not quite OK yet. The biggest problem with that is having to admit it to other people.

So here is a start. People, I am not quite OK yet. I may need a little more time, and a little more help, before I feel 100% again. I do not have a stiff upper lip, I am a soft-hearted, bleary-eyed sap. I cry, feel things, and think too much. It's how I cope, it's how I need to cope. I'm off to brace the people in my life for a reality check (and to re-read Alan Carr's Easy Way to Quit Smoking).

The Revolution is Coming , Courtesy of John Cusak

2008-04-22T14:51:00.006+01:00

From the first moment I saw him standing with a boom box over his head playing "In Your Eyes" as lovable dork Lloyd Dobbler, I have loved John Cusak. And now, after a string of bad romantic comedies which made me question my loyalty, he has made me love him again. In a recent interview on the ever-excellent blog Crooks and Liars, John quoted my favourite of Arundhati Roy's essays - Confronting Empire.

Our strategy should be not only to confront empire, but to lay siege to it. To deprive it of oxygen. To shame it. To mock it. With our art, our music, our literature, our stubbornness, our joy, our brilliance, our sheer relentlessness– and our ability to tell our own stories. Stories that are different from the ones we’re being brainwashed to believe. The corporate revolution will collapse if we refuse to buy what they’re selling– their ideas, their version of history, their wars, their weapons, their notion of inevitability. Remember this: We be many and they be few. They need us more than we need them. Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.

It is a phenomenal statement from what was for me a literally life-changing collection of essays. Before reading these essays, I was afraid of revolutionary language. I associated revolution, socialism and anti-capitalism with violence and extremism. I was skeptical of this kind of change, believed I had no place in it. But Roy speaks of the peaceful revolution in every day action. She points to the perpetrators of oppression not with threats, but with the truth. And she does it all with the eloquence of a romantic poet.

I don't have time to write a 'proper' blog today (I have some constructive criticism to see to), but I will take this moment to strongly encourage you to do three things:

1. Read War Talk
2. Join the revolution
3. And definitely watch Say Anything

I hope Ikea sinks into the sea - But I'll need to get my taps first

2008-04-21T17:45:00.006+01:00

All I wanted was a double-basin, Belfast-style sink. Husband thought it was excessive, Mother-in-law said it didn't exist, Sister-in-law thought I should go with something a bit more trendy. But I had my heart set on a Belfast sink, and I just knew there was one out there for me.

Then I found this one.

It was perfect - perfect shape, perfect style, and most importantly I could afford it. Max and I had been trying to get most of our stuff through reclamation yards or from local suppliers, but big porcelain sinks are just too hard to come by and too far out of our price range. So I gritted my teeth and went to Ikea. I know, I know. I have been trying to avoid these places. You wouldn't catch me anywhere near Asda (aka Wal-Mart), I steer clear of Tesco where I can help it, and I'm in the local green grocer so often he is starting to throw in free veg. It was just a little slip. I was punished for it.

Because I am super-cheap (and living on the just above the minimum wage while trying to pay a mortgage that we could barely afford when I made good money), I decided to try to purchase said sink at Ikea's 21st birthday sale. At a store famous for never having sales, 21% off was quite a discount. I should not have been surprised that the whole of Ireland, North and South, would think this was a good deal as well.

Did I mention that I don't do well with crowds?

I don't. I especially do not do well with crowds of people wielding large flat-bed trolleys containing over sized cardboard boxes, dragging 3-7 screaming children through a store larger than several football fields, and trying to throw me out of their way in case I was trying to pick up those 5p throw cushions before they got to them. But gosh-darnit, for £25 off my sink I will suffer such atrocities!

I fought my way through to the kitchen department, meeting ogre #1. He directed me (with exasperation) to location 36 in aisle 10 to collect my sink. No, I could not have the taps as well. They were not in stock. No, I could not order them, he was very busy - there was a sale on you know! I begged ogre #1's forgiveness for asking a question/trying to purchase products and proceeded to the collection point. It took me almost an hour to get there as Ikea is a shrine to consumerism and takes you through the longest possible route to the check-out, ensuring you will pick up at least 6 or 7 completely useless items because they are just such a great deal. At the entrance to aisle 10 I was greeted by ogre #2. Ogre #2 came running at me full speed with her hand out, palm facing me in a stop signal, and lunged forward in an awkward knee bend. "This aisle is closed," she decreed, and stood with her hand still motioning for me to halt. I giggled a little at the sight of her posturing, a farewell gesture from my rapidly deteriorating sense of humour.

Before long ogre #2 was joined by #s 3,4,5 and 6. They stood at all possible entrances to the aisle, quickly chastising dazed and confused shoppers as they tried to get their items and leave the seventh circle of Hell sometime before dinner. I quietly asked ogre #4 if they knew how much longer it would be. No response. Perhaps ogre #5 would know? No response. I spoke to the shopper next to me, wondering if I had lost my voice or had fallen asleep and started dreaming about trying to speak but having no sound come out. Shopper could hear me just fine, and we killed a few moments discussing why a store which had achieved world-domination the way Ikea was apparently unable to restock shelves at more appropriate times of the day. Finally, after almost 20 minutes (for those of you who have lost track, I have been at Ikea for about 2 hours at this point) I was permitted to collect my sink. I checked the box against my sheet - same item name, same location number. With confidence I loaded the box, which was more than half my body weight, onto the trolley and marched triumphantly towards the checkout.

Thirty minutes passed and I kept myself entertained by playing with the bizarre garden accessories lined up to create makeshift queues. With the finish line in sight, I decided to be extra efficient and ensure the bar-code was facing the cashier. Turning the box around I saw the picture - it was the wrong sink. Right name, right location, wrong sink. I turned and saw the lines behind me. They were at least twice as long as when I had started. I decided that perhaps some nice staff member would be able to help me with my crisis...

Enter ogre #7.
me: "I'm sorry, but the item I requested was in the wrong place and I really can't lift the item I want on my own. Could you possib..."
ogre #7: "You're just going to have to get a member staff to help you, we're very busy."
Me= confused, as thought the person wearing an Ikea shirt and name badge was, in fact, a member of staff.

Enter ogre #8.
me: "Excuse me, I just need help lifting the sin..."
ogre #8: "I can't help you. We're very busy today."

And then #9.
me: "can you hel..."
#9: "...(walking away shaking head)"

The ogres were all very busy - and yet I could see them everywhere, in little swarms of yellow, talking to each other in impenetrable circles. I imagined them all laughing with each other about that dumb Yank who tried to lift up a 100lb sink and almost broke her back and toe. I tried to explain my plight to ogre # 10 (behind a desk), and she informed me that if I had "just smiled a bit more maybe one of the customers would have helped me." Eventually I managed to find a non-ogre in yellow who smiled a lot. He was happy to lift the sink on to the trolley, but not before dropping it twice.

When I got home 3.5 hours later, exhausted and emotionally drained, I discovered that not only was the sink broken (almost in half!) but they had neglected to give me the 21% discount. A nice young woman on the phone apologised profusely and told me that if I returned it on Monday they could exchange the sink and apply the discount.

I got up early today and loaded up the 47kg sink into my tiny little car. I drove it all the way out to the opposite side of town for the second time in two days. I lifted it out of the car and pushed it the 0.5 miles from the car park to the returns desk. They fought hard not to exchange the sink, implying I had dropped it after leaving the store. It took only one look at my reddening face for the sales girl to change her mind about that. They also refused to give me the 21% discount, saying it was my own fault for not noticing. I asked to speak to a supervisor. Chief ogre took 15 minutes to come over to me and then repeated exactly what the sales person had said. I told her I had not braved the melee that was their 21% off sale for any other reason than getting 21% off and I was not leaving without my £25. Chief ogre decided after a further 15 minutes that she did not fancy clearing up the mess that my exploding head would create and put the £25 back on to my debit card.

And now I have to go back for the bloody taps! This had better be the finest sink in Belfast. I am going to have to watch double doses of the news tonight to give myself some perspective.

Constructive(?) Criticism

2008-04-17T12:02:00.005+01:00

You can always count on a bit of academic ranting on "feedback day."

I have just received yet another of my early drafts, covered in red ink and questions I can't answer. "What does this mean?!" The red ink shouts across the page; "WHY?" demands the crimson pen. "I don't fucking know!" I respond as I throw the draft into the recycling bin, quickly realise that I need those notes and go hoking through said bin to retrieve the document. Meanwhile, the friendly note at the top of the page is taunting me softly.

"Hi [my name]. Thanks for getting this to me. Here are a few notes, mainly non-substantive. I won't go into too much detail, I'll discuss the thematic issues with you next week. I think we're starting to get somewhere!"

I feel like giving him a taste of his own medicine, answering his note with some vague, rhetorical questions of my own: "Exactly WHERE do you think we are getting?" or "Can you unpack the word thematic? It is problematic for me," or finally "A FEW NOTES! A FEW NOTES! SERIOUSLY?!" The random questions which do nothing but point out something he dislikes and do not in any way direct me towards where to go next are good, but my favourite is when he makes snide comments like: Perhaps it would be an idea to limit your use of capital letters to proper nouns- that is, names of people and places. To which I would like to respond "Ooooh, is that what proper nouns are? Goodness gracious, I am so glad that after almost a decade in higher education someone pointed that out to me. Thank you, oh wise sage."

I should point out here that this man who I am mercilessly mocking is perhaps the nicest person I have ever met. He is wildly intelligent, well-respected and extensively published. He makes himself available to me on a pretty regular basis, and most of my peers would be grateful for the sheer volume of comments with which he provides me. It's just that I don't understand what he means. And I get the distinct impression that he isn't always necessarily sure either... Couple this with my other supervisor's often contradictory remarks, and throw in my crippling self-doubt regarding all things academic, and the result is one very confused little PhD student.

The way I see it, there are several main issues I have with receiving critiques from my supervisors.

