The Problem With Believing in the Return of God

The problem with believing in the return of God

hinging on the end of the present earth

is that it permits complacency.
It allows you

to throw up your hands when things seem impossible.
It distracts you with the superficial--feeding the poor,
helping the sick--
you spend your life cursing and
vainly hacking at the growth above the ground,
while ignoring the roots.

When you say: "Thank God the Lord is coming back."

It takes away the weight of your responsibility 

To society,

To participate in society,

To try to make the world a better place,

Because you believe you are not of this world

And that this world must end

You have no investment in laboring to preserve it

Or to improve it.

Dear Baby That May Never Be Born

Dear baby that may never be born,
Today your mother reached her six month remission mark.
I guess for some that's a victory,
but for me I just think, "That's six months less than I had before."
To be truthful, I'm anxious about the wisdom of my choices.

I don't know if you would be proud of me
for what I've done these past six months.
I've passed the NCLEX
I'm working now.
Trying to carve out a moment here and there for myself.
Trying to find someone--a good someone, an honorable someone
with whom to make you.
I'm not making much headway in that department, for many reasons,
the foremost of which is, I'm not sure it would be fair to make you
if I have to leave you so soon.
The second is, I'm a wimp.
Being vulnerable is hard.
So instead most of my days are spent working,
spending my life force
keeping others alive.
It's more than a little ironic, I know.
And every day I come home exhausted and beat up,
and I know that I've already gotten sucked into purely surviving.

I guess that's what this will always be.  Surviving.
We've made it an ugly word in this culture--
turned our noses up as if surviving wasn't worth surviving for--
As if living were somehow different.

But that's what it's always been about--
surviving long enough to have you
to make you, to teach you, to help you for as long as I can.

And that's why I'm writing this--
just in case you are born--
if I die before you can understand the things I need to
instill inside of you
the principles and beliefs you will need
to survive.

It hasn't been what I hope it would be.
I haven't changed the world.
I tried.
I'm still trying--
trying to live responsibly, to live ethically, to live gracefully.
I thought I would have more time to have a bigger impact
that I would have more time
to climb, to get the degrees
to position myself in circles where my voice
could bring about change for the betterment of society.

I thought I would have more time.
That's the first thing I want to teach you: There isn't enough time.

So play.  Play hard.  Daydream intently.
Sing with all your might.
Dance everywhere, all the time.
Sleep well.  Nap while you can.
The time will soon come where sleep will elude you.
Where you'll feel your mind burning,
aching for a break
and you won't have the luxury of stopping.

No one told me, when I was a child,
that I thought I had more time than I actually did.
You don't have as much time as you think you do, my darling.
I'm sorry to tell you that truth so young,
but I think it's a truth that you need to know so you can
execute your plans.

The second thing is: Surviving is a contradiction.
There will be people who tell you to follow your dreams no matter what.
And other will tell you that dreams are impractical and you need a job.
Both sides will make you feel guilty--fuck 'em.
This life is a Gordian knot.
Adults spend their entire lives trying to tell kids
"Ignore the nay-sayers and follow your dreams!"
only to have reality crush them with the necessity of paying bills.
There will be times when you feel like your life is a series of dead ends
and Penrose triangles.
There will be times when the uncertainty is paralyzing.
Breathe.  You'll get through the transition.
You have to.
Do what you must.
There is no shame in being realistic.
It doesn't mean you've failed.

The third is: It doesn't get easier.
Accept that you will always be doing at least two things at a time.
In this world, you have to climb
and you have to fight at the same time.
You have to work to support yourself in the morning
and you have to keep learning and bettering yourself in the evening.
For the lucky few those two actions are synonymous.
For most people, they aren't.
Don't feel like you've failed if you're not lucky.
Sometimes this life won't give you the option of climbing up.
Move laterally.
Go down to go up.
Be like water.
Flow where there are openings.
Don't stagnate.

The fourth is: You are not entitled.
Don't hinge your dreams on the idea that
you're a temporarily inconvenienced,
soon-to-be millionaire.
Disabuse yourself of the idea that knowing the right people will open doors.
As the daughter of an immigrant with no connections
my experience is: you meet the right people by opening your own doors.
You make friends by holding it open for others.
If you wait for someone to open the door for you
you'll be stuck in one place for a long time.
Work hard, clean up after yourself,
say "please" and "thank you," and mean it.

