Thanksgiving 2016
Pam
Doug
me
That was it. The firehall thanksgiving is officially dead.
I woke up early this morning to catch the sunrise at Oak Openings in the silence, alone.
It was completely cloudy, not a sign of the sun, but the morning was perfect
Northwest Ohio
my birthplace.
I'm writing right now because I just finished having a stupidly heated conversation with my mom. My dad on the couch in the room but completely silent, never joining in always just silent until he finally stood up and went to bed.
Couch to bed
that's how I will forever remember my dad
Doug was my boss at Carter Lumber, Dad was the man exhausted and silent on the couch until he walked up stairs to go to sleep.
My family, they don't understand me.
I'm raising my voice, I'm arguing, I'm yelling
I feel unheard
I feel misunderstood
I feel insane
Brittany
Pam
Tyler
Doug
Adam
Self sufficiency, money, political views
that's what's most important in this family.
My mom and dad tell me I don't understand how much money things cost
My mom and dad tell me I don't understand the world
They look at me with their eyes through a lens they handed me but I threw away years ago.
I know how they see me, I know how they see the world, I was raised by them, but how can I get them to see what I see? How can I get them to understand I'm different
My dad stands in silence as he turns back before heading down the hall he says, "if you need any money you can always ask us"
Need any money...
money
I want a hug
I want my parents to share a bedroom
I want my family together at the Lyons fire hall
I want my parents to give me an example of intimacy
I want my parents to show me a marriage I want to have
I want them to giggle
I want them to kiss
I want my family to touch
To talk
not about politics, the news, the local church gossip, the reality show
To talk about feelings
dreams
I want a family
not a fiscally responsible group of business partners.
Doug must have been out all night last night
this morning while I was making the coffee to catch the sunrise my mom didn't know when he got home of course they sleep in different rooms, they live different lives and I hear her harsh voice of reproach and I hear his meek low mumble of an apology, then silence, the most emotional interaction I'll witness between the two.
After my shouting match with my mother as she talked down to me on the near eve of my 29th birthday,
My parents both shuffle up to their separate bedrooms, the same ones I've seen them go to separately for the past 23 years of my life in this house.
I look at my phone
texts from several different women
A date with one schedules for tomorrow now
a date with another scheduled for Saturday
risky pics sent from other women through snapchat and text
I finally see it.
The contrast of my families lack of intimacy and my phone filled with hallow surface intimacy and I sit her at my parents' computer putting it all together.
I don't know how to be intimate, vulnerable. The closest I came was with Kelly but it proved to be fickle on her end.
I'm incapable of intimacy.
I'll be 29 next Friday
Not a girlfriend in sight with a date with a different girl lines up every weekend for months now.
I feed myself these fake interactions of intimacy because I've never experienced the real thing.
Maybe the real thing doesn't exist.
My brother's wife tells me she wants to sell their other car rather than hold it in case mine breaks while I'm unemployed during student teaching.
I must be self-sufficient
My mom can't understand why I think people should care about other humans simply because they exist.
How much more should we as family care about each other?
Offering hospitality, generosity, affection, support, and kindness
But I get political debates
I get talked down to
I get lectures about how the world is all about money
I just want to get in my car and drive, Drive past the forests of the midwest, through the great plains, over the mountains drive, keep driving until I reach the ocean and I just want to scream.
I want to throw my money over the edge, I want to push my car off a cliff I don't want stuff, I don't want to see the world that way
I want to grab a woman pull her close, I want to feel how she grabs my arms, she can't resist kissing me, I want to hear her words how she enjoys my body as her foreign hands feel my chest and abs I want her fingers through my hair I just want intimacy, vulnerability
I don't know maybe God isn't real.
If God isn't real love certainly isn't.
If love isn't real then my parents are right about everything
Donald Trump will be a great president
and my nights with strangers are as real as it gets
marriage is a religious sham
FFFFFFUUUUUUUCCCCCCCCKKKKKKK
From the edge of the west coast all the way until the sound waves of my voice either curve with the earth or press past the atmosphere and float out into the infinite nothingness of space
All I want is a community of people, I don't care black, red, white, yellow, brown, straight, gay, non-binary, atheist, Muslim I just want a community of people who love and care about each of us because we exist. That's it, not because we are self sufficient, not because we are profitable, not because we are beautiful, because we...are.