1. They seem to be focused more on grammar than content.
The fact of the matter is I don't really need a supervisor for grammar correction. One of my closest friends from home is the editorial assistant to the president of Harvard - I will just send him my drafts if I am worried about punctuation and sentence fragments. Yes, these things are important, but they are secondary at this early stage. I need to know if my theoretical framework makes sense, if the scope of my project is too wide, if it is apparent that I am talking a bit pile of shite and have no idea what I am doing, etc.
Comma placement just seems a bit trivial at this point.

2. The left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing.
One supervisor tells me to focus on organisational structure, case studies and policy; the other agrees with my desire to take a 'bottom-up' perspective.
One supervisor thinks my writing style is 'preachy' and 'overstated;' the other thinks this is an important part of my voice.
One supervisor thinks I am miles ahead of where I need to be; one is beginning to panic that without early data collection I am floundering.
However, get them both together in the same room and BAM! Total love-in! They can't stop agreeing with each other.
Don't ask me which side they are taking this week.

3. My lead supervisor is Old School - very Old School (there I go with those pesky capital letters again).
I want to do research that looks at people's experiences, which empowers participants and includes them in the development of the project. I want to work under the assumption that they are the experts and that the only way I will get the data I need is by letting them have a modicum of control. This, my friends, is far too ethereal a concept for my lead supervisor. He is a positivist. Research should be pure, scientific, objective. It is a view that is well respected in some scientific communities. It has its strengths. It is not me (You can imagine what color the draft of my methodological chapter is at this point - ten points if you guessed red).

4. And finally - I know what's wrong, but now what?
I know what parts of my work my supervisors think are weak. I know what they don't like and what they think doesn't work. This has been made fairly clear via the red ink. But exactly what about it is wrong? Am I on the right track? Should I throw it away and start again? Should I just turn off my computer, hand over the keys to my office and go find a graduate job at PriceWaterhouse Coopers while I still have a chance for a normal life? Obviously if I put it in there, I thought it was correct. If it is not, I am going to need a little direction.
Throw me a bone, people.

There is a slight chance that part of the problem is my inability to accept criticism [insert gasp of shock and disbelief here]. I know everybody hates to be corrected, but it really does make me insane. Tell me I have done something wrong and I become bitchy, defensive and defiant. It also propels what is already an un-healthy dose of self-loathing/doubt into overdrive. I am finding it tough enough to convince myself that I am at all capable of joining the 5% of the population psychotic enough to undertake a doctoral thesis; you could tell me that I used the wrong font size right now and I would probably be tempted to throw in the towel. I'm also just completely unaccustomed the vast amount of criticism I am getting. I blame my high school teachers and undergraduate lecturers. The only red writing they put on my essays was large, approving check marks at the ends of paragraphs or the occasional "Yes!" in the margins. They tricked me - lulled me into a false sense of security. Against the charges of poor grammar and badly developed arguments, my defense is a claim of entrapment.

"Poor [my name]," you must be thinking now. "Poor, poor, [my name] who gets paid to sit in a nice office next to a window and read and write about things she finds truly interesting. Poor, poor, poor, girl!" I hear you cry, "Being mentored by one of the national leaders in her field who gives her lots of time and attention, not to mention advice and support for her future career." By God, you're right! I've got it pretty tough here in my ivory tower! I wish I hadn't cut off my lovely long hair so I could toss it down for a bit of rescuing. The final act of an academic damsel in distress. Alas, I guess I will just have to settle for a cup of coffee.

Celebration of a Life

2008-04-16T15:14:00.004+01:00

I am leaving little room in my life for sadness these days. Bad timing, then, for the anniversary of my grandmother's death. I can't quite understand the tradition of remembering a person on the anniversary of their death instead of the anniversary of their birth, especially someone like my Gram. She was so full of joy and gratitude all the time, her life was about focusing on the good and the great and relishing the challenges of the bad. So in honour of her, the woman for whom I have named this blog (for those who thought it was some sort of philosophical idea, I am literally the granddaughter of a woman called Fate), I am going to revel in the happy memories I have of her.

Gram loved everyone. I don't mean in the sense that some sorority girls, who kiss everyone hello and always cheerfully say "love ya" at the end of a phone conversation, love everyone. She really loved people. She always put everyone else's needs before her own, always looked after everyone else's interests. Gram could always see the other side to the story. She took empathy to levels unseen by most - I witnessed her on more than one occasion utter her favourite phrase "God love them" while watching footage of criminals being taken into custody. And she meant it, she felt everyone's pain and genuinely believed everyone was worthy of compassion and kindness. What was most remarkable about her compassion was that it didn't seem to be born out of some lefty-guilt, Christian obligation or sense of moral righteousness. It was just her. Kindness seemed to be her base instinct, simply the essence of who she was.

Knowing where she came from made Gram's nature even harder to explain. She was never one to be dealt an easy hand. Put up for adoption at birth, she was born out of wedlock to a married woman and her teen-aged lover. Because her father was a minor and both her parents Irish nationals, she was never permitted to know anything more about them. She was adopted by a moderately wealthy, childless American couple from Cape Cod. Her parents had a biological son shortly after, and Gram was regarded as little more than an overreaction to perceived infertility. When she was thirteen, she discovered she was adopted when her mother proclaimed "No wonder your real parents didn't want you." Her first husband abandoned her to set up home with his mistress and she was left to raise three young children on her own. After she married the man I would know as my grandfather, she suffered several miscarriages and a still birth, years of unemployment, poverty, and severe alcoholism. She was excommunicated from the church she loved and rejected by her in-laws as a 'ruined' woman. Her face bore the lines of these tribulations, but she would have never uttered a word of complaint to anyone.

Gram's heart was soft, but her back was broad.

The Gram I knew gave away nothing of the life described above. She was short and round, rosy-cheeked, with freckles and soft red hair. She was almost always smiling, and not just with her mouth but with her whole face. She worked as a volunteer at food pantries and charity shops. She was the matriarch of the local AA groups (she travelled to most groups within a 20 mile radius and attended a meeting almost every day). Her house was always full of motherless children, lost souls looking for someone to love them. She was seemingly inexhaustible in her affection and attention, finding time and space for anyone who asked her for it. For as long as I can remember, she had one or all of her children/grandchildren living in her home.

Gram may have loved everyone, but I always liked to think that she and I had something special. I was sure we were kindred spirits - soul mates. I have written before about my disconnection from my family, my feelings of otherness. With Gram that never existed. She understood me before I even knew there was something to understand. We both devoured books, often staying up all night because we just couldn't stop reading. I loved to look at her shelves and see what titles we shared and which ones I could borrow. She watched the news and read the paper, uncommon activities in my family, and in general conversations she challenged my ideas of politics and citizenship. She loved the opera and classical music, and she closed her eyes when she was moved by a crescendo. I would never pretend to be the kind of person Gram was, but she has helped me to love the person that I am. All of the things that made me weird to the rest of my family made me special to her.

Everything she did was a reinforcement of her love and support. When I was struggling to pay for college, Gram sent me checks and pretended she didn't know what I was talking about when I tried to pay her back. She called me "sweetie-pie" and "punkin," and kissed me gently on the forehead when she said hello. When I told her I cried sometimes because the world was so unfair, she cried with me and asked me what I was going to do to change it. She told me that my heart was too big for most people to understand, but that she understood it. When I left home to move to Ireland, she gave Max her father's cuff-links to welcome him into our family. She whispered to me later that she was glad she got to meet the man I would love forever. I didn't realise then that was going to be the last time I saw her. Maybe she did.

At her funeral, an event that filled a church hall +overflow, the officiant called for those who felt moved to stand up and share their feelings about Gram. The service went on for what seemed like hours. People I had never seen before stood up and told the same stories. Gram was the best friend they have ever had. Gram came over in the middle of the night just because they needed to talk. Gram taught them the meaning of kindness. Gram was like the mother/sister/grandmother they never had. Gram stopped them from drinking. Gram saved their life. Gram was the best thing that ever happened to them... At first I was almost angry. She was mine! I didn't even know these people and I had to share my grief with them. How could she be all of those things to other people when she had been all of those things to me? When I stopped kicking my feet and pounding my fists I was able to see those statements for what they really were - a testament to the woman I had known and loved so well. Proof that I had not seen some skewed vision of the grandmother I had put on a pedestal, but of the woman who really existed.

I didn't make it home in time to say goodbye to Gram. She died two hours before I boarded the plane to come back to her. My sister was holding her hand when she went. The week before I spoke to her on the phone and she told me that if she died, she didn't want me "wasting my precious life flying around the world to watch her get put into the ground." She told me to go out to the ocean and say goodbye, and that she would see me again - "not too soon," she hoped. I ignored her - probably for the first time in my life. It has been four years since Gram died. I am glad to say my memories of her are as strong as the they have ever been. This post does little to express what she has meant to me, but I am sure she would think it was enough.

I think today I'll take a trip to the beach...

Reflections on a Sunny Afternoon

2008-04-15T11:31:00.004+01:00

I am feeling a lot more like myself today. This is most likely down to a delicious afternoon yesterday which reminded me why I love Belfast and my life in general.

After a day spent staring at the computer in my office, willing some sort of draft to magically appear on the screen so I wouldn't have to think of anything intelligent to write, I decided that staying at work until traditional closing time was unnecessary (and completely pointless). It was a beautiful afternoon - one of those really sunny days that dupes you into thinking could wear a breezy skirt and flip-flops if you are just staring out the window, but greets with a soothing chill that makes the air seem clean and crisp when you finally step outside. After my weekend of falling in love with Dublin (a constantly recurring event), I was not in the frame of mind to sit in watching BBC1 and listening to the daily trials and tribulations of my in-laws workplaces.

Max and I had determined to finally go to the beginners' meditation session at the Buddhist centre after weeks of flaking out at the last minute. The Buddhist centre is in the Cathedral Quarter, my favourite part of the city. It is a little area full of side streets and back alleys where vibrant pubs and coffee shops hide in amidst abandoned buildings and back entrances to office blocks. Max thinks it is an exaggeration to even call the area a "quarter" given its size and limited number of venues, but I love it all the same. We made several unsuccessful attempts to get into the Zen centre, but the doors were locked and it seemed that no one was home. Max decided that this was the result of the teacher being intimidated by Max's natural Zen ability, and we resigned ourselves to wandering around the city until we could find something suitable to replace our original plans.

