Garrett wasn’t always the size of a linebacker and I’ve looked the same since 1991. You guys? I’ve been cute for like 20 years. Surely that’s some sort of record*.

*Uh, yeah right. Especially since right now I’m rocking the ‘hot mess’ look.

My baby brother turns 24 today. There’s some meaningful ‘sunrise, sunset’, ‘I remember when…’ that should be inserted here but I have none of that except: 24. Shit. This past fall he started Law School and on the day he started I tweeted something about this momentous occasion only to have my friend, Slynnro, reply back with: “Don’t expect to like your brother again for two years”. I laughed because it couldn’t possibly be that bad. He only has to be all, “Engle v. Vitale! New York Times  Co. v. Sullivan! Warren Court!” and voila, he has a law degree.

Here’s how exchanges between us have gone over the past nine months in between him writing 20 page legal briefs and studying until the ass crack of dawn and me being, well, me:

Me: GARRETT!

Him: Ugh. What do you want?

Me: Hiiiiii!

Him: God. Why are you here?

Me: I wanted to say hi! Hug me!

Him: HEATHER! God. MOOOOOOM!

Me: I love you

Him: Leave.

Me: Ok, I’m leaving now. Bye Garrett.

Him: BYE!

Me: *smiles*

Him: *slams the door*

During his most recent and rare day off:

Him: Happy Easter! (via text message)

Me: *stands there and skeptically looks at the phone expecting it to blow up in my face*  *waits 15 minutes because it’s gonna blow right?*

Me: Happy Easter to you too!

Him: Did you talk to mom yet?

Days later I tell my mother of this conversation to which she replies: “Yeah, he told me Happy Easter, too. I couldn’t figure out why he was being so nice…”

Happy, Happy Birthday G,

I am really fucking proud of you. And it’s official: You’re smarter than I will ever be or ever could hope to be.

Love,

Heather

How about starting this year over? Or maybe using the last two months of extraordinary heartache as a jumping off point for bettering myself and my surroundings? Or maybe I’ll just enjoy some Malbec and give The Universe the middle finger.

Tomorrow we’ll have some champagne and begin again but the year will be a little rough around the edges.

When someone dies it’s hard not to sit down and meticulously go over each bit of your own life. It’s like being a child and finding a rock; we start to examine every surface, running our hands over the smooth edges and the rough bits, looking over and under wanting to figure it out. The little things in life feel new again.

I took a trip for vacation and a little inspiration. To enjoy Vitamin D and wear flip flops for just a few days. And the week that I decide to throw caution to the wind and dig my heels into something new and something I have always found far bigger than myself or what I could ever be capable of…well…that week is met with a bit of heartache and sorrow.

My mother’s sister died yesterday while I was busy relishing in the ideas that Helen Jane and I had bounced between each other the evening before, my aunt died in her sleep just as she wanted to. With my mother sitting next to her and because after six years of waging war against breast cancer she grew tired or so my mother said.

I could go on and on about how my mother is living a life quite similar to that of Joan Didion’s ‘year of magical thinking’. And that I am trying my damndest to think of what, if anything I can do for her, but really I’m just a kid inspecting my life in response to this death. Even though we knew that it was coming just like the death before, it is still difficult. You’re heart still tugs a little especially because it’s breast cancer; that disease that we talk and talk and talk about and I will run a 5K for come May and it has now come to kick me in the ass as well. But instead of giving a big fuck you to February for being just as terrible as January, I suddenly feel a little bit more inspired. I want to be more positive, to try a little harder, to be a better me and hell, I want to just be. I don’t want to think too much about the what if’s and the failures but at least make a bit of a leap in hopes of hitting success.

Death fills me with cliches but really it is just a reminder that we only get a chance to do this once. So now I feel that much more compelled to make it count.

Whenever there’s a death in a coworker’s family or a serious illness a mass email is sent out to all 300 plus employees detailing our colleague’s struggles and where condolecses and cards can be sent. A few months ago my friend Paul (who reads this site and likes to quote it back to me on a regular basis which is AWESOME when he’s reminding me of that time I wrote about puking in my bathtub) had surgery and a mass email went out. So The Roommate and I joked that if that were ever the case – if either of us found ourselves in some awful predicament – the world need not know about it. I don’t want my entire office getting an email detailing my successful bunion removal surgery. Though knowing me it would be something like “Heather Barmore is at home recovering from successful liposuction. Cards and well wishes can be sent to…”

When my grandmother died a week ago Friday, my mother and I were both adamant about who should know. When two days later my mother’s sister happened to have emergency heart surgery and my mother fled the building? The entire office knew. There is nothing more awkward then going to get sugar for your coffee while people give you the pity look and start to approach you with outstretched arms because surely an awkward hug will do in a time of grief.

