Category: family

family · gratitude · holidays

Blended.

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

12.18.18My mom and her boyfriend have been together for a decade or so, she having gotten divorced from my dad about 15 years ago, he having been divorced for longer.  He is a mensch and we’re all very lucky to have him in the family, despite the absence of any government certificate saying he is so.

They’re coming out for a few days right before Christmas, and J and I are getting to plan for their visit.  It’s exciting (to be able to host a pair of full-on grownups, meaning not ones satisfied with a futon mattress on the floor… although at the moment we don’t have much better!).  It’s stressful (to have a week of work and then family drop in right at the end of the work day on Friday).  And it’s heart-warming (to feel that the integration of our families together has begun).

J’s met them both on two trips back East, so there’s none of the trepidation of, “Will they like each other?”  (They do).  It’s more the nerves of, “Oh crap, what are we going to do with them for 4 days?!”

So, the researching of Oakland’s mural and gallery walking tours, a Point Reyes lighthouse visit, our favorite pizza place (Zachary’s—and I don’t care if it’s an “abomination” of pizza!).  My dash this week to the two purported “good” bagel places in the area to taste test, to ensure the New Yorkers are amply satisfied with our West Coast fare!  A friend’s low-budget Christmas-special show, a trip to the zoo that is SF’s Union Square on Christmas eve.

Wearing as it is to feel “on” for 4 days, I gotta say all that sounds pretty rad to me.  And I’m grateful that our “families” have the marvelous fortune to get along as well as we do.

Happy holiday season, folks.

 

family · finances · goals

Family Meeting

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12.17.18I asked J if we could schedule a “family meeting” for this weekend to set down our goals for 2019… and he agreed(!).  So, yesterday afternoon, all cozy as the wild wind blew rain and leaves around the house, we took out our calendars and J began to take notes.

I wrote in his back-country ski trip; he wrote in my Spring and Summer breaks.  I added in his birthday; he told me he still had mine on his calendar, that he hadn’t erased it from when we split up earlier this year.

Then we turned to our travel priorities for the year: the local weekend trips, maybe back East for Thanksgiving, the Paris trip for his mom’s 70th birthday… and how that would work best for us—since “Paris with your mom” doesn’t quite ring like “vacation” in our ears!  So, what would we need to do to help us all have the kind of trip we’d want?  (Hint: 3 days all together, then go off with your own person, is what we’re thinking!)

After that, we talked about our vehicles: are they in a good state for the upcoming year?  Mine is, his isn’t.  What does he really need?  If it’s to tow motorcycles to the track, as he’s planning to do, can he use the one he’s got which needs significant repairs or should he buy a new one?  So, we put an action item in the notes to research motorcycle trailers with brakes.

We talked about the house, if it’s meeting our needs or not.  If yes, how to improve upon the situation, if no, what steps to take to change it.  This precipitated talking out his career plans and that if, as he’d like, he’ll be moving into his own venture soon, we’d need to keep cash out-lay pretty low.  He’s got a call with someone to talk about home options in the area that would improve our financial circumstances, and if there aren’t any, then we stay, but don’t do any major home improvements.

Then, we came to another piece of business: whether or not to attempt to have children this year.  (And his leg immediately began to jiggle!)

While we’ve spoken of it before and, as a teacher, I laid out the timeline that would make the most sense before, it was time to really ask: Will you do this with me?  Will we do this together?

Because of my financial situation right now, I’m able to save quite a chunk of money (even after setting aside a large portion for retirement).  I could be apportioning this savings toward the first year or two of child expenditures.

So, do I?

It’s a huge question and even though he’s been the one more “deer in headlights” about it, I began to feel my own adrenaline rush.  Because it would mean trying in the summer, this summer.  *rush of adrenaline as I type!*

There wasn’t a resounding, “YES! I totally want to and can’t wait to have children with you,” but his answer was: “I’m in it to win it, babe.”

We’d spoken yesterday about the difference between “a default” and “a choice” when we were talking about the house, and the same applies to kids.  I can’t allow bringing humans into the world be a default for him, just because it’s “part of the package.”  It’s unempowering for him, and it’s distancing for me.  (This isn’t, “Guess what, I bought tickets to the opera,” here!)

