on: the 8th of march

it feels weird to be writing about my brother and my father on international women's day, but here we are. 

my brother james died 14 years ago today. he was 46. 

it feels weird to be writing about my brother on the anniversary of his death when i'm the same age he was when he died, but here we are. 

i've managed to keep myself just busy enough lately to not get completely bogged down in sadness when thinking about my father's birthday and the anniversary of his death a week or so apart, the anniversary of my mother's death to start women's history month, james' death date today, and my mother's birthday later this month. this is not a new coping mechanism by any means. sometimes past me makes great decisions and current me is along for the ride until my brain goes "wait, this isn't quite right" and i realize that another birthday/anniversary is coming up or just happened and then i have to feel things.

but this isn't all about me. this is about my brother and my father and how they helped make me the woman that i am. 

it's about how they showed up for the women in their lives so i'd know what to accept and what to call bullshit on. how they showed up for everyone in their lives, really, but particularly the women they loved. they loved out loud, if not always in words then by actions, even when some of it seemed contradictory. never did i ever have to wonder if they loved me, even if we didn't verbalize it. i kinda wish we'd said it more, but here we are. 

if you've ever seen my work ethic and determination in action, blame them. if you've ever wondered how or why i go so hard for the people i love? that's all them. the mentality of "everybody eats" or "if i got it, you got it" or however else you want to define it? yup, that's them.

it feels weird to be smiling through my tears while writing this, but here we are. 

i'm here because they were there for me. i hope i can keep being there for me and mine like they were for theirs. 💜

on: grace and grief

as i mentioned previously, i ordered a copy of my mother's death certificate a few weeks ago. it arrived today. i opened it knowing that i didn't really have any set expectations. i didn't think i would learn anything new about how or when she died. my memory of being told of her death is still quite vivid and i'm kinda tearing up just thinking about it.

i also remember being told at some point that she'd had a heart attack. this is what i told people for years because it's what i had been told. i think i was in high school when my father told me that while yes, she'd had a heart attack, it was really the cancer that killed her. i think we were in the car on a road trip, maybe. i just remember sitting there stunned because up to that point, no one had mentioned cancer and if they had, i shut it down with "no, it was a heart attack" because again, that's what i had been told. 

i thought about that while i read the death certificate. sure enough, it basically said that she died of a heart attack and she had cancer. none of this is/was surprising to me. what i found noteworthy, though, was being able to forgive my family for...i don't know...softening the truth a bit. i mean, no 7 year old should have to figure out what cancer means and why it took away someone they loved. all i knew is that my mother was sick and had been in and out of the hospital and then one day i came home after school and she was gone. 

like, current me can appreciate the fact that my father and everyone else let me continue making imaginary food to feed her. here, have this invisible soup. or a slice of make-believe cake. my father would request rabbit stew and i wish i could remember how/why that became a running joke - maybe i had a stuffed toy rabbit - and so i'd make imaginary rabbit stew. sure, why not?

as dysfunctional as my family was/is, they somehow managed to keep things relatively "normal" for me during that time. i still went to school and went to my best friend's house after school, which was convenient not only because our mothers were good friends, but also because we lived on the same block. my father still had to go to work every day, as did my brothers, and then come home and take care of my mother and me. i don't know how they did it. 

hence the extension of grace while reading my mother's death certificate. i'm choosing to believe that they did the best they could with what they had. maybe they needed to believe it was "only" a heart attack (and by no means am i trivializing the severity of heart attacks) in order to wade through their grief and, by extension, help me manage my own. i'm going to believe that there was no malicious intent behind them not disclosing her cancer. i'm ok with thinking that my father was waiting until he knew i could handle it before telling me. 

it's still #fuckcancer forever and always, amen. 

88 and/or grief hitting differently during a pandemic

my father would've been 88 today. i'm not entirely convinced he would've lived to 88, given his health issues and, y'know, systemic racism, but part of me likes to think he would've made it. i would've liked to see how our relationship continued to progress once i finished college. there was a definite shift once i turned 18 from "this is how i'm raising you" to "this is how i raised you" even though i was still under his roof and therefore following his rules. i can only wonder.

his birthday kinda snuck up on me this year. february into late march tends to be my annual time of blah due to birthdays and death anniversaries of people i love. i've been feeling anxious and sad and depressed but didn't think too much about it because, um, hi, we're still navigating our way through a pandemic. 

i have to remind myself (and my therapist has to remind me) that it's ok to be tired. to give myself grace. to feel whatever i'm feeling in the moment and do what's best for me. the degree of difficulty in doing that right now has definitely increased by...a lot. a metric fuck-ton, even. 

