The Weakness of Then

My mom got breast cancer when I was nine and died when I was 11. I started that sentence writing out my age and ended simply typing the digits, no longer young enough to write out my age, but I don’t remember it. I was so wrapped up in my mom’s illness that I missed the momentous occasion of going from a single to double digit age.

my mom and me

My dad died when I was 16, almost an adult, but not quite. I was living with my aunt, uncle and cousins already, they had a good public school near them. From the outside it may have seemed like I had already stepped into a bit of my independence. But it was actually the opposite. My aunt gave me structure that I never had, structure that I craved. I felt held by it. In the two years I had been living there, I was starting to feel like a child again. Then that feeling was ripped from me.

couldn’t find a picture of my dad and me together but here is a photo my sister recently gave me that Hazel calls “Beby”

Every time someone hears about my parents their eyes get soft and sad. I’m quick to reassure them, “it’s ok, I have 4 sisters, more family than I know what to do with.” But I do miss my parents and where they are comes up. I’ve tried many ways to explain.

“They’ve passed”

“They’re dead”

“They are no longer with us”

“I’m an orphan”

[a silent kiss on my hand and peace sign to the sky]

All of it feels so dramatic and always leads to follow up questions. I hate it — but I also kind of love it. People pay attention when I talk about my parents, I can get a whole room to shut up. Sure, I may be sucking the life out of it, but still. I find being the victim addictive.

The reactions, the sympathy, the assumptions that I’m wise or brave or inspiring, all of it is so addictive. There is a plaque at my highschool with my name on it for being the “Most Inspiring Graduate of 2005.” I wasn’t valedictorian or anything, I couldn’t even spell valedictorian without the help of my computer. I just “lost” my parents (another fun one, like they’re a wallet and now I have to go to the DMV, heaven forbid). I did get into UC Berkeley, but that was probably because I wrote an essay about my parents dying. What was I inspiring students to do? Patricide?

It was nice to feel special. But being the victim meant retelling those same memories of my parents dying, over and over and over. It made those memories ever present in my mind. I was creating purposeful recurrent memories. Living in any memory can make you depressed, the weakness of then. Especially living in those memories made me depressed. So depressed that I tried to kill myself, twice, once for each dead parent. See, I still do it. Playing the victim is like any other addiction, at first it feels good, but the come down sucks and you start needing more and more.

After trying to kill myself the second time I made a deal with myself. I would not take suicide off the table, I’m stubborn and don’t like being told what to do, even by myself. My deal was I could totally kill myself as the solution to all my problems, but I had to try everything else first. I tricked myself by turning life into a bucket list.

I moved to Brazil and taught English, I moved to New York and worked at a communications firm, I moved to an ashram in Virginia and got certified to teach yoga. I’m every white woman, it’s all in me.

you just know she’s lived abroad, because she talks about it a lot

But I still felt empty. I got into and out of relationships, into and out of careers, into and out of social circles. Then I decided to get sober. This is not one of those essays where I tell you to get sober. I’m actually no longer sober, though I go back and forth on whether I should be.

But I definitely needed to get sober then. I was freshly into standup comedy working late in bars and clubs where, though I was working, I was surrounded by people who were partying. Free drinks were one of the main perks of the gig, one of the only perks. I felt elated when I drank, I was social and fun and light, until I wasn’t. Alcohol is a depressant and it only swelled the dark cloud following me. I knew if I kept on this path I was going to try to kill myself again, and third times the charm. So I tried getting sober.

I don’t know what image to use here

One day I was waiting at the bar to get my drink, feeling annoyed that the bartender I knew wasn’t there and I had to wait at all. I decided, to hell with it, I didn’t want a drink. It’s bad for your skin, all that crying dehydrates you. In fact, I was gonna take a week long break from drinking, yeah that’s it. But the next night, I was back in line. As I was one person away, again I decided I didn’t want to drink. But I realized I couldn’t do it on my own. So I joined a twelve step program.

In my twelve step program, that shall not be named, I got a sponsor. My sponsor had me start doing gratitude lists. She said I could do them sarcastically if I wanted, which helped. I could say I was grateful for my bad knee so I had an excuse not to run, grateful for not being booked more so I wasn’t tempted to drink, grateful my parents were dead so I didn’t have to worry about disappointing them. But I threw real ones in there too and it got easier. They say it works, if you work it. I kept doing gratitude lists every day for three years, until it became second nature. Until it changed my brain chemistry. I don’t know how many days it took but one day I realized I was no longer depressed.

My sister asked how I would think of things to put on my lists and at first I didn’t know how to answer her question. So I wrote one:

• Coffee

• Time to myself 

• My cozy couch 

• Bianca for asking me this question 

• Public transportation in NYC

• My strong body

• Sun streaming into the window

I realized how I wrote them was by honing into the present moment and what was in it and expanding from there. God dammit, it was the power of now.

It is the power of now. As I sit here writing I’m grateful for:

• Cherry seltzer

• The sound of my daughter’s feet slapping the kitchen tiles as she toddles into the bedroom to bring Matt a book

• Matt’s new robot arm (for therapy, not day-to-day use) next to me on the table

• That the father of my daughter is alive and finding joy

• That I’m taking time for my own happiness

Life is good.