My Birthday Wish: You.

I’ve never struggled with what I want for my birthday. I’ve always known. Which is why I hate making birthday and Christmas lists, because what I want isn’t something I can really put on a list.

I want you. Here.

I want to spend time with you.

I don’t want to feel an absence when all I want in the world is your presence.

I don’t want to plan a day filled with time instead of people.

How do I put that on I list? How do I ask for the impossible? You have lives. You have jobs. Your world does not revolve around me and I don’t believe it should! But that doesn’t change that the thing that tops my birthday list is YOU. Your smiles and your laughter. Your hugs and your voice. Your pitch-perfect renditions of the birthday song and your off-key belting of it. Your love.  I want a day and a heart full of the people who I love best.

So, what’s the solution?

Well, for those of you who’ve been around the block with me a time or two know what I’m going to ask you to do. I’ve done it before. I’ll probably do it again. You ready?

Call me. Only for a minute or two, I know you’re busy.

Yup. That’s it.

I know you can’t be here. I know my birthday wish is pie-in-the-sky high. Everyone I love? In one place? I must be crazy. So, I’m asking for the slightly inconvenient, but hopefully doable.

Because then, I’ll still get to spend a little time with you. I’ll get to hear your voice and that’s ALMOST as good as getting a hug. I’ll hear the background noises and get a sense of your life that’s slightly more full than I can get through e-mail or text. I’ll get to hear love and laughter. I’ll get to hear one of the most important voices in my world.

Don’t have my phone number? Message me! If you’re seeing this, you have access to my facebook, twitter, tumblr and/or blog e-mail. Send me a private message. I’ll happily reply. And next Wednesday, July 2, I’ll hopefully get a call. And hear a voice. And know you’re there. (Please keep in mind, I live in Colorado, USA. UTC -7)

It won’t be perfect. It won’t be exact.

But it will be just enough.

Pasta Day: Come food with me!

I’ll get right on writing Pasta Day appropriate lyrics to “Come Fly With Me.”  (Maybe not. I’m not the most clever of lyricists.)

The Set-Up

So last year, I discovered this artisan pasta company at my local Farmers’ Market, whose praises I will always sing.  Most flavored pastas are disappointing at best and unrecognizable as such at worst.  So, I gave them a test run and fell in love.  Pappardelle’s Pasta actually gets the flavors into their noodles, which makes for a symphony of deliciousness.  They also make sweet pastas, which is a thing I am sad to say I did not know existed until last summer.  With that in mind, I mentioned to my sister that I would love to do a true pasta dinner, wherein each course was a different kind of pasta!  Because, well, I could.

She agreed that it sounded like a wonderful idea.  We planned it for a night my parents were going to be out, so that we did not take over the kitchen in a pasta frenzy when they needed use of the counters and pots and pans.  We trolled the website for ideas and set down a menu:

• Salad: Southwestern black bean salad.  The pasta blend flavors are blue corn, maize, jalapeño, and chili.  It’ll be a lot like a regular Southwestern salad with salsa, avacado, and cheese added in – just with pasta as the base. Served cold.
• Fruit: Sweet fruit salad.  We’ll add some proper fruit chunks to the lemon, lime, tangerine, raspberry noodles, as well as a light sauce. Served cold.
• Main Dish: Artichoke/Lemon/Asparagus ravioli.  We’re going to let this one be.  No need to mess with a beautiful, spinach and egg dough wrapped thing. Served warm.
• Dessert: Chocolate and raspberry with whipped cream.  This one is less determined, but we’re going to home-whip some cream and possibly have some fresh fruit or syrup for the top. I’m thinking hot pasta with cold whipped cream, but Anli may override me.

And there we were.  I went to the Market this morning and picked up the first of our pastas, I’ll be going back next week to pick up the special order of ravioli and the dessert pasta.  We’ll hammer out the details and make a great meal on July 10.  With pictures, of course.

The Invitation

So, I mentioned this evening of pasta on Facebook a couple times and a lot of people (a surprising amount) were really interested in what Pasta Day was.  I explained, they said it sounded like something fun to do and so I told them they were welcome to do their own version.  And I offered this blog as a space to do it.

If you like, we’d love to have you RSVP in the comments or via my email (rjlouiseblogging [at] gmail [dot] com) as willing members of the Pasta Day.  You don’t have to use Pappardelle’s (they’re convenient for me, as they come to my local Farmers’ Market) or even do an entire dinner of pasta.  Just try something new.  Find a pasta that you’ve never had or a sauce you’ve never tried or a recipe you thought looked fun.  Make a casserole!  Make a salad!  Make a dessert!  Make up a recipe! Make your own pasta!  (I would not say no to a recipe for Stuffed Shells or homemade noodles.) I don’t care what you do or how you do it, but if you like, you are welcome to make Pasta Day a Thing.