one thing that struck me last night is that i am usually super busy this time of year with concerts and plays and dance performances and museum visits and other social activities, all of which help me keep my mind off things and therefore lessen my desire/need to curl up into a ball and cry. can't really do that these days. on one hand, yay for having more time to sit with my feelings. on the other hand, ugh, more time to sit with my feelings. yes, i know virtual performances and events are options and yes, i've been taking advantage of those when/where i can, but we all know it's not the same. i'm actually signed up for a virtual talk this evening, with another tentatively penciled in for right after work, but i just want to go to bed. i'm sleepy and tired and exhausted and i'm having lots of feelings and leaving the house to do other things isn't the best option right now b/c cold and snow and covid. 

another thing that struck me last night? i don't have a copy of my mother's death certificate. i have my father's and i have one for james because i needed them for life insurance cash-out purposes back when i was (unsuccessfully) trying not to get evicted, but i don't have one for my mother. i guess i never needed it. i ordered a copy earlier because why not just lean into the morbid feelings when you've been crying off and on all morning? ugh, zero stars, do not recommend. 

we can all agree that grieving during a pandemic can and does look a bit differently than "usual." i know i've had conversations about how our coping mechanisms can only go so far b/c we can't gather together or travel or whatever like we used to. very few of us enjoy going to funerals, but not having the option to have a traditional service? it sucks. i reread what i wrote about grief in 2018 and while it's still true, it's also different. can't really meet your friends for drinks and food and hugs and conversation these days. i mean, i suppose you could if you and said friends are willing to take that risk and mask up and be socially distanced...which basically rules out hugs. sigh. 

it just occurred to me that pulaski day is on march 1 this year. march 1 is also the anniversary of my mother's death. luckily i have that day off b/c pulaski day is one of my favorite random holidays and thankfully i have enough vacation time to make that happen. luckily i made a reservation at the bar for that evening earlier this week. nice job, past me. way to be considerate!

so, yeah. grief is palpable and constant and i don't really have any advice or comforting thoughts right now, aside from muddle through it as best as you can. that's what i'm doing today. also today is national drink wine day so if that's something you're able and willing to do, feel free. i'll probably open a bottle as well. cheers. 

holy crap it's august

seriously. august. how? when? what? 

this week in adulting so far:

• monday - got my latest breast mri results back and all is well

• tuesday - finally rescheduled my fibroid surgery (which was supposed to happen in june but, y'know, pandemic) for late october. managed not to throw up from nerves after i finished that phone call.

• today - james would've been 58 today. he's been on my mind a lot lately which makes sense, given the whole birthday thing, and i'm glad that i still have so many great memories. gonna treat myself to bacon burgers and a virtual whiskey tasting later, not necessarily in his honor, but because i deserve nice things and james would support me on this.

in other news, bourbon women's annual conference is going virtual this year. you should register. it's free! it's next week! i know the "curated for women, by women" tagline may be problematic for some folks, and i wish it was a more inclusive slogan, but please know that everyone 21+ is welcome. well, as long as you're not an raging asshole. you can stay away. life is stressful enough, especially right now. no one wants or needs that energy.

hope y'all are staying as safe and healthy as possible. love y'all. mean it. 💜

on: 43

barring any technical difficulties, this post will go live on my 43rd birthday. happy birthday to me! this was another year of me not planning any major activities, primarily because i didn't really have the energy to deal with the logistics of a group outing. my calendar has been booked pretty solid the past few months and it's nice to not have to do all of the things. hell, i spent the first few days of this year's birthday vacation running errands and going to doctor's appointments. i'm trying to be better about taking breaks so i don't wear myself down/out. 

i'm also trying to be better about acknowledging and being thankful for progress, despite the current state of affairs...well, everywhere. also it's the end of the decade and if you've been around for a while, then you know how tumultuous the past decade has been. it's not bragging to say that i've come a long way. my therapist caught me trying to underplay my accomplishments and they rightly called me out. it's totally ok to be pleased with progress while still pondering potential improvements. it's also ok to be pleased with how i'm feeling right now without needing to achieve more. 

it's already been 2 years since i moved into this apartment. i honestly don't know where the time went. bills are paid and i have copious food and beverage options handy. work has been bonkers lately but i can't control any of it, so i'm trying to ride it out and see what happens. it's great to even have that option. it's also great to have my circle of friends and family grow even stronger over time. 