I love the number of daylight hours you get in Spring here. It stays bright until almost 9:30pm some days, making it easy to enjoy post-dinner outdoor activities to your heart's content. In the city centre, everything closes by 6 or 7pm and the entire area becomes a ghost town. I used to hate that, craving the convenience culture to which I had become so accustomed after 23 years of living in the US. But now I love wandering around the empty city in the evening, feeling like you have the streets to yourself. Max and I dandered around aimlessly, him pointing out street signs in a feeble attempt to get me to learn Belfast by street name instead of landmarks so I would be more competent at giving directions, me rambling about the events of the weekend.

Arriving at Botanic Avenue, the student strong-hold of Belfast, the throngs of people bustling about shocked us back to reality. We ended up at our favourite coffee shop, a little non-profit place run by a liberal non-denominational church, and tucked in to two slices of cake each the size of my face.

I love going out for coffee with Max. It is a completely indulgent pastime on my part, given that it usually involves me pontificating about various "meaning of life" themed topics while he listens. There is something about sitting across the table from someone that turns Max into the most attentive listener the world has ever seen. He appears to hang on my every word, furrowing his brow as if to show me that he is deep in thought. Occasionally he will brush my hair away from my face or set his hand on top of mine, bringing me back from whatever academic or philosophical ramble I had let myself get carried away with. I used to worry that he just tuned out during these talks, bored with my prattling on. Now I know that it is just one of the things that makes us good together; my need to talk everything through until I am out of breath complimenting his need to sit back and absorb everything going on around him and mull it over quietly.

But this time Max did a lot more talking. He is excited about the progress happening in our house and getting closer to the moving in date. He imagined out loud the floor to ceiling bookshelves we would have, the bizarre mix of antique and modern furniture we have acquired over the last few years, the cast iron wood stove we bought to heat the kitchen filling the room with the smell of turf. He told me about the articles he has been reading on organic vegetable gardens and we decided to finally put our names down for an allotment near our house so we could grow fresh lettuce and peppers and green beans. We laughed as we imagined our house full of my family as they all fought over who would sleep where, especially after Max told them ghost stories about his favourite room in the house so he could maintain his privacy. We just talked about our life. A good life. The kind of life I always hoped I would have and that is right here in front of me now.

The more I write the less I feel I have a point. What felt like such an incredible day looks rather simple and dull in print. I guess all I was trying to convey is that I realised something important. It's so easy to feel sorry for myself, to crawl inside some hole of self-doubt and think about the things I have never had, the things I have lost, the person I thought I was supposed to be. But when I actually think about everything here in front of me - a city I am starting to love, friends who make me laugh even when I am miserable, a partner who is attentive and supportive (I could go on, I really could) - it just becomes too ridiculous to be unhappy.

Aftermath

2008-04-14T15:19:00.004+01:00

I've been feeling a bit better the last few days. I went to the hospital on Saturday to confirm what I already knew. I thought I would feel worse, but it was almost a relief - at least I had a definitive answer. Days of bed rest had left me with too much time to think, and I was tired of the false hope being given by somewhat disinterested health professionals. I just needed someone to look me in the eye and tell me it was over.

Distraction has helped, a trip to Dublin with friends for a gathering on grassroots organising has left me with a bit of perspective and a new focus. The social aspect of the evenings were an added bonus. Pints of cider mixed with roll-up cigarettes and angry girl punk bands have had an profoundly medicinal effect on my sadness. There is nothing like mildly self-destructive behaviour to make a girl feel better.

It was nice to be around people who were not walking on eggshells around me, waiting for me to fall apart. There is something about being teased or punched in the arm when you're experiencing despair that is such a relief. It makes you feel human again, having someone do something to you which they would never do to someone who they knew was sad. Back to normality. My sister said that if she were me she would make a list of all the things I had worried I would miss out on when I found out I was pregnant and then go and do them. Good advice, I think, except I couldn't really think of anything I was dreading giving up (except coffee, but I think I needed to do that anyway). So I acted like a teenager for the weekend. I wandered around a city with a tin of beer and sang bad 80s tunes at the top of my lungs while walking arm and arm with friends. I stayed up until daylight arguing about nothing and laughing at less than nothing. I slept in my clothes and did the walk of shame through Dublin. I took the train home and we talked all they way to Belfast about our plans for the social centre and the world. It was a good weekend.

So there it is. Life is back to normal. Just like that.

Normality carries with it its own problems. There are moments that I feel bad for trying to move on, like I should grieve a bit longer to show my respect to the life I had inside of me that is no more. My desire to try again feels like a betrayal, as if I am simplifying loss of a baby into something as trivial as replacing a dead hamster with a new one. Even the fact that I deleted the blogs associated with my pregnancy and its end leaves me with a sense of dismissal - as though I have decided that part of my life did not exist, that joy last week never happened.

I console myself with the mantra "there is no right way to do this," and just keep moving. This morning I cried in the car while listening to this song. The opening lines sum up all of the things I feel into a neat little ball.

Some days aren't yours at all, they come and go as if they're someone else's days. They go and leave you behind someone else's face - and it's harsher than yours, colder than yours

The happiest and saddest days of my life so far occurred within three days of each other, less than one week ago. Why is it starting to feel like they never happened?

The Woman with a Plan

2008-04-02T11:30:00.006+01:00

In my pre-PhD life I worked as an unqualified social worker. I was based in homeless hostels for people with alcohol addiction and mental health concerns, family assessment centres, and a domestic violence refuge. I loved my job 90% of the time. I loved meeting people I probably would have never met otherwise. I loved feeling like I was earning every penny of my wages. I loved being able to do something that changed every day. And I especially loved that it gave me a sense of control over the feeling of helplessness I get when I think about how much bad there is in the world.

Working in those places gave me perspective, purpose. When I had residents ( NOTE* apparently this is a non-PC term, however I had several residents tell me that they thought the "appropriate" term Service User made them sound like customers in a brothel. I am going with them on this one) tell me how much I had helped them, I almost always responded that they didn't realise how much they helped me. And I meant it. You can learn so much from listening to someone talk about their life, how they cope with what they are given, what they think/don't think when they act. Not only that, but when someone trusts you with their life - usually at one of their most vulnerable points - if you are smart you recognise it as an incredible gift. I imagine that many people think those of us who do such work are selfless. Some are. Personally, I think I got a lot more than I gave.

But work like that has its shelf life. After almost 10 years of taking on everyone else's pain, the cumulative burden became a little heavy. I envied my colleagues who were able to leave work right on time and shut the door on the hostel and everyone in it. I would stay behind for hours, go in on my days off, and phone back and check on people from home. If I was dealing with a particularly difficult situation (pretty much once per week) I couldn't stop thinking about it. I lost a lot of sleep.

There was anxiety as well. Not just the anxiety you get from being responsible for people's recovery/safety/resettlement, but the anxiety that comes from seeing incident after incident happen before your eyes. In my final year of work in a homeless hostel, I intervened in: more overdoses than I can remember; one attempted hanging; two attempts at slit wrists and countless threats of self-harm. I saw a resident (with whom I had been working for nearly two years) have a psychotic break and lock me and herself in the kitchen on Christmas Day. She wielded a knife and threatened to kill several people in the hostel. The same woman later began to hear voices telling her to kill me - which led to her being thrown out of the hostel and onto the street. I still don't know what has happened to her. Four of our ex-residents died within six months of each other - two of which were violent and sudden deaths. The final straw for me was when a resident who had been asked to leave for assaulting one of the staff broke into the hostel and threw a switch blade at the door of the office where I was standing, and then returned to wait outside the hostel with another knife for hours. No one was hurt, but I was fairly broken.

By the end of that year, I could hardly hear a door slam without jumping. I started to see residents as potential threats instead of people who had been given a rotten start in life and were trying to survive. I knew it was time to go, and I was extraordinarily lucky to have an escape plan. I love what I do now, and the thought of going back to over night shifts, drunken brawls and suicide attempts holds little appeal. I thought doing research into social problems that could eventually contribute to policy change would make me feel involved in the bigger picture, but there is no guarantee I will be able to change anything at all. Working in an office all day leaves me wanting. Worse still it leaves me feeling as though I am not doing what I always swore I would - take action.

I have been trying so hard to think about how best to use the time I have to make some positive impact. First I joined Amnesty International. It was a good concept, but in Belfast consists mainly of middle-aged and middle-class women talking a lot about what the ills of the world are and writing the occasional letter. I got the impression it was a bit like going to church on Sunday is for some- you do it because it is the good Christian thing to do and not because you feel compelled to be there. I am grateful for their efforts, every letter is making a change, but it wasn't for me. Next I tried to get involved with campaign to raise awareness about homelessness. Unfortunately that group was so worried about losing their government funding they were unwilling to challenge any of the problems - therefore making their activism somewhat inactive. My only alternatives were the Socialist Workers Party or the Anarchists. No harm to either, but they both tend to be a bit exclusive and extreme for my taste.

I was motivated and under stimulated. All dressed up and nowhere to go.

I hate when people complain about something and do nothing to fix it. But day after day I felt I was becoming one of those people. I needed a plan. The result is my current project - the development of a social activism network in the city that will hold databases of interested parties, raise awareness about issues through information sessions, and try to "cross-pollinate" the existing groups to improve numbers and organisation. I am really excited. My head is buzzing all the time with new ideas. Our eventual goal is to gain access to a space in the city centre which can act as a non-profit cafe, hold English classes for immigrants, have public meetings to keep people informed, and generally be a base camp for social change. Max is excited too, and really should be given credit for me organising anything at all. Once again he saves the day with the simplest of phrases: "if there is nothing out there that lives up to what you want, why don't you just create what you want and invite everyone else to your party?"

I love my husband.

