I was in the middle of some long ass piece of wistful deep hearted writing about the last 10 years. About how I used to be 16 and now I’m 26 and holy shit that’s a mighty jump. It was going to be about how much has happened and the sheer balls and heartache and abject fear that went into it all. How everything happens for a reason and it would be tied up in a neat little bow with some lesson at the end. Something about how much I’ve learned and that while there were some absolutely horrific times where I honestly thought that death was imminent and the FEAR, the piss yourself fear, but despite all that, it wasn’t that bad.

In the end I scrapped all of that because we have all been down that road. You don’t need me to throw my two cents into the ring just fill up some dead air. You don’t need me saying that when things were bad they were really bad but when things were good, they were really good. I sound like some god damn therapist trying to psychoanalyze you and your relationship woes. It happened. Shit happened. And while I can easily recount terrorism and snipers and death and heartbreak; I can also tell you all about how so many things went according to plan, and then some, and I loved with a fierceness and was loved with a fierceness.

Nothing was perfect but is it ever? Things could always be better. I want to be better. And that’s all that really matters.

I’ve been fired once before. From an assitive living community where Pat Riley’s mother once resided. Though to be honest I had a thing for the Knicks. And this was long before they were so awful that people bet 2:1 on their loss. I even had one of this giant puffy Starter jackets that precluded me from entering a doorframe anyway except for sideways but it still made me feel all bad ass. Me and my clarinet.

But my firing. I was 16 I would imagine. And the firing was done by some cross-eyed woman named Mary with white hair and glasses so thick that when she removed them I was shocked by the size of her eyeballs. They were so, so…tiny. And she fired me over the phone for leaving early one day. I didn’t check off my closing side-work and so I was let go.

I spent the next week sobbing into my toast thinking that I would never ever have another job again. For if I couldn’t make it in the food service industry picking up applesauce droplets from already stained tablecloths then I would and could be nothing in this world. I would be the least successful person ever and have to reside in my mother’s basement on an uncomfortable futon. No school would ever take me. And I’d end up on the street. The end.

Of course none of that happened I ended up getting into a perfectly acceptable university and graduating and everything! I even got a job! Three jobs! And here I sit in a comfortable Queen sized bed able to tell the tale.

My second firing happened today. Today I got fired from a part-time writing gig but still FIRED. Even saying it sounds wrong. The way it rolls off of my tongue and the harshness of the ‘f’ sound at the start of the word. Nothing about ‘fired’ sounds gentle though I suppose that it’s supposed to conjure up imagery of anything but gentle. Hearing the words come out from 1,000 miles away was like being shoved into an outdoor pool in the middle of December. It’s that initial shock of the chill that gets you at your core. Tears spring to your eyes as you tread back to the ladder. Those few feet feel like forever as you try to gasp for air but it’s only a few feet as you reach out and grasp onto the ladder.

Once out the initial shock dissipates but the stunned and the hurt feelings linger. It doesn’t mean the end of anything or the beginning of something. At least not at first. It’s just anger. It’s name calling and irrational tears even when you know that it was coming.

The time had come. I knew so. They knew so. I yelled and waited for it and practically taunted and begged for it to happen and it did. I can force blame and say the who, where, what and how and if you don’t like me tell me. I can say all of that bullshit to make myself feel better but what’s the use. It’s done. And to be honest there’s only so much one can write about being a 20-something on the path to acceptance of life and career. Hell, this would make an excellent post that shit happens and how to manage the shit of life with everything else. But they don’t teach, Man The Fuck up 101.

So, I’ve been fired. I’m not sure what I have to offer. But what’s that thing about the door closing and windows opening but probably not wide enough lest some recently fired individual jump out. But I still feel like something good is in the air.

At least that’s what I’ll tell myself every time I repeat the words; ‘you’re fired’.

Since we last spoke I seem to have stopped sleeping. Let me rephrase that, my body is rebelling against something and while I lay in bed vewy, vewy quietly like I’m hunting wabbits, my circadian rhythm is like, ‘fuck that noise, let’s party’ while my brain is like, ‘How do I remove myself from this situation?’ and I am like, ‘I’m going to cry now. You all work it out’. And then I start writing posts about how my brain and my body have actual conversations with each other. Perhaps I’ll share with you the one I wrote where they duel.

This has never happened before. I’ve never been so exhausted and yet so unable to sleep. I’ve never felt like my head is detached from the rest of me, off doing it’s own thing while I just follow along going through the motions.

You know how babies are when they’re beyond tired and so they cry and cry and cry and become irritable? But then they eventually stop and fall asleep at like 7 AM for a few hours and you’re like, ‘awww, look at my sleeping angel sweetie pie’. And they are able to do that because they aren’t responsible adults with jobs and worries about the economy and why Kelly Bensimon is such a raging bitch?

I’d be a baby right now. One of those crying, screaming insane babies who is so overtired that my only recourse is to lose my shit because my brain and the rest of my body aren’t on the same page.

I’m miserable.