Once you’ve tried your new flavor or recipe, e-mail me pictures of the results!  And, of course the recipe.  If you have a blog, send me the link to that!  You’ll feature as a guest post (hence why I’d like the RSVP, to give me an idea of how many people each are taking over my blog for a day) and have a chance to see the recipes everyone else put together.  Do it on July 10, do it in your own time, but do something new.  Try something interesting or strange or crazy.  I’ll be right there with you.  I mean, seriously, FRUIT-FLAVORED PASTA.

Just come, and enjoy the memories food can make, even across states and spaces.

And then reap the rewards of other people’s Pasta Day adventures.

P.S.  Feel free to share with strangers.  I don’t care if they tromp all over this space.  Especially if it means pasta recipes.

An open letter:

Dear Friends: past, present, and future:

I’ve come to a realization, lately.  And it’s not a pretty one.  Most of you only want to be my friend in three situations:

1. When you need support or help.
2. When I’m right in front of you.
3. When we’re alone.

I wish I could say, you know who you are.  But you DON’T!  Some of you have NO CLUE that you’ve been treating me like this.  Now, I am not innocent in this.  Some of you, I’ve just let you do it.  I’ve never told you it bothers me or that I think you’re doing this.  Others I have called on it and, well, I’m sorry to say it’s not getting better.  And yet others, I have reciprocated similarly until recently.  I have made an earnest attempt to change my behavior and be a better friend to those I was treating badly and have tried to tell those culprits who are by far the worst perpetrators of these attitudes how I’m feeling.

But that’s not been working.  And I know several of you read my blog and those that don’t, well, that’s not my fault.  I put it up on Twitter and Facebook.  It’s not my job to make you invest in my life.

What is my job is to be your friend every day.  That is what I strive to do and what I would like to continue doing.  I hope you, as my friend, will join me in this quest to be friends every day (and no, that does not mean I expect to hear from you EVERY DAY FOR THE REST OF OUR LIVES).  But, for those of you who insist on doing one of the above three things, things are going to be a little different from now on.

1. I will not be able to emotionally invest in your problems or be your advice machine until the time comes that a) you will do the same for me reliably and b) I hear from you in other situations.
2. I will be politely interested in your day to day life, but will no longer work so hard to remember the fiddly little details across weeks and months or send you the little gifts or messages that let you know I’m thinking of you until a) you will do the same for me reliably and b) demonstrate an ability to consider my existence outside our face to face conversations.
3. I will happily spend time with you in the company of multiple individuals, but I will no longer reserve personal time for you (in my apartment or one-on-one time in a public arena) until you demonstrate a desire to have me part of all your life.

Now, I don’t expect you to just magically figure out how this is going to work now.  I really don’t know myself.  We’ve been in bad patterns for years and it’s time to break them.  Here are some ideas for each behavior:

1. Text me or call me when awesome things happen in your life.  I’ll be so much more willing to be there during the tough times if you include me in the good ones.  Step up from there: text me or e-mail me on the boring days.  Or the embarrassing ones.  Or the silly ones.  I really do not get tired of hearing about your life.
2. A similar solution to problem one is a solution to problem two.  When something reminds you of me (like an article on reddit or buzzfeed), e-mail it or text it to me!  Or to the ten people who you think will appreciate it.  I will not be offended that I am one of several.  When I occur to you, let me know.   Every time I run across your mind will be a bit much, certainly, but nothing is wrong with letting me know you’re thinking about me once every five or six times.  Sometimes this will turn into a conversation.  Other times not.  THIS IS OKAY.  Seriously, people, this is not hard.  YOU CAN LIKE MY STATUS ON FACEBOOK OR FAVORITE A TWEET AND THAT’LL BE A SIGN!  Step up from there: call, e-mail, or text me with the INTENT to have a conversation.  Make it happen, even if it’s only a five minute one.
3. Introduce me to your friends.  I don’t expect I’ll become their best friends or even their good friends, but I want to know the people in your life.  Your family, other people who are your friends!  I don’t want to feel like you’re ashamed to be my friend.   I want to feel like I am part of your life.  Even if I meet your family or friends ONCE and that’s it, that’s enough for me to know you appreciate me enough to include me.  But don’t parse out our friendship and act like you and I can ONLY be friends in a one-on-one situation and never a social one.  And if you’re doing this because I’ve botched a social situation: TELL ME.  I won’t be offended.  I will ask for details so I can do better in the future, but I won’t be angry.  And then, please, have the patience to try me out again in a group situation.   Step up from there: organize a night specifically to introduce not just me but MANY of your friends to each other.  We’ll find some people we like, we’ll find some people we’ll be glad not to interact with, we’ll find some people right in the middle.  No one has 100% success in keeping their friends friendly.

