To Live

Twenty-six years ago, right now, my mom was at an appointment with her OB/GYN. It was my due date. And then it was quickly my birthday, when her doctor ordered an emergency c-section. Yanked out at 3:15PM, the story goes, they thought I was stillborn. Cord around my neck,  a dichotomous noose of life-building nutrients. Blue in the face. Not breathing. My mother was put out. My father was there. They told him I was gone. But then I wasn't. But then they noticed that my legs were severely twisted. Then I was whisked away to another hospital, since the one into which I'd been born did not have a NICU. Then I came home, and the real fun started.

When I look through my baby albums, I realize how insane that time was for my parents. I was a mess. They were told I'd likely never walk. Then throw in my dad's open heart surgery somewhere during my mom's pregnancy, and then her hip replacement before I was two? Yeah. The Sweeneys were a disaster.

But today I'm okay. Relatively, I guess. 26 years ago I wasn't breathing and I ran 5 miles this morning. I just ate some Thai food. I woke in a foul mood, missing my mother, wishing for her annual call singing Happy Birthday. I started my period. I have to go to the DMV. What am I doing with my life? Blah blah blah. But I felt better after running, and after discovering a note P left for me on our bed. And while my mom won't be calling today, many people have. And I think about how I came into this world, medical professionals hurriedly extricating me from my mother, from the only home I'd ever known, being strangled by the connection.

Sometimes you have to let go to live.

Run

I bobbed on the steps into the pool and my mother held her arms out to instill confidence. I could swim. I had taught myself that summer. But I had always been a nervous kid, afraid of loud noises and shadows and my own death. My mom was extolling the benefits of swimming.

"It's the best exercise for my arthritis," she offered. This was supposed to be reassuring.

"Do I have that?!"

"No, I do. You don't."

"Then why do I need to worry about it?"

"You don't. I do. I'm sorry."

"Am I going to get it?"

Pause.

Pause.

"You could."

Since that day, and I think I was in about the second grade at that point, I worried. Every time my muscles ached, every time I felt stiff. Do I have it? Did I get it? I had already inherited a rare joint disorder from my father that necessitated casts and braces and physical therapy and surgery by the time I was six years old. I was worried. And I prized my physical ability. I rode my bike, I started martial arts. I danced. For a kid that was never supposed to walk, I did okay. My mother's RA symptoms began in her early twenties and after I made it past that time, I felt less concerned. Until she died from congestive heart failure.

I began exercising again last week. It has been a while. I walk more than most people I know, because I live in a city with no car. Going to the grocery store is a mile round-trip, carrying my loot. I have a dog who goes out three times a day. Walking to and from my nearest el stop is about the same. In a given day I'll walk several miles. But last week I started running on the elliptical, running away from two parents who died by age 63 of heart failure; from RA that WebMD tells me can be delayed or slowed by exercise; from my unknown medical history since my mother was adopted. I run.

"Going to Carolina in My Mind"

I am hanging some photos and getting some chores done and select "folk rock" for Pandora to churn out some tunes as my backdrop. I am in my relatively new house, over seven years into my life as a Chicagoan, but when I hear James Taylor, I am no longer. I am in an Indianapolis kitchen, the sun cascading through an open sliding door in summer. Meats and summer squash sizzle on the grill just past the screen and I'm home. I am home.

James Taylor was often the soundtrack to my former life. He would sing us full, along with Gordon Lightfoot and Tom Petty, as we passed the mushroom rice and the beer supply dwindled. I realize now that when I think of "home" I am usually thinking of my former in-laws home. As I've detailed previously on this blog, I grew up with my ex-husband. By the time we were married, his sisters were my sisters, we had holiday traditions and inside jokes, and I'd passed many lazy summer days in just this fashion. They were never "my in-laws" or "his family" but simply "my family." And I miss them still, though my divorce papers were filed years ago and I have a new set of in-laws, even.

In the winter, they heated their home with a wood burning stove, and I'd return to my mother's house smelling of that dry air, my hair full of static and smoke. Their kitchen table was tiny, but we were prone to sitting in laps and sharing chairs anyway. I think it would be difficult for P to imagine me doing any of that. And I'm sure he wishes he would see me do it with his family. Someday, I may. It's not as if I don't want that. But before I can, I have to stop desperately wanting to gather around that particular dining table with those particular people. I have to grieve that loss. Replacement isn't the way to achieve contentment.

It was my fault. I filed for divorce. It was my fault. I could have kept them, could be sitting there still. I could have been moderately happy. But I wouldn't have P. And as soon as I realize that, I know that I made the right choice.

