A small bit of nostalgia:

I watched Larry Crowne on Sunday night, and I really liked it. I'd figured it was the kind of movie I would enjoy from the moment I saw the first preview. It reminded me a lot of the kind of movies my dad and I used to watch together--dramas, peeks into people's lives, stories that were only extraordinary in the fact that they were on the silver screen. This is his favorite genre, and by default of the fact that he's a huge movie buff and I was an impressionable child, it became mine as well. The entire time I was watching this movie, part of me wanted to be watching it with him. We used to see everything Julia Roberts made (Denzel too). This, in  turn, reminded me of the years in high school where every single movie I saw in theaters, I saw with S. This, in turn, made me wonder if I will ever have a period of my life like this again, where my movie-partner is so comfortably predictable.   

2nd 30 Day Letter Challenge: Day 21--Letter to Something/Someone You've Outgrown

Dear Unwillingness-to-talk-to-my-father-about-anything-remotely-personal,

I'm surprised by how excited I am that I've gotten past you. This didn't happen through the normal outgrowth process of making a conscious decision to change something I don't like about my life, working diligently, getting frustrated that I'm not seeing progress, calming myself down and saying I think I can, I think I can until it was done. I don't know if I even realized I wanted to until by world was so thoroughly turned upside down that it just...happened. He called me that night, approximately 12 hours after it had all gone down, as I was leaving K's courtyard, and after initial consoling I-just-wish-bad-things-never-had-to-happen-to-you-because-you're-such-a-good-person and other protective Daddy-type things, he asked me if I wanted to talk about it. And I hesitated, but then said okay, and was taken a little aback by my own answer. I could tell he was started too. But then we...talked.
My dad and I have an...interesting relationship. We haven't lived under the same roof since I was an infant, and until I was 9 years old we saw each other once a week (sometimes twice if I was lucky). When my family moved from Mays Landing to Pleasantville for a year, he even moved to Pleasantville too, so as to not be too far from me. He was my reprieve from a far-too-troubled-for-any-9-year-old-to-have-to-deal-with life at home, my Superman, and my very best friend. And then he up and moved to Detroit after the Sands casino closed, and I felt so very alone in the world. For the first few years, I tried really hard to make it work. We talked on the phone every couple days, and I was really diligent about trying to fill him in on every little detail of my life. And then we had what I guess can be called our first falling out the week of my thirteenth birthday; he was supposed to fly back to New Jersey to visit me, the first time he'd have been home since he moved, but then his stupid girlfriend broke her stupid ankle and he stayed to take care of her. I resented him for it, and hated her. And I made the decision then to start weaning him from the intimate details of my life...I had a phone-Daddy, not a real live father who deserved that kind of information. Then my mother had the brilliant idea of sending me to spend 8 weeks with my father the summer before my freshman year of high school. He suddenly tried to start being my parent, rather than my buddy, and let's just say rebellious teenager Maya wasn't having it. We got into a huge fight and didn't speak for the last week and a half of my stay with him...or for about 4 months later. Afterwards, I became polite and cordial and called him approximately once a week out of a sense of duty. We finally talked about all of this sometime during my sophomore year of college, and he asked how he could fix things. I was...skeptical that things could be fixed.
But then they magically just, were. I didn't tell him everything, but I opened up to him more than I have in the past decade. I spoke to him freely about my life and who said what when and why it mattered. I explained to him why I felt so wronged--he had trouble understanding why it was such a big deal...men, lol. He listened to me when I was angry and he listened to me when I was sad and he was just there for me, saying encouraging things. He even offered to fly me down to visit him in Florida for a few days if I needed to get away from Princeton and "the memories". I felt like a little girl with a Daddy again...or maybe finally like a grown woman with a father she can rely on. Either way, it was a wonderful feeling. Especially when my mom wouldn't talk about it. He said on his mind all day while he was at work was me, and how I was holding up at work, and how I was going to get through this. He was so concerned about me. He loves me so much; I don't know how I ever forgot that. 
So good riddance, unwillingness. I'm glad you're gone. I can't believe I let you stay in my life for as long as I did. My dad deserves better than you. He deserves me. 


Maya

PS: I complained to some friends last week about how the ability of a person to come into your life, turn it upside down, and then leave and turn it upside down again without everything falling back into its original place was one of life's biggest injustices. But now I see that there is some beauty in this. Sometimes you have to be forced into changing the things that deserve changing the most. 

My life is a series of progression and relapse.

B told me on Friday night that he thinks I'm taking this all very well. I didn't have the heart to tell him I'm just trying to hide how much it hurts, even from myself. 