Okay.  There’s the letter.  It’s an open one, so there may be changes along the way.  I may decide that I’m still okay with one-on-one time with you number threes, so long as there’s public time, too.  I may decide to boot some of you to the curb.  Done.  No more. I can’t deal with it.  I have good hope, however, that this will not be the case.  I’d like very much to keep as many of you as friends as possible.

But what I will not do to keep you around is sell myself short again.  You are my friends.  You care about me.  Or, I hope you are and do.  If this is the case, I will no longer accept *implied* friendship.  I’m going to need you to tell me at the very least.  Maybe, one day you’ll do one step better and SHOW me.

Certainly, I will do my best to continue to do so on my end.

But my friendship is no longer a guarantee.  You’re going to have to give some as well.

Just a (rather large) pond away.

Today, I am grateful for DearestBex.

I mention her enough here, I’m sure you all know who she is.  She’s my best friend who lives in England.  It’s her birthday today.

DearestBex and I met on FictionCentral.net in late 2005-ish.  She was publishing one of the most popular stories on there, and I was reading it along with everyone else.  It was an extremely raw story subject.  I could tell when she had a rough day writing it, so I started leaving very supportive and encouraging reviews, along with my technical reviews.

Apparently, they helped.  We started reviewing each others’ works, e-mailing, and then we just became best friends.  She’s supported me through the crazy journeys of recovering from Bi-Polar, a broken heart, loneliness, identity crisis, and a whole host of large and small things that one can only go to the best of friends with.  The 1’s and 0’s have been very kind to us.

Last year, I got to go see her.  Nothing quite compares to the anxiety of meeting the woman who has been your best friend for three years, and a good friend for six, for the first time.  I had all sorts of horrible nightmares that DearestBex would hate Real-Life Me and only like Internet Me.  Nothing was further from the truth (silly paranoid subconscious).  I had the time of my life with my England family.

Happy birthday, my love.  Miles apart, but never too far away.

Some people are amazing in every way:

My next guest blogger is one of my best friends in the whole world!

Presenting: Celeste!

She doesn’t have an online platform for me to link to and I totally spaced putting her picture on my jump drive so you guys can see her beautiful face.

Hrm.

*trolls Facebook*

Here she is all dolled up:

She’s pretty cute, huh?

But here’s the Celeste I know and love:

Yup, that’s my best friend!

And here’s her rambunctious dog that seems to love me more because she freaks me out (I’m freaked by big dogs and Sophie is just at that size that starts to bother if it’s in my face . . . and she loves my face):

Oh, dog. You’re pretty, but you don’t understand that I need my space.

Celeste is an online friend that became a real-life friend.  She and I were part of the Fiction Central community.  I’d link to it, but the website was bought by a new company and has been entirely wiped.  Hopefully it’ll be up and running again in the near future.  We were some of the oldest writers on that website, and we were only 18 to 19 when we signed up.  It was a young, enthusiastic community and we bonded over being–shall we say–less enthusiastic.  I’m NOT saying we were better writers, we were just more careful, doing things like editing and formatting before we posted.

After we became review buddies, we went on to be e-mail buddies (good thing, since the site shut down), which turned into calling each other once every few weeks, which became weekly, then practically daily.  We visit each other as often as we can (read: not often) and don’t spend NEARLY enough time together.

Celeste is just under a year older than I am, studying to be an angel on earth educator (High School Science, specifically Biology), is a manager at the family restaurant at the same time, and is the girl I can have ALL those awkward conversations with.  And I think we have had them AAAAALLLLLL.  My goodness.  She’s a born and bred Missouri girl and truly a gem among people.  She’s smart and funny and passionate and lets me be ridiculous with only the slightest of nudging when I’m in the process of committing social suicide.

We get along because we’re both borderline pedants, have a deep and abiding love for sepia photos, are country girls at heart (if not geographically, in my case), and make each other laugh.  There’s no better reason to love someone than that.

I can’t WAIT to see what she writes about next week. 😉

On turning twenty-five:

First of all, it was SO not a big deal.  I went to work, Dad took me to lunch, I went home to have dinner with my family, and then opened presents.  I went home to my apartment and my roommate said happy birthday before announcing it was time to clean up (which I completely agreed with).  We worked well into my second day as a twenty-five year old dusting, vacuuming, and re-decorating with some things that have been needing to make their way onto the walls and shelves since I moved in in October.  Yep – we’re super fast like that.  But we both went to bed feeling more relaxed than we had since well before the Waldo Canyon Fire mess.