I want a woman to give myself to, all of me, and I want all of her, the ugly stuff, the unimportant stuff, and I want to share life together
I want children, I want to teach them fly fishing in Montana, I want to work beside them in our garden, I want to hold them every night, I want to read to them, teach them words, and trees. I want to pick them up when they fall and I want them to know that they have a right to a place in this planet simply because they are.
I want all of these things
but I don't have any of it.
I have a family that is silent and self sufficient.
I have a Thanksgiving apart
I have dozens of women in my unread texts
This morning as I stood in the middle of those pines stretched up towards the sky, before any of this arguing and family stuff happened
I thought to myself, why is this so comfortable? Why am I ok to be in this moment without someone else. I want to share my life with someone then why do I love this solitude. I want to be uncomfortable alone. I want to want community. I want to need to share and bump elbows with others around me. I want a wife. But I don't think I truly do. Because here I am in these trees sipping my coffee and I realize my best memories in my life were adventures I took alone.
I hate that.
I want to need someone. I want to need friends around me to share places of beauty or pieces of poetry or songs that strike something within me.
But I keep it all in.
I only let it out weekly in this blog and even this blog is completely hidden from everyone who knows me and even from strangers on the internet.
I keep it all in.
vulnerability, intimacy, community
My heart deeply, deeply wants all of these things
but I don't know anything about them. I don't even know how to hug my parents comfortably.
I don't even know my parents.
My parents don't know me.
I don't want my parents' marriage
I don't want my brother's marriage
I don't want their lives
I don't want their lens
but how do I do it my own way?
What the fuck am I doing?
I'm almost 30.
I'm 1/3 the way done with my life and that's if cancer, car crash, or murder don't steal more of my time.
what am I doing?
I feel like I've been in my cocoon too long
But I don't see being a butterfly happening anytime soon
Is it okay to spend life as a cocoon?
I feel so lost.
God, are You real?
Radical Face - Always Gold
Pam
Doug
me
That was it. The firehall thanksgiving is officially dead.
I woke up early this morning to catch the sunrise at Oak Openings in the silence, alone.
It was completely cloudy, not a sign of the sun, but the morning was perfect
Northwest Ohio
my birthplace.
I'm writing right now because I just finished having a stupidly heated conversation with my mom. My dad on the couch in the room but completely silent, never joining in always just silent until he finally stood up and went to bed.
Couch to bed
that's how I will forever remember my dad
Doug was my boss at Carter Lumber, Dad was the man exhausted and silent on the couch until he walked up stairs to go to sleep.
My family, they don't understand me.
I'm raising my voice, I'm arguing, I'm yelling
I feel unheard
I feel misunderstood
I feel insane
Brittany
Pam
Tyler
Doug
Adam
Self sufficiency, money, political views
that's what's most important in this family.
My mom and dad tell me I don't understand how much money things cost
My mom and dad tell me I don't understand the world
They look at me with their eyes through a lens they handed me but I threw away years ago.
I know how they see me, I know how they see the world, I was raised by them, but how can I get them to see what I see? How can I get them to understand I'm different
My dad stands in silence as he turns back before heading down the hall he says, "if you need any money you can always ask us"
Need any money...
money
I want a hug
I want my parents to share a bedroom
I want my family together at the Lyons fire hall
I want my parents to give me an example of intimacy
I want my parents to show me a marriage I want to have
I want them to giggle
I want them to kiss
I want my family to touch
To talk
not about politics, the news, the local church gossip, the reality show
To talk about feelings
dreams
I want a family
not a fiscally responsible group of business partners.
Doug must have been out all night last night
this morning while I was making the coffee to catch the sunrise my mom didn't know when he got home of course they sleep in different rooms, they live different lives and I hear her harsh voice of reproach and I hear his meek low mumble of an apology, then silence, the most emotional interaction I'll witness between the two.
After my shouting match with my mother as she talked down to me on the near eve of my 29th birthday,
My parents both shuffle up to their separate bedrooms, the same ones I've seen them go to separately for the past 23 years of my life in this house.