Dear Universe,

It's like, okay, all cocky/snobbish/self-centeredness aside, I know that I'm a pretty awesome person. I like me. I think I have cool ideas and I have a big heart and I'm kinda cute and most of the time I'm an interesting person to be around. I take pretty good care of myself. I have a pretty good self-concept. I can do all the self-affirmations in the book and I believe them. I do. 

But is it too much to ask for a little external validation? Like, damn, no matter how hard you believe, if no one else can see something, maybe you're just wrong? I don't feel like I'm crazy. But sometimes I feel like I just give and give and give and don't get much in return. I spend my life trying to share myself and my time and my energy and my love/affection/admiration with other people and I'm never quite sure they're sharing back with me equally. I don't know how to hear what basically boils down to I wanted to give you more but I just couldn't without having serious qualms about whether I will ever be enough for anyone but me. I don't wanna hide myself away and give of myself sparingly, but unless I see some proof that reciprocity is possible, I'm going to have to. I see no other way to avoid destroying myself through the process of simply trying to live. [Although I suppose in a really morbid way, that's all life is--a process of self-destruction.] 

Universe, maybe this is an impossible thing to ask for, but I'm going to ask anyway because I'm running out of other ideas. I just want a little bit of confirmation that I am, in fact, lovable. That it is possible, even if it won't happen for a long time. That anyone besides my Daddy--whose kindness and support this week have been unbelievable and unprecedentedly appreciated--can see me as a priority. I just want to know I'm not holding out for an impossible dream. You made me believe in love, Universe, and then you snatched the foundation I'd built right out from under my feet, and I thank you for not letting me continue to build my life around should-be-truths, but I feel like I'm at Square Negative Two right about now. Knowing that someone can go through the motions of loving and cherishing me and succeed in making me feel like a treasure without having his heart actually in it...I don't want to turn into a pessimist but I don't know how I'll ever shake this shroud of doubt. I want to make it clear that I don't feel like I was trivialized, but I do feel...trivializable, almost. 

It's really and truly my goal to try to be friendly or even friends, because I still think he's an awesome person and someone I'd like to have in my life, but...a) it's going to be hard to leave it at just that, and b) I have lots of friends already, goddammit! Yes it is infinitely better than people not wanting me in their lives at all, but I'm scared I'll never be enough to cross that line from an interesting friend you care about and want to keep around to a person you want to share your life with, even for a while. The last thing I'm looking for is forever at this stage, but I want...the temptation of wanting forever? And that temptation to be real on both sides. I want something REAL. I'm an intense person and maybe my candle is burning at more than just both ends and I am willing to light myself afire in even more places if someone will just burn with me. Maybe this is just a showcase of my immaturity or all the reasons why now isn't the time for this to happen for me, but I just want to know what it's like to be important to someone. I want someone to feel like they can give of themselves freely back to me. I want organic reciprocity. If I have value only to myself, am I not worthless on the open market? 

I know I'm not. But I want proof. Because if insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result, then I'm...worried, because nothing's changing. Do I have to change? I'm happy with me though. I don't think the way I'm doing things is fundamentally wrong. 


What say you?

Maya 

Something Incredible Happened Saturday Night...

Nearly 8 years ago, my mother and stepfather got divorced. [Insert chorus of HALLELUJAHS! here] Lots of wonderful things resulted from this, along with something terrible. As soon as the divorce was final, my stepbrother's mother decided that he was no longer to have any contact with his "other family". She wouldn't let him talk when we called, and when we kept calling, she changed their phone number. My brother, the one who is the same age as me, with whom I bathed and slept and played and grew and loved during all the earliest years of my life, was suddenly gone forevermore. 


I've missed him to varying degrees throughout the rest of my life, more and more since Greg reminded me what family is supposed to feel like. I don't really give a shit that we're not technically related anymore; that is my brother and I won't really tolerate anyone saying anything different. When he turned 18, my mom and I really started trying to get back in touch with him, because his mom couldn't stop us anymore. First we called his father, but [don't get me started on] that man hadn't spoken to his firstborn son in years and was disturbingly disinterested in our desire for reconnection. Fuck him. So then I started periodically searching Facebook in an attempt to find him, but he has both and very common first name and a very common last name, and I didn't know where he lived or where he was going to school or anything that could help me narrow the search. I have two friends at school who live in the area he lived in when were growing up, and I asked them if they knew someone by his name, and one of them did! But it wasn't him. 