Oklahoma is my adopted home away from home. After I moved back to Albany and the joy of having the prodigal daughter’s return had worn off, my parents went back to saying things like, “Well, if you want food, you know where the kitchen is.” So later that year I found that Oklahoma City was like being at home. I had my friends and my faux-family to go to whenever I needed respite from the very hard life I was leading of cross-country hotel hopping.

In September I went for Susan’s book signing and while she and Wade went out with the boys I asked if I could have Shana over to play. That was the day that I went to Sonic twice, drank GSM like it was my job and we discussed baby names for Shana’s impending arrival. That was also the night that Susan and I stayed up until 2AM discussing Didacticism and the following morning I went home with the feeling that I used to to get when leaving Albany: That one always needs to have that bit of respite with their family just for hugs and some love.

I’m pausing right now because my train of thought is gone. Those words that usually come out so naturally have slammed into a brickwall because when the unfathomable happens. You want to speak but can’t. Everything comes out of your brain at once as it tries to comprehend everything. Instead of compartmentalizing death and parenting in such a way that never the two shall meet, my brain is currently in FAIL mode because the two should not meet and yet here we are again.

Shana’s baby boy Thalon; the same baby boy I held in January while his older sister kept petting his head saying, “He’s so cute!”. The same baby boy whose head I sniffed and whose face I stared just a few short months ago is now gone.

There is so much more I want to say right now. All of the things that I can suddenly say on the phone but to write anything right now would be trite. I will leave you with this though: Last week my mother and I got into a HUGE fight. One of those fights where I was hurt and angry because of something she had done and then she spent days worrying so much and out of anger I told her to leave me alone. I yelled. I swore and I avoided her. Meanwhile she worried and I thought well, I’m an adult and she needs to stay out of it. Here’s another lesson learned: Once you become a parent that doesn’t stop. That worry and that cliched bit about having your heart walking around outside of your body never fucking ends. Your children become your world and for every sting they have you feel it times ten.

After the last two weeks I keep shaking my head because babies should never die. It’s not right and it’s the most fucked up thing I have ever heard. And yet it keeps happening and all I want to do is sit here in my pajama pants and wonder why?

None of the above makes any sense. And I don’t even care. I’m just torn up on the inside and questioning how parents do it. How do you spend the rest of your life constantly worrying that in any minute your heart might break into a million pieces?

None of the above makes sense because it shouldn’t. It – the death of a child – shouldn’t happen but it does.

****

Sarah put up a paypal account for Shana and her family. So head over there if you can.

BensonI’ve quit one job only to return and grovel – hands and knees on gravel – for my job back. I’ve probably threatened to quit every single job I’ve had ever because my first inclination is to cut and run. I’ve only successfully quit once and that is why I am now living in Upstate New York searching for cars with 4WD because there’s no way in hell I plan on quitting again. The emotional stress that it causes and the fretting and worrying about burning bridges and the lag time between paychecks. It’s all enough for me to start buying benzodiazepines in bulk and talk to them lovingly as if they’re my only friends.

I’m not good with the quitting because it can seem so final even if it isn’t. Even if something bigger and better is out there I still feel the tugging in my heart and it hurts to swallow as if this one decision is the be all, end all of my entire life. I’m not quitting anything. Promise. And there is nothing worse than sweeping declarations that I am leaving and there’s nothing else left here for me along with some Scarlet O’Hara type performance. [puts hand to forehead and faints]While I am sure as shit not quitting I am taking a slight break to get my shit together.

Here comes some great convoluted story as to why and there really isn’t one. I was presented with an opportunity and I have been shit and getting it done. Instead of taking the bull by the horns I’ve been all lackadaisical about it. There are of course superfluous issues like a renewed focus and vision for the job that actually provides me with a 401(K), a sense of unease after saying something that hurt a very dear friend of mine and the fear that I will not be forgiven for it and also do you really need to hear more about that time I drank [insert hard liquor or wine of choice here] and did [insert blindingly stupid thing here]? No. Even I’ve tired of myself a bit and I’d like 30 solid days to regroup and rid myself of an incessant need to obsess about bullshit.

It comes at quite an interesting time because it’s so not you, it’s me. I know that it isn’t you, dear Internet after the outpouring of support and generosity that came forth from your fingertips for the lovely Spohrs. And that is what helped drive this decision for right here and now; life is too short to sit around and observe it so that I can craft a paragraph or two for later. Life is good for the actual living not the sitting around and thinking of such.

The other day my friend Alice told me that I was loved and I burst into tears. Not because I was thankful but because I’m not feeling it. Which has nothing to do with anyone else except for how I perceive my life and myself. And as of late I haven’t been enjoying my life, myself, or anything that I do. Which is a big fucking problem; for if you can’t find a reason for why people – especially your friends – should love you then what is the point?

I’ve been thinking too much and taking everything way too God damn seriously. Sometimes it’s good to step back, look around and say, “I’ve got it so fucking good”.

You’ll be the first ones to receive that missive just as soon as I get there.

****

I’ll still update with posts in other places because while I need to take time away from posting here I still need to get paid.

