JCPenney is my favorite department store.

Firmly securing their place at the top of the list (above the cute clothes at great prices): 

The tag reads: What makes dad so cool? He's the swim coach, lunch maker, best friend, toilet-fixer and hug-giver--all rolled into one. Or two. 

Of course, they're getting all kinds of backlash from their conservative "traditional consumer base" and some conservative columnists have been blaming the company's loss in stock value etc. this year on their acceptance and celebration of ALL kinds of families. But even though those criticisms were raised after their Mother's Day ad with two moms, they published this, and that shows that they're the kind of company I love--the kind with values based on, you know, human decency and acceptance, rather than trying to get the most money possible.   

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. 

Things that make me feel grown as hell

When my dad asks me to borrow $450 til Friday so he doesn't bounce a check and I transfer it via Paypal no problem because I have that and more to spare right now and get paid on Wednesday. What is my life?

INSANE WHIRLWIND OF EMOTIONS cannot begin to accurately describe the past two days.

Extreme sadness. Hurt. Fury that almost scared me. Fear separately. Deep confusion, or maybe simply a profound lack of understanding.



All of those feelings are done now. Well I'm still sad that it's over, because I wanted to snuggle into this and stay there for a long while, but I feel nothing like the overwhelming _________ I was feeling. I feel surprisingly good right now. I feel like nothing was as bad as I'd thought/imagined/suspected/worried/feared. I am not a bad judge of character, and I would like to come out and publicly say to all of you who know me in real life and know the other person involved in this situation--he is not the villain here. This situation doesn't have a villain. It has two good people who made some bad choices and that's it. #theoppositeofpubliclyflaming


I'm not gonna list out all the terrible things that have been running through my head. They don't need mentioning, as they're all either flat out wrong, unwarranted, invalid, or have been deconstructed to the point of my being content. It may have felt at first like the world was ending, but up is still up, down is still down, and I don't think anything permanently damaging happened here. 



I have, however, learned a lot. And the things I have learned can be listed:

1.  It is entirely impossible to undervalue honesty, especially when you know the truth is going to hurt. 
2. Wanting to mean something is entirely different from meaning it. Changing your definition of something so that you can mean it isn't being honest either. 
3. Relationships are based on a lot of assumptions. It's probably a good idea to talk about things rather than assuming you're on the same page about X issue.
4. It actually shocks me that these words are about to come out of my mouth, but maybe it really is the thought that counts. Intentions mean something, even when they lead down unpredictable and hurtful paths. Sometimes people deserve the benefit of the doubt even in the most unfortunate situations.
5. Anger is actually an essential part of the healing process. 
6. My friends are awesome. But I already knew that.
7. Pain does not automatically negate all the previous joy a situation gave. Hurt does not erase prior happiness. I'm not saying "don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened," because I think that crying is a healthy part of LIFE in general, and it's important to be unabashedly sad when something makes you sad...but when it's all said and done, everything good that happened still happened. And that's what you should focus on. 
8. Your world should always be bigger than one person. I think I forgot that mine was for a little while until the support came rushing in from every direction while I was freaking out and I remembered that I have a whole network of people who love and care about me. 
9. Love is a nuanced, nuanced thing. It has so many layers and components and meanings and strivings. It varies from person to person and situation to situation. There are lots of things that love is. There are also lots of things that love isn't. And I'm still learning the differences, I think. Maybe we all are. 
10. Don't underestimate the benefits that can come from actually talking to someone who hurt you, instead of just festering in your own emotions. Every story has two sides. 
11. Analysis of every tiny detail of a situation is pointless and futile. Analysis of what major mistakes were made and what should have been done differently in those specific instances is an opportunity for growth that should not be overlooked. 
12. It is evidently possible for me to open up to my father under times of complete and total duress. It is also evidently impossible for my mother to let me open up to her during such times. This is unsurprising. Maybe I should be less freely open with my mother and talk to my dad more. 
13. I have no regrets. None. I might even want to change everything I've ever believed about exes and want to try to be friends. And on that note, I will pick a song:

And I'd choose you again...