As our business meeting came to a close last night, he on the couch next to me, darker now outside, we snuggled and agreed that we have a pretty good plan for next year…

and you know what they say about plans*;)

 

*If you want to hear G-d laugh, make a plan.

 

 

family · prosperity · travel

Suicide Bird.

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

4.4.18

This is the fictional band name my mom used to describe the musical acts she doesn’t like on the Colbert show.  (HA!)  We were on the phone yesterday and again today about my summer plans and particularly how they might overlap with hers… as we’ve attempted for many years to no avail.

We’ve made some small trips together—to Sedona, and many times her visiting me in San Francisco or me her in NYC—but over the last few years, particularly as I have summers off now, we’ve tried to formulate a plan to go abroad together.  Neither of us have been to “The Continent” (though she’s been to the British Isles twice).

About 2 years ago, we tried to make a plan to go on this trip throughout Italy, but my job wasn’t pleased about my taking days off near the beginning of the school year, so we had to drop it.  Then last summer, I was switching schools and didn’t have the travel funds.  Which brings us to this year: Now that I’ve confirmed my summer job/professional development, I have some “extra” funds — and Molly Wanna Vacation.

When we spoke yesterday, she was very hesitant about confirming anything.  Which felt very typical.  I began to feel a little despairing of ever getting to go on a “real” vacation with her.  She’s turning 70 this year, I just had 5 years cancer-free—it felt like a momentous year for us to do something fabulous.

But, I’m learning, not everybody has the money to do something fabulous.  Or at least, a) what I consider fabulous, and b) when I want to do it.

It feels a little snobby to realize that things I want to do in life are out of reach for some people I love (especially when for so long I was the decliner); but it also feels like a wake-up call, or at least a vibrating phone alarm.  It’s not snobby to want nice things (fabulous things), and my feelings aren’t borne out of judgment (believe me, I’ve pushed into my feelings to root out that truth) — my feelings are just simple acknowledgement of the reality of my current situation and of others’.  And sometimes, those do not align.

Sometimes those with whom I’d love to adventure with aren’t available.  Sometimes that’s due to limitations of time, sometimes money, sometimes interest.  And so I’m left with the open question of “Who’s Next?”

Who are the people I’ll need to meet who can join me in adventures that are feasible AND of interest to us both?  (As clearly not every person will want to accompany me to SF Opera’s CarTUNE afternoon where they’ll screen old Looney Tunes that have an opera reference.  “Kill the Wabbit” anyone?!)

My mom and I spoke again this morning after she had some time to process, and it’s starting to seem that a “real” vacation to Europe is possible for her, for which I’m exceedingly grateful (it’s the rare 70-year old who will readily come up with “Suicide Bird”!).

But there will be times when I can’t have my cake and eat it, too — sometime soon, I may have to take my cake to go.

 

adulthood · family · love · service

Collecting Grown-ups.

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment
Diane, Manny, Howard, Ralph, Max, Rhoda and Ruth
Diane, Manny, Howard, Ralph, Max, Rhoda and Ruth

There is a curious trend in my social life lately: the appearance of older men.

I don’t mean in a romantic sense, but supportive, creative, interesting, helpful people, who happen to be men, who happen to fall logically into a model of fatherly or grandfatherly figures.

As for my own father, we haven’t spoken in months.  But boundaries, parents, duty, love, and obligation can be another blog… or several.

Yet, in the absence (of my own making or not) of an actual non-judgmental shoulder-to-lean on with wise, bolstering words to live by with stories of travel and far-flung adventure from times of yore father, I find myself being buoyed by just the type of love and support I’ve been missing.

Recently, I helped my 90-year old friend clear out decades of junk from his house and put it up on a craigslist ad.  While I sorted his old china and hauled pieces of moldy ikea furniture to the curb, he stood in the near-autumn sun, white-haired and tanned from his daily sun lamp, and told me about the time he and his wife were picked up by the police in the Ukraine, behind the Iron Curtain, in the 70s.  How a gorgeous Russian woman waltzed into the scene and argued for their release, so that they were then driven, inexplicably, right to the airport they’d been seeking.

He told me how he met his wife over a piano playing Chopin in Berkeley, their subsequent whirlwind courtship leading to a honeymoon trip to a Warsaw house concert in Chopin’s own living room.

My grandparents all passed before I got the chance to learn their stories.  To learn and ask how they met, what it felt like to be a child then, how the world worked before me and this and us.  I feel I’ve collected a friend who can connect me to that wisdom and joy and near-forgotten universe a grandparent can give.