what's next? good question. definitely continued shenanigans and fuckery with my friends. hopefully weeping with joy and not abject sorrow on election night. i'll likely be having another surgery to deal with my fibroids. i'll still be involved with bourbon women chicago, so if you're 21+ and want to learn more about bourbon, you should join now so you're ready for 2020. (memberships also make great gifts!) (also don't let the "women" part deter you - there are men in our group. if you identify otherwise, you are still and always welcome.) 

what else? i dunno. my therapist asked if i was going to make resolutions for 2020. i said i usually don't make resolutions so much as i try to keep moving in a positive direction. that obviously means something different for everyone, so your mileage will definitely vary. 

but first, i am going to celebrate my birthday. and yes, the celebration will continue through mlk day because why not? i deserve nice things occasionally. 😀

on: toni morrison

and she was loved. 

lord knows i wasn't planning on my first "serious" post in months being about toni morrison's passing, but here we are. i saw the toni morrison documentary a few weeks ago and fell in love with her artistry all over again. not that i'd ever fallen out of love with her work, mind you. y'know how sometimes you're reminded of how incredibly awesome one of your favorite artists is and you realize that yes, you must continue to stan? it was one of those moments.

and she was loved.

a friend texted me this morning to check on me because they'd heard the news and knew i'd be upset. i hadn't actually seen or heard anything until i checked twitter after that text and i totally cried on the bus en route to work. i texted another friend to check in on them because i knew they'd be just as, if not more, devastated as i was in that moment. then i got to thinking about my circle of friends and twitter and how we check in on each other whenever things like this happen and i was kinda ok for a bit. i have a postcard of this 1974 image of toni morrison posted on my cube wall and it made me smile even though seeing it made me teary all over again.

and she was loved. 

then i got to thinking about her books on my shelf, including this recent find, and i cackled because what the hell else could i do in that moment? seriously, if y'all knew how much i paid for that first edition, you'd cackle right along with me.

and she was loved.

"paradise" came out during my senior year at northwestern. i remember sitting in the suite (o hai 2-red!) literally yelling at the book because it wasn't making sense to me. i was no stranger to toni morrison's work at that point, but this book was giving me fits. i was spending hours on sentences and paragraphs when, if left to my own devices and time and life permitting, i could finish reading a novel in a matter of hours. to be honest, i'm still not sure i understood all of "paradise." i remember wanting cliffsnotes for the book because i just knew that i was missing something. but that was part of the joy of toni morrison's writing - she could draw you in and keep you there even though you knew good and well that you were out of your league.

and she was loved.

toni morrison really was loved, y'all. by me and by so many others. i hope she knew just how much we loved her. appreciated her. owed so much of our reading and writing lives and habits to her.

and she was loved.

recipe review: soft green beans

saw this soft green beans recipe in the latest issue of eating well and decided to try it out as part of my meal prep.

i used 1 large yellow onion and a little less than 1/4 teaspoon of cayenne pepper. me being me, i used 3-4 cloves of garlic that i minced instead of slicing. omg y'all. the aroma of onions, garlic, and cayenne was amazing before i even added the broth and the green beans. i decided not to reduce the liquid that remained after the cooking time, since there wasn't much left and i wanted to keep the beans moist for future servings.

i would totally make this again. it kinda reminded me of the green beans i ate when i was a kid - tender if not damn near overcooked, but still delicious.

on: finding god in myself and loving her fiercely

the world continues to be a constant cycle of clusterfucks. i saw the news about the pittsburgh synagogue massacre as i was on my way to the northwestern game and had to make an active decision to not dwell on it because i knew i probably wouldn't be able to keep it together. i still haven't read more than a few brief pieces about it because, well, i know me and i know that i can't really process all of it yet. it still breaks my heart and my spirit when places of refuge are violated.

then i saw the news about ntozake shange's death. i'm not exaggerating when i say that "for colored girls who have considered suicide when the rainbow is enuf" has had a tremendous impact on me. i think i first discovered "for colored girls" my freshman year at northwestern. by sophomore year, i'd auditioned for a role in a production being staged by the african-american theatre ensemble (aate) on campus. i didn't get it, but still managed to be involved by helping out with publicity. i can't remember if it was junior or senior year (or possibly both) when aate's coffeehouse/staged reading series included excerpts from "for colored girls." we didn't need scripts during rehearsals because we all had copies of the book.

what i do remember are some of the conversations i had with other black female undergrads as we red and re-read and memorized and identified with the words and themes in shange's work. it kinda knocked us out that something that was originally produced before many of us were born still resonated so deeply. that we could see ourselves so clearly. that we could, as shange's characters did, find god in ourselves and love her fiercely.