Interesting Developments

So I may not have mentioned that my father has a new girlfriend. (Boy/girlfriend is a weird word to use for senior citizens, lol. I feel like there should be a more grown-up word. Except, I'm fine referring to my mom's boyfriends as such. Maybe I'm just being ageist. Anyway.) This is...weird for me. I know, I know, I should be used to the whole parents dating thing now, as I can basically recount the various stages of my life according to who my mother was with at the time, but something about this just feels...off. I suppose that I have simply come to think of my father as a person who is alone. My mother and I both describe him as hard to live with (though I think he would say that other people are the problem,  not him); she calls him (and anyone related to him, myself included) a kook. He has never been particularly social--he doesn't have many friends, loves sports but doesn't go over to like, bars or live games with "the guys". My dad, Mr. Solo Dolo. 
Whereas my mom has never been man-less for any substantial period of my lifetime, as far as I can tell, my father has dated at most four people (both my mother and his current booskie included) over the last 21 years. My mom left my dad when I was just a few months old. When I was a kid, maybe 6 or so, we used to go over to my dad's friend K's house, where should would let me bring all my stuffed animals over and my teaset for tea parties. She had nieces whose stuffed animals she'd let me borrow, and I thought she was awesome because she gave me real (iced) tea for my tea parties, whereas my mom made me play with water. [Lame.] It has recently come to my attention that they were most likely dating...didn't cross my six-year-old mind. When I was twelve and he was living in Detroit, he was seeing some woman who was a figure skater. I never met this woman, but I absolutely hated her for a while, because he was supposed to come back to NJ to visit me for my 13th birthday [it would have been the first time he'd come home since having moved when I was 9] and she went and broke her fucking ankle like three days before my birthday and he stayed in Detroit to take care of her instead of coming to see me. I was furious. (And now I'm wondering regretfully whether my fury influenced their breaking up at all, hmmm.) And now, all these years later, he's started dating again. He was even on an online dating site (but met his current girlfriend in real life). 
I suppose it didn't strike me until recently that my father was probably very lonely. I figured he was used to it, being the only child of only children and having lived alone for all but maybe 8 years of his adult life...but just because something has become a habit doesn't mean it's the way you should keep doing things. I'm glad he decided he need something in his life other than sports (which don't give anything back for your time, dedication, and anxiety...especially when your fantasy team does really well in your league for the vast majority of the season and then tanks in the end losing you lots of potential money/bragging rights) and two grown daughters who live thousands of miles away from each other and him. I'm further glad that beyond just deciding/accepting this, he actually went out of his way to act on it. I really hope she's good to him or I will go to Florida myself to smack the shit out of her. #that'sapromise 
It's just weird to be on the opposite end of the hey-I'm-kind-of-busy-with-this-person-who-is-actually-physically-present-in-my-life-right-now-and-I-don't-wanna-rush-you-but-I-actually-do-kind-of-want-to-rush-you phone call. Since I became a teenager (a period of my life that ended a year and a half ago, wow), that's always been how I feel talking to him. It has always been a chore, something that is interrupting whatever I'd rather be doing. It's...both offensive and amusing to recognize those same patterns of trying-to-end-this-conversation-asap-in-as-friendly-a-manner-as-possible-ness coming from him. I guess it's cute. I'm glad he has someone. ...And somewhat also glad that this someone is taking up all the empty space in his life he used to try to fill with talking to me, haha.   

I've got family on the brain.

Throughout the course of my time at Princeton, quite a few people have been confused, surprised, and possibly even appalled by the degree to which I don't really associate myself with my family. Their reactions have always just provoked a general wondering about how strange my family is, but it hasn't ever really bothered me until I realized last night that my boyfriend seems...displeased by this. My family is not really, nor to the best of my memory has it ever been, a cohesive unit of any sort. My friends are much more of a family in that regard than are the people who are related to me by blood or circumstance. "By blood or circumstance"--see, my family is comprised largely of people who I'm not actually related to by blood or marriage--people who are attached to other family members of mine by blood on the side that isn't related to me by blood. For example, there's a large group of people in Atlanta and the surrounding area that I used to be related to by marriage: my ex-stepfather (whom I abhor) and his family (they aren't all bad). I haven't seen them since I was nine, but I'm Facebook friends with some of them, and the real question here is at what point does someone stop being family? My ex-stepfather is not related to me. I like to pretend that he never was. Most of his family, I am skeptical of considering them to be my family. But his first son, who recently re-entered my life, has never and could never stop being my brother. 

