Thankful

It's Thanksgiving Day, and the streets are empty of people. The usual hustle of my neighborhood is only a trickle of couples carrying bottles of wine and casserole dishes to turkey dinners; the nearly constant gusts of laundry steam coming from basement windows are replaced by wafting poultry. The most crowded buses are only ferrying ghosts. The city is quiet. It is still.

My adopted father is coming over for dinner tonight, and it is our first Thanksgiving without his partner, my other adopted father, D. It is my second Thanksgiving without my mom. It is the 20th Thanksgiving without my birth father. It is the third Thanksgiving without my ex's family. And so on and so on.

I am not sad about this, though. Thanksgiving has never left me feeling very sentimental.

But my city does.

This city has been my home for seven and a half years now. And though I've lost family, friends, jobs, as I've evolved and changed, my city is here. And it is vibrant and the same. My feet hit a certain rhythm on these sidewalks that they carry nowhere else. Fallen leaves are rained on and then crushed underfoot and leaf-shaped stains look like intentional stencils. But they are not so conjured. They are real. My city is real. And so am I, in it.

Last night my mother-in-law was talking about a fancy wedding. She said she had heard that the couple wasn't really in love, and it was about the show of the thing. "How could you marry someone you aren't in love with?" asked my brother-in-law. Everyone else nodded in agreement.

"I did," I said.

That's awkward. But it's part of my history and, subsequently, part of who I am. Part of the person they have come to love. So I said, "I did. I did that." And it got awkward. But I told them I had really married his family, it was his family I had loved. They sort of seemed to understand that, at least intellectually.

I can so clearly see the dining table, usually so casual, fancy for Thanksgiving. I can see the tiny kitchen buzzing with activity, all of us buzzing with alcohol, Gordon Lightfoot or Tom Petty or James Taylor the soundtrack to it all. Dogs whining for food. Three people sharing one chair, giggling.

Maybe I do get sentimental. But unlike missing my mother, which is crippling, today I find myself wanting to bundle up against the chill off Lake Michigan and take my dog for a walk around my absurdly quiet and absurdly beautiful city.

Shift

My mom would have been really proud of me this weekend.

This may be the first time I have thought that and been happy, instead of having it make me sad.

Electing

There is a really wonderful collection of suffrage-era advertisements right now over at Collectors Weekly. Comprised mainly of post cards, the collection is truly astounding.

I never knew a time when I could not vote. Obviously. I'm not over 92 years old. At the age of 26, I haven't been able to vote too terribly long. This year marked only my third presidential election. I am so happy that I was old enough to vote in 2008. Living in Chicago the day Barack Obama was elected president was momentous. It was a palpable joy. It felt like it mattered. Something was changing. Something was going on.

I just made the cut-off to vote for Kerry in 2004. I wasn't a huge fan of Kerry. And I was just starting to understand politics at the time. All I knew was that Bush seemed unintelligent. He seemed to want a theocracy. He seemed war-hungry. He didn't support gay rights. While Kerry didn't show overt support to my LGBT friends, no one was at the time. But a lack of outright slander of my friends would have to do for progressive politics.

In 2008, Barack Obama stood in Grant Park, on the lakeshore of my home city, and addressed his supporters. And that's when he said it: "gay and straight Americans."

...

Wow.

I cried. And though he was slow to act on policy, Obama did repeal DADT. He rescinded the Mexico City Policy just two days after taking office. He eventually came out publicly in support of gay marriage. He signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. He supports Planned Parenthood. When Hilary lost the nomination, he thanked her for making way for his daughters to achieve.

And while some of his talking points may just seem like so much lip service to frustrated activists, I think that lip service is important, too. While generally defined as being mere empty words, when the words are those that others are too afraid to speak, speaking them in activism. When the president of your country makes a video for the It Gets Better Project, before he even enacts any policies to back up his rhetoric, he has made an impact. When the president addresses "non-believers" in his inaugural address, those of us who do not believe choke, recalling President George Bush Sr. denying our citizenry.

My mother voted Republican her whole life, except twice. For Kennedy, and then for Obama. She had gay friends. She had gay family. She had a daughter who depended on Planned Parenthood for healthcare during a difficult time. It's difficult for people to change. I admired her ability to do so.