In that same vein,
adults kept asking me what I wanted to be when I was a child--
as if I could possibly know that answer until after I've lived
and tried
and failed
and learned who I was and believed
and saw who I had become.
The world's most avoided truth is:
No one knows who they are or what they want to be
until it's too late.
Unfortunately, phones don't work in the afterlife.

Instead, ask yourself what you can do to better the world.
That's a question that actually has answers
you can work with in your lifetime.
If you do what is best for everyone,
you will have a better chance of living with yourself.
That's the fifth.

The sixth is: Be kind.
I'll say it again.
Be kind.
That includes being kind to yourself.

The seventh is: Don't take any shit that you don't want.
Don't confuse respect with subordination.
Fight back.

On the flip side: It's okay to stop fighting.
It's okay to change.
It's your choice.
It's your life.

A caveat to point seven:
There is a history of depression and suicide in your family.
There have been suicides in the last four generations of my father's family.
The last, your second cousin,
John, the son of your grandfather's sixth brother,
he OD'd.
I've tried, too--
frantic actions,
meticulous plans.
Get help.
Talk to people.
It's okay to lay down.
It's okay not to get up.
The fact that you're still there
means you've won.
Keep breathing.
And if the day comes where you must
do what you must,
know I understand.

Eight: Mistakes.

No matter what you did,

No matter how young or how old,

No matter how much of your life 

you dedicated to making that mistake

or practicing that mistake

or tangling yourself into that mistake,

let it go.  

Even if it was a fundamental part of your identity--

Let Go.

Don't cling to an idea that will drown you.

Following close behind mistakes is Failure.
It will happen.
Don't let the fear cripple you from moving,
from trying,
from fighting.
Fear is just a feeling.
You can drown it it,
or you can use it to propel you forward.
If you stop failing,
you've stopped living.
Every thing you've done in life
was once completely foreign to you.
The first time you tried to pick up your head,
the first time you tried to crawl,
to hold a toy,
to feed yourself,
to talk,
to walk,
you were a mess.
Failure is just a moment in life--
perhaps many, consecutive moments in life--
perhaps many times.
Sometimes you know it's going to be a disaster
before you even start.
It's okay.
Life is like that.
Take a breath.  You know how to recover.
You have known know to recover
since the moment you cried
coming into this world.
Cry.
Breathe.
Eat.
Sleep.
Wake up and keep going.
Failure is relative only if you compare yourself to someone else.
Don't look.
Your life is about you.
Keep your head down, focus on your technique.
Anchor your goals to a noble cause,
and every stumble will just be that--
a stumble in a long battle
to better a world
that has turned for billions of years,
and will keep turning for billions of years
after I'm gone,
after you're gone,
after humans are gone.

On love:
I wish I could give you advice about love,
but I don't think that's something
that ever happens the same way twice.

I can tell you to critically think about your actions
while pursuing love--be fair, be generous, be honest,
be open-minded to people of all degrees of sexuality and genders.
Don't rush into relationships.
It is okay to be cautious.
Don't confuse being open-hearted with being fool-hardy.
Keep your eyes open.

Don't hang your hopes on any one person--
unless it is yourself.
Fall in love.
Fall out of love.
Fall in love again.
And when you're in between,
don't give into the fear of being alone.
Take that time for introspection.

If you find yourself
tempted to
fall in love with the damaged one
who has "so much potential"--
the one that the nurturing, tender
part of you wants to protect
and nurse back to health--
stop
step back and take a look at yourself.
Take in your reflection,
peel back your skin and look inside yourself.
(This is hard to do.  I know.
And I know, even with this warning
you will fall for
the spontaneous,
showering of attention,
and worship,
the brilliance,
reckless, flamboyant spirit, and the
deep, holy fucks that take you into the depths of your soul,
and the moods that drive you insane
and keep you coming back just another taste
of that sweet, honeyed passion laced with a little
bit of temper
and need, and dependency.
You just can't live without them.)
stop

Is loving that person a mal-adaptive act of self-love?
Are you with them because then it means
there is hope that someone will come
and rescue you with love?
That perhaps you appear as exotic to the world?
Do you want to be a brilliant star?