I look at my phone
texts from several different women
A date with one schedules for tomorrow now
a date with another scheduled for Saturday
risky pics sent from other women through snapchat and text
I finally see it.
The contrast of my families lack of intimacy and my phone filled with hallow surface intimacy and I sit her at my parents' computer putting it all together.
I don't know how to be intimate, vulnerable. The closest I came was with Kelly but it proved to be fickle on her end.
I'm incapable of intimacy.
I'll be 29 next Friday
Not a girlfriend in sight with a date with a different girl lines up every weekend for months now.
I feed myself these fake interactions of intimacy because I've never experienced the real thing.
Maybe the real thing doesn't exist.
My brother's wife tells me she wants to sell their other car rather than hold it in case mine breaks while I'm unemployed during student teaching.
I must be self-sufficient
My mom can't understand why I think people should care about other humans simply because they exist.
How much more should we as family care about each other?
Offering hospitality, generosity, affection, support, and kindness
But I get political debates
I get talked down to
I get lectures about how the world is all about money
I just want to get in my car and drive, Drive past the forests of the midwest, through the great plains, over the mountains drive, keep driving until I reach the ocean and I just want to scream.
I want to throw my money over the edge, I want to push my car off a cliff I don't want stuff, I don't want to see the world that way
I want to grab a woman pull her close, I want to feel how she grabs my arms, she can't resist kissing me, I want to hear her words how she enjoys my body as her foreign hands feel my chest and abs I want her fingers through my hair I just want intimacy, vulnerability
I don't know maybe God isn't real.
If God isn't real love certainly isn't.
If love isn't real then my parents are right about everything
Donald Trump will be a great president
and my nights with strangers are as real as it gets
marriage is a religious sham
FFFFFFUUUUUUUCCCCCCCCKKKKKKK
From the edge of the west coast all the way until the sound waves of my voice either curve with the earth or press past the atmosphere and float out into the infinite nothingness of space
All I want is a community of people, I don't care black, red, white, yellow, brown, straight, gay, non-binary, atheist, Muslim I just want a community of people who love and care about each of us because we exist. That's it, not because we are self sufficient, not because we are profitable, not because we are beautiful, because we...are.
I want a woman to give myself to, all of me, and I want all of her, the ugly stuff, the unimportant stuff, and I want to share life together
I want children, I want to teach them fly fishing in Montana, I want to work beside them in our garden, I want to hold them every night, I want to read to them, teach them words, and trees. I want to pick them up when they fall and I want them to know that they have a right to a place in this planet simply because they are.
I want all of these things
but I don't have any of it.
I have a family that is silent and self sufficient.
I have a Thanksgiving apart
I have dozens of women in my unread texts
This morning as I stood in the middle of those pines stretched up towards the sky, before any of this arguing and family stuff happened
I thought to myself, why is this so comfortable? Why am I ok to be in this moment without someone else. I want to share my life with someone then why do I love this solitude. I want to be uncomfortable alone. I want to want community. I want to need to share and bump elbows with others around me. I want a wife. But I don't think I truly do. Because here I am in these trees sipping my coffee and I realize my best memories in my life were adventures I took alone.
I hate that.
I want to need someone. I want to need friends around me to share places of beauty or pieces of poetry or songs that strike something within me.
But I keep it all in.
I only let it out weekly in this blog and even this blog is completely hidden from everyone who knows me and even from strangers on the internet.
I keep it all in.
vulnerability, intimacy, community
My heart deeply, deeply wants all of these things
but I don't know anything about them. I don't even know how to hug my parents comfortably.
I don't even know my parents.
My parents don't know me.
I don't want my parents' marriage
I don't want my brother's marriage
I don't want their lives
I don't want their lens
but how do I do it my own way?
What the fuck am I doing?
I'm almost 30.
I'm 1/3 the way done with my life and that's if cancer, car crash, or murder don't steal more of my time.
what am I doing?
I feel like I've been in my cocoon too long
But I don't see being a butterfly happening anytime soon
Is it okay to spend life as a cocoon?
I feel so lost.
God, are You real?
Radical Face - Always Gold