We have just held our first planning session and networking and organising is already underway. It turns out there are a lot of people out there who wanted the same thing. They just didn't have a cool punk of a husband to tell them what to do. Updates to follow.

"Constant Use has not Worn Thin the Fabric of their Friendship"

2008-03-28T15:52:00.003Z

Music makes me too introspective. Sometimes I wish I liked Britney Spears or The Feeling or some other insipid pop trash that I could just stick on and not think about anything. Instead I end up feeling like Roberta Flak as Elliott Smith sings my life. Perhaps acceptable when I was an angst-ridden teenager, but as an adult I should probably stop listening to such misery. It's not fair to say that I love miserable music, I just love emotive music - and most of the good emotive music just happens to be extraordinarily sad. And of course, all music is about me and my life. All of it. The reason I am loving Elliott so much right now is because so much of his stuff is about loneliness, feeling isolated in a room full of people. It is a feeling I have always known pretty well, usually because I am good at alienating myself. But there is nothing to highlight loneliness like seeing old friends and saying goodbye to them.

I have probably rambled before about my lack of close friends in Belfast. Goodness knows poor M (Can I name him from here? From this point on my husband will be known as Max) hears enough of it. It's partly a cultural problem, really. Showing emotion is bit of a cultural faux-pas in Northern Ireland, as is being tactile. Given the fact that I hug and kiss everyone to say hello, spoon with my best friend when we share a bed, and cope with problems by talking about them - I run the risk of being a real pariah here! It doesn't help that people in Belfast have always lived in Belfast. They have the same friends they have had since they were 6 years old. They don't need new friends. New drinking buddies are OK. New people are also good to fill out a party or have the occasional coffee with. But in terms of those "call them in the middle of the night because it just can't wait til morning" friends, they have enough of those. So do I, frankly. They just live in other countries. It bothers me sometimes, but after 5 years I am getting pretty used to it and don't let it get to me. Then my girls showed up.

I met Catherine and Colleen in Washington DC. We worked together in the same bar where I met my husband. Catherine was a career waitress at the time. Sharp tongued, sarcastic and no-nonsense would be the words that people would most often use to describe her. I would have to add total softy to that list, along with loyal as hell. Catherine is the friend you call when you have been feeling sorry for yourself for too long and need a good kick in the ass. She is also great for getting completely hammered and laughing uncontrollably for hours at a time. Then Colleen arrived. She was doing her masters in forensic science when we first met. To look at her you might think she is about 14 years old. She is only 5ft tall (even she wears heels I am nearly two heads taller than her) and looks like the Campbell's soup kid, but she swears like a sailor and loves to talk about brains and guts. She can change a tire unaided, cook anything without a recipe, speak three languages fluently and makes/alters most of her clothes. She is, in my eyes, the ideal woman. Strong, independent, intelligent and talented; funny, soft, open and compassionate. At the height of our friendship Colleen and I spoke at least 5 times a day, and I would have never hesitated to pick up the phone at 3am if I needed her. We refer to our friendship back then as "the time we were dating" and the period when we both met our husbands as "the time we broke up." Colleen and I have so many inside jokes that people hate being around us, as so much of the conversation is made up of nonsensical phrases like that muffin made my woman parts hurt followed by obnoxious laughter/snorting. The two of them were the first girlfriends I had where there was no catty competition or gossip, and I never experienced honesty and loyalty from women in such a way. One of my other close friends, Haley, is wonderful - but I am essentially her babysitter. With Catherine and Colleen it's always been a two way street.

Fate is a funny thing, and all three of us have ended up with Irish men (I suppose the fact that we were pretty much the only Americans working in an Irish bar helped things along). Colleen moved to Wicklow with her husband last year, only 3.5 hours drive from Belfast. Catherine followed her boy to London in January (although he dumped her just before her arrival and she is now doing her Masters degree alone in a foreign city). In spite of their recent proximity, we have not been in very good touch. Much like myself when I moved to Ireland, Catherine and Colleen are struggling to settle in. Things and people from home are simply reminders of what they are missing, and so not often welcome. Colleen is very proud, and it is clear that she is having trouble coping with her situation and doesn't want me to see it. The result has been me chomping at the bit to see them, but not really getting to do so. But last week I got them both at the same time! I was almost nervous, it had been so long.

My nerves were unfounded.

When I picked Colleen up at the train station we practically ran to each other, arms open, like those cheesy films with the couple running through a field of dandelions. We talked constantly for two hours, barely pausing for breath. Catherine arrived and there were more hugs and exclamations of "look at you" and "tell me everything!" Suddenly my worries about having no real plans and leaving them bored were replaced with how we were going to cram everything in to one night. Where I had thought it was a problem that I could not round enough people up for going out on a weeknight before, I was now overcome with the urge to cancel all plans so I wouldn't have to share these women with anyone else.

We went for dinner in a tapas bar and a four hour meal ensued, eating at a leisurely pace and drinking at a slightly less leisurely one. We talked about our families, our friends in Washington, our days working in the bar together. We talked about women in international development and the Presidential race, we talked about the time Catherine absent-mindedly packed her vibrator in her carry-on luggage before a trip abroad. We laughed so hard that my sides and face hurt, and other patrons of the restaurant began to stare. It was wonderful, and it was as if we had never been apart. When we finally managed to stumble home we all piled into one double bed and snuggled as we spent all night talking some more. I had almost forgotten how much I loved these women, maybe I had done so for my own sanity.

The next morning we had breakfast and I took them both back to the train station. I said goodbye quickly, like pulling off a band-aid. Max said I was almost cold, and he worried that Colleen and Catherine might think I wanted them to leave. When I got home and Max went to work I wrapped myself in a blanket and had a good cry. Some of the tears were those of relief. Relief that I had not lost the relationships I had thought time and distance deteriorated, relief that I was still capable of being the overly-emotional, affectionate, sometimes crude woman I was when I moved to Ireland. Some of the tears were joyful, leftover happiness and excitement from the night before. And some of the tears, the really painful ones, were the ones that came when I recognised just how much I have been missing - and what I am going to continue to miss.

Fortunately I had one of Elliott's more hopeful songs to get me through.

Blog about a Blog

2008-03-24T17:06:00.009Z

Are you a complete loser when you start blogging about blogging? I feel like a dork when I even use the word 'blog.' So my personal response to the above question would be yes. But I am going to do it anyway.

I started writing this as a way to be completely honest with myself. To write how I am feeling and what is going on in my life in a totally uncensored way. Anonymity promised that no one I know would be able to hold anything against me. In theory, the anonymous nature of things would also mean I could easily dismiss any negative feedback from other bloggers. I had started writing it just for me, but that in itself was, I suppose, dishonest. I have never been a great judge of myself. I always need feedback and information from other people. The point of keeping an electronic record of my days was supposed to be personal reflection - but once again I find myself seeking other people's approval and answers. This is particularly discouraging considering that I have only two readers - and one of them is my sister (there goes the anonymity).

As a result I find myself trying to make my blogs more readable. My dashboard is filled with entries I have started and never finished because I could not get them quite right. It is ridiculous, really, considering that the only blogs I like to read are the one which seem true to life and non-formulaic. Once again I am chasing the image of how I want to be seen instead of being myself. I do that enough in the real world, I needed this space to be free of pretenses and prejudices.

That is not to say that the blogs I have posted are dishonest - they are not in the slightest. In fact sometimes I have to stop myself from deleting some of them because the thought of them being 'out there' for other people to read and critique is too much for me. My censorship comes in when thinking about the blogs I don't write. If I threw caution to the wind, didn't worry about what I could make sound eloquent or witty, I would probably write two posts a day. I would fill page after page with the odd notions running through my mind minute after minute. I would talk about politics and religion, but I would also talk about migraines and avoiding sex because you are having a particularly bad weak-bladder day. I would comment on more than just one of the many blogs I read loyally - even if it makes me feel like a weird, stalker-type character. After all, y'all wouldn't put them up if you didn't want people to read them, right?

So here I go, back to the 'warts and all' blog I had always intended to write. You may not like it. Hell, I may not like it. But at least it will be honest. I will, however, accept the part of my personality that for now requires some feedback, and try to pro-actively get more readers. I will also need to place a great deal of trust in my sister, that she will continue to keep mum about anything she reads here and still love me when she knows what I am actually like.

To help me with my new blogger persona, I am also going to need to learn some blogging etiquette (the constant use of this word is actually causing me to laugh out loud now). Does anyone have any pointers? For example - at what point do you add someone to your blogroll? Do you ask permission? Should you introduce yourself in your first comments on a blog? Do you reply to comments? How did everyone learn how to behave appropriately? Any help would be appreciated.

Brace yourselves, this could get ugly (or just plain boring)!

Biological Time Bomb

2008-03-14T14:02:00.008Z

The moment I realised I was in love with M was in IKEA. We had gone there for Swedish meatballs, just to kill a rainy afternoon. It was long before we said "I love you." It was before we had even stayed the night at the other's apartment. Yet standing there in that soulless warehouse, surrounded by rushing shoppers and bland Swedish furniture, I wanted us to buy a house and fill it with things and stay locked in it alone together forever. With my M, I never saw lightning bolts or got sweaty palms. I didn't feel weak at the knees when we kissed or pine for him when we were apart for an hour. But he has always given me this urge to settle down.

There was this time when I realised the loan my father had secretly taken out in my name defaulted and that any chance I had of taking out a loan to finish school was ruined. I felt so lost, so defeated, totally alone. I was sitting on a bar stool next to M, sobbing quietly and feeling like my life had finally caught up with me. M is a man of few words, but he just took my hand and said "we'll fix it. You and me against the world." It was kind of cheesy, he probably even got it from a movie or a song, but I was immediately comforted. If anyone else had said it I might have laughed, but from him it seemed true. Even M's smell makes me feel calm. Not the smell of his cologne or his soap, the smell of HIM. Sometimes when I can't sleep because I am feeling anxious or sad I bury my face in his neck and get a good whiff of him. It always works. I always tease him by saying that I only love him because of his smell, that his pheromones are so strong I couldn't resist him. This is, of course, not entirely true. But M's ability to inexplicably make me want to nest, and the ever-powerful draw of his BO are certainly testaments to the strength of biology.

