08.01.13

Ain’t nobody fresher than my muthafuckin clique

keepyahead
Hitting people became a “necessary” tool because I couldn’t string together six words to form pithy and biting comebacks. The right response usually manifested 45 minutes too late so I did a lot of smacking back in the day to compensate. The privilege of growing older has brought clarity. Not wisdom, just clarity. I still lack the ability to understand the gravity of a moment as it is happening.

After years of going through weird shit, my head no longer allows my heart to feel grief. This coping mechanism turns my insides blank. I’m familiar with every dark corner when I stumble into Rage. The doorman and I have become pretty friendly at Happiness, so I kick it there as much as I can because he lets me in without all the posturing I had to do as an infrequent visitor.

Grief is, like, way on the other side of town. Fuck that shit. I ain’t got that kind of time.

Then, someone asked me, “Where would you go if you got into trouble?”

I didn’t understand the question. My first thought was “jail,” but that probably wasn’t what he was asking. Plus, I would do my best to avoid incarceration by running away from home and deleting my Instagram account so I wouldn’t accidentally give away identifying details that I was hiding in Dalworthington Gardens, Texas.

“I mean, if every single thing in your life fell apart, where would you go? Most people could just go back to their parents’ home and start over. Take some time to recuperate. But you don’t really have that.”

“Yeah, I don’t really have a home to go back to. I couldn’t just act like someone’s child for a while.” I understood the question. I did not understand the gravity. I felt blank as I said it.

I thought about this exchange as I unballed dirty socks several days later.

My childhood family, while broken, has given me a mother that loves and mostly accepts me, even if she can’t take care of me anymore. When Harv adopted Cal several years ago, I realized that where we start is our biology and the road we travel is our biography.

A happy family now is enough. This my biography. I don’t need refuge anywhere because I am a grown-up and I am a mother. Mothers don’t get to be children too. 

I…really, really wish my childhood belongings weren’t locked away in a storage unit. I wish I could go back home again. 

When I let the full size of that truth unfurl inside, it filled my chest and neck and cheeks and came out of my eyes and nose and mouth. I just sat down on the floor in front of the washing machine and let myself cry about this thing that I didn’t even know I wanted, but then felt undone after realizing it would never be mine.

It bit into me so hard. The grief I had carefully sealed shut for twenty years tumbled out, and it was messy. For-fucking-reals messy.

I’ve been spending a lot of time inside Grief- eating meals by myself, making my bed on its hard floor, playing a little (shit, fine, a LOT) of Candy Crush. I’m allowing myself not to be happy for just a little bit. And I’m also giving myself a free pass not to feel guilty about it.

I know that grieving will not fix any of my broken past, but it will allow me to appreciate the family I have now…my clique. My ride or dies. My heart.

Ain’t nobody fresher than my muthafuckin clique. :)
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For updates on my Quest to be the Candy Crush Champion of the Whole Entire World and some other stuff that’s not as important, “like” the Flourish in Progress Facebook page. Also, I’m on Instagram (username: flourishinprogress). I don’t post pictures of me crying in front of the laundry machine or anything. I SWEAR TO GOD.

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August 1, 2013
06.25.13

How to fuck yourself over

aintnobody

When Cal was ten days old, I accidentally left her at the pediatrician’s office. Something seemed a little off as I crossed the parking lot, but I felt the weight of my purse in the crook of my arm and I was actively sipping on my Blue Raspberry Slurpee, so, I mean, what thing of importance could I possibly have forgotten?

As I unlocked the car door, I saw the infant carrier base in the back seat. FUCK.

I ran. I’ve only been chased by the police once (that I can immediately recall), and I know this is probably not the right time to brag, but I really impressed myself with the speed and agility I exhibited during my short run through the Las Lomas Apartments community and then again as I sprinted back to the pediatrician’s waiting room. I wish my middle school P.E. teachers could have seen me. Slowpoke my ass, motherfuckers.

Cal was right where I had left her. I had set down the carrier to make another appointment and then walked out sans baby. I kneeled beside the carrier and did an ugly cry, dripping big fat tears of shame all over my kid’s face.

A nurse poked her head through the window and said, “Don’t worry, it happens.”

I forgot to use my proper lady language as I replied, “Man, fuck this shit. I suck at being a mom.”

This is my general reaction every time I make a mistake. Man, fuck this shit. I suck at _______.

This is also my general reaction every time I deem something “too hard.”

I am a serial quitter. I am also a serial restarter. These two tendencies are made worse by what happens in between the restarting and the quitting- I self-sabotage.

Self-sabotage is tricky because it uses that Decepticon bullshit, transforming itself from one form to another. First it looks like procrastination. Then it’s shaped like self-medication or self-injury. It’s fear. Doubt. Isolation. Compulsivity. It’s a spiral of bad choices. I stay up too late. I spend too much time reading about the most efficient yet attractive way to organize my scrapbooking embellishments. I make ridiculous demands of myself. I set unrealistic deadlines.

For more than two years, I’ve been working on a book. I started on a Tuesday. I think I promised my agent I would pull something together by, like, Friday. Monday at the latest. She didn’t LOLOL or anything. I give her props for that.

Holler at me, self-sabotage. Ridiculous demands. Unrealistic deadlines.

Earlier this year, I spent two full days perfecting paper airplanes. My planes still fly like shit, but the sharp creases I make using just my thumbnail are baller status. I should have spent that time on my book.

I’ve made a lot of excuses as to why it’s taken so long. Interspersed between the excuses of I don’t know how and Good God, these pages really suck were real-life happenings that delayed the process even longer. I got sad about babies and I also got mad that I still haven’t figured out how to organize my surprisingly large assortment of brads and eyelets.

I’m calling it quits on fucking myself over. For at least a week.

Follow along on the Flourish in Progress Facebook page and on Instagram (username: flourishinprogress) for not-seen-on-this-blog pictures, (t)hug life thoughts, and other random shit you may find entertaining during the hours you are supposed to be doing honest work.

image via Sara Eshak for Society6

June 25, 2013