Let me explain my family a little. My dad's side is the easiest because there are four of us. You think I'm kidding. I'm not. My dad was the only child of only children; my sister, my niece, and I are his only living relatives. My dad and I haven't lived in the same household since my mother left him (they were never married) when I was an infant. He lived in the area and I saw him once or twice a week until I was 9, when he moved to Detroit (and later to Florida) and we began a ritual of seeing each other once a year or so. When I was a kid my dad was my best friend, because the time I got to spend with him was my only reprieve from my home life. But as I got older, I began to resent him for moving halfway across the country and leaving me behind, and our relationship became further and further strained. Eventually we talked about this (he found a poem I'd written about this on an old blog) and things have been...gradually improving since then, but he still gets on my nerves sometimes. I love him to death, though, and I know he'll be there for me when I need him for as long as he can...that just doesn't really translate into us being able to carry out substantive conversations on a regular basis or me really feeling comfortable with him knowing the intimate details of my life. I'm not sure how much that will ever change. I have never really been able to shake the feeling that, try as he might, my father does not know me. He's never met the majority of my close friends, he missed all the little day-to-day bits and pieces of me growing up, and now those day to day details are mine, not my parents'. 

My half-sister and my half-niece on my dad's side live in California. They used to live in Maryland until about my sophomore year of high school, and I was closer to them then. I once semi-ran away from home to their house for a week over the summer, I think it was the summer before my freshman year of high school. I should explain that my half-sister is 41 and is less than two months younger than my mother. Her daughter is 18, only three years younger than me. But she's been __-going-on-40 her whole life, because my sister treats her more like a girlfriend than like a daughter. While they could serve as a neutral place in times of great need, I have never really felt comfortable around my sister and her daughter. I feel very...different from them. They're divas with long straight hair, they wear tiny designer clothes and my sister owns a BMW convertible, they live beyond their means, they are very very religious (like read the Bible together aloud before bed religious). I have always felt a need to be fake when I am with them. So my sister and I call each other on major holidays (I think the record length of time we've talked for is about 4 minutes) and she sends me pictures of milestones in my niece's life and we call that a relationship. My father wants very much for us to be more like sisters. I...as bad as this sounds, I love them, I just don't think I like them very much

So growing up in my house, I consistently lived with my mom and my younger half-brother and half-sister from her marriage to my now-ex-stepfather. I've never really thought about my brother and sister as half-s, but for clarification purposes now it's important. My mom got married when I was three, my sister was born when I was four, and my brother when I was five. I don't have a clear memory of the first time their father was violent towards me or my mother, all my memories of it seem like they were routine already, the shock factor wore off when I was very young. He left for the first time shortly after my brother was born. He came crawling back shortly after, and my mom took him back, promising herself that if he ever left again, she was done. When I was in fourth grade he was cheating on her and she threw him out of the house; he went to live with the woman he'd been cheating with. My mom lay crying on the kitchen floor the morning after he left and I turned off the scrambled eggs that were burning on the stove, called the school pretending to be her (using my best grown-up voice; remember, I was 9) and got us excused for the day, and sat with her stroking her hair as she was crying. She vowed that we were done with him, that we were going to start over and made lots of other wonderful-sounding promises/resolutions.They were separated for nearly a year, we moved to a better house in a better neighborhood and my mom established herself as an independent woman and I really thought the worst of it was over. And then he came knocking on our door one day and she took him back again. And at that point, for a really long time, I gave up on my mother. I didn't even respect her as a person. I hadn't realized how complicated these issues are, or been really aware of how much my mom was struggling on her own with the three of us. I'm so sorry I ever felt that way about her.