As a social scientist, I have always been much more a fan of nurture in the whole NvN argument. But as evident above, I do believe in natural forces by which we are not rendered powerless - but are certainly weakened. Biology played its part in bringing M and I together, and it has started rearing its ugly head again - trying to encourage the growth of our little family. You guessed it, the old biological clock is ticking.

"Ticking" might be an understatement. It has been "ticking" for a while. I have always loved kids. I oooh and ahhh over babies, I have always loved babysitting and spent the majority of my teen aged summers as a nanny. I have often wondered what my children would look like and even written names down at the back of my diary. But this is different. This is not your average "tick-tock." This is an all-powerful, biological drive that says screw you, your plans, your husband's plans, your PhD or any gallivanting you had hoped to do - it is baby time. It is a pain in my ovaries when I see small children, the constant urge to touch my abdomen looking for any sensation that something is in there. It is an overwhelming urge to love and cuddle my dog in ways that no animal who has potentially just eaten its own feces should ever be loved or cuddled.

At first I thought my desire to pro-create was a societal invention. I worried that I wanted to have a baby because it was the next thing to do...go to college(check), get married (check), get a good job(check), buy a house (check) - have a baby. I grew suspicious that society was trying to force me to have a baby through brainwashing and manipulation. I began to rant at the news when it showed stories about the dangers of women having children in their 30s and 40s - convinced that it was an attempt by the male-dominated media world to reinforce the glass ceiling. Now I fret that if I don't get knocked up before 30 I am ruining any chance of having a family at all. Is it all hormones? My doctor thinks so. When I went to see him recently about the horrible, painful, emotional menstrual periods I have been having he informed me that "childless women of my age" often experience difficult menstrual cycles because their bodies are ready for childbirth (reminder, I am 27. 27!), and that once I have a baby it will all correct itself again. It probably is hormones to some extent. I mean, what rational woman would be so overcome by emotion alone that every time she sees a baby she gets the urge to grab and run? If it is nature, it's no wonder it is doing over time. Believe me, nature is going to have to work hard to beat out reason in this argument.

There are a million reasons not to have a baby right now. First being that there are so many things I want to do. I haven't been anywhere outside of Europe and North America. I want to see different cultures, volunteer in the third world, travel around speaking at conferences. And I am really selfish! I want to have the option of staying out with my friends until the early hours of the morning. I want my husband all to myself for a bit longer - I require a lot of attention and he can barely keep up as it is. And what about my youthful good looks? What will become of them? I want my nice perky breasts to remain nice and perky. I am concerned enough over the size of my arse, do I really want to make it bigger? And then there is work. I am only just starting to excel at what I do. I want to get to the top of my field and have the kind of career I have always dreamed of, not take a year off and let some idiot man take my job while I am home changing diapers.

Baby? Are you kidding? When? Where exactly is a baby going to fit into all of this?

But then I think about a little person with dark curly hair and big brown eyes and eyelashes so long they tickle your face when you cuddle her (this is what my husband looked like when he was a baby - one of those completely irresistible children who you just had to scoop up and hold tight). I think of trips to the beach and pony rides and first days of school. A little person who gives your life a whole new purpose and direction. Suddenly none of those things listed above even seem to matter - or they can at least take a back seat for while.

Everyone goes through this debate, right? No one likes to give anything up or having to share their partner's affection. Who willingly does something that makes your body change forever, and causes pain that you will never be able to describe? This is where nature kicks in (or kung fu/roundhouse kicks its way in, as it were). I think I will just let nature take its course and hope for the best.

In the meantime I need to find an outlet for my maternal instincts before I start nursing my puppy.

What is a Lady to Do?

2008-03-11T21:36:00.004Z

I think I am betraying feminism. In fact, I think that lately I have been setting feminism back a few years.

Since moving in with my in-laws I find myself suddenly spending an awful lot of time in the kitchen, and getting chastised a lot when I don't. Somehow this project of renovating my new house has become my father-in-law's project, and I have been sent back to where I belong (see 'the kitchen'). At first I thought maybe I was just being a little touchy, a bit 'American' about the whole thing. But day by day I am starting to see some dangerous patterns emerging:

1. I am no longer consulted or permitted input into decisions made about the house
2. I am frequently told that I should not go to the house because there is 'no work for a woman' round there
3. My father in law refuses to tell me how much the electrician and plasterer are charging because he is concerned I will 'go off and spend the money' if I realise it is cheaper than previously anticipated
4. I was told that I don't do enough around the house, specifically that I am apparently 'afraid' to cook dinner because normally I 'make' my husband do it - which is apparently wrong
5. According to my father-in-law, my husband is too scared of me to make his own decisions, and this is my fault because I am so overbearing

On the day that the concrete floor was due to be laid, my FIL was searching desperately for a third body to help with the work. In spite of the fact that I was able to strip plaster off the walls faster than both of his sons, the FIL believed that pouring concrete was 'no job for a woman.' Neither, apparently, is sweeping up glass from the floor. Perhaps there is some genetic defect in the make up of female hands that makes us more susceptible to glass induced injury. Also, there seems to be some inherent inability for my female brain to make any decision or answer any questions about the house. This must be why whenever contractors ask questions (always directed at my husband) my better half stares blankly at me, leaving me to come up with the solutions - which, by the way, I am more than able to do. It seems that having breasts has been classified as a disability, and everyone is ok with it except me.

Now maybe I am jumping to conclusions, but there is substantial research that shows a connection between sexism and distribution of household chores. So you can understand my concern when I see my husband has started to relax into this happy little world where men do manly jobs and women do womanly ones. When I ask him for help with household chores, he has started saying things like "I've been at work all day" (um, hello, where do you think I have been all day? The circus?) or "when the football is over." When I ask him to pick up a greeting card for HIS mother's birthday or to come with me to visit HIS grandmother, he asks why I don't do it myself (this from a man who has spent one holiday with my family since we met and doesn't remember my mom's last name, never mind buying her a birthday card). Suddenly the man I love seems to have forgotten how to look after himself.

His sudden lapse into the 1950's is a bit annoying, but I am not overly worried for the long term. I know exactly how to handle my husband. The fact is, his father is right. He is a bit afraid of me. Frankly anyone who sorts through our joint laundry pile to find only his clothes and then asks me to wash and iron them needs to be afraid! I did not put myself through seven years of higher education (with another three to go) to do someone else's laundry. He knows I am not his slave, and I am sure once we get out of his parents' house and his mother doesn't pander to his every whim he will remember that fact.

But what the hell do I do with my father-in law? Do I accept that he is set in his ways and clearly has an inferiority complex because the family roles in his own family are not what he is used to (his wife has always worked, and incidentally is the primary breadwinner in the family)? Do I keep my mouth shut and be grateful that he is letting me live in his house and doing so much work on my behalf? Is there any way to be respectful and maintain my dignity? Because honestly, I am doing so many dishes my fingers are pruning. And if I accept one more of his sexist remarks I am certain Elizabeth Cady Stanton will roll over in her grave.

If he were anyone else I would firmly tell him to shove his dishes up his arse or do them his bloody self! However I think that might leave me homeless - and perhaps divorced.

"Nothing Feels Better than Blood on Blood"

2008-02-27T16:14:00.006Z

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.

Rekindled?

2008-02-20T15:59:00.004Z

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.

Dreaming of Private Places for Private Things

2008-02-18T13:11:00.000Z

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.

Mock the Week

2008-02-07T13:03:00.000Z

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.

Now what?

2008-01-23T00:10:00.000Z

I have successfully made it through my 100 day seminar. In the immediate aftermath of this I was elated, but that led into the sense that having made it through the event unscathed, I no longer believed it to be a very important achievement. Now I am left a little directionless and without an everyday focus in my academic life. The impact this assessment should have had was to give me feedback in order to improve my proposal and move forward. Instead, without this goal hanging there in the future (my next assessment isn't until June), I feel unsure of where to go from here. My personal debate over the last few days is whether or not I take this as a break. Should I just stop thinking about my PhD for a while and give my poor brain (and psyche) a rest? It feels irresponsible, but yet I am sitting in my office trying to think of something to do next and I've got nothing.

At the weekend my husband took me away to the lakes district where we ate good food, slept in a comfy bed and were generally treated like celebrities because we know the manager of the hotel. It was beautiful, peaceful, tranquil. I got sick. See, my body just can't handle relaxation! I am beginning to think stress and deadlines are the only things that keep me functional. With that said, I think my mind is made up. I am going to put on some overalls, cover my hair with a kercheif, and go do the only thing that has given me any real satisfaction in the last few weeks - strip wall paper.

Life amongst Ostriches

2008-01-20T11:34:00.000Z

I watched a film last night that moved me so much that I couldn't sleep afterwards. Half Nelson, a story about an idealistic schoolteacher with a crack addiction that he barely keeps under control, had such a profound effect on me that I spent most of the night mulling the themes over in my head. This man who was so inspired by activism and imbued with a feeling that he was destined to make positive change in the world, but at the same time grappling with the horrifying realisation that there was very little he could do to make those changes. Although he never said so in the film (in fact he never made any attempts to justify his habit), I got the sense that his drug abuse was a means of shutting out the the pain he experienced as a result of the above realisation. The film moved me for many reasons - the style and writing of the was beautiful, and the relationship shared between the teacher and his student was hopeful and kind - but mainly I was gripped by the main character's struggle with his own limitations and the intensity of the pain and injustice of the world. This is probably because it is such a familiar scenario.