Practice true self-love.
Rescue yourself.
Exoticism shares a border with objectification.
Do not look to others to confirm your brilliance.
Build yourself deep and strong
with rebar of confidence in yourself
in cement pillars of truth and knowledge and introspection,
so that when the fully formed person
that will be a true partner arrives in your life
you will not be busy looking at yourself.
And you will have the capacity to look
deeply into them and recognize those qualities.

Challenge yourself to fall in love with the person,
not the body--trust me,
in the end of the day, we're all loose and saggy and mottled.
(Perhaps this piece of advice is futile warning for the youthful.)
One day, you may find that the awkward features
have become your most beautiful.

Speaking of bodies and aging:
STIs are a disease, just like diabetes, or lyme, or mono--
you don't want it,
but don't despise people who have it.
It's just a virus.
The longer you live, the more viruses you'll pick up.
Use protection.  Get tested often.
Get treated if you have it.
There is life after.
Have consensual sex as often as you'd like.
Don't let anyone shame you for being sexual,
or for choosing not to be.
Don't let anyone--any god--
shame you for being you.

But none of that is actual advice about love.
So, I'll just say: love yourself
as much as I love you.

Every Time I Think I'm Over It

Every time I think I'm over it
the fear bites me in the ass.
I've grown accustomed to the uncertainty
like a child, once terrified of her own shadow
now walks without so much as
a glance towards the pavement.

But the simplest things others take for granted--
the things that bring other people joy--
like
weighing myself on a scale
or
massaging a crick in my neck
can bring my life to a standstill
while I breathe in and out
and mentally run a scan of my body.
Is that weight loss because I've been working out?
Or is the cancer back?
Is that just a knot of tension?
Or is the cancer back?
Am I tired because I went to work today?
Or is the cancer back?
Is it harder to breathe because I took a rest day from running?
Or is the cancer back?

Being Poor and Sick in America

Being poor and sick in America
makes you intimately familiar with humiliation
and degradation
and frustration
and dehumanization.
You learn that your eyes, your ears,
your teeth, your heart, your lungs,
your hands, your feet, your knees,
your mind
are less valuable--
that somehow a simple question of
"Is that Medicaid?"
can make you feel less than a centimeter tall--
make you curl inside yourself in shame
like someone's focused a spotlight on your poverty
like you're some street urchin who accidentally fell through the roof
of the Golden Globes, and the clean shirt you're wearing
suddenly feels yellow'd with age,
and your naked face feels pocked and scarred
next to the Chanel and Givenchy,
except it's not style and fashion you're trying to compete for
but survival.

Entirely TMI, but IDGAF.

Plus, I've told you about puking, and pot brownies, and ER visits, and losing my hair, insane amounts of pain, and confessed suicidal ideation--and even if you haven't been reading these blog posts, you've been reading my FB which deals with sex, politics, and money, so, this is really a minor issue by comparison, but I JUST GOT MY PERIOD for the first time since my first hormone depot in June to induce a temporary menopause that doctors believe will preserve ovums (even thought the research does not show the effects to be statistically significant) since there wasn't enough time for IVF or ovary freezing.  And if I were the praying type, I'd be praying: "Please, please, please, let me get another in a month.  And the next month.  And the next.  Please."  Because I don't want to be in eggless and in menopause and wrinkly and spotty and having hot flashes and saggy at 28.  No offense, my ladies who are in menopause.  I'll take it when I'm 40 like everyone else.  It's just it's not supposed to be my time yet.  Ya know?

I never thought that I would be happy to menstruate, but here I am.  Ecstatic.  The things cancer makes you happy about.  Seriously.

Today is Full of Firsts

Today is full of firsts.

It the first time in 17 months since my skin has reveled in the sun.  

That's all I can think as I sit on a chair on a deck 

outside a breakfast shack 

in South Bay in February, blinking like a mole emerged from underground.

I am reading a book for leisure, 

"The Orphan Master's Son."