The neat thing to me about gathering these new friendships in adulthood is that they’re…unadulterated…by familial angst and don’t depend upon one person to give me all that I need.  I get to have the love without the drama, the support without the strings, and I feel like I get to give them something they might have been missing, too.

abundance · compassion · deprivation · family · love · motherhood · recovery

Maybe Baby 2

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment
I have been looking at porn.
This porn comes in the form of a Facebook page for local moms who are selling or giving away baby stuff. 
I’m on this page because one of my best friends is pregnant, and I have hopped so far aboard her baby-train, I’m surprised I’m not morning-sick myself!
In the past few weeks, I’ve begun reading a book on pregnancy that she read and loved (The Girlfriend’s Guide to Pregnancy), crocheting baby bibs, buying scrap fabric for burp clothes, and practically stalking her to ask if she wants a breast pump I found online. 
As I spoke of in my 2014 blog post “Maybe Baby,” I am not sure whether I want children. 
As then, I am not in a serious relationship, and I still am not willing to go the motherhood route alone, so there’s no real reason to question if I do or do not. But, reasonable or not, that doesn’t stop me from thinking about it. 
With every article on our drought, the cost of living, the planet’s imminent demise, the expansion of the stupid class — I am convinced for a few moments never to bring children into this hateful world. 
And with every true breath of fresh air, every warm hug, every belly laugh — I am convinced for a few moments that I want another human to bear witness to this world’s incandescent beauty. 
I am the age my mom was when she carried me (33), and then my brother at 36. I have been emailing and asking her all kinds of questions about her pregnancies since I began reading the pregnancy book — what was your morning sickness like? what does pregnancy feel like? did you have food aversions? stretch marks? hemorrhoids? (god help us, she did not!)
I have had the liberty and the luxury of asking my mom these questions, and too, my friend who is pregnant, does not. And I am very aware of this fact, and I think it has spurred my devoted interest in her pregnancy — I want to be there as much as I can, because I want to make up for any absence she might be feeling (real or imagined, to me, since I haven’t spoken to her about it yet). 

I was on the phone with my mom this morning, telling her that I feel my heightened interest in my friend’s impending mommy-hood is also that she’s my first local BFF to be pregnant. One of my other best friends in Long Island had a baby last year, and I was able to be there for a few days when the baby was a month old, but that’s all. There wasn’t the same imminent babyhood. 
I told my mom that I’d been thinking about my very best friend from childhood, a woman I’ve known since we were 3 years old, and how I can’t imagine what it will be like if and when she gets pregnant across the country from me. And I began to cry. 
Of course, it’s about her, my New Jersey friend, and it’s also about me. About how I’ll feel, if and when I also choose to have a family — assuming I’m able — so far from her and my own family. 
This is big business. This mommy stuff. 
And I am wanting to prepare to make that decision in a realistic way — so I have doubled-down on my work around intimacy and relationships (or in my case, habitual lack thereof). This morning, I told the woman I’d been working on these issues with by phone for about 6 weeks (a stranger whose name was passed along to me from a woman I admire) that I have reached out to someone local to work the rest of this stuff with. 
And I have. I will continue this relationship work with this local woman who has known me for nearly 8 years, who has seen me at my best and worst, who can call me out, see patterns, and provide so much space for my feelings and vulnerability that I can practically swim in them and still feel safe. 
Yesterday morning, this same woman (as we were talking about what my issues were and what I wanted to work out) said that she’d always felt for me that my issue was around deprivation. 
… 

She’s very astute. 
And it’s also funny to me because it’s one of those things that doesn’t come into focus about yourself until someone else (who knows you well) reflects it back. 
I am very aware of this time in the generation of women around me. My friends who are certain they don’t want kids, ones who know they do, the ones who can’t, and ones who, like me, are unsure.
It’s a particular, cordoned off time in our lives. And I’m holding the space for that, leaning into the grief of potentially not seeing friends change their whole lives, them not seeing me do the same. I’m aware this is “future-tripping,” but it’s fair to acknowledge my feelings around it, anyway. 
I’m allowed to not know what will happen (for me or for my friends), and I’m allowed to have feelings either way. 
Today, what that looks like is picking up a bitchin’ breast pump for my best friend. Continuing to do the work toward an intimate relationship with a man. And letting myself be both sad and happy for and with my peers. 
auditioning · career · family · procrastination · progress · theater · trying · work · worry

Meet the New Year, (not quite the) Same as the Old Year.