So what did it actually mean to hit a quarter of a century?  Not much.  The day before my birthday found me at my parents’ dinner table with a couple family friends.  We were talking and Dad decided to mention my twenty-fifth birthday was the following day.  One of them said, “That’s the only birthday that hit me.”  The other said, “The one that hit me was twenty-seven.”  I thought about it and came to the conclusion that the birthday that hit me was twenty-two.  Why?  Because I had officially been in treatment longer that I hadn’t.  I had been living with my disease for the greater half of my life.  After that became true, I have been incredibly nonplussed.  It’s a birthday – yay!  It’s a specific birthday – so?

I remember telling a friend years ago that if I wasn’t married/engaged by the time I was twenty-five, I didn’t expect to ever get married.  Thankfully, that’s no longer true.  It was never that I thought that after twenty-five my life would stop or I would become less marriageable .  The reason I thought that was directly due to looking at the statistics and rightly concluding that my chances after twenty-five were lousy in the LDS community.  Those statistics have not gotten any better, in case you were wondering, but I’ve realized that I really didn’t WANT to be married before twenty-five.  In many ways, reaching this age as a single woman has done wonders for me.  I’m happy with myself and with everything I’ve been able to do on my own.  That being said, I expect that it will be harder to get married now than it would have been in the past few years, not because the statistics say so, but because I know me.  I’ve come to love my independence, to love being alone, to love being just me.  Sharing that life that I have so slowly built is a frightening prospect.  The longer I am alone, the more exceptional the man will have to be to convince me to give up the world I have built around myself (and I say that knowing that it will be true in the reverse as well).  I’m not saying that world can’t make room for someone else, but it will take some effort.  I won’t make that effort for just anyone.  (Funny side note: there’s a quote from Brigham Young, a long-dead LDS prophet that says, “A man who is twenty-five and unmarried is a menace to society.”  (Brigham never did mince words.) Now I get to wonder, what does that make me?  Nothing good. 😉 )  That conversation has been on my mind as I approached the day that I had pronounced as the death of my chances to marry so many years ago, but thankfully my attitude changed so long ago that while my mind has frequently returned to the conversation the past couple months, each time I’ve been able to shrug and think, “How silly I was.”

I am getting old, though.  Not in the sense that I am unaware that I am still quite young, but that I’m feeling further and further displaced from what has been, to this point, my community.  I see commercials that are aimed at today’s teens and early twenties and realize, “My goodness, this isn’t meant for me anymore.”  The people I used to be lumped with by surveyists, pollsters, demographic analyzers, and–to be honest–me is no longer the group I’m comfortable in.  I don’t want to be that young anymore, and this did not suddenly happen on my birthday.  I guess being twenty-five just made it official.  I’m growing up and out of the main targeted demographic, and I feel it.  I’ve been feeling it for a while, though, so it’s not quite so disappointing as it is something to learn how to adjust to.  I don’t care that advertising no longer centers around me (I’m actually quite excited about that), but I do care about the disconnect I feel with my younger friends, that disconnect that became much more pronounced over the past year than I expected.

Despite all this, there were some REALLY good moments to end the first twenty-five years and (hopefully) begin the next twenty-five.  And I want to enumerate them:

1. PHONE CALLS!!!!  Remember this post?  Well, I rejoined the world of Facebook around December to see all the Christmas photos (What?  I have nieces and nephews!  They take precedence over my world-weary views.)  Because of this, I was able to write this note:   “Friends, as some of you may know, my birthday is coming up in less than two weeks.  And I have a request for you that may seem strange, but bear with me, please.  As much as I appreciate all the messages and wall posts that you have given me in the past, I would like something else for my birthday this year.  I don’t want a single post on my wall or hug or a present or whatever this year’s fad is.  I want a phone call.  I want to hear your voice.  It doesn’t have to be a drawn out conversation or even more than a, “Hello, happy birthday!”  No, a text doesn’t count.  Why?  Because YOUR voice is one of the most significant sounds in my world.  I miss it.  I want your voice to remind me of the good times, the bad times, and–more importantly–all the times that have made it possible for me to maintain a connection with you while we’re apart.  Why is this a big deal?  Because you’re my friends.  You make up the best parts of me.  I’m reminded of those parts when I talk to you, even more so when I HEAR you.  E-mails, texts, wall posts – these things are okay for every day but for those most special days of the year, they just don’t cut it.  My phone number is on my profile – simple as that.  So, after you call me (because you will, right?), I have one more favor to ask.  If you could, I’d like you to call someone you haven’t talked to in a long time.  Someone you’ve known for years or someone who you just haven’t had the chance to talk to in too long.  If your voice is that important to me, imagine the significance to someone who’s known you your entire life or who is just learning what it is to miss you.  It may be small, but that’s the gift I want most: the gift of you.Love, always and ever,

   Joie”

   And I got some calls!    Nine of them, but nine good ones!  I got calls from people I hear from on a less than weekly basis, people who I talk to about every other week, friends that I hear from every few months if I’m lucky, some friends from far away, a friend who–until recently–I thought our friendship had been broken irreparably, and one from a friend whose voice I had not heard in a full decade.  This, of course was the WHOLE point of the experiment.  It went better than I expected, though not as well as I had hoped, so we’ll try again next year.  My goal is to eventually get so many phone calls on my birthday that I’ll have to take off work for fielding calls.