My mom won't be voting in this election. This thought falls under the strange "Grief Brain" that forms after a significant loss. Seemingly innocuous things seem laden with meaning. "This is the first election for president in which my mom will not vote," isn't like the anniversary of her death, her birthday, or Mother's Day. But this week I'm remembering a woman who unknowingly led me to feminism by being herself.

Boiled and steeped

As I hunched my shoulders against the 30 degree air this morning, I remembered that a year ago today I was in San Francisco on my honeymoon.

The air was a bit chilly there, especially on the ferry from the wharf to Alcatraz. But I got by with a sweater. My human radiator of a husband got by with just a button down shirt. Because he is a Martian.

Though P and I had been living together for over a year, I still had a giddy newlywed feeling. The most amazing man alive, in my estimation, had chosen me. We'd gathered our closest friends and family into one room--something that we'll never get to do again--and we said, Sure. We said, I pick you. We said, It's been rough and it may be rougher. But I want to do it with you.

I hadn't been that happy in a long time.

We were both making more money than we ever had, and the kitchen in our rented guesthouse sat unused--save the mini-fridge, which held wine and cheese. We ran all over the city, eating all the seafood we could, and trying ethnic cuisines that not even our sweet home Chicago could offer. We fell in love with the plant life there. We cursed the city we loved and called home for it's inability to support a jade bush outdoors.

Like most things in my life, the best parts of the trip were unplanned. Google all you want, but stumbling upon a tea store with a tasting bar manned by a guy who know everything about tea? Nothing gets better than that.

What I didn't realize until we were flying home, watching California fade below us was that for almost a week, I hadn't been sad. It had been four months since my mom died, and four months of intense sadness. As happy as the wedding had made me, it also reminded me that my mother was not there in attendance. But the honeymoon was a week off. I couldn't believe that I'd been able to go 5 days without crying. The tears came on the plane, as I wished I could call her when we landed to tell her about it all. I cried realizing that when I got home, my mom would still be dead, I would still be sad, the first holiday season without her was approaching, and that the week had been an exception and not a new chapter.

A year later, I am spending my day reading and writing, and drinking a puerh tea, aged a year. It's dried wrinkled leaves sit shriveled in a glass canister on our tea shelf. It tastes like the earth. It smells like outside. It is not blended over with a fruity infusion, and it does not take honey or sugar. No getting around that you are drinking a plant.

Perhaps that week of exile from grief was indeed the beginning of the next chapter, a flip of the page. I had someone with whom to grieve, yes. But white dress and open bar or not, P would have been there with me. What began in San Francisco and evolved all year was a keener sense of reality than I'd ever had. Like a good puerh tea, a good life is gnarled and cultivated, ugly and steeped. Sometimes, tea is just tea. It tastes like the earth from which is came and there is no need for cranberries or cardamom. And sometimes we desperately need a fruity distraction from reality. 

I still enjoy both varieties of tea. It's learning to live with both and not knowing which you'll be served when that gives me challenge.

As You Can See

There are things you do when someone dies. One of those things is to call everyone, seemingly, in the world, and keep ruining people's days with the bad news. I had never done this until my mom died. The people who are close, that are really upset, are difficult people to tell. But maybe more difficult are the people you haven't spoken to in years. 

My godmother was one of these people. We sort of lost touch somewhere in there. She lives in Virginia and she was my father's best friend. She did a wonderful job after he died of keeping up with me, but as I got older we lost touch a bit. But I wanted her to know that my mom had died. I only had an address, so I wrote her. She wrote back quickly with her number and we spoke on the phone shortly after that. We've been corresponding ever since. It's been really, really good. She knew my father before my mom  did, and she even met my grandmother--my parents met after my grandmother died. She still calls my dad "Danny" and referred to him as "one of the greatest men I ever knew." She said he was the one you'd call when you needed something, and he'd be there. Car trouble, family trouble, whatever. She told me the story, from my dad's perspective, of my parent's meeting. She has brought nuance to stories and vague remembrances. In her eyes, my dad was a real person. I don't remember enough of him for him to be real to me. 