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment
there’s so much and little to tell you: 

i have to decide whether to ditch work and attend my annual women’s meditation retreat next weekend. how to tell my boss when I asked for that sunday off — originally for the retreat, but now for an audition — that I really do need that time. and I’m taking monday and tuesday off for my friend who’s visiting from canada. 
that the couple who were the subject of the “day before christmas” poem/blog came to visit me on tuesday, and took me out for sushi, and it feels like i have this sort of surrogate parental couple right now. even though they live in vancouver. we exchanged all our information, i got a happy new year email, and i’m going to talk to him about mediation. like, becoming a mediator, and what that would look like. another career goose chase maybe, but worth looking in to. 
that my mom is having trouble sleeping, and doesn’t want to change her work schedule even though she could. that she’s having health issues that she could address, but procrastinates on. 
that two years ago, right very now, I was waking up in lahaina, maui, hawaii. in the bed of a school boy whose parents graciously invited me to stay and kicked their son to the couch, so a bald and chemo-riddled me could have a vacation from a cancer. 
i have to call the student loan people so they don’t raise my payment from $67/month to over a thousand, but being my mother’s daughter, i haven’t yet. 
I am excitedly waiting for the indiegogo campaign to end and for the funds to be sent to me, so I can write this final check to my landlord for my back rent accrued while i was sick. and to watch that number in my budget line fall to zero. 
i am looking forward to my first real paycheck from the retail store, but as i’ve figured the numbers, amazingly, i’ll have earned the exact amount i would have if i were working at the desk job i quit in october. 
though i wouldn’t have that back-rent money, because that only came about as i was sitting in a cafe with a friend in november, looking for work, him too, and i mentioned the wanting to art again and the potential art studio upstairs, and the back rent. and he said, you should do a kickstarter. 
so, i wouldn’t have that, or at least not now, if not for being unemployed and sharing with a friend who was also spending a mid-day cafe work-search. 
i have a script to read and a song to rehearse for two auditions this month. 
the first is because a friend from mockingbird suggested i try out for this one company in town, and i said i wasn’t good enough, and he said i was and i should and made me promise. and so i did. you know, just a few weeks later!
it’s a classical play. i’m nervous, as i’ve never done one before. 
the second is another musical. and, i’m nervous! but. i’m excited for the role i’m auditioning for. it could be a lot of fun. 
they would run consecutive to each other, one closing, and a few weeks later, rehearsals for the other beginning. so it could work. but not with this sales job. i think. assume. project. worry about. 
but then, too, i have to remember the whole “from thanksgiving to thanksgiving” thing/blog: to not worry, to trust, to at least notice I’m worrying and begin to try to trust. 
i have all these collage cards i still want and need to make, holiday cards and thank you cards. but with the constraints of buses and bart and standing and … (*breathe*) from thanksgiving to thanksgiving. 
i flaked out on my NYE plans. i think i may have disappointed my friend by doing that. but it was a day off for me. i got loads of stuff done early, and by the late afternoon i was home and cozy, i didn’t want to leave. even though it’s a 9:00pm ball-drop! i had to work yesterday, and yadda yadda excuse excuse. i just didn’t feel like getting all dolled up. though i’m sure it would have been fun and my FOMO-meter ran high. 
instead i stayed home, and it was lovely. i know it won’t always be so quiet. but it was nice. 
i have a lot and same old happening right now. i don’t know if any of it is interesting to you, but today is more a state of the union address:
all is well, amorphous, covered and uncertain. 
i have friends and opportunities and procrastination habits and work issues. 
i have a warm home to leave and come back to. 

and two auditions to get ready for. 