I don’t do sympathy well and I’m not from a group of people that generally are into expressing love and devotion by touching one another. Then again, I’m from a family who thinks that alcohol is the Devil’s water, believes that they brought me into this world and will gladly take me out,  and swearing will easily get you beaten with a belt and yet I haven’t been kicked out yet! Holy fuck!

Last week has disabled my witty gene. The part of me that thinks it’s really funny to make jokes about that time that January bent me over and pulled my hair. Last week fucking sucked. But I do that a lot. I’m good with hyperbolic claims of how awful something is and it’s usually something stupid that can be remedied but this past week wasn’t. When you feel like your family is going to be picked off one by one and you’re living in a poor woman’s Joan Didion novel and you wish there was a Great Big Book of Bereavement to get you through 72 hours of family time, your mother crying, you making your mother cry, swearing at your family, and bonus points for your inordinarily large uncle having the audacity to call you fat while your mother sits by and laughs. My God, I wish there were a how to guide for not tossing yourself off the highest precipice in the New York metropolitan area.

I’m fucking exhausted and still not willing to start doling out blow jobs to February for being superb for a whole 25 hours. I’m still too deflated from pessimism and that horrible feeling that comes from sitting in the first pew during a funeral and knowing that there is strong possibility of it happening again before the year ends, to even remotely high five anyone for getting me through January. Perhaps next week or the week after. Or maybe the one where I’m in California drinking tequila with a few of my favorites. But for now it’s a limp ‘Hey. How are ya’ to February even if it keeps nudging me on the shoulder telling me to cheer up. Right now my heart’s just not in it.

Someday I would like for someone to tell me that staying home would be OK. That it’s shitty outside and the drive will be treacherous and you’re completely emotionally unavailable. Never mind that you’ve been able to get through things with your eyes closed because you have to just do them but you should just sit back and relax and not think about voting records and proper car placement during a snowstorm. That will all be taken care of for you. Instead you should just sit back and relax, everything that needs to be done will be done and when you wake up in the morning, there will be one less thing for you to worry about. One less something tugging intently at your sleeve, begging you for attention. Instead when you wake up, you won’t think about how your mother cried and people who are trying to be helpful but are more annoying than helpful. Because in the morning, when you wake up, things will be better.

January has been a bitch. Correction, I have been January’s bitch and feel free to insert any insinuation of bending over and grabbing one’s ankles. That’s how January has been to me and I don’t think that January knows the meaning of the word ‘gentle’. Or ‘lubrication’ for that matter.

In the middle of putting on my earrings this morning my mother called and then texted. With one earring in and only one sock in sight, she informed me that my grandmother – her mother – is dying. “She’s taken a turn for the worse”, were the exact words. Phrasing like that makes me think that we’re trapped in Ma and Pa Ingalls kitchen while Mary battles scarlet fever. But there I was half dressed and discombobulated when my lip started to tremble and again…the tears.

Though at least it was something tangible as opposed to the tears of yore that were due to a dip in the bipolar spectrum. This time there was something I could put my finger on; the possible death of a grandparent which inevitably tosses me in the murky water of contemplating mortality. That of my parents and then of my mother’s sister. My mother’s sister who was reading “Peaceful Dying” on Christmas Eve. When I brought the choice of literature up to my mother she answered matter of factly, “Well she’s dying, Heather.”

She’s a stoic one, my mother. While I have to allow every feeling in, circulate, process and then dispel in a very elaborate way she seems to just take things as they are. These things happen she says and she tells me that I should feel lucky to have had grandparents for as long as I did. It’s just words and doesn’t mask that feeling of heartbreak which thrusts every memory so that it presses against my forehead. It gives me a headache to know that she is hurting; her sister is dying, her mother is dying and she still needs to take care of me.

A little over a month ago my older brothers’ mother died. It was unfathomable that their mother died and yet they were ok. Able to walk and talk and function. When I called our father he said that very soon we would go over what to do in the event of his death. And it made me angry – this all makes me so angry – how matter of fact both of my parents can be. It makes me feel like maybe I’m not theirs because of how deeply I feel. But even more, I’m just livid that it happens; that our parents will leave and no one tells you that the mere thought will make your heart tighten and ache and the pain will radiate to every limb but all you can do is cry.

G calls me to say that he got to Atlanta OK and he wanted me to give la madre the message. While G and I both inherited good looks and the ability to turn swearing into poetry, neither of us received the gift of spontaneity. In fact, I doubt that either of my parents know how to spell spontaneity, it’s such a foreign concept to them. Like using proper wine glasses and eating raw eel. So G went to Atlanta with my father and one of our other brothers and no one bothered to invite me.