i can't tell you the number of times i've riffed on the title of "for colored girls." how many times i've gone back to read the choreopoem. how eager i was when shange released new work. hell, the only tyler perry movie i have ever watched was his adaptation of "for colored girls," because i was hoping that shange's words would transcend whatever trepidation i had about perry's artistic abilities. (narrator: this did not happen.)

suffice it to say that the news of shange's death hit me hard. i hope she knew how influential she was to oh so many of us.

thank you for singing a black girl's song, ntozake. we love you fiercely. rest well.

on: saying goodbye to the end of an era

bishop tears is dead. 1st c. will never be the same. carol and her sisters lost their father. carol has now lost her father and her husband in a nine-year span.

i tweeted a mini thread when bishop died. i don't think i can say it any better than i did there.

i still can't believe he's gone. i'm glad he's no longer suffering or in pain, but it's still kinda mind-boggling to me that i won't see or hear him live and in person again.

i don't know what's next for the church. i really don't know what's next for carol. i'm hoping to find a way to show my support for her based on what she wants/needs and not what i or anyone else might think is best. sometimes it's hard to get out of my own way and my own head.

if i haven't already thanked you for your condolences/thoughts/prayers/etc., please accept my thanks now. i appreciate it, and you, more than i can say.

seeing anita baker in concert: achievement unlocked

y'all.

it finally happened.

i finally saw anita baker in concert last night. i'd had tickets years ago for one of her shows, but it was cancelled. another tour took place while i was unemployed and could barely keep my phone on, so i had to skip that one.

when this farewell tour was announced, i vowed to keep enough money on hand to buy a ticket because there was no way i was gonna miss out again. funny story: before ravinia's season lineup was released, i kept saying that anita was going to play there. i just knew it somehow. when the schedule came out, i literally shrieked with joy: both because anita was part of the lineup and because my prediction was correct.

i got a little emotional before the concert started last night. i was there with quasi-landlord and another good friend of mine, and we still couldn't believe that this show was happening and we were there.

and then the introduction to "fairy tales" started playing and i burst into tears. i've written previously about my love for anita's compositions album (28 years old tomorrow! i know what i'm gonna listen to at work!) and it just hit me all over again. i found myself missing james, since he was the one who introduced me to the album. "fairy tales" is one of my favorite anita baker songs and i was finally hearing it live and in person for the 1st time. i was hanging out with a couple of people who were lifelines for me during that unemployed and technically homeless stretch, and...i was just so full, y'all. i was happy and sad and thankful and reflective and probably some other emotions i'm forgetting, all at once.

i'm so glad i got to experience this. part of me still can't believe it happened. but it totally happened, and i was there, and it was wonderful.

on: not remembering

i was hanging out with some friends last night and the conversation turned to marvin gaye, which was appropriate, given that yesterday was the anniversary of his death. we were trying to remember how our families reacted to the news of gaye's death, given that we were a bit too young to fully grasp what was happening at the time.

it didn't occur to me right away, but as the night progressed, i realized that the reason i couldn't really remember marvin gaye's death or how anyone around me would have reacted to it was because it would've happened exactly one month after my mother died. 7 year old me probably would've chalked up any crying or sadness as ongoing/residual from the previous month's events. my father would've been focused on figuring out how i was going to get to/from school since his work day started before my school day. i wonder if/how daddy was able to mourn, knowing he still had me and james (who was 21 at the time but still living at home) to be responsible for. if gaye's death would've just been one more thing for him to deal with on top of navigating a new reality that didn't have my mother in it.

to be honest, there's not much i remember after my mother's funeral. i do remember the letter my 2nd grade teacher wrote for our class at the end of the school year - her closing note to me was to have a great summer, work on my math facts, and keep up the good work with my reading. math is still not my strong suit and i have no idea what i did that summer (visits to st. louis and/or mississippi, maybe?), but obviously the reading thing kinda stuck. 😛

so, yeah. i have no idea where i was on april 1, 1984. google says it was a sunday, so i'm sure i went to church that morning, but i could not tell you how the rest of the day went. i wonder if james and/or daddy took a few minutes to mourn in private so i wouldn't see them sad or upset or ask them to explain yet another death. i wonder if they would've even felt comfortable enough doing so. i'd like to think so, but who knows?