Something about the misery and desperation or an orphan underground tunnel solider in North Korea ordered to kidnap Japanese victims for the pleasure of his emperor,

the internal conflict captured in the black symbols on these pages resonates with me--

the dull acceptance of Pak Jun Do, who knows his life has been

pre-determined by circumstance out of his control. 

Yes, it applies to socioeconomics--the struggles that chained me to unending wheel of chasing minimum wage while studying nursing,

but it applies to something more ancient than that--our genotypes.

In every cell in my body

there is a silent code that predisposes me to death--

something I have no control over--

that brought me, every day of my life, closer to the chaotic explosion of lymph cells that nearly took my life, 

and may still take it.

Jim Do knows, as do I, that one must do what one must to survive. 

Don't examine your actions too closely.

Ignore the fact that what you do 

harms you as much as it helps you.

Better to charge ahead with impaired vision,

rely on instinct and proprioception.

Detached.

And attack your opponent with fury--

even if your opponent is yourself, your body, your mind, your soul.

Chase it down mercilessly, your body already quivering with chronic suffering.

You fight yourself because you're the only enemy you can identify.

The waiter interrupts my thoughts with my breakfast order

and I put down my book, and spoon raw salsa--

fresh, off the vine raw tomatoes and onions and cilantro and garlic--

all things I hadn't eaten in 17 months--

since the summer before last--

onto my burrito, prepared at a restaurant by persons unknown.

I am reveling in that unknown.  

Perhaps the cook had a cold, 

or wiped sweat from his brow, 

or hadn't washed his hands properly.

I took a bite of burrito with confidence that whatever the case, my immune system would handle it--

confidence I hadn't had the luxury of having for 7 months as the chemo burned away all my defenses.

I peeled a grapefruit, yellow skin flaking off in a mine mist of citrus and bit into a wedge

red, raw juice exploding in my mouth and streaming down my chin.  

First grapefruit in 12 months.

It is sweet, and bitter, and has a mild soap smell.

Or maybe it's the soaps fashioned to smell like grapefruit that makes that association in my mind. 

These are just a few things chemotherapy takes from you.

Sun, fruit, vegetables, enjoyment, living. 

All the other customers had taken the seats under the shade of the awning,

I can see their eyes following me and hear them thinking "that poor girl, sitting under the hot sun..."

but I don't mind.

My skin is threatening to turn pink by the time I finish my food, 

and perspiration has gathered on my scalp 

underneath the fuzzy hair I've grown these last three months.

Hair. Another first in 6 months. 

I throw away my wrapper,

and pause to drink water from the public fountain--

and revel in that little act of freedom.

Mary, In Case I Never Get To Tell You In Person

Mary, in case I never get to tell you in person,
I love you.

Yes.  I know those are strong words.

Yes.  I mean them.

I didn't know, that first day sitting across from you
with my registration card scribbled and crossed out
and scribbled over again in front of me
having our "meet and greet your first year advisor" moment,
the sound of the quad being mowed,
and the smell of Maine sun on autumn leaves
floating in through the open window
over the voices of students walking in front of Gibson
through it's halls, up its stairs, punctuated by
the sound of the double doors sucking open
and clapping shut,
the muted strains of tubas and clarinets
playing scales in practice rooms
and pianos being played in the offices next door
as hopefuls auditioned for the scholarship
for private music lessons,
the implications of our meeting.

I had no way of knowing how lucky I was,
of how over the next four and a half years
we would go from being student and teacher
to daughter and mother--
that I would go from wearing my Sunday best
and sitting stiffly upright, and talking about how
I was really more serious about biology,
to sprawled in your office sipping tea,
and bemoaning how I really wish I could pursue music,
or hunched over the keyboard hidden behind the door
with frazzled hair, clothed in shapeless sweat pants,
biting a pencil trying to "listen to where your ears
are telling you to go, the secondary dominance
wants to resolve to--Lydia,
you have quite a good pair of ears on you,
it's rather a matter of you trusting them,"
or meekly bowing my head as you
pushed over my final paper and saying,
"I think you know that--quite frankly--
this is shit, so, take until noon Thursday to rewrite it,"
(Oh, the patience you exercised!)
or laughing when you critiqued my piano performance as,
"at times a bit like starting a chainsaw,"
to designing costumes and sets for
Mozart's 'The Magic Flute' set in the jungle
while eating cookies in your kitchen.
I grew, from the cocky and ignorant
to the insecure and embarrassed,
to the humbled, yet hungry to always pursue
knowledge and beauty,
and found my voice to say,
"I don't know, but I want to know,
and I am not ashamed to say it,
or pursue it."