10:04 PM

My therapist has said repeatedly that my circumstances are strange, that I've not had an ordinary childhood, and other such sentiments. But I think that when someone finds your lived reality bizarre, it is often hard to concur. After all, it's all I know.

I sort of understood her a few nights ago.

Cleaning out our guest room, I had to move boxes taken from my mother's house. I didn't want to go through them yet, but a few things caught my eye. There was a file folder, and I opened it, wondering if I would stumble upon some important paperwork. I did. They were 4 different death certificates for members of my family.

A great-uncle who died when I was about 8; my mother's parents, only one of which I met and she died when I was 4; and my father who died when I was 6. There they were, filed by my mother, also dead now. All neat, all put away. All telling a story about another person I did not really know. We were clearing out the guest room so P's sister could move in. She's going to school in Chicago and is staying with us for about a month until her dorm opens. And I was struck by the juxtaposition. Making way for P's family, and moving the scraps of mine. Photos and death certificates. Military honors and rosaries. Objects that held meaning for people I do not know but who were instrumental in my existence. Who were they? It begs the question, Who am I?

My therapist described me as this last branch on a dying tree. And now, I'm being grafted onto P's family tree. But that's not an easy transition. No matter how this new tree suits me, the feeling of being lifted from my trunk, from having vague memories of knowledge of leaves as they fell, leaves me feeling less than whole. Less than stable.

I doubt I will ever forget receiving my mother's death certificate in the mail. You know the drill. You come home from work, open your mail nonchalantly. And suddenly, an official document was staring me down. My mother's full name, her stats, all neatly typed. And at the top, Time of Death. I don't know why this caught me so, but I couldn't stop staring at it. 10:04 PM. What was I doing at 10:04 PM? It was 9:04 my time. Where was I? Had I felt differently? Had I been laughing? Had I been thinking of her? Was she actually dead at 10:00 PM, but they called in four minutes later? The specificity got me. 10:04 PM. I couldn't stop thinking about it.

It's a lot to find. It's a lot to digest.

Next

I quit my job. Two more days and I won't be employed. "What are you doing next?!" people excitedly ask me.

I don't know yet. I don't really know.

I landed my current job after landing an entry level job at the same company. It was early 2010 and I was finally finishing undergrad, after taking some time off to get back on track after that pesky divorce business. I had majored in Social Justice Studies with a minor in Feminist Theory. Right. Super marketable. But how I loved it, each and every moment of it! School had become my escape from a bad marriage, a place to hide, and luckily, that hiding place made me a better person. Not knowing what was next, I just wanted to find a job I didn't hate, and one that paid the bills. And there I was, an entry level customer service agent. And here I am, two and a half years later, an account executive, managing hundreds of thousands of dollars in my portfolio of clients. Sometime earlier this year I stopped and thought, Huh. How did that happen?

I remember that I had just started dating P. not too long before landing the gig. I told him excitedly about it as he made me breakfast one morning. He was waiting at my apartment after my second interview and we jumped up and down together when I told him I had been offered the job. He was there when I called my mom to tell her that I had just doubled my annual income. And through it all, both P and my mama kept reminding me that there was something else out there that I wanted.

My mother was a musician. She made her living doing this. When it came time for college, she didn't direct me practically, but told me to do what I loved. At eighteen, I loved a lot of things. I chose one. For a long time I thought my choice unwise. But now that I see it come full circle, that I'll be using those skills and interests and talents again in graduate school and beyond, I feel whole. Is that weird? I think of the broken self I was, trying to finish school, but how whole I felt, somewhere inside of me. Somewhere, I was storing all I was learning, there for a later time.

I think this is that time.

In the four months between two days from now and starting school in January, I am breathing. The past five years have been the most beautiful and most painful. I am cashing in all the summer breaks I never had, all the indulgences of arrested development I never took, and taking four months to be me. To figure out who I am, emerging from the first half of my twenties. To make sure I'm braced for the next crazy thing. (They're always around the bend.)

My sister-in-law is moving to Chicago this week. Today, we texted back and forth about her move. Of course, I couldn't help but remember my move to Chicago at her age. Walking home from the el tonight, a perfect city breeze guiding me home, I recalled my last night in my childhood bedroom. All of the furniture was packed in the moving van, ready to drive north early the next morning. I made myself a pallet on my bedroom floor and grabbed Ernie, the plush Sesame Street character I'd had since toddler-hood, and stretched out in that room one more time. The walls were bare and my bed was gone, and my books were packed. My mom knocked lightly on the door and pushed it in.