Someone said to me recently after I had invited them to several events (many of which were protests or talks about social justice), "It's all just too heavy for a weekend." I get this a lot. The things I want to do or talk about are too serious for many of the people in my life, and so I toe the line trying to be happy and cheerful. It's important, you see, not to make anyone uncomfortable by exposing them to the reality of the world outside their lovely lives. It wouldn't be entirely fair for me to pass judgement. In fact I would be lying if I said that I wasn't a little jealous. I often think that my life would be easier if I never thought about the horrors of war, or whether or not the clothes I buy were sold by companies who exploit and abuse their employees, or if the chicken I eat suffered horrible conditions before being slaughtered. I would love to be entertained by romantic comedies where everyone is happy in the end and no one gets hurt. I wish I could read the newspaper or watch the news without feeling a horrible ache inside. I want to go to work every day somewhere where I can do my job, make lots of money, go home and spend that money as I see fit, without thinking about the people in the world who have nothing. I would be lying if I said I wouldn't love to be free of this sense of sadness and guilt that people are suffering and I am not. I envy people the ability to do this, even resent them a little.

I do what I can to fit in with friends and family who like a 'lighter' life. I attempt to balance my need to raise people's awareness of issues and encourage action against me need to be accepted by my peers and have someone to have a drink with on a Friday night. I can't lie and say it doesn't piss me off that I can't do both simultaneously, and in spite of my partial understanding of why someone doesn't want to watch the news because "it's too depressing," I sometimes want to stand on a table and shout "You're all fucking sheep! Stop burying your head in the sand for an easy life!"

My mother-in-law recently expressed disgust at Hillary Clinton for showing too much emotion when her voice broke a bit while talking about the state of the country. In fact, she said this one moment made her second-guess whether or not she thought Hillary was "strong enough" and had enough "dignity" to win the election. I watched that same clip on the news, and I cried. I cried because I was so relieved that someone cared enough to be so upset. How does someone who feels this way function in today's world? How am I supposed to cope when even my family and my husband think that I am "too much work" when I prattle on about the pain I feel at the state of our society? I am so tired of being ashamed or embarrassed about feeling the way I do. Why isn't everyone else embarrassed that they don't? Why don't people feel embarrassed for getting up every morning and going to work for a corporation which unashamedly exploits it's employees? Why don't people feel embarrassed and ashamed at having friends who make racist, sexist remarks and defend themselves by claiming they don't hurt anyone? Why aren't people ashamed and embarrassed that they benefit every day from a democracy in which they do not feel obligated to participate? Why aren't people embarrassed and ashamed that every day they are funding military operations that kill and maim innocent people?

And here I am, working hard not to make people uncomfortable. That makes me just as bad as they are. Perhaps it is time I feel a bit more embarrassed and ashamed at that.

Objects in the bedroom mirror may appear fatter than they are

2008-01-17T14:09:00.000Z

This morning I woke up, tripped over my handbag and landed in my laundry pile. I then managed to get muscle rub in my eye, scald myself making coffee, and trip again on my way into my office (this time with an audience). These were all annoying things. However the thing I found most annoying this morning was getting dressed. In fact, I think the reason that I have noticed every annoying thing about today is because of how I felt when I was getting dressed. Fat. Not just fat, mammoth! I looked at myself while getting dressed today and I was disgusted. Irrational dysmorpia aside, reason tells me that I am a totally normal size. I am 5'7", weigh about 140lbs and wear a US size 8 (UK size 12). NORMAL! In fact, below average! Logically I know that if I am the same height, weight and size that I was three months ago, I most likely do not look fatter than I did three months ago. Yet still I am completely consumed by a horror at my appearance at least once a week.

This makes me angry - both with myself and with all of the things I think make me feel this way. If it was only me, I could say that I perhaps have a bit of a problem and need to address it, but it's not. So many of my absolutely beautiful friends feel the same way. It is appalling. And I know it is wrong but it is still so dominant. Every time I watch TV I feel fat. Read a magazine - feel fat. See a movie - feel fat. Watch the news - get TOLD I'm fat. Don't even get me started on how I feel when I am eating! The other night I watched this programme called Superskinny Me in which two journalists crash dieted to show the effects of dropping down from a US size 8 to a US size 00. Do you know what I thought when I was watching this? "They don't look that skinny." Ridiculous! This woman was describing how she could put her hands almost around her waist, and rather than gasping in horror I reminisced about a time when I could have done that too. And is it any wonder? During the commericals of this show there were at least two ads for work out videos and a commercial for Slim-Fast! Even during a documentary about the dangers of dieting we are pummeled with weight loss propaganda. We're so fucking brainwashed that we think if you are not starving you're a moose.

Frankly I have had enough. I refuse to let myself feel like shit because I eat three meals everyday and have things to do besides going to the gym. When I told people about reading The Beauty Myth by Naomi Wolf and the theory that women are being oppressed by physical expectations/standards, my friends thought I was just a crazy feminist. But look around you, seriously look around. Look at all of the things that tell you you're not good enough/rich enough/well dressed enough/thin enough/pretty enough/young enough. Then look and see what those bastards are trying to sell you in order to "feel/be better."

I am not buying it anymore.

Ridiculously late 2007 summary - I have been distracted

2008-01-15T14:37:00.000Z

1. What did you do in 2007 that you'd never done before? So many things. Most notably - celebrated a wedding anniversary, told someone my biggest/worst secret, drove in Ireland, and kissed my husband on New Year's Eve.

2. Did you keep your new years' resolutions, and did you make more for 2008? I kept my resolution to quit smoking eventually, but it took months before it actually happened. As for 2008, see blog entitled 'A Trite Start to the New Year.' All broken at least once so far.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
One of my closest friends in high school had a baby and called her Lucia. It seemed ridiculous to not be there, in spite of only speaking to her about once a year. Strange to think you could be so close to someone an miss such a huge event in their life.

4. Did anyone close to you die?
I could have almost said no, but my great-uncle Jimmy died in December. Once again, we were close once but not any more. I detect a pattern. Kurt Vonnegut as well. I know I wasn't actually close to him, but he was so important to my life that he is worth mentioning.

5. What countries did you visit?
America, Ireland and England

6. What would you like to have in 2008 that you lacked in 2007? Confidence, a sense of calm, contentment

7. What date from 2007 will remain etched upon your memory, and why? March 28th - the day I was accepted to my doctoral programme. It was the day everything started to fall into place.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Graduating at the top of my class in spite of the many obstacles. I also finally acknowled that I was burnt out in my job as a homeless support worker and allowed myself to move on.

9. What was your biggest failure?
Being too afraid to admit to my family that I am not moving back home.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
I had surgery on my back and quite a significant bout of depression, both of which are on the mend.

11. What was the best thing you bought?
A new house, which is going to act as the foundation for the next part of our lives. A beautiful 150 year old brick house with original stained glass and wooden floors. It is magnificent, and restoring it to it's original beauty will be a gift in itself.

12. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Hosting Thanksgiving dinner in my own house, seeing old friends at a wedding, starting my life as an academic, having time to read for pleasure, winning an award I had thought was far beyond my reach, realising I had married the kindest man in the world, seeing Arcade Fire in concert.

13. What songs will always remind you of 2007?
"Intervention" and "Tunnels" by Arcade Fire, "My Moon, My Man" by Feist, "Twilight" by Elliot Smith, "Hips Don't Lie" by Shakira, "March into the Sea" by Modest Mouse, "Mutual Friend" and "Sunrise" by Divine Comedy, and too many more to mention.

14. What do you wish you'd done more of?
Relaxing, making friends, going to concerts, travelling, telling my husband how great he is, cooking dinner, taking the dog on super-long walks.

15. What do you wish you'd done less of?
Complaining, worrying, crying, working.

16. How did you spend Christmas?
I awoke in my husband's childhood bedroom. He quickly donned a santa hat and ran through the house shouting "it's Christmas, Santa's been!" and waking up his parents and siblings. We then promptly lined up and walked down the stairs - my husband first as he is the eldest - and looked at our gifts from Santa. I was sick, so I skipped breakfast. We put on our new clothes, did some family visiting, and returned home for dinner. We talked about ridiculous things, as dictated through a card game giving conversation topics, and drank wine and laughed until the early hours of the morning. I had my annual cry in the front room after talking to my family on the phone, and my husband instinctively cheered me up by giving me his gift - a pair of wellington boots to wear in the mud and muck when walking the dog. All in all it was joyous and delightful.

17. Did you fall in love in 2007?
Repeatedly, but mostly with my husband.

18. How many one-night stands?
None.

19. What was your favorite TV program?
I wish it hadn't been Grey's Anatomy, but it was. Peep Show was a close second.

20. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year? No. I like someone this year that I thought I hated last year, though.

21. What was the best book you read?
I read "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" again, and it once again surprised and amazed me. "Persepolis" was fantastic, as was "What is the What?" by Dave Eggers.

22. What was your greatest musical discovery?
So many great musical discoveries this year - Neutral Milk Hotel, Feist, Iain Archer, Gillian Welch, Modest Mouse, Rachel Austin. I owe most of them to a friend, who keeps me constantly in beautiful music.

23. What did you want and get?
Funding for my PhD, a new car,a trip to America to attend my best friend's wedding, my father seeing me graduate.

24. What did you want and not get?
Peace of mind, two dress sizes smaller, a job at the Human Rights Commission, more friends.

25. What was your favorite film of 2007?
"Stranger than Fiction." It truly moved me, made me laugh and cry (tears of joy), and made me think twice about my life.

26. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I went out to a local festival and drank and danced in this amazing tent set up in the town square that was decked out in red velvet, stained glass and candle light. It looked like the Moulin Rouge only smaller. I wore a silk purple shirt that made me feel like a million dollars and that I will only bring out again for an equally exciting occasion. I was 27.

27. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying? Having the people I love a bit closer.

28. What kept you sane?
My husband, my dog, my ambition, my work (all of these also contributed to loss of sanity at some point or another). Probably music, above all. It has always been my therapist, confidant and oracle.

29. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
Will and Regine, the two lead singers from Arcade Fire (I sound a little obsessed with Arcade Fire, but I'm really not), Gael Garcia Bernal, Maggie Gyllenhall.

30. Who did you miss?
Gram, my parents, my sister and brother, Pat, Holly, Alex, Jen, Nicole, Gareth, Catrina, Washington DC, the Atlantic Ocean.