Each time I demanded a reason for why I was left off the list for a road trip from hell with my beloved family, I was told that I wouldn’t have gone anyway. Which is true, I would’ve said no because I was away and sick and tired and I’d rather deal with a TSA regulated rectal search than sit in a car for 17 hours. But still! It’s the thought that counts. That maybe I’d want to be included with the boys and now I’m all stompy and whiny and petulant.

And sometimes I do this shrieking thing that really grates the inner ear like a high pitched trill on ritard, coming from an out of tune clarinet with a busted reed. Yup. That right there? That’ll get them to invite me EVERYWHERE. Clearly I see my plan working.

“So should I thank them?”

“Thank who?”

“The readers. I don’t want them to think I’m not appreciative. You know, my legions of fans”

Eye roll. “I think I mentioned you were away, but yes, you should thank them or I’ll thank them or something”

“Good, because I saw all of the comments and I’d like to do it again. I don’t want them hating me. So are you going to write about this?”

“About what?”

“About your family being here and visiting for your brother’s graduation”

“I have no clue.”

“Yes. You should write about your family being here and all of us converging here together at the same time and how it all just worked out and how great it is to be around family…and WHAT IS THAT LOOK FOR?”

“I mean, hell, are you going to start writing my posts now? I was just going to say ‘My brother graduated, here are some photos. Enjoy!’”

“Nooo. You should write about the importance of family and how we all came together and how I have to FORCE YOU to come to your brother’s graduation… and stop looking at me like that!”

The next day:

“What are you writing about?”

“Remember that conversation we were having the other day about how I should write about my family and how great it all was?”

“So you’re not writing about your family but you’re writing about the conversation we had when I was trying to force you into spending the day with your family?”

“Yup.”

“And look! You did it! You feel better now don’t you?”

“GOOD LORD, WOMAN. YES. I DO”

“Thank you”

And I meant it. Really. Even after 36 solid hours of complete family togetherness and seriously contemplating permanent celibacy, I still had a lovely weekend.

My mother has written a lovely post for you all. You’ll notice the way she writes an entire sentence using proper grammar and without throwing in a casual ‘F’ word for emphasis. She even deals with problems without drinking. And yet I’m 110% sure that we’re related. I get my meager writing ability from my her and my ability to sip wine and swear at the same time from my father. If the latter ever wrote a blog post you’d be like “OOOOOOOH I get it”. Crazy genetics. Enjoy:

It’s the story of my life:  opportunity knocks and I’m too busy to answer the door.  Not this time.  I consider it a gift to be asked to guest post on No Pasa Nada, and I’ve only been on the blog once.  But I’ve heard good things about it, and I am fascinated by the conecept of blogging.  First, why haven’t I been on Heather’s blog?  Because our mother-daughter connection is such that we need our private spaces-even when those spaces are quite public to others.  Second, why the fascination with blogging? I’ve longed to write for a woman’s magazine since Rosie Acevedo’s big sister, Isabel, shows us Glamour magazine when we were in 6ht grade.  Until then, the only magazines I was aware of were My Weekly Reader and Scholastic. My mother occasionally brought home Family Circle from the A&P. If it interested her, it was of little interest to me.  But, Glamour and its do’s and don’ts and makeup tips and fashion photos and ad spreads had Isabel’s approval and my undivided attention.  Blogging has that same effect today. I’m fixated on the possibility of wiring for women without editors or query letters getting in the way.

Enough about that. I’m one of those people who is in constant conversation with myself–perpetually writing and rewriting any given conversation.  Rehearsing for whatever’s next.  I’m convinved that people who talk to themselves are just giving voice to the internal conversation–oblivious to anyone and anything but the dialog playing in their head.  Lately, I’ve been replyaing a conversation about dying.  My middle sister is living with terminal cancer.  On a recent Sunday afternoon, she called to just check in. In the middle of talk about weather and plans for the coming week, she casually dropped that she had recently named me her health care proxy and she was told she should share with me what medical procedures she would and wouldn’t want toward the end of her life.  On a sunny afternoon, in front of a picture window, I listend to her as she, with the same matter-of-factness that my son give me his weekly grocery list, told me how she wanted to die.  And just as casually as the conversation had begun, it was over and we were on to talking about who was coming in for my son’s upcoming graduation.  I put down the phone and immediately began replaying that conversation.  Shouldn’t a conversation of such siginificance have come with warning?  Shouldn’t there have been tears? Shouldn’t we have been in the same room? Shouldn’t I have said something more profound than “I’m listening,” “I hear you,” “I understand.”? Or, is this really how such conversations are meant to happen? Casually, naturally, mater-of-factly. Life does go on.

This is why blogging fascinates me. I sat down to write about stolen kisses. What’s come out is totally unexpected. Thank you, Heather. This is the greatest gift. Love you the moon and the stars.