It seems I've outgrown this little Vox blog, so I've decided to pack up and move to a new place. I'll be writing at a shiny new blog, Closet Narcissist - please come join me, won't you?
I had therapy today, hallelujah. It’s been two weeks since my aunt’s unexpected death, and I’m only today beginning to work through the tragedy of it as anything other than a surreal story to tell. I spent the four days in Tennessee feeling like I’d been hurled into a movie – something by P. T. Anderson, where the characters stumble around doing bizarre, inexplicable things, and no one reacts to the bizarreness; they just keep going as if everything is perfectly normal – and only in retelling everything to my therapist have I begun to feel in any way connected to the strange events of the week.
I am convinced we – by whom I mean Christians – do funerals all wrong. Sara’s funeral was a very Southern Baptist affair, delivered by an old-fangled Southern preacher who talked about the tragedy of my aunt’s death, yes, but mostly spent the time talking about how she had hope in Jeezuzz and that she had gone home to Glow-ree, and that if there was anything Sara would want him to say it was that she had found her hope in Jeezuzz would want you to, too. All of which is true – but I kept waiting for him to acknowledge the pain all of us were in (well, all of us who hadn’t been dropped into a P.T. Anderson movie) and the horrible, aching hole her death had left. Yes, we can trust that we’ll see her again in heaven if we love Jeezuzz, I wanted him to say, but in the mean time she is gone and we are grieving and THIS SUCKS.
Is this a strictly southern phenomenon, or are funerals universally this skewed? I don’t think I’ve ever attended a funeral north of the Mason-Dixon, so I don’t have a good sense of whether this is how everyone does it, or just the fogeys down South. And am I alone in feeling like this is a horribly stilted perspective, or am I supposed to be satisfied with The Promise Of Glow-ree and all that? I’m not a delayed-gratification kind of girl; I hope that speaks more to my immaturity than to my faith.
My perceptive therapist identified, from my retelling, some traits of my aunt’s that were unhealthy, things I’d always had a peripheral sense of but that I’d never overtly acknowledged. It was clear from the events of her sudden illness and death that Sara really was the hub of our extended family, the one in charge of facilitating all the relationships between everyone else. This was never more obvious than when no one called me to tell me she had been hospitalized, because she was always the one person who made those sorts of phone calls, the one in touch of getting information out. The inevitable church luncheon that followed her funeral (another Southern tradition?) was awkward not only because we were all processing the morning’s service but also because without her there to lubricate conversations, no one knew quite how to relate to one another.
My therapist’s point was that my aunt was a woman who universally loved others, universally gave herself to them, but without ever allowing herself to be filled in return: that by constantly rushing to meet others’ needs, she gave the impression of not having needs of her own to be met. (Tragic case in point: she allowed herself to be caught in the middle of a feud between her prickly, stubborn mother and sister; and as a result of her attempts to interject herself and mend their relationship, Sara and her sister hadn’t spoken in more than three years, and her sister – my aunt Sue – didn’t come to Sara’s funeral (although she did send a lovely flower arrangement)). My therapist was keen to draw a subtle object lesson out of this for me, since a recurring theme of our sessions is that I’m so determined to give the impression that I have all my shit together that I don’t let anyone close enough to meet my own needs.
It left me wondering – how many of us are there? Are there scads of us spending all our time trying to look like we have it all together, when in fact we’re lonely and desperate for connection – and pushing everyone away in the process?
Here is a picture of a nun on a scooter:
"So today I was in Target and I saw: A NUN RIDING A SCOOTER."
"Really. How was that working for her?"
"She was just tootling along, nunnily. I walked around the corner and saw her and started laughing and then Aaron kicked me."
"What kind of scooter was it? Like a wheelchair scooter? Or a Vespa?"
"Like one of those motorized shopping cart scooters you can get in the front of the store."
"Was she wearing a habit?"
"Yes! She was in full nun! And I kept walking around corners and seeing her and laughing! It was all just so startlingly absurd!"
"You may or may not go to hell for laughing at her, you know."
"I feel like she was placed in Target today specifically to test me. And I lost."
"God was like, 'That's 10 more hell points for Abi. Not looking good, huh, Jesus?'"
Today I'm gonna go all craft-blogger and show you the valentines that David and I made for his class Valentines Day party next week. (That's right: the party's not until NEXT WEEK and we made these puppies TODAY. Take a moment to bask in my preparedness, won't you?) When I gave him a choice between storebought and handmade valentines, he jumped at the chance to make his own - which was a relief, because there are few things I despise more than corny licensed-character valentines, and because it was good to spend some Quality Time with David that didn't involve Star Wars.