I never would have
found my way
into the arms of our counselors,
and learned that therapy was not only something
to not be ashamed of
but to seek out--and that mental health was possible
even for someone has tragically a mess as me,
had you not listened to me sob through
half-baked sentences about how overwhelmed
my 18 year-old-self was
and passed me tissue after tissue like some
comedically pathetic Warner Brother's cartoon set
till we were both swimming in Kleenex,
and it was they who would keep me from
attempting self-harm again,
and help me climb my way out of depression
again, and again, and again
a thousand miles from home,

or gotten clothes in time for
winter in Maine, the fall of my last semester
when my father had been hospitalized
and I had spent my summer earnings
driving 15 miles each way every day
to hospice when gas was $6 a gallon,
watching him slowly waste away
and come to Bowdoin with only enough money
for either books or pants but not both,
and you acquired money not just for pants
but for a plane ticket home for the funeral,
and convinced me to go, saying,
"Sometimes, it's more important to say good-bye
when the relationship with the deceased
was filled with conflict,
than if the relationship was loving,"
which were words that helped me
more than any words of condolence.

I remember the first time you answered my
rambling e-mails about a concept I didn't understand
at 1:30 in the morning,
and then, when I responded with another question
again, a fully formed, logical response at 2:00,
and then, to my chagrin
to find you at the pool in the lane next to me
doing laps before breakfast,
at which point I grumbled to my roommate
as we hastily shoved yogurt and granola into our mouths
on the way to class:
"I think she's actually a machine--
I mean, really, when does she sleep?"
(the mystery of which, I have not yet solved)
and you would still find time to have a lunch date with me.
This after you pulled me aside, saying,
"Sometimes you're on point, and sometimes
you're just off in outer space.
I think you need more sleep than 3 hours a night."
What is your secret!
It was not a rare occurrence--
there are threads upon threads of
conversations we've carried at all hours of the day.
(It can't just be coffee.
Perhaps you have cloned yourself
and the woman I know as Mary Hunter
is actually a hive mind of Mary Hunters.
I have no other explanation,
except perhaps you are immortal.)

I recall the quiet victory smile on your face
when I finally decided to surrender myself
to the joy of my life,
to solely study music,
as if you knew I would always come back around,
and the enthusiasm with which you clapped
at my performance,
at my glee,
at my bliss.
And every time I sit with my students
and pencil in tonal analysis,
and chid them, and praise them in both attempts and successes
I am transported back into your office,
and your voice saying, "Yes!  That's right, you've got it."

I cannot explain to you how
hearing these words on my last day at Bowdoin:
"Lydia, I am so proud of you for graduating.
I have seen students
face less personal turmoil and challenges
than you and quit,"
has been the highest form of compliment,
from a person I most admire.
I cannot express how much it means
to hear from you
even all these years after,
and to make plans to see each other again.

And finding your supporting wings,
and unfailing faith,
reaching across the distance and
lifting me again this last year.
You have been, relentlessly,
my cheerleader,
rallying the troops--
if there was ever a way to quantify
how much I am loved--
a fact that had escaped me until this year--
it was how quickly #LydiaNation
came to my aid when you called.
I cried in the first few moments,
was astounded in the next few hours,
and lay, completely overwhelmed
in the days to come,
and understood for the first time in my life
that I am truly, deeply loved.

In these times, when I look back,
I marvel at my many blessings and am grateful
that I had the privilege
of being guided by you through college
and supported on the wobbly legs
of young adulthood--
that as a child from little means with no connections,
I would have a chance to have a teacher
who would so impact who I am today,
and inspire in me to do the same for those to come.
I owe you a great deal--
there are not enough
and will never be enough "thank you's"
to thank you, Mary Hunter.

Thank you.