2. Waldo Canyon Fire was 70% contained by the end of the day! My family was displaced for a few days by the fire, and we were lucky.  We have a couple friends whose houses were burned down.  These are houses I have distinct memories in.  It’s hard for me to know they’re no longer there, I cannot imagine their loss.  The campus of my first summer job, the job that introduced me to cowboy culture (which I proceeded to fall in love with and have obviously maintained a romance with in the ensuing years), burned to the ground.  I have so many formative memories at the Flying W Ranch, and it hurts to think that it’s not there.  They’re planning to rebuild, but it won’t quite ever be the same.  With so much loss, having it THAT contained by the end of the day was possibly the best birthday present I could have.  I love my city, and seeing it burn were some of the worst days of my life.  Thank you, firemen, for all you do.
3. The first proper summer thundershower came along!  That’s right, the summer thundershowers that I so dearly love finally made an appearance.  We waited through all of June for them to come, and I’ll give that we got a few afternoon sprinkles, but nothing like what we’re used to.  Between the fire containment and the rain moving in, I might just have had the most perfect birthday I could ask for.
4. Lunch with my daddy.  We went to Rock Bottom Brewery, which was amazing as ever.  We had a guacamole appetizer (Mango guac, green apple guac, and Anaheim pepper guac.  Yes, yes, and yes.) and delicious salads.  And we just got to talk.  Perhaps one of the sweetest moments leading up to my birthday was when my dad asked, “Am I going to get to spend any time with you on your birthday?”  I love my father so much and I really treasure the daddy/daughter moments we’ve had over the years.  This one was a great way to start the next twenty-five right.
5. Birthday dinner.  My mother?  Best cook ever.  There is no such thing as a birthday without the birthday dinner and my mother is the one who makes that dinner perfect.  The asparagus?  FANTASTIC!  The chicken croquettes: delectable.  And the carrot cake: my goodness, let me drown in the amazing.  Perhaps the kindest part was that she let me take home all the left overs of the meal!  I even got to cut out the center of the cake so I didn’t have to deal with any of the edges . . . meaning I left my family with a C-block of edged cake.  I was spoiled and would say sorry except that I am not.  At all.
6. The thoughtful presents.  My family is super amazing and sweet.  I always send a huge list and let them choose what they will to give me.  I try to including things that I know my siblings and parents would like to give.  I even remember a year when I asked for a video game as much for the joy I knew it would give my brothers to give it to me as the pleasure I would receive from the gift.  That was a good year.  This year was no different.  I was unsurprised by the gifts everyone gave me, knowing my family as I do, but at the same time touched.  My parents gave me some much needed clothes that will last me for years to come.  My baby brother gave me a book from a series that he introduced me to many years ago.  In addition, he got me the first two books of a series I gave him when he was little and used to read aloud to him.  I expected to get books from him, but the ones he chose from the long list were especially meaningful.  Then, we all played a game, which is a rare occurrence.  That was probably the gift I loved the most, as my chronically ill sister made the effort to stick out the entire evening.  I know she couldn’t have been comfortable.  (Also, I didn’t have to do dishes.  That’s very nice.)
7. Realizing that I’m twenty-five.  I can tell you there were days I really didn’t think I would make it to this age.  And I did, not with a band or by a hair, but quietly and peacefully.  A true gift.
8. I had a quiet birthday.  No big fanfare, no fuss.  Just a few calls, a dinner and game with the family, and some presents.  I’ve been trying to do this kind of quiet birthday for years, and this is the first year I think I got the balance just right.  It was wonderful.

So, after wondering for years how I would feel to be twenty-five, I know.  And it’s a good feeling, if a little less than describable.  I think it’s going to be a stunning year.

FROM THE PAST: I HAVE A REQUEST

I didn’t plan on doing this entry, as it’s totally not on one of the days I usually post on this blog, but it’s my birthday.  I get to do what I want.

Besides, this has been brewing for several months and even though I thought I was okay with giving this plan up (as it depended on me being on Facebook), it seems that I am not.  Not only is the subject important to me, but my birthday is as well.  Naturally. ; )

As I have mentioned before, I am a planner.  I got this from my Grammy, who used to ask for birthday and Christmas lists at LEAST two to three months in advance.  The habit has stayed with me and, even though I no longer publish the lists quite as early as I used to, I often start thinking about what I want to do for my birthday/Christmas well before hand.  When I began to think of my birthday many months ago, I planned on posting on my Facebook page this message:

As much as I appreciate all your messages to me today, I would like something else for my birthday.  I don’t want a single post on my wall or hug or a flair or a present.  I want a phone call.  I want to hear your voice.  It doesn’t have to be a drawn out conversation or even more than a, “Hello, happy birthday!”  It may be small, but that’s the gift I want most.