When I was about thirteen years old and had a subscription to Seventeen magazine (did anyone older than fifteen actually read Seventeen?), my favorite thing to read when a new issue arrived was the Traumarama section, where girls could write in with their most embarrassing stories. There are a few of these stories that have stayed with me over the years - like the one where the girl at the sleepover reveals that she has hairs growing around her nipples and her host's hottie older brother is eavesdropping on their conversation; or the one with the girl who forgets to bring underwear with her to the pool and so is walking home with her short shorts on and nothing underneath when the cutie she was crushing on spies her dangling tampon string - and tugs on it, thinking it's a loose thread on her shorts. OMG! I would like totally die!
me: sooo i've been feeling really crappy all day
me: and i can't stop thinking, if i am even pregnant again i am gonna be SO PISSED
her: hhahahaha, oh my god, that'd be crazy. but i would still love you and your new little baby
me: yes, and if by some insane chance i were actually pregnant i would love another baby just as much as my other kids, but seriously, THIS JOKE ISN'T FUNNY ANYMORE, GOD
her: hahaha, God loves your uterus!
her: do you have any tests?
me: i don't!
me: i usually do, but i'm all out
her: bummer!!
her: they're expensive!!
me: just think how great i'll look in line at cvs, just me, a pregnancy test, and three kids
her: ahahha,
me: and a giant box of condoms
her: hahah, and a vasectomy!
me: yes
her: too bad you cant just pick those up!
me: one of those do-it-yourself home vasectomy kits
her: haha, that sounds DANGEROUS!
me: buy one, get a free bag of frozen peas
her: and a bottle of booze for aaron
me: yes
her: so do you really think you could be?
me: i would be very, very, very surprised
me: if aaron's magical sperm could somehow get through a condom, my birth control pill, AND breastfeeding hormones
me: which supposedly suppress ovulation
me: but my fertility defies all logic
her: holy f balls, that'd be ridiculous!!
her: i really think that would be impossible! but impossible=david haha
me: yes
me: on the plus side, i'll always be able to say to my children, no, seriously, don't have sex until you're married
me: you might think it's safe, but IT'S NEVER SAFE
her: hahaha
her: this is TRUE!
me: because if heredity holds true, their sperm will be able to leap tall buildings in a single bound
her: SUPER SPERM duh duh daaaa!
Seriously, internet: does every married or, you know, sexually active woman get that panicky feeling every time she feels a little queasy? Or am I just really, really paranoid? (And c'mon, can you blame me?)
Oh, I have so much to say right now, and no time to write. The end of this week should see a reprieve, I hope. Here's what's in the queue:
I have a fetish for the sort of costume jewelry you can buy for $4 at Claire's, and whenever I add a new piece to my collection it goes in the same place as all my other cheap jewelry: tossed in a box on my dresser. This was supposed to be a temporary storage solution, although I don't think I can still call it temporary if I used it for two and a half years; and not surprisingly, the box of necklaces became hopelessly snarled.
This week I finally made myself clean my bedroom, which is where clutter goes to die, and I decided to finally do something about the snarled box of jewelry. For less than ten bucks, I picked up a pack of cork tiles, a box of cup hooks, and some cute scrapbook paper, and here is what I ended up with:
Not a snarled mess! Huzzah!
I made it by gluing the scrapbook paper to the cork tiles, then screwing in the cup hooks. Easy peasy. I had hoped to be able to use the adhesive strips that were packaged with the cork tiles to stick 'em to the wall, but the cup hooks were just a smidge deeper than the cork and they poked out the back; so I ended up nailing them to the wall. Probably sturdier that way, anyway.
Ta-dah!
Also on my dresser: on the left - my wooden jewelry box; a college photo of my mom; my mom's blue jewelry box; and a stack of whatever books I'm reading. On the right - the boxes where I toss my clutter, formerly including my snarled necklaces.
The dresser was $20 at Goodwill and desperately needs to be refinished. It's on my When I Have Free Time list, right under Learn To Sew and Write Memoirs.
While we're up here, would you like to see the rest of my room? Quick, before I fill it with mess again?
Here's my bed:
That's right - Where The Magic Happens. Hee.
The pillows don't usually actually live on the bed, but I made it pretty, just for you.
Here's Peter, awed by the cleanliness:
Here's the opposite corner, and the Dali poster I got in college:
And here is some art from Target, which I affectionally call I See London, I See France:
And here is an arty shot of my bedpost:
There you have it! Now, off to fill it back up with crap.
Happy New Year!
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