He left for the last time when I was in middle school. I can say nothing other than the fact that until recently, that was the greatest day of my life. That man was a tyrant, and I've finally gotten to the point where I can admit that he was abusive (rather than just hot-headed and violent). I'll never forget the following Christmas: he had promised my brother and sister that he was coming back (he moved to Georgia) for Christmas to see them, and then called on December 23rd to say something had come up and he wasn't going to be able to make it. I hope I never have to hate another human being like I hate him. By the end, my hatred of him was thinly veiled--nowadays I don't even try. But I fear that my openness about my feelings towards him drove the initial wedge between me and my siblings. That wedge got wider after he left, because I had to assume basic responsibility for them after school until my mom came home from work, and my brother and sister never believed my authority as caregiver was earned (possibly because they could tell I didn't want it). Regardless, beginning even when they were still married, because the way their shifts at the casino worked, one of them was home, cooked a meal, and went to sleep while the other worked and then they switched, I was the one who taught the kids to tie their shoes and write their names and get ready for school in the morning. I was the one who checked homework a lot of the time. The divide between us got greater as the two of them joined forces against me. And it got even worse as my mom started making more and more comparisons between them and me as I excelled in school and various clubs, etc. I would hate me too if my whole life all I'd been hearing is "Why can't you be more like Maya?"

It dawned on me recently that my brother and sister have grown up into being real people. In my head, I still think of them as my little brother and sister, like they're kids. But they're not. The problem is, I don't know who those people they've grown up into are. We've spent so long being at odds that we don't remember how to play nice. I try to hang out with them and my sister usually just shuts down (it's like pulling teeth to get her to hug me, but sometimes we can talk about boys or college or the SATs for a little while), and my brother and I try to do something together but inevitably end up fighting (usually just verbally now, it used to be very very physically). I feel like I lost my chance with them. I feel like we're going to grow up to be like my mom and her siblings--two of them live less than 15 minutes from us, but she only really sees them on holidays (if my aunt even wants to come downstairs for holiday dinner) or when she needs something fixed and calls my uncle over. She and my other uncle don't even call each other on their birthdays. 

I think I explained it once as I'm part of a family that actually flees to various corners of the country to get away from each other. It's not actually that drastic, I suppose, but we are very spread out, and fairly isolated in our spreadedness, if that makes sense. There are 8 people related to me by blood in the state of New Jersey. 1 in Florida. 2 in California. An unknown number in Kentucky because my mother's father (whom she has never met) had other children who live there (and presumably have children of their own). I have never and will never meet any of them. An unknown number in and around Savannah, GA where my family seems to have lived since we were slaves. My grandmother was the first to leave when she took a job with American Airlines in Philadelphia shortly after my mother was born, then moved to NJ when the casinos opened in Atlantic City. This seems to have caused a giant rift in the family: from what I can gather, my grandmother has four siblings and only ever speaks to one of them. 

My grandmother lives 15 minutes from me, and her youngest children, my mom's little brother and sister, as well as my uncle's 11 year old son all live in her house, but we don't see them often. I haven't seen my grandmother in months. I called her on Mother's Day. And I love my Nana--she's one of my favorite people in my whole family. But I would feel entirely strange calling her out of the blue, when there is no specific purpose. I go to her house for holiday dinners or random family dinners and when the adults sit at the table and talk politics/history/gossip, and the kids run downstairs to watch TV and play video games, I sit by myself in the living room and read. This has always been my position. Besides my rediscovered ex-step-BROTHER, there's no one my age in my family. My brother and sister are 16 and 17, but out of habit and circumstance, I suppose, they hang out with the younger kids downstairs. I'm a loner in my family. I've never really quite felt like I fit. It's the same feeling I used to get when my mom would shake her head at me and say, "You're your father's daughter" and I could tell it wasn't a compliment. 

Long story short, there is a long legacy of my family simply breaking itself apart. We're there for each other in times of need--I could write an equally long post about all the things we're done for each other when help was needed, but all that day-to-day lovey-dovey family-game-night eating-together kind of stuff? It's not us. The first time I can ever remember my mother saying she was proud of me was as she was hugging me goodbye on move-in day freshman year at Princeton. It made me cry because I'd been working for those words for as long as I could remember. Our relationship has gotten so much better since we've been in separate places; sometimes I marvel at the fact that I laugh and joke on the phone with my mom like we're friends, or that I told her about my first date with my boyfriend, or that she's finally stopped yelling at me about grades and why aren't I trying harder. But when we're close enough to be in each other's hair again, we remember how much our styles of existence really just clash, and the animosity begins again. I spend most of my time at home sitting on the couch in my living room, because my sister has claimed our room as entirely her own and I frankly do not feel welcome there. I try to convince them to play games or watch movies: my sister is unresponsive, my mother says "maybe later" or tries and falls asleep, and my brother leaves halfway through because we get into a fight. Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome, right? 