This week on BlogHer:

Urban Interns

While I can only base this on personal experience but I do think that internships and those first jobs – even the most inane that include ‘Xeroxing’ as a skill – are a solid foundation for a career. Living in DC for six years all of which were spent attempting to build some sort of career even if it meant enjoying hors d’oeuvres at fundraisers because they were free and free lukewarm calamari is way better than Ramen; presented me with options.

Recession Hair

The cost of my hair? 80$ every four to five months. This includes hair product and price gouging at CVS for bobby pins of various sizes. Other than that, I trim it myself and I don’t really think about it. Ultimately it has been the right choice for me and I’ve totally blocked out the three months when it was a horrible frizzy mess and I wore a headband every single day.

Casey got inside of my head and found exactly what I had been thinking; How does a beautiful, happy couple move on after an unspeakable loss? Is that even possible? Everything that once was now isn’t and what was par for the course last Friday isn’t anymore. Or maybe I’m just not strong enough to go through something like that without collapsing myself. In fact, I KNOW that I’m not strong enough to go through losing my (hypothetical) child because it’s not natural. It shouldn’t happen and again, I must repeat, we can find cures to illnesses and make vaccines for everything and we can fix physical heart ailments with a transplant or a surgery but when it’s broken – almost beyond repair – it makes me angry to wonder why the fuck no one can fix that.

I keep a list of lessons I’ve learned in a moleskine notebook. It’s full of really excellent advice like why one shouldn’t forget to put their car registration in their car or why one shouldn’t pretend to be over 21 to purchase alchohol when they are only 20 and my personal favorite: When walking around on grass, watch out for dog shit. I think so many people would find that last one oh so handy. But for me it’s a terrible memory of a time I stepped in dog poop on my way to the school bus. I must have been 12 or 13 and later that afternoon I was making my first trip to a ‘friend’s’ house – a word I put in quotes because she turned out to be an evil heinous bitch but that’s a story for later or when I’m not still bitter. She was one of the popular girls and I spent years fawning over her trying like mad to get her to be my friend. I wanted her to like me and that there is a lesson in itself: If people don’t like you move the hell on. Don’t get on your knees and hope that blowing them will get them to like you. It won’t. Regardless, I stepped in dog poop and she subsequently made fun of me for it. The strange thing is that over a decade later it is one of those days when I can tell you exactly what I was wearing. Forever etched in my memory as the highpoint of my groveling days.

The worst lessons to learn are those that involve realizing that trust is an issue. It’s an issue with everyone but the second you find that someone is untrustworthy it’s like a 2×4 to the head. Though worse because it’s to the heart. And we all know that mending an injured heart is one of the most impossible feats known to man. We can walk on the moon but to this day no one has figured out how to fix a broken heart. And it’s like as an adult we should know better because with age comes automatic wisdom which is why adults are so fucking brilliant, right? Adults are just big third graders with more money and more anger. They do just the same things that Middle Schoolers but without parental supervision.

The more I contemplate how adults compare to children the more I get that feeling in my heart as it sinks down to the pit of my stomach. The difference I suppose is that adults are more aware and calculating of what they do and what they say. They aren’t cruel because they know better but instead because they know that no one can or will stop them. They mask things under the guise of ‘concern’ and they are a prickly, mercurial bunch hence the overwhelming cynicism in this world.

Of course there are a few good eggs but you really have to search them out but if you’re lucky you’ll happen upon one when you most need it. Though the hurt and heartbreak that comes from finding out the truth about your peers is more overwhelming and damaging than finding out that Santa, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy do not exist. And time? That which heals all wounds? Well there isn’t enough time in the world to heal that kind of break.

That’s the hardest lesson of all.

The last time I was this hungover was October 27, 2004, the day after my 21st birthday. The birthday that will always be remembered as that time JB made me play Guess the Shot! and the shot was gin and I’d rather have my toenails removed with pliers than ‘enjoy’ a gin martini. The story of how I got the hangover from hell is a convoluted one that ends with someone who I respect reaming me out for an hour. I then wake up this morning and I am reamed out once again because I am not a mother and I will never be a mother and I should probably just pack it all in right now because I will never know anything. Which makes the person who told me all about myself the other evening slightly correct: My heart isn’t in it right now. It’s not all that into anything and I’m pretty hurt and embarrassed right now because…well, let’s face it: I’m an asshole. Anyway, I have a long and much deserved vacation coming up this week and hopefully I feel a little better at the end. But right now I’m feeling perpetually shit upon and rather than explore why in a very public fashion I want some me-time.

Have a lovely week and be wary of anything that is fermented.

When you feel really strongly about something – anything – the words to explain that feeling escape you. For there is no way to possibly encompass all that you feel into the limited number of words available in the English language. That’s how I feel about Chris and Susan: A weekend with them and I get that ‘Aaahhhhh’ feeling. My life is still a little messy and yet their perspective makes me feel like it is all as it should be. Chicago cannot come soon enough.

Full set here

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.