To make a long story short, we were very discouraged. Short of hiring a private detective, there seemed to be no way to put our little family back together, and that fact was generally a small piece of sadness inside me all the time. (I am so sick and tired of people ruining MY family with THEIR issues. You no longer wanting to call someone "boyfriend," "husband," or even "son," does NOT automatically entail that I no longer want to call him "mine" in some form. There are some bonds I can never imagine breaking, no matter how hard they are strained.)


I can't really even express in words, then, how I felt when I checked my phone after watching a movie and saw that I'd missed a bunch of texts, two of which were as follows: One from my little sister saying B**** had friended her on Facebook, and one from Facebook saying those impossible little words: B**** J****** has requested to add you as a friend on Facebook. I was just talking the other day about how fragile life is, how it can just turn upside down and inside out in the blink of an eye. Sometimes upside down is a wonderful wonderful way to be. Life has this funny way of scaring and blessing you at the same time. My dad is so sick, just laying in bed because sitting down hurts, waiting for a call that he can come back to the hospital, and I am so worried about him. But my long-lost brother just walked back into my life and has missed me as much as I have missed him. He wants to see me as soon as possible and I just want to hold him for hours. I just want to look at him so I remember his face again. I have his number and I can't wait to hear his voice.

Confession: Everything I ever say about family and how mine isn't that big a deal to me is total and complete BULLSHIT. I think I just tell myself that to avoid remembering how much it hurts to have lost such important parts of it. But I don't have a word for how deliriously ecstatic Facebook-chatting with my brother the night before last made me feel, or for how terrified I am about my dad's health right now. My friends are my family, but my family is my family too, and my heart is feeling so much at one time right now. Daddy, I love you. BJ, I love you too. There are some bonds that can never be broken.

So unlike my dad, my mom always parks and goes in with me when she takes me to the airport. She goes through the line with me and stands with me near the entrance to the security check for as long as she can until it's obviously socially awkward that she's still there and she hugs me one last time and lets me go. I don't call her out on this, because part of me really likes it. 


There's something else she always does, though, while we're waiting in line to check in, or whenever she catches a glimpse of my PUID in my wristlet, or sometimes even if we come across an old picture or something: she sees a photo of me from back when I straightened my hair, and she says some variation of Oh look, there's my daughter. My daughter, with the long straight hair. My daughter, who was ashamed to embrace her own identity and spent the majority of her life trying to be something and someone she was not. My daughter, whose hair used to come out in clumps from all the heat and dangerous chemicals she put on it. Evidently that girl was my mother's daughter, and I am not. And I'm sure she doesn't event think about it when she says it, but a little piece inside me just crumbles whenever she says it. Like the person that girl was and the person I am will never be reconciled into one individual in my mother's eyes. Like she'll always want someone I'll never be again.

And speaking of straight-haired Maya as someone I'll never be again, this reminds me of the one thing that can snap me entirely out of ridiculous stupid not-crush phase with this guy: he has told me to my face that he thinks it's stupid that I have vowed to never straighten again. He thinks one of the things I should embrace about my hair is how versatile it can be. He thinks I should consider straightening it for special occasions or something--AS IF  STRAIGHT HAIR IS MORE SPECIAL THAN MY HAIR, as if I as myself am not special enough for a floor-length gown and a ball. He says I shouldn't feel like I'm conforming if I'm just wearing my hair in another style that looks good on me. I don't even know how to interpret thinking straight hair looks good on me; a) do I still think that?, b) do I think it because I think it or because I've spent my whole life with people telling me that's how my hair should look? Regardless, as much as I enjoy being with him, remembering that can kill any and every inkling of desire I have for something more. This is both relieving and unfortunate.

Conversely, to give some points to my father: When I first sent him a picture of me with my hair natural, he said it was the most ME I've ever looked. This is one of those things that he has said that I will never forget, but in a wonderfully positive way.

Is 20, not 02.

See that picture? Isn't it cute? Awwww it's adorable. But see that little girl? She's LITTLE. She's like 5. And hey, guess what, I'm not. 


Perhaps my father has forgotten this. Or just doesn't want to admit it. But we've had Dad-don't-ask-questions-you-don't-want-to-know-the-answer-to moments about my supersexy Halloween costume and my alcohol habits, and Dad-don't-you-even-go-there moments about boys and things from my childhood I don't want to talk about and other touchy subjects, so I think it's safe to say I've been trying to remind him that I am not a child.


So why, WHY does he insist on doing things we did when I was little? Watching movies I hated the first time around to see if I still hate them (I do). Renting bikes and biking along the boardwalk next to the ocean (which was fun, I must admit). Cleaning, Neosporin-ing, and Band-Aid-ing my wound when I hurt my shin. (Seriously? Neosporin? I haven't put Neosporin on a wound since people actually still put my bandaids on for me.) Giving me old t-shirts of his to sleep in (Uhm I actually have supersexy nighties, kthnx). 


