On Family

I have been alone for a long time. There's a post around that theme, that has to do with faith and questions and the ache in my heart that twinges when I come across a new doctrine - in literature or speech or liturgy - that resonates, and think "Oh God, I was alone for so many years and they were here all this time."

(But that is not this post. That post is still just a few pages of cursive.)

When I was ten, I lost my mother. Let's not get into the how. For a little while, my older sister tried to fill that function, but she had school, and was not really suited for motherhood anyway, being fourteen or so. Then she went off into her own life, and we were left with my father to function as best we could. By the time I was fifteen, I had just about withdrawn into my own life; my dad was preoccupied with depression, and I was used to coming home from school, cleaning what I could, cooking dinner (or making sure dinner could be cooked), and then going to my room to write, until it got dark enough that my family was asleep, and I could go out. I'd walk for miles, sometimes barefoot in the summer, sometimes with a jacket in the winter, just alone. Sometimes with music, sometimes silent, frequently to the woods to cry, or pray, or both. By the time I was eighteen, I bought much of my own food, all of my own clothes, and transported myself to and fro and yon, to work and wherever. When I was twenty, I bought a plane ticket to Seattle; my dad disapproved, but understood that he could not stop me, being an adult. I don't remember when it occurred to me that, if I did choose to disappear, fatally or otherwise, I could be gone almost an entire week before anyone noticed. This was an abstraction only; I was never fully tempted to carry it out. (I should clarify - my family was always there. Mostly. It was just that my life was its own thing - I did as I pleased, when and where I pleased. I failed three highschool courses, and I doubt to this day my dad has any idea. This would never have struck me as odd, except that all my friends had parents who were... involved. And were occasionally very sad that I did not.)

Then I moved out here. I had no roommate the first quarter, so I had to rely on life being awesome/interesting enough to keep me going. (That was not a conscious thought - it just was.) Up until the final two weeks, when the depression started going stab-stab-stab, it worked really well. Then the thought kept coming, occasionally at first, then frequently. I could just kill myself. In my room. Nobody would notice for at least a week. If I did it outside, way off campus where nobody would find the body, it would be more than a week. Two if Daniel wasn't-- and the thought would stop right there, because the thought of Daniel finding my body, or getting a call, or whatever the end result was, would stop me cold.

But the thing is, I had no one... watching me. If I didn't show up to class, the negative result was the same as it had been in highschool: I would miss class. Which was, as a general rule, enough of a reason for me back there, both in school and college, and remained such out here. I showed up because I wanted to learn, I wanted to pass the tests, I needed to write and to be able to work on the newspaper. It was never because I thought folks would - I mean. I'm pragmatic about school, and work for the most part; I show up, I do work, and yes, I care about people. But my role in a workplace (or classroom) is, for me, fundamentally about the quality of work I do, and not myself as a person. It came as a fairly huge shock when the news editor gave me Most Valuable Reporter for the quarter; I'd half convinced myself I was the worst fuck-up on the paper.

When summer hit, I had a roommate - Shizuka, from Tokyo. We couldn't communicate hugely, having not a whole lot of words in English, but she was someone I was living with, and someone about whom I cared. I could still disappear when I needed - I still stayed out for hours at a time, wandering barefoot and singing. And when she went back to Japan, I was thinking I was back on my own.

I've been working at church this summer. Showing up in the morning - anywhere between eight and ten, usually - and then working, and working hard, until somewhere between six and eight. Pruning bushes, hauling underbrush, weeding, clearing pine needles, shoveling, sweeping, raking, basically anything that needed doing. Five days a week, that's what I did. For the first part of summer, I'd spend the first few hours of the day walking town, looking for a job, and then the afternoons working. Saturdays, I'd do nothing - clean my room, walk down to the river, write - chill. Sundays were church. Church, I am used to thinking, is a place where you go, engage in worship, smile at people as you head out. That is... not what the Episcopal Church is like. Church is people hugging and smiling and generally being happy and awesome and occasionally-frequently shoving food at you regardless of your excuses/responses. And suddenly I found myself pulled into a circle of people who, to all appearances, were actually happy to see me.

Today, there was a social justice forum at church, involving folks from all over the diocese. I was flat-out exhausted when I got home last night; I didn't actually leave the church until about dusk, because I know I'm running out of time, and I knew folks from all over the diocese would be there, and I'm not sure what it means, but I had a not-insignificant part of me going "Okay, this place is going to look damn well presentable when they show up in the morning, ain't nobody gonna be thinking Grace Episcopal is run-down or shabby." And with the flash flood the other night having thrown the outside into a bit of a lot of wreckage, I had a lot to do. So I got home late, ate dinner late, forgot to take meds until late, and fell asleep well past midnight - woke up after the forum was supposed to start. Still sore, still tired, decided Eh, fuck it, and stayed home to write. (And to read. I got partway into "A People Called Episcopalians," a book lent to me by our Senior Warden, and started sobbing. But again - that's another post, and needs to be transcribed first anyway.)

I finally got around to checking the internet-shaped things at about three or four, and there was a message from our Senior Warden, wondering if I was okay, because folks had missed me there and were concerned. I put the phone down, hung my head against the wall, and cried. I have not, in something like eight years, had someone go "Hey, we missed you at X, are you okay?" My step-mom would have, if I'd been living with her; I wasn't. I have not had a mother in almost fifteen years; suddenly, I have several. I have not had a parental figure who actually looked over my shoulder and... watched out for me, in perhaps ten. I'm twenty-three years old, and suddenly I have folks* who... I don't know. Care. My family cares about me - I don't want to make it sound like they don't. I love them all, and they love me. But. This is the first time in my life that I have not been... alone.

*footnote: Daniel also cares; that is not a thing that stopped happening, or is unsteady. And I care about him. A partner who you love with all your heart and wish to spend your life with, though, is different from... I dunno. I don't know how to word it. (Bryn put it well. Partner caring is like within-unit caring. Family caring is like units caring about each other.)