Happy and Healthy New Year, Friends. You rule. 
authenticity · family · fate · love

Retail Christmas: A Family Tale

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment
‘Twas the day before Christmas and all through the store
not a creature was stirring, it was really a bore. 
But some time in the day as I walked back from lunch, 
a gentleman remarked, Gee you don’t hunch. 
What great posture you have, and a convo was struck 
as his wife later joined and we talked cardio stuff
He and I spoke of their trip from Vancouver,
his wife in a fight with their my-aged daughter
I listened and shared; it was strange to be sure
to stand in the racks of not-quite couture
and be talking about things that do really matter
and not prattle on with plastic-smiles, idle chatter.
I gave words of wisdom that were passed on to me
about just showing up and letting her be. 
We even talked of my dad, how things there are rotten;
he said try again, love is never forgotten. 
I have my own opinion and still question his advice
it was odd to talk about this, but somehow quite nice. 
Out came his wife, and we put things on hold,
I said a kind goodbye and to stay warm in the cold. 
But as the wife handed me her card and I entered her digits
She shared she and her daughter were really quite in it. 
I didn’t mention I knew, and just made the suggestion
Tell her you love her and are there to listen. 
We smiled, it was strange, and out of the norm
to be talking real life in this capitalist storm. 
A few hours later, my feet throbbing with pain,
I couldn’t wait to get out and back to the east bay. 
When a coworker said there’s someone looking for you,
around the corner came the wife & her husband, too. 
“I wanted to tell you,” she started to sob, 
“I took your advice while I tried on some bras.
“I texted my daughter I was hurt, but am here,
and, Look! She replied!” her face stained with tears.
I read from her phone, while her husband looked on
a bit happy and startled at her goings on.
“I wanted to tell you, I’m so glad we met,
I wouldn’t have been ready before what you said.”
We teared up, exchanged hugs in the DVF stacks,
a slice of what matters near a discount sale rack. 
They left that day a little lighter it seemed,
and I wondered if this is what ‘meant to be’ means. 
I don’t know why I’m there, in the overpriced store,
but for a minute I’m reminded what humanity’s for. 
And maybe it’s not to sell lots of clothes,
to perfect my eyeliner or hike up my hose. 
Instead I was given the gift of what’s real: 
On the day before Christmas, I helped a family heal. 
anger · disconnection · equanimity · family · love · self-abandonment · self-care

There always had to be a fly…

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…in the ointment.
If things were going well, there was always the knowledge
that my father’s parents were shut-ins and deleterious hoarders. Or that my mom
was manic-depressive. Or that my brother had a horrible stutter.
There was always the reminder that my clothing was bought at
discount stores, that my father had an awful temper, or that my mom’s parents
had died under circumstances that ripped her family apart and isolated us against them.
If things were going well, there was always a skeleton or two
to whisper in your ear about not believing good things were for you, about
being dragged down, about not being allowed to be happy.
Today, those long-quieted skeletons, imagined they’ve been
exorcised for years, have begun their murmurous palaver again.
Yesterday, I had a phone call with my mother. She is sick.
Again. It’s the same or similar cold/sinus infection she’s been struggling
against for over a year. And when it came up last year, when she didn’t know
why she kept getting sick, when doctors didn’t immediately know why either, I
called my psychic.
Because at the time, all roads led to cancer. Did she have
it? What was going on? What can I do?
No, said the woman on the phone. It’s not cancer, but
whatever it is, if she doesn’t deal with this, with what’s underlying it, it could be the beginning of a long road to the
end. This could be the thing that takes her out.
Whatever your thoughts about intuitives aside, I’d worked
with her enough that she knew of what she spoke. And from all indications since
that phone call over a year ago, it’s proving pretty accurate. My mom is still
sick. Healthier, Sick, Healthier Sick.
And I’m dragged immediately back into a curtain-drawn
bedroom where she’d curled up against the light, fighting another one of her
chronic migraines. I’m dragged immediately back into being a child taking care
of her mother, telling her to get out of bed. Leaving her there, and getting my
brother and I out the door for school.
My mother is a woman of chronic ailments. And this newest
one, whatever its cause, reason, purpose, is dragging me down again with her.
What is love, comes the question? What is equanimity? What
is detachment, enlightenment? Fate? What is the caustic, oxidizing rust that
others’ baggage leaches onto you and your own path?
And what is my responsibility in helping them through their
pain?
Especially if they don’t recognize it as such.
So much has come up lately about codependence versus
interdependence. About leaving others to their experiences and feelings, and
letting that not affect what I’m doing and how I’m feeling. Even something as
simple as the play, and trying to not let the audiences’ reactions sway my
mood.
I feel angry. I feel angry this feels like it’s happening
again. I feel angry that I’m powerless about how she cares for and treats her
body, about how she schedules her work in the 12-hour days without lunch
breaks. About how she spends her off days flattened, recuperating from her over-working.
I’ve had to do so much work on letting her have her
experiences, despite my opinions, and
yet. And yet. I’m human. And I love her, and I don’t want her to be in pain.
And I don’t want her to deteriorate.
And moreso, I don’t want her life to affect mine.
When does a child grow up? What is the role of a loved one?
How can you, and can you, let someone crawl along the bottom of their own
experience, while you make strides in the direction of your own fulfillment?
Because that’s what’s at stake here. Callous as it may sound, it doesn’t matter,
ultimately, what happens with my mom. What matters is what I take on about it. How
I allow it to affect me. And mostly, can I continue to make my life what I want
it to be when there are still murmuring
skeletons?
My whole life, I’ve been distracted by the flies. I’ve
allowed my attention to be derailed in fishing them out, or I’ve simply allowed
them to decree that I cannot be happy because they exist. That I cannot find
success because there are flaws in the tapestry of my surroundings.
Obviously, I write about it today because I’m upset and I
don’t have the answer to these
questions. Because I don’t know how
to move forward when there are tendrils threatening to draw you back.
So, for today, I’ll leave it both as an open question, and
as evidence of a success. Because, today, I get to tell you about it. And
darkness can’t live in the light. 