I haven't seen the vast majority of my extended family in 7 years. That's a third of my life, and arguably the most important third. To a degree, they've become vague concepts in my head, shaped by the (usually bad) details I hear about their lives when the grown-ups are talking and shaking their heads. I'm sure I've become the same to them, the girl that goes to Princeton (and all the assumptions that come with that. Idk how true they are.) 

I think my family is why I'm not big on families. It's too easy to become a part of my family and too easy to lose that status. I am so sick of establishing familial connections to people and then having them snatched away--I will miss my mom's ex-boyfriend (who lived with us for 6 years and is arguably the closest thing to a normal father figure I have ever known) for the rest of my life. I may have gotten my brother back, but we'll never get the 7 years we'd lost each other for back. My family is transient. It changes so much I can't keep track of it. I don't even have my older sister's address. We're...not close. I recognize that it can be different, but I think my family was the first thing I ever learned to strive to be independent of, and I'm not sure I can ever shake that feeling. I don't know how being part of the kind of family that eats dinner together would feel: comforting or trapping? And I don't know if any changes I made could ever effect my family's overall structure. I suppose that's no reason not to try though, especially with the 8 of us in NJ. I should feel like I know my family. 

Thanks, Giving

I always chuckle to myself when folks call this Turkey Day

I don’t know about y’all, but I’ve always been a ham kind of girl.

I always wonder when folks call this Thanksgiving Day

who exactly I’m supposed to be thankful towards

For Jesus is someone else’s Lord and Savior, and I don’t

praise Allah either. My thanks are jokes to Life’s daily

demigods and I’d like something a bit more substantive

than thanking my lucky stars. The Universe just sounds like a

cop-out for people who don’t like the sound of God.

So who am I thanking?

My mother, for bringing me into this world and damn near

breaking her back every day to give me every inch of life she can spare?

The ex-stepfather I abhor, because if he hadn’t walked into my mom’s life

mine would have been displaced, my friends and family misplaced, a family

of two and two alone gone back to Georgia, my mom’s first home?

Georgia, where my family has lived since before we had a choice.

Should I thank my too-many-greats-to-count grandmother for surviving the passage

in the dank disease-infested bottom of that ship?  Or my grandfather

of the same generation for liking what he saw up on the auction block

enough to sneak away from his wife in the middle of the night  and

sell his daughter away when she was born with blonde hair and blue eyes?

Blonde hair and blue eyes, like some of my closest friends,

so should I thank the late Dr. King for taking the glory from everyone who’d

dreamt before him?  Chris Hall, my high school’s English Department Supervisor

for making me realize the dreams I’d dreamt weren’t lofty enough, that I was calling

a sledding hill a mountain when I had the tools to tackle Everest? Chris Burch,

my first sweetheart, for teaching me that sometimes it’s better when dreams don’t come true?

The admissions committee member that tossed me into the right pile, for reminding me that

sometimes, they do? Nene, for seeing what I was repressing and getting me involved?

India.Arie for reminding me to Slow Down and appreciate the Little Things, like

whoever instituted a monthly Soul Food Night at the Princeton Quadrangle Club?

Under chaos theory, tabula rasa, and the idea of alternate realities, should I thank everyone

 with whom I have ever crossed paths, for without them I might not be me? All six billion, eight-

hundred-eighty-four-million, thirty-seven thousand, eight-hundred-forty-six people on the planet,

because the world might somehow be different without one of them? Should I just thank myself,

or include things I simultaneously love and hate, like society and affirmative action, like my father? 

The power went out as we were warming the candied yams. I used my laptop as a flashlight during the

candles-and-matches-hunt, and as we joined hands to bless our candlelit Thanksgiving dinner, I realized

exactly how many people and things and bittersweet circumstances I have to be thankful for. They each

have their own masters, Gods, and engineers, and so today I will simply thank the ties that bind us all.