Then, of course, I realized I’d be in Sweden at the time and not only would I be away from Facebook and unable to post, but if I WERE able to post that request, at $1.49 a minute over-seas, those would be some very expensive birthday gifts I would end up paying for.  Then I deactivated Facebook, which further sealed the fate of this birthday request.

So, here I am, just a bit less than a month before my birthday, and I’m writing out my request on my blog to be posted on the day of.  But this time, the post isn’t for me.  This post is for my friends.  And here’s my modified, for the better, birthday request:

As much as I miss you all while I’m overseas, I have something I’d like you to do for me back home on my birthday.  In honor of me, would you please call a friend you haven’t talked to in a while?  Just as I miss hearing your voice, I imagine they probably do, too.  Don’t just text them or IM them, actually talk to them.  Help them remember just why you’re friends, what they love so much about you.  It’s not just what you say, but how and when you say it.  Don’t get me wrong, texting and IMing is great.  Without those, I’d never hear from more than half of you.  But your voice is one of the most important sounds in my world.  For my birthday, please give that wonderful, important gift to someone who’s missed it for a while.  And then, if it’s not too greedy of me, when I get back, could I get it, too?

There you have it.  My birthday request: give the gift of you.  I’ll try to do the same.  Love to you all, and see or talk to you soon!

Elvis did get at least one thing right:

You just “Can’t Help Falling in Love” with certain people.

I’ve been debating pretty heavily whether or not I was going to post about this subject and, if I did, how I was going to present it.  You see, I’m not talking about who you love in the romantic sense (not that I believe in romantic love, but that’s another post for another day), but those who you fall in love with platonically.  I think these are the people you can help the least.  And, even though I believe that there is a simple and beautiful logic to true love in all forms, I think these can be the hardest to understand.

I don’t suppose I’m being very clear at all, am I?  Perhaps some background:

The Thursday after I posted about being something of a Poky Little Puppy in relationships, the other half of my relationship ended things.  Since the relationship was new and we weren’t too attached, the break-up wasn’t that bad.  It was just confusing.

Then the next Tuesday (so just under a week ago), I found out the why of the break-up.  I was no longer confused.  I was, however, about as livid as can be (I’m less livid now, though no less shocked).  The main sticking point that caused the boy to call things off was that I am a firm supporter of mixed race relationships and he . . . isn’t (understatement of the century, there).

I very quickly informed the boy he was no longer to talk to me.  One of the main reasons I did this was because I have nine beautiful mixed race nieces and nephews who I love more than anything in the world.  It was an impossible thought for me to have someone in my life who did not approve (ugh) of these little miracles.

So this is what brings me to today’s topic. Though I know why I do, I cannot help loving these children any more than I can help breathing.  What’s more, I’ve had several friends of other races or who are mixed race that I could not imagine my life without.  Many have informed my decisions throughout the years, some still inform my decisions.  I would not be the person I am without these beautiful people  and to hate them based on the color of their skin or the fact that their parents have different colors of skin is so beyond anything I can comprehend.  I didn’t “fall in love” with their looks.  I “fell in love” with their personalities and their individuality.

This is true of all my friends.  There is no room for judgement or envy in love.  Basing a relationship off of looks opens the door for either, and both are poison.

I know well that I cannot help loving certain people.  Of this I am glad.  There are some people that–had I based a friendship off looks or first impressions–would be nothing to me today.  But even those that I cannot help loving, the logic of that love is still apparent.  There are reasons for it that I can find daily.  And I do.

Running across someone who actively encouraged me to limit who I allowed myself to love has opened my eyes in many ways.  I’ve learned that, in some ways, I do limit myself in how much I love, if not who.  It’s time for me to let go of my fears, the fears that naturally accompany loving people (after all, if I love, then I might lose), and simply allow myself to open my heart.  It’s not that I didn’t love my friends and family before, but I am now determined to love all of them better.  Eventually, that love will eclipse any anger I feel towards the my ex and his horrific opinions.

Who knows, the day may come when I may even find a smidge of love for my ex, for helping me realize this about myself.  Though, if I’m being completely honest, that day is a long time coming (if at all).

I can’t help who I love, but I can help how I love.  And from now on, I will love better.

Lullaby for the Unknown Child

As is often the case in adult life, your friends live far from you.  While this is moderately inconvenient or slightly annoying during times of joy and accomplishment, there is nothing quite so heart-wrenching as the fact that you aren’t there in times of suffering and need.  I have felt this many times in my life, but none so acutely as the recent weeks.