"You can sleep in my bed if you want, honey." I said I was fine, wanting one final night in my room. Looking back, I see now that she wanted one final night with me next to her, something she knew she'd never have again after that night, that she hadn't had in years. But she was usually good with boundaries. She knew what I wanted too, and shut the door.

I hope my sister-in-law does what she wants. I hope I continue to. I hope my mother would look at me again right now, take in the gravity of my decision, shut off my light, and close my bedroom door.

Notes

I was never a good sleeper. Never. My mother said she thought it was because I spent so much time in the NICU after my birth, waking at odd hours to be poked, prodded, and monitored. Well into my young years I'd cat nap during the day and keep my parents up at night. It suited my system.

Because of my genetic joint disorder, I was in physical therapy from a very young age. I had a small trampoline for this, and even when the therapist had left our house, my youthful energy came to bear on the springs, my parents straining to hear Dallas or Matlock above my jumping. Many nights, I would actually jump myself to sleep. Fearing that they'd never get me back down, often my parents would just  throw a blanket over me and leave me on the tiny trampoline for the night.

What I remember from those nights is waking and feeling a bit uneasy at first. I was slumbering on Jazzercise equipment, afterall. But as soon as my eyes adjusted and I understood that the cool, sleek bed on which I rested was my beloved trampoline, my rigid body went lax, and I stared up into the soft light from the lamp atop my mother's piano. I can visual the bottom metal base, under which we hid "emergency money," and I can see the little brass key that turned the thing on. I can see our living room alight, subtly, the spotlight shining though, of course, on the piano. It wasn't a fancy piano, but it was hers. And it was always part of what made houses into homes.

For years, I remember thinking that I had never felt at home the way I had felt in that living room under the glow of that lone light. My first apartment after moving out on my own, I chased it. And each home after it. I think I am getting close. Closer than I ever have been, anyway. But then I wonder if we ever find it again, or if we just create a new one for our children. One that we can never truly have, but just create for another person. Another light for another lifetime of chasing a light.

I wonder if I'll get her piano again one day. It still sits in her husband's house, unplayed, collecting dust,  the music in it silenced for over a year now. I emailed him a list of the larger items I wanted, eventually. What I didn't want was for him to feel as if I was going shopping in his home. What I was really saying was, "If not for you, these things would be mine now, but when you die, this is what I want. Because they were always mine and never yours."

I don't have a photo of the actual piano. But I can recall the gold letters spelling out the brand, and I typed that into Google. This was literally the first photo returned in the search. As I said, not a special piano. But few things bring back such special memories. Few photos could bring back such vivid sounds and smells. The leather of the bench. The creak as the bench opened, storing the notes that scored my childhood. 

The things she will not know

When my mother first died, I thought only in the abstract about the future. I couldn't fathom a real future without her in it, and all I had were vague conjectures and assumptions. I lamented the typical milestones that had not yet come to pass. She won't see me marry the love of my life. She won't see me become a mother.

At the time, nothing yet had happened to me without her, except for her death. And in the insane, rocking grief of those first weeks, I actually found myself upset and wanting to talk to her about it. Someone would say something ludicrous in an attempt to comfort me after her death and I'd think, Wait until she hears this. The people from my past who came crawling out for her funeral inspired a lot of, Wait until I tell her who I saw! This made me feel crazier, of course.

For the most part, I could only imagine the things I would experience without her. Sure, I would probably get married, but it wasn't certain yet. I hope to have children, but who knows? These were abstract. Now, there are real experiences. And she hasn't seen them.

Last week I learned that I was accepted into a graduate school. This is a program I have been looking at for 6 years. I spoke with her about it many times, actually. She encouraged me to apply, and I even started to once. It just wasn't the right time. Yet now it is and she can't see it.

I bought a new home. With my new husband. Every day he amazes me, the trust and love I have for him amazes me, and I just want to call her and tell her. I want to tell her I understand how she felt about my father, finally. I want to talk about paint colors and curtains with her.

My mother would take great joy in the simple things I was doing. I would tell her about a date, or a class I was taking, and she wanted to hear the minutiae. Sometimes after a really wonderful day I want to throw myself down on the sofa and call her.

I'm writing this and my husband is practicing the cello, and I know she loved that he played. I know that she would be delighted to know that I eventually lived in a house of music again, after growing up in one.

When I graduated from high school and college, my mother was there to see the ceremony. She was tickled over it. At the time, I thought it was silly. I rolled my eyes a lot. Since applying to grad school sometimes I can't stop thinking about the seat unfilled for me at commencement, the only person in my life who I expected to appreciate the mundane, even as I ridiculed her enjoyment.