abundance · contentment · family · joy · laughter · love

Pumpktoberfest

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I’m sure I write about it every year, but as the wafts of
pumpkin spice glide out of my coffee mug, I’m moved to write about it again.
Fall. Fall on the East Coast. Growing up where Fall means a
certain smell of chill and decaying leaves. Kind of wet, sometimes, the piles
you’ve helped stuff into enormous black plastic bags that I’m sure are illegal in
California by now. And heaping them into the street, spilling off the curb, where you
and your little brother will take a bounding head-start and leap into the
center of the pile, the slightly moth-eaten leaves enveloping you up to your
shoulders, softening your fall and bathing you and your senses in its musty,
alive scent.
I noticed the leaves blowing last night, and here, they
sound different as they tumble across the pavement; they sound dry and tired,
each one brown and curled up on itself. Back East, they’re still half-alive
when they fall, some of them. So they lilt and are soft, and … colored. How
many people must write about the color of the leaves, the ombre fade of red and
orange and gold. There’s something about their display that radiates joy and
change and marks something miraculous, something that we, as humans, have the
unique privilege to recognize and admire.
Pumpkins start popping up on doorsteps. We hang Indian corn,
the same set of three tied to our front door for as long as memory serves, and three small palm-sized
pumpkins decorate our own stoop, before squirrels begin to bite chunks out of them, and a jack-o-lantern we’ve spent all day carving.
Fall begins the part of the year when I felt and feel most
loved and normal and inviting and, again, loved. It begins with
Halloween, and follows through Christmas (celebrated at my dad’s folks
house, who are/were vaguely Christian). The time of year when we feel swept up
in something, in something communal, town-wide, Jersey-wide.
We celebrated, we decorated, we invited, and we lit fires in
the fireplace, and ate my dad’s pumpkin pie. Our one time of year when my
family could gather together in a semblance of normality, and put on the most
average and happy face we could, and it was all decadent. The feeling of
it was.
The change of the season with its scent and sights, and the
length of the days, the incoming dusk approaching like a secret to encase you.
Creeping slowly closer and closer, but welcoming, the cool still amenable, coaxing and
gliding you home in the dim light, toward a mug of hot apple cider perhaps. Maybe
one of the gallons we’d picked up from our annual apple-picking trip, harvesting hoards of
apples, plucked in those wire basket poles that my brother and I would wave
menacingly at each other, slipping on fallen rotting apples in the
orchard, filling up woven wooden baskets we could barely carry out.
It’s the change of the light and the scent that’s been my
indicator these California days. It’s not the same as Back East, but there’s still the
aroma of crispness and an excitement.
I will begin to buy all things pumpkin, like the rest of
America. Like the pumpkin pancakes my friend treated me to yesterday, and the abomination
of flavored coffee that I’m drinking right now.
I will use the pumpkin ganache cookie recipe that was given
to me by a college roommate and make the pumpkin pie that my dad’s passed down
through trial and error – a recipe that would never, ever, include “Pumpkin Pie
Spice,” but itself includes about 8 individual spices, which I own expressly
for the pie’s creation.
Fall is a time of coming back to center, of reigning in the
resources. Of whittling down excess and getting the necessities done in the
light of day. It’s a time that rings with good memories, full, warm, joyous
memories. Fall reminds me of the earth, of how the natural world has shaped my
experience. And it tastes like the release of a constriction you’ve held the whole year, the exhale and inhale of a breath you haven’t dared relax to take. 
To me, Autumn tastes like love.

compassion · disappointment · family · self-care · self-preservation

Stay in Touch.