She's been going through photos and has been sending me some of my parents, of me as a baby, and of her. There were several of my mom sitting at a piano, playing while everyone sang at a Christmas party. This was before I was born. When I look at that I think that the years I am living right now are the years my children will never know. These are the mystery years that are a part of me but that will never really be real to my kids. And I'm just old enough to understand, I think, that my parents were people before they were parents. 

I got a card today from my godmother with more photos. At the end of her note she says, "As you can see your mom has a problem, while pregnant, with swelling." There is a photo included of my mom with her legs propped up, ankles swollen. And I thought about how I won't have her to call when I'm pregnant and swollen. But I'm hoping to take advantage of the relationships I do have, like with my godmother, and other women in my life. 

birthday

As one of my best friends, A, has said, "Those Catholics really did a number on you." She's referring to my guilt, over practically everything. And this week, I felt serious guilt about my struggle with depression. Because I had a damn good week. And for a lot of it, I just wanted to cry. 

I don't remember Monday. Not what I did or didn't do, nothing. It would have been my father's birthday. His 80th birthday. P's dad is 57. P's grandmother is only 8 years older than my dad would have been. I remember my dad's last birthday, when he turned 60. My mom threw a big surprise party for him. She rented out a banquet hall and everything. I don't know if she knew that would be his last, or if because of his health she knew it would be his last milestone birthday, at least, or if his impending death always haunted her. But 8 months after that party he was dead. But at that party I was giddy. I had kept the secret, and my parents were proud of me for that. The very next day was my own birthday, and I would be 6. My friends were there. My father was the center of the world for the night. And as I ran and danced around the banquet hall I had no idea. Did he? Did anyone? I was just getting to a place where I felt comfortable asking my mom these questions. And I still have them. 

You lose days in depression. And it depresses me more to know that I remember a September 24th 20 years ago better than a September 24th 4 days ago. 

Tuesday was my birthday. 26. P told me to do whatever I wanted that day, to "take a bath and watch Netflix and drink a bottle of wine at noon" if I wanted. I read a lot instead. I checked my Facebook for birthday greetings. I received happy texts. I ran 5 miles. I had a pretty good day. I met P downtown that night and we went to a wine bar and out for sushi. 

Wednesday I trekked out to Logan Square to meet a good friend at a pie shop. We sat and talked for about 4 hours, which seems to happen with the two of us. It was a welcomed change to sitting at home. I put on real pants, so that was good and different. This northside snob found some redeeming qualities about the neighborhood, even. :o)

Last night was good. P and I had tickets to a show I have literally been wanting to see for about 10 years. It originated in Chicago, went on to NY to win a Tony, and when I learned they were reprising it this fall, I about jumped out of myself. Thankfully, it lived up to the expectation. But part of me was in a cloud, after a day of puttering around the house, hoping to get some inspiration to do anything but watch Netflix or scroll Pinterest. I did the dishes and took the dog out. That was about it. 

I know that if I run in the morning, it gets me going and I feel better. I can have a productive day. Before running this morning I had a near anxiety attack thinking about the day in front of me, hours of time to waste in wallowing. But then I got up and ran 5 miles. And now I am sitting in a coffee house in my neighborhood, writing. I am going to try and edit some previous writing for submission to lit mags. And though it is small and makes me feel like an invalid to admit it as a triumph, I am really proud of myself for making the decision to just get up. 

I had such a wonderful week--friends, my love, sushi, theatre, wine, good coffee, good reading. I renewed my license and the photo doesn't suck. Lots of good things. And I feel serious guilt for not reveling in it and loving every moment. in 2010 I thought I had turned a corner. I had a new, great job. I had started dating P. We entertained friends often. But now I know that it was a manic break, and as happy as I was, I am just a person who struggles with depression. It's simple. My mother's death threw me for a new low, and I'm crawling out. But I can't compare my mood to 2010, because I'll fall short most days. I have to take it "one day at a time" as everyone seems to say, no matter the issue at hand. But I suppose we say it so indiscriminately because it's fucking true. 

It starts with running.

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.