Not too long ago, a friend of mine lost her child.  And, because I don’t get the chance to be there to comfort the grieving mother, nor did I get the chance to hold or know the babe who was to be my nephew in all respects but biological, I offer this: the song of my heart.

The song starts about a year ago.  It was when my friend told me she was going to try to have this child.  I have rarely been so overwhelmed with longing, a longing akin to the longing I feel for a child of my own.  But, in this case, this longing was not for myself, but for my friend.  This longing was for all the hopes and dreams I immediately had for her to come true.  It was also the impractical longing to be there, to be the informal nanny-housekeeper–to take all the burdens of motherhood away so that her days would be filled with the bliss of her son (for I was determined she would have a boy).  These were the times it was inconvenient not to be there; the song was impatient.

Then came the long months of waiting.  Of bad news, no news, joyous discussions of plans, and hope that–at times–seemed ill-advised in the best of perspectives.  These were times when not being there was difficult; the song was perhaps too cheerful to try to combat the gloom.

Then finally, finally finally, she was pregnant.  However, being a close friend, I was told early enough that the world at large did not know.  I had an enormous secret, but it was a glad one.  There was no weight in carrying it.  I was filled to bursting with joy; my little nephew was almost here!  I made a baby blanket so that the Fall and Winter cold would never be able to reach him.  I searched mightily for present ideas for the mother.  I began a CD of all my favorite lullabies so that my darling best friend, who always seems to be sick, would be able to put it on when her voice was tired or gone and so the baby would know my voice, if not my face.  I made all the preparations that I could to be a long-distance auntie, figuring out ways to overcome the distance for not only the child, but for my friend.

As needed, I provided emotional support to the mother (families can be enormously crazy when little children enter the picture).  I reveled in each little piece of news.  I imagined her stomach slowly getting bigger, even though it was much too early for that.  I made plans to visit, though it could only be before the baby came.  These were the times when it was the least difficult to be away, a tickling annoyance at most; the song beat away, always trilling with an irrepressible gladness.

And then, just before that magic all-clear of the pregnancy world, the twelve week mark, she lost her baby.  No warning, no reason–the way most miscarriages happen.  And I found out in the worst, but most practical (and likely most painless for my friend) way possible: an e-mail.  Though I do not begrudge her the saved pain nor the convenience, the note in my inbox was a terrible thing.  Black and white on a screen, spelling the death of one so dear.  This was the worst time.  The song went silent.

I immediately sent her the words to one of the songs I had intended to include on the CD I was making, the one verse ditty my mother would sing when I was sad.  It’s from a book, and so far as I know, the tune is something my mother made up.  “I’ll love you forever, I’ll like you for always, as long as I’m living, my baby you’ll be.”  Perhaps not the best salve to this wound, but all I could come up with at the moment that I needed to respond quickly.

Then I spent days wondering how on Earth I could help.  I have never suffered loss even remotely akin to this.  The death of grandparents, aunts and uncles, classmates, and pets, yes.  But never one so close as my own child.  I have suffered all manner of privations and horrors with my disease, but in this I was the “happy” observer, safe on the other side of the gulf that separated me and my best friend.  Though we live impossibly far away from each other as it is, I have never felt so far from her as I did those days following her announcement.

I wondered all the stupid, silly practical things that occur after death.  What will I do with the blanket?  Should I finish the CD?  Should I make a condolences gift or should I leave well enough alone?  Will visiting still be a good idea?  I believe these things, heartless as they seem, are the human mind’s way to process something so big and so foreign as deep grief.  I did the same thing when it became clear my grandmother was dying–my first reaction was to say we should probably throw out the coffee she kept out at our house.  Callous and terrible, the song returned as a weak march–pushing me forward day by day.

And then something changed.  The song wasn’t about me anymore.  It had never been for me, but it had been about me, isolated as I was from the events that were transpiring.  However, somewhere in that weak march, the song turned into the baby’s song, and what he had brought to my friend’s life, and mine, in such a short time.

My nephew (which I still determinedly think of him as, since we’ll never get the chance to know) was joy and hope and anticipation since long before his conception.  He was a bright future and hard work ahead, and he was love.  He brought me and my best friend closer together, even across distances that some days seem without bridge.  He made of us a family.  His song, the song my heart now sings when I think of him, is a song of universality and triumph, though tinged with the sadness of lost potential.

The song I sing aloud–for as much as I’d love to be able to sing what my heart does, I can’t–has all the melancholy of his life, but ends with comfort for me.  It’s the song I probably sang a good three or four dozen times (and still had more to go) before it was CD ready: Didn’t Leave Nobody But the Baby (from Oh Brother, Where Art Thou).  This was the song I had to get right, and though I don’t know why it was important then, it’s a help to me now.  The last verse says this, “Go to sleep you little baby (go to sleep you little baby), go to sleep you little babe (go to sleep you little babe).  Come and lay your bones on the alabaster stones and be my ever-lovin’ baby.”