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

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I received a birthday card in the mail from my father the
other day.
On the front are printed all these large, cartoony instructions saying, “Daughter, Whatever you do, don’t open this card!”
On opening it, the message inside reads, “You still don’t do
as you’re told.”
And there’s a handwritten note, wishing me a happy birthday
and telling me to stay in touch.
It’s both funny and tragic. It’s funny, not for it’s printed
content, but for the fact that it continues my father’s understanding of me and
our relationship: He’s the good one, I’m the fuck-up. He makes the rules, and I don’t follow them. What a set-up. 
This is “funny,” because it’s sad. Because it’s continued
confirmation of how unrealistic our relationship is, and because it confirms
that this is not a person I want to be in communication with.
Lest you think me harsh to judge or condemn a relationship
based on one tin-eared card, believe me, this is the softest of these messages
I’ve received. And continue to receive from him.
On Saturday, I got the chance to talk to my mentor. We were
talking about amending relationships where there is discord, or where I simply
don’t feel at peace.
This, of course, is one of them.
But, my father was listed in a category of others, too:
People I’ve fallen out of touch with out of self-preservation.
I wanted to talk to my mentor about whether I’m in the
wrong… that still-lingering “good daughter” or “good friend” guilt. Shouldn’t
you show up no matter what? Isn’t that love? Or is that obligation? And does it
matter?
Isn’t it my job to adjust myself and meet these people where
they’re at, regardless of how they’re harming me?
Because as painful as it is to know how intractable the
situation with my dad is, I still lash myself with reproval.
I should be able to withstand my crazy aunt’s needling about
my family’s ills. I should be able to listen to her constant health complaints
and victim-laden phone calls. I should be able to because she’s family and because she’s alienated nearly everyone else
she’s related to.
I should be able to sit in a car with my manic friend, even
though I get quiet and withdrawn around that kind of unpredictable behavior. I
should be able to meet her level of enthusiasm and kookiness because that’s
cool, right? Why can’t I just be cool, like her?
I should be able to be in relationships with people I don’t
want to be in relationships with, because that’s what “good” people do, right? Because
that’s what we’re told good people do.
But, to quote that myopic card, I rarely do what I’m told. …
What my mentor offered me was there are some relationships that
are once or twice a year out-reaches. And that’s okay.
Send your aunt a birthday and holiday card, and call it a
day.
Allow your friend who makes you uncomfortable to have her
own experience, and you don’t have to be a part of it if you don’t like how you
feel around her.
Reply to your dad’s occasional emails, thank him for the
card. And leave it at that.
There are relationships that we invest more in and there are
those we invest less. It doesn’t mean that we don’t care for the person. It
doesn’t mean that they are bad, or that I am.
It just means that my self-exacting standard of
communication needs relaxing.
You don’t have to invest in relationships that cause you
pain.
Believe me, I’ve done enough work in trying to make these
particular ones work. To find common ground and compromise and a way of
communicating that is healthy, or at least not harmful. And unfortunately,
there isn’t one.
I wish and try and hope and beg Universes that they were,
particularly with my dad, because who wouldn’t? But, this is an intractable
situation. And I have bloodied my fists knocking on a closed door, trying to
break in through a side window, and torn fingernails trying to dig underneath
all the battle defenses that each of us have drawn to come to a relationship with him that I can be in.
But, when you come to the end of the line, it’s time to get off
the train. This one doesn’t go any farther, no matter how much I wish it did.
And I do. And I probably always will.
But in the reality of today, these relationships are not serving
either of us. I can’t demand someone to show up or behave how I want. I can
only adjust myself to what is. And allow myself the compassion to stop
haranguing myself for not being able to adjust them.
And I can do that by staying in touch. Just barely.