31. How did you spend New Year’s Eve?
Eating dinner at a Lebanese restaurant with some of my closest Irish friends - then drinking and dancing until early morning at a house party. I kissed my husband at midnight for the first time in the 6 years we have known each other.

32. Who was the best new person you met?
Rachel Piper. She is saving my life right now and she doesn't even know it. And John O'Donahue, although I am sad to say I might have forgotten to mention him if it wasn't for his recent death.

33. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2007.
I am not destined for failure.

34. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.
"I found a man to stick it out and make a home from a rented house. We'll collect the moments one by one, I guess that's how the future's done." - Feist

"If you want somethin, don't ask for nothin. If you want nothin, don't ask for somethin!" - Arcade Fire

A poet and a mystic

2008-01-15T13:59:00.000Z

Sunday night I went to a celebration of the life and work of John O'Donahue, who died suddenly and in his sleep two weeks ago. I had met only him once - he was giving a talk/poetry reading about life in general. He spoke for hours about everything and nothing at all, and at the end we were all begging for more. He spoke with a soothing, western Irish lilt - the kind of voice that could calm you even if he were reading out the atrocities of the daily news. He seemed a beautiful man, and the celebration was beautiful as well.

It is strange to think that someone who inspired me so much in such a short space of time has left me speechless in his death. I have been trying to write about the odd sense of grief over the loss of a man who I didn't know, the gratitude I feel towards a person who challenged me and the way I view the world, but nothing seems to come. John O'Donahue was a man who absorbed every moment of his life and experienced every ounce of joy and pain and all of the things in between. I guess all I want to say is that I hope I can find it within myself to live in that way. No better time than the present to start trying.

My dog ate my PhD

2008-01-08T16:39:00.000Z

For once I will use this for what I had originally intended - keeping a record of day to day events. I am afraid, however, that it will end up being a daily account of the PhD process since that is basically all I ever do/think about.

So I am two weeks to the day away from my first progress seminar where I am expected to show a panel of academics how well I am doing in my research and they can decide whether or not to permit me to continue as planned. For the last three months I have thrown myself into this process, reading everything I could get my hands on and trying to understand theories and research paradigms and everything else that makes normal people's eyes glaze over when you start to talk about it. Merrily I rolled along thinking I was on the right track. But today, upon reading the third draft of my seminar paper, my supervisor has decided that my project is not viable and I need to redesign it. How am I expected to keep to my new year resolutions in the face of this? Honestly, my first reaction is to scream/have a cigarette/eat chocolate. To save you the suspense, yes - I did all three of those things.

My day was preceded by a rather disturbing and seemingly impossible dream, in which I was accidentally killed in an assassination attempt on a politician and my ghost went around talking to my friends and being upset because my still living husband wasn't paying me enough attention now that I was dead.

No more documentaries about terrorism before bed. And no more meetings with PhD supervisors. This is surely the best way to avoid further problems. On a good note, we signed for the new house today and plans to move in shortly are underway.

This particularly good news, given that I have been living in my husband's childhood bedroom with a houseful of furniture in the garage for more than three weeks now. Equally delightful is the news that my brother-in-law might be moving in with us. One might ask why this is so delightful - if so, one must never have had to cope with paying for the renovations on a 150 year old house!

Ode to a Piano (and a mother)

2008-01-03T15:18:00.000Z

It is incredible how much inanimate objects can mean to someone. I am just off the phone, crying hysterically about a piano. A piano! Here I am, thousands of miles away from my family and friends, approaching a massive deadline for my PhD, and in the middle of a very stressful house move - and I am crying over a piano!

But it is not just a piano, it is the pride of our family. My mother brought it home when I was about 9 years old. Where the piano came from is still a bit of a mystery, and being a child I never asked. Looking back it seems ridiculous, we could never afford such a luxury and I have no idea how my mother managed it. It was beautiful. Dark mahogany wood, hand carved roses adorning the music rest. It was beaten and scratched and in need of a good polish, but it was breathtaking none the less. I remember thinking that the keys were rather more yellow than I had expected (I had never seen a piano up close), and when I hit the first few notes it was clearly out of tune - not that I would have known what in tune should sound like. I didn't take lessons, but I played the piano every day at first. I am sure it was pure noise, driving all of the neighbours in our apartment block insane, but I 'practised' to my heart's content. My mother had never taken a lesson either, and she could not read a note of music, but she used to sit and listen to music and try to bang out the notes on the keys - often with great success. But my favourites were the songs she wrote herself. Hearing them now they would likely seem simple and plain, but back then I was sure she was a musical genius.

The piano moved with us time and again, thanks mainly to a friend of my mother's who managed to get people to move it for free. Recently my mother decided she was tired of moving it from place to place and resolved to get rid of it. I begged her told on to it for a bit longer so that I might take it with me to Ireland when I could afford to and she agreed. But today she said she had agreed to give it away. She offered my piano to another family whose children wanted a piano but who could not afford to buy one. This was, of course, a noble thing for my mother to do. She is handing on the piano in what I can only assume was the same manner by which we came to possess it. In a karmic universe, surely this is the answer. I know it is selfish and childish, and I do want to pass on that same joy I felt to another family, but I can't bare someone else having something that is so much a part of our lives.

Every memory I have of that piano is a memory of my mother, but more importantly it is a memory of my mother being the kind of mother I had always wanted her to be. When I played she listened intently and told me how beautiful it sounded. We sat together on the bench and she patiently taught me the songs she had written note by note. When I listened to her playing the piano, she was no longer my mother the waitress/house cleaner/embarrassing single-parent who was younger,angrier and more crass than all the other mothers. When she played, she was my mother: pianist and composer. She was beautiful and talented, a peaceful and calm woman who naturally possessed the gift of music. Even today, even with my awareness of the simplicity of her piano skills, watching her play fills me with a sense of pride admiration and love.

For all of these reasons, the piano is our family legacy. It is my mother's legacy to me - a symbol of something beautiful in a relationship otherwise tainted by anger and resentment. My greatest memories of my mother all revolve around that instrument, and it is the only thing that my family carried with it each time we left a tiny apartment filled with hand-me-down for another tiny apartment filled with more hand-me-down furniture. It was ours, properly ours. A family heirloom to be passed through the generations along with the silly little songs my mother wrote on it. It is more than just an object, it is a metaphor for everything my mother has done for us. She gave us that piano almost impossibly, just as she gave us opportunities that the odds said we would never have. How does a single woman working as a part-time waitress, living on food stamps with two children under the age of ten afford a hand carved piano? The same way she sent us to ballet class, paid the rent and bought Christmas presents - any way she could. She did anything she needed to do to give us what she thought we needed. That is why I cried for our piano today.

A Trite Start to the New Year

2008-01-02T14:30:00.000Z

I hate new year's resolutions. I pretty much always break them, as does everyone, but I still like to torture myself by setting unreasonable standards and flogging myself when i don't live up to them. Every year I resolve to quit smoking and lose weight. As does 99% of the rest of the population. Normally I fail at both, but last year I managed - in a bizarre St. Patrick's Day resolution - to quit smoking. After reading Naomi Wolf's revelation The Beauty Myth I decided that my desire to lose weight was driven by an attempt to keep women oppressed in the face of 'equal' rights, so that had to be scrapped. "Be a better person" came to mind, but that is just too subjective and totally unmeasurable. I know you don't really need to have a resolution, but it seems a waste to start a new year without clearing the slate and beginning again. So I have decided on a new variation on an old theme.

I will work towards becoming an all around healthier person.

My resolution will include the following targets: 1. Physical Health - exercising for an hour at least 2x per week, eating 5 fruit and veg every day, eating breakfast, and cutting down on coffee 2. Mental Health - get a hobby and do something hobby related at least 1x per week, learn to meditate and then meditate for at least 20 minutes every other day, the exercising also falls into this category but it has been covered
3. Emotional Health - develop a mantra, recite my mantra at least once a day while looking in the mirror (don't laugh, this is very powerful!), write in my blog/journal at least once per week, count to ten and imagine what it must be like to be the other person every time i get angry.

In order to make these all seem more realistic and not too overwhelming, I will focus on one from each category at a time and just try to integrate it into my day. Once I feel like it is part of my normal routine, I move on to the next one. I am sure many of you already do these things as normal already. Sadly, I do not - hence the need for ranting and raving at a computer.

My Rocking Chair (AKA best friend)- An Exercise in Writing about Happy Things

2007-12-18T14:52:00.000Z

When packing for a recent house move, I found several old journals and books of poetry. They were all filled with painful, sometimes pathetic memories. Reading them, one would think I have never experienced a moment's happiness, which could not be further from truth. I have a terrible habit of only writing down the times in my life when I feel miserable - leaving a trail of documented pain in my path. I have so many happy memories, but they seem somehow less vivid. I think that is partly because I don't have an opportunity to revisit them through reading old poetry and letters the way I do my painful memories. This must stop. So I have decided to write about my old best friend - a series of my favourite pre-adulthood memories.

My old best friend, we'll call him 'B,' was a tall and awkward teenager. Braces, terrible haircut, and arms too long for his body. The first time I saw him was at basketball practice. Being only 12 and he a male, I of course saw him only as a potential suitor and not a potential friend. He was in the class above me, and that added to his attractiveness, as an older boyfriend would surely add points to social status. He sent a friend to 'ask me out' on groundhog day - a day which I still secretly remember as the anniversary of our friendship. Like all junior high school romances, it didn't last. But unlike most junior high school romances, we did become fast friends. I spent most of middle school hiding out with him in his basement, watching such 80s film classics as The Lost Boys and Dream a Little Dream. Our understanding of the latter film was something which we believed classed us as philosophers beyond our years, and we watched it so often that we could recite the dialogue verbatim and the tape was worn ragged. We watched a meteor shower in his back garden once and shared silences which were never in the least bit uncomfortable. When his dad left his mom for a mistress, I let him spend hours talking about the ridiculousness of marriage - and we agreed it was a tradition only for the fool hearted. When my everything happened with my mother he vowed to hate her when I was angry, and showed her compassion when I was ready to forgive. B was always smarter than everyone I knew, but he was as modest as he was intelligent. I loved to listen to him talk about Mutiny on the Bounty and other novels that the avgerage 13 year old would not understand. His locker was overflowing with books and papers, and I enjoyed volunteering to clear it out only to see him scoff at the suggestion.