I believe in an after-life for all, even for those lost so young.  The image I see is a cliff and a sea, with a small patch of brilliant white stones where he waits for my best friend and, once his family’s had a chance to know him, me.  There he waits, always and ever loved by those he left behind.  I hope that he can hear the song he created, the song that is his.  It will ever be in my heart.

Until we meet at the white stones, baby.

Auntie Joie

A Timeline of Healing: No Man is an Island

Every week, I try to put some thought into what I say here.  I try to avoid certain topics so that I don’t tire myself on the same subjects (and so I don’t make the mistake of posting too much information on the interweb).  It can be challenging to find just the right thing to say at the right time, not to mention the challenge of writing enough to feel like I’ve stretched myself and not just blurted a few jumbled thoughts.

But this week, there is no problem.  After consulting a calendar to be absolutely sure of my accuracy, I produced this timeline:

Three years ago today (Feb 25, 2008) was the last time I cut.

Two years ago today (Feb 25, 2009), I went to play rehearsal, then went out to Denny’s with Audrey (my roommate through most of college) and Momma and Papa Owl to celebrate the toughest year of my life.  A year in which I had taken an action of pure self-loathing and turned it into an expression of self-love through henna.

One year ago today (Feb 25, 2010), I waited for play rehearsal to be over, then went with Audrey and Matt (my adopted Freshman) to McDonald’s to celebrate two years of positive expression towards self, as well as almost an entire year without the need for the henna as a cutting substitute.

On March 12, 2010 I went out for the real celebration, going to a movie with Audrey, her fiance, and another couple who had been there for me in the past several years, who had shown the kind of support that had gotten me through all of these two years during the most of which my five closest friends from home were gone on their missions.  Their support, which had gotten me to the point where I was strong enough to give up cutting, was gone, but these four friends–and another who couldn’t come–were my chosen companions for the night, the people who I needed to share this celebration with.

Today (Feb 25, 2011), I will go to Whole Foods during my lunch break for the small celebration.  I’ll get some tofu and interesting food (for some reason, on this diet, tofu has become my “special occasion” food) and quietly say, “well done.”  Tonight, I’ll spend my anniversary with my family, the first one I’ve been able to, attending a play.  It has been three years since I have cut as of today and two since I needed to use the henna to patch me through the rough spots.  In the past year, I have not just learned to survive, but to thrive.  I have developed myself in the areas I felt weak and maintained that which I felt needed to continue.  I am no longer hiding inside.

In about two weeks, I will share this victory with the best friends who brought me to the brink of health before Audrey & Co. took over.  It is their turn to be recognized in these celebrations, though only one will join me.  Hopefully, if Colorado weather cooperates (hah!), we’ll go miniature golfing.  If it doesn’t, the plans are what I’ll call “fluid” (read as: I have no clue what to do if the weather is bad).  Again, this night will be to celebrate my anniversary, but also my chance to honor the amazing person that has seen me through so much.

This will be my first year without Audrey by my side to celebrate what is, by all rights, her achievement as well.  However, we’ve already talked about it and I’m sure we’ll talk again.  There are many people who have always had to celebrate from afar.  Celeste, Bex, Kate, and Nikki, you deserve quite a bit of the credit as well.  What I have learned from all these anniversaries and the trials in between when people check up and make sure that I’m still steady is this:  I am NEVER alone.  The people who saved me in such grand ways continue to do so in the vital and small ways.

I’m on a journey of healing.  Part of the timeline is that this is my halfway point.  Previous to the round of cutting that lasted from January of 2007 to February of 2008, I had been able to quit for six years.  Today is my halfway point to that goal, and August 25, 2011 is the next point on my timeline: halfway to the new goal.

I can’t promise myself I’ll never cut again.  It’s a stupid promise to make.  Guarantees and absolutes are just standards for failure in the world of a Manic Depressive.  But, as To Write Love on Her Arms so wisely states: Rescue is possible.  I’m going to spend the next three years, and hopefully many more, remembering that I’ve been rescued from so much that I thought I couldn’t be and looking for ways to make the other steps that are needed.  And, as I get to firmer and more stable ground, I’ll be able to help realize that rescue for others around me.

No man is an island.  I am loved.  Rescue is not just possible, it has happened in my life thanks to the amazing and beautiful people who took the time and effort to pull me through the worst of the worst.  As I said, this week’s blog subject was an easy one to choose, for on this day I have so much more to celebrate than three years free of cutting.  I have the incredible presents that these people gave to me: they gave me my life back and, in the process, they gave me themselves.

I could not ask for a greater or more precious gift.

Thank you.