Dad, this is cute, but I AM NOT A CHILD. What happened to last time I visited, when we went on a short cruise and danced at dinner at a nice Italian restaurant? That felt like we were two adults. This doesn't, and I'm sorry but that's not okay.

Fragile Families

I know this isn't true, and is thus entirely irrational, but sometimes when I'm listening to lectures, I feel like the speaker is talking about ME. For instance, we had a guest lecturer in my Sociology class on Tuesday, speaking about research she and a team of grad students had just done on Fragile Families--children born out of wedlock and the tenuous ties that bind their parents. She kept talking about these people, these children, these parents, like they were so far removed from our current situation, and the whole time I just wanted to scream YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT ME!
She said a lot of things I don't agree with about children supposedly like me, but if being a SOC major has taught me anything so far, it's that I'm not like anyone who falls into any of the same categories as me. Comparison is futile. So I fumed silently, then finally treated myself to a Starbucks coffee mug to make myself feel better.
But early this morning, as I was laying in bed trying to go back to sleep, I realized she was right about how the introduction of new partners into the family and the dissolution of those relationships is stressful for the child involved. I had been refuting this because the dissolution of my mother's marriage was perhaps one of the most joyous occasions of my life. But laying in my bed, I began to feel this forbidden ache: I was again missing the one person I'm really not allowed to miss.
Greg. My mom's ex-boyfriend. I recognize that he was not right for her, and that the best decision for her personally was to terminate this relationship. I understand that, and on some level I am proud of her for being able to make the decision to walk away...in the past, I have known her to fear solitude over second-best relationships. 
And yet. Greg is one of those people that makes me question whether there is someone somewhere with some great big plan in which everything happens for a reason, because even if the 6 years or so he and my mom spent together weren't right for either of them, in some respect they were perfect for me. ...Wow, I didn't mean for that to sound so damned selfish. It's like, I mean no disrespect to my actual father, and all the disrespect possible to my ex-stepfather, when I say this, but in many ways, Greg is the closest thing to a traditional father I have ever known. (Not that he's very traditional about anything.) I guess, the relationship he and I had...he made me want to be enough of a little girl that we could go to Daddy/Daughter dances and enough of an adult to sip wine and have intellectual conversations at the same time. I would never admit this to him, but I cared SO MUCH what he thought about everything. He kept it real. He listened to my poetry and didn't judge me for it, just listened. He was trying to win my mom's heart, but he managed to get a pretty good chunk of mine too, and goddammit, I don't give a fuck if it's somehow disloyal to my mom, sometimes I miss him so much it HURTS. If ever I believed in family, it was when he was the head of mine. He lies somewhere near the root of my belief in unconditional love, too. It feels so wrong to say this, but it's how I feel so here it goes: Losing him was like losing my dad all over again.
I want to be able to have dinner with him. I want him to know about my JP topic, and I'd be more comfortable talking to him if I started dating than either of my actual parents. It's not fair that my mom wanting him out of her life meant taking him out of mine too. It's just not fair.

But you know, I still firmly disagree with the guest lecturer about one thing, and my belief about this is unwavering. She said children of fragile families would be better off with no transitions, even if they were into better relationships. That's just plain untrue. Even knowing how much it would hurt to finally understand what a father-daughter relationship is supposed to be and then lose it, I'd do it all again for the sake of the memories. I'd do it all again for the pure joy I got from running into him at Walmart over the summer, or for the shared secret joy my sister and I got from texting him to wish him a Merry Christmas.


I really do want to meet him for dinner or (in a few months) drinks or something and catch up. Maybe that's stabbing my mom in the back, but hey, I never wanted to break up with him. Don't I get some choice in who stays in my life?

Confession #next: My father just said that phone calls with me are the only ones he looks forward to. I didn't say anything in response. How could I, when phone calls with him feel like one of my least favorite chores?

I hate saying that, but it's the truth. I think it's impossible for me to see his name on the Caller ID without thinking oh, great. And I don't know how to change that. I don't know how to stop dreading having to talk to him. I don't know how to make talking to him something I want to do. I don't really even have faith that there is a way to find. 

I. love. my. father. I just...don't have much to say to him. There's not much going on in my life for the next five weeks. The answer to all his questions is "nothing", and it seems pointless to call him just to say that over and over again. And I don't feel like listening to him try to make everything seem better than it is. He gets on my last damn nerve sometimes, and I just don't want to have to deal with it.

He leaves me in such a bad mood sometimes. *sigh*