Filed under: self indulgence
I started 2009 confused and rough. The year chewed me up and spat out a softer, more sentimental Ash than I can recall myself as ever having been. I consider the first 25 years of my life to be a false start. My life, as I want it to be, began this past year.
Volunteering at the state mental hospital in the Peer Support program forces me to repeatedly rehash my family history. Given the Jerry-Springer-ness of it, one would think that this would be traumatic. But much like repeating the same word over and over again, it begins to lose meaning and becomes abstract, an academic curiosity, distant to me as the Iran-Contra Affair, defanged. For this and countless other reasons, my experience at the hospital has been invaluable.
For a long time, I skirted the subject of my family. At first, I’d refuse to respond to inquiries — angry, lonely, and still stinging sharply from the first eighteen years of my life. Then I minimized. Sometimes I’d lie and say that my biological mother was dead. I’d shrug my shoulders at my father’s death and mutter, “Don’t worry about it; you didn’t kill him” to those who instinctively apologized for my loss. I didn’t want to deal with the stigma of a broken family. I didn’t want to be perceived as damaged goods. Then rage and self defense. I hated my biological mother so intensely — the pain of rejection and abandonment melted and left a hard pit of independence. I felt as though I were without family, alone.
I moved back to the Northeast, in part, to be closer to my aunt and uncle. My aunt had been in poor health and had had a close brush with death that was not communicated to me at the time because I was too far away (in Austin) to do much besides worry. Faced with the prospect of her dying and being unable to see her before that happened prompted my return.
I visited them frequently over the next year and a half while living in Massachusetts. I loved everything about it. I loved the drive down (two hours from Boston, breaking 100 mph multiples times in my new, light, beautiful car). I loved her exuberance when meeting me at the door. My uncle’s good-natured stoicism. Helping in the kitchen. Knocking back beer and playing cards with my uncle until after midnight (he’s still my favorite drinking buddy). Picking marigold seeds completely sloshed on glühwein. Badmitton for hours on Heineken. (Detecting a pattern here…) They are relaxed, content, joyous people who love, accept, and support me as I am and as I wish to be. Each visit felt like a celebration. I slowly realized that I was not without a family. I had a perfect, chosen family.
In addition to my aunt and uncle, I also had Dr. McAwesome at home. He is, to this day, the person to whom I am closest. He receives the uncensored, unembellished truth, processes it rationally and returns in the same fashion. He shares my hobbies, my curiosity, my desire to spend quiet hours indoors, and my domestic patterns. He is brilliant, affectionate, accepting. He is irreplaceable and I will love him forever no matter what the form of our relationship.
When I moved back to Austin, I moved in with a close friend, and quickly made other supportive, mature, and fascinating friends that I admire and love sharing optimistic thoughts and time with. Musicians, artists, nerds. Passionate, intelligent people. People I want in my life forever. That will come to my wedding, that I will call at Christmas, that I will weep for when they die someday.
In short, I am surrounded by awesome human beings. Even Dr. McAwesome’s mother, who wrote me the sweetest, most earnest thank you email for a scarf I sent her for Christmas. My new family is an oddly shaped tree worth embracing, and I heartily thank my biological mother for leaving the month of my 18th birthday. My life will be rich and filled with love.
Happy New Decade, y’all!
Leave a Comment so far
Leave a comment