High school brought a boyfriend for me and a girlfriend for B, but little change in our relationship. He still wrote me letters on my birthday, mainly outlining our many adventures and highlights of things to come. We shared an incurable insomnia combated only by talking on the phone until the early hours of the morning. He told me of every idea that popped into his head, like the 'psychological yawn' and rocking chairs as metaphors for relationships. We agreed we would someday write a book in which we would write our novel ideas and quotes. He once wrote to me 'never forget, kayak is kayak spelled backwards.' It is a mantra I still think of in moments of frustration, in spite of the fact that I know not what it means. When I got my license, B was the first person I picked up in my car, and when I got my heart broken B was the first person I phoned. He took me to my junior prom in a tux with tails, wearing sunglasses and bleach blond hair like Keifer Sutherland in his favourite film. He danced with me in spite of hating dancing, and he didn't get angry when I spent much of the night pining over my ex-boyfriend. I spent every holiday with B and his family, and practically lived at his house most weekends. But as he was a year ahead, separation was inevitable. On the day before he left for college (a 9 hour drive away from our hometown), we spent the evening doing what we had done so many times before - listening to Van Morrison's Moondance on his dad's old record player and reminiscing about our lives so far. We sat on his back porch and he told me how scared he was to leave, and I told him how scared I was to be without him. I cried, and realised (perhaps for the first time) how much I loved him.

Even though a year later I ended up at the same university as B, our friendship was never the same as when we were young. But in spite of that there was always something that meant he was the truest friend I had. Unlike other friendships I maintained from home, B and were able to remain close as we changed, without reminiscing and reverting to old habits. He told me once that he thought I was the only person from home who would let him grow up, and I felt the same way. He remained, for many years, the first person I called when things went terribly wrong or extraordinarily right, and I still took everything he said to be gospel. Our last intimate moment took place five years ago, when I was at my worst and ready to give up. He drove to see me at work on my lunch break to say goodbye before leaving the country for several years. We sat in my car and said very little. I told him I would miss him and admitted that after almost 12 years of having him always nearby I was not sure how well I would cope with him being so far away. He made me promise I would do better, that I would go somewhere wonderful, do something great. He said he knew there was more for me out there, that I was destined for bigger than the town we grew up in and the life my family had laid out for me. And he believed it. And I believed it because he said it.

Since then B and I have seen each other a few times and exchanged a few emails. Too much time has passed for us to return to the way things were - we are both married now, live in different countries and have different lives. But things he has said and done still impact me regularly. B was the first person in my life who really understood me - who I let myself be completely real and honest with and who never judged me for it. I credit him for so many of my strengths because it was he who fostered and encouraged those parts of me. He believed I was smart and kind and good, and I wanted to be smart and kind and good so he would retain that faith in me. I don't think B will ever know how important he was to me - he was never one for being too sentimental (or as he called it, corny). But I like to think he still holds memories of our friendship dear to him. He once wrote me a letter predicting all of our birthdays to come, and in it he showed us apart for a long time while we explored the world and did miraculous things, but in the end we were back together. He wrote about us sitting on the porch of a nursing home together, thinking about the time when we were young and had everything in front of us and feeling lucky that we had taken advantage of it all. These days I hope it is my husband who I spend my final years with, but perhaps B was not far off - maybe we will someday find ourselves once again listening to Moondance and counting ourselves lucky for having what many people often miss out on in a world of globalisation and the 'rat race' - a friend for life.

Last Night I Assaulted Someone: Musings on Anger

2007-12-13T11:31:00.000Z

Last night I went to a concert. I am not normally one to attend gigs and places where there is a strong chance of a mosh pit, but somehow I ended up on the fringes of a sprawling mass of sweaty, drunk men (and a few women) throwing their full body weight against anything near them. At first it was amusing (particularly since the song they were 'moshing' to was essentially bluegrass), then it was annoying, and finally it became a little scary. My husband, a self-proclaimed 'punk,' occasionally threw an arm in to keep the crowd at bay and muttered about his frustration that the moshers weren't respecting 'the code,' but as always he kept his composure and held his temper. I, on the other hand, became overwhelmed with the urge to strike. The more I got pushed, the more I considered various ways of punching, kicking or headbutting the people around me. And I meant it, I was close to action. Until finally, after a random man came flying in my direction, I had visions of a stampede crushing me and everyone behind me. I had flashes of newspaper headlines: Hundreds of Students killed in Freak Stampede at BRMC Concert. And then, without thought, I pushed. I pushed the people in front of me with a strength I was completely unaware I possessed. It was totally primal, banal. And it felt fucking brilliant! No one was hurt. No one even noticed. But I was left haunted by my actions and the thoughts leading up to them. It was far less about the pushing and more about a question I find myself grappling with on a regular basis: why am I so angry?

My anger is not a new or even recent phenomenon. Nor, I am sorry to say, is it uncommon. I could list at least five times in the last five days where something has so incensed me that I have found it difficult to breathe normally or restrain my temper. Today and yesterday alone I have picked three fights with my husband - one of my favourite activities. It's not that I am generally pugnacious or that I enjoy fighting with him, it's just that it is such a relief to actually have something tangible direct my anger towards. I am at ease when I finally have an explanation for the rage that I carry around with me each day, even if it is only a temporary (or false) one. Now at this point you are perhaps thinking two things: 1. this woman needs anger management or to be removed from the streets; 2. what is that poor bastard she's married to thinking? But rest assured, I don't run around pushing and shouting willy-nilly and no one has ever come to harm as a result of my bad temper. My husband usually gets a groveling apology within 10-15 minutes of the beginning of the argument, and he is not always necessarily innocent either. In fact while many people who know me are aware that I sometimes have a bad temper, I think the majority of people would be surprised to know the extent of my anger. Generally the only person who suffers as a result of my rage is me. But I am beginning to think I have had all I can handle.

I can assure you, I have tried repeatedly to curb my anger. I read books on inner peace and Buddhism. I even believed what I had read. I have tried increasing exercise and decreasing stress. I have counted to ten, gone to a happy place, even whistled and sang to myself. I have had crying fits in the car, punched pillows, and shouted at the top of my lungs in an empty room. I have tried prayer, meditation, dancing and yoga. All of these methods had their moments, but in the end I am still left with this little ball of rage in the pit of my stomach that just won't leave me. There is only one way I can see that I haven't tried - finding out where the anger ball came from. I have my theories, but none have been tested.

Foundations

2007-12-12T13:32:00.001Z

I have taken recently to sending long, arduous emails to friends and family - tirades about my life and its joys and frustrations written in sometimes non-comprehensible stream of consciousness. After my third victim replied to these self-indulgent rants with a curt message showing no indication that they had read the email at all, I decided I needed an outlet. A place where having to listen to me go on and on about myself was an optional, and perhaps a bit more objective, activity. It is for this reason I find myself writing a blog.

I suppose I should give background, everything makes more sense in a context. It is difficult to know what things about yourself are relevant to not only you, but to the rest of the world. Perhaps one might learn more about me through what I choose to reveal than the revelation itself.

I was born to teenage parents, the oldest child of an oldest child. They divorced two years later, but not before giving me a sister who would from the very earliest of days prove to be my opposite, and at times my nemesis. When I was five someone told me I was beautiful and when I was nine someone told me I was a genius. When I was thirteen I realised that I was neither of these things - an epiphany from which I have never fully recovered. My life was dominated by the pursuit of awards and rewards. I made friends with popular people but was never popular. I joined every group, played every sport and filled my college applications with a laundry list of achievements. My best friend was a boy and to this day I still think he may be the only person who has ever understood me. In spite of my powerful position as the oldest, I was consistently the family freak. I thought, spoke and dressed differently, I aspired to different things, had different interests. I was the butt of many family jokes and was referred to consistently as a 'drama queen.' I required the company of others constantly, but felt lost and lonely amongst them. When I was 16 my half brother was born and I watched him come into the world. I welcomed the chance to play the role of 'big sister,' a role my other sibling regularly denied me of. My family faced tragedy, but then so does every family. There was illness, emotional breakdowns, suicide attempts, and custody changes. It seems distant and almost unimportant now, yet those events shaped behaviours which I have spent my whole life trying to shake.

I left home and moved to the big city when I was 18. City life suited me better than I could have imagined, and I felt like myself for the first time in my life. My freshman year in college I wept daily at the injustice of the world. By sophomore year I had become a cynical activist, feeling compelled to take action but all too aware of its irrelevance. I dropped out of uni and became a waitress, falling briefly into what can only be described as a self-fulfilling prophecy (and family legacy) of drinking, smoking and working too much. This brief stage of my life was my most disastrous, yet least frightening. I met my husband, and he began to save me from myself. I moved abroad, where I fought tirelessly to hold on to an American identity about which I had previously been ashamed. When I was 23 I lost my grandmother. It was then that I realised the gravity of living away from home and it was the first and only time I have resented my partner. I have moved to suburbia and crept into the 'middle class' - facts of which I am simultaneously proud and ashamed. I own a home and have a dog, I attend family dinners and write Christmas cards. I am infinitely grateful for the gifts in my life, but it is at times overshadowed by feelings of suffocation and anxiety.

Each day my husband teaches me more life lessons - how to be patient, how to be kind, how to let go of anger. He is blissfully unaware of his role as my Zen guru, and I am a reluctant (and often poor) student. Like those people in my childhood, my husband tells me that I am beautiful and that I am a genius. This time I know better than to believe him. I still long to spend time with the social outcasts, I still bore everyone with lists of social injustices, I still feel completely uncomfortable in my own skin. I live each day with the legacy of other people's expectations, and I fear more and more that the path I have chosen for myself is built more on a foundation of what my parents were not than on what I am.