on: grieving however tf you want

(originally written around 3pm today)

grief has been on my mind a lot lately. makes sense, given that this is the time of year when i go knee-deep into my feels because 4 of my favorite people died in february and march. today is actually the 21st anniversary of my father's death and i'm not really sure how i'm upright and functioning right now, tbh. i have definitely found myself on the verge of tears more than once today for no reason other than i miss my father, and my mother, and my brother, and my play auntie. all of them. fiercely. like, the pain is still kinda raw. surprisingly raw to me, even though i know enough to know that this time of year knocks me on my ass every single time and yet i find myself wanting to just dissolve into a puddle of my own tears and self-pity and bemoan the fact that almost all of the people i would walk through fire for are no longer around.

so, yeah. grief. y'know how people say that there's only one way to grieve and there's a distinct time period in which you're allowed to grieve. THAT IS BULLSHIT. it is complete and utter bullshit and i find myself getting riled up every time someone says it because it is so fucking false. we're all human, yes, but that does not mean that we're all wired to mourn and grieve the same exact way. some folks laugh through their tears because it's all they know how to do in that moment. others go completely silent. others still may hunker down and work and do all of the things in what appears to be a manic frenzy because that's their current coping mechanism. guess what? you and i have no say so whatsofuckingever on how they deal. none.

i really hope that, in my unfortunately long experience as a grief expert of sorts, i haven't inadvertently made y'all feel even worse than you already do by telling you that there's only one way to mourn someone or something. you are entitled to feel, or not feel, whatever you feel or not fell. everyone is different. every circumstance is different.

some examples for you. we held a wake for james the evening before his funeral. i don't remember crying much there, but i do remember marvin sapp's "never would've made it" coming on and carol and i, while involved in separate conversations, both calling for someone to turn that song off because we just couldn't handle it in that moment. after the wake, i met up with some friends at south loop club, where y'all had come through with balloons and brownies to help me feel better and i'm pretty sure a round of shots was involved. ok, possibly probably multiple rounds of shots, but you get my point. how dare i be out with friends knowing that i had to bury my brother the next day? what kind of mourning is that?

the same kind of mourning that had me hanging out with some of those same friends after james' burial. a friend's parents graciously offered their home as a gathering place, and so i found myself in northwest indiana surrounded by friends. i needed that, and god bless my friends for knowing me well enough to know that i'd need that and for giving me the space and ability to make that happen without having to vocalize it or organize it because i was not organizing a single solitary thing after all of the funeral preparations, thank you very much.

fast forward from 2009 to 2015. lori's funeral was on a sunday evening. i've written previously about how difficult that service was for me. i remember sitting in the choir stand after the funeral ended, bent over double and sobbing uncontrollably. i may or may not be tearing up as i'm typing this part. did i mention how i've been on the verge of tears off and on all day today? i'd sat in that choir stand next to or near lori for years when i was still an active choir member back in the day, and without asking anyone or saying anything, i decided to sit there during the funeral. it just felt right to me and i regret absolutely nothing about it.

anyway, there i was, seemingly inconsolable. i couldn't have moved in that moment if i wanted to. i remember a few folks just sitting there with me and passing me tissue once i started coming up for air, because they knew how much lori meant to me, to all of us, and that my breakdown was part of my process.

so of course i wound up at pippin's afterwards and drank as much jameson & ginger ale as i could physically tolerate. i don't quite remember how i got home after that, but i do remember one of my bartender boos asking if i wanted a regular sized drink or a "i had a bad day" drink, and me replying that i'd just come from a funeral and therefore i needed the most ginormous drink possible. i may have drank those cocktails from pint glasses that night. one of those drinks had grenadine added by accident because bartender boo wasn't paying attention, and i drank it anyway because feelings are the worst and so what if i was probably dehydrated from crying so much and couldn't remember if i'd actually eaten anything that day? grief does that, you know.

grief does lots of things. lots of different things. daddy died right before finals and therefore i tried to focus on finishing assignments and being ready to take exams once i got back to campus. i was staying with my oldest brother & his family, and i remember hearing him on the phone talking about how i hadn't broken down yet and how worried everyone was because i was, to their eyes, keeping everything on the inside. if you know about my family's dysfunctional tendencies, then it will come as no surprise that i was holding back around certain people because i knew i couldn't trust them to honor or respect my feelings or that they wouldn't know how to deal with whatever i'd decided to share.

no big shock, then, that i fell apart at daddy's grave site. i remember someone from the army presenting james with a flag in honor of daddy's military service. i looked over at james and the tears were just streaming down his face, and i honestly think i blacked out at that point. next thing i knew, i was sitting in a car with lori, appropriately enough, and another one of my aunts, i think, and being told to take some deep breaths. to this day, i don't know how i got from the gravesite and into that car. i don't know how long it took or how far away the car was or how long i was out of commission. i'd ask james or lori about it, but...well.

is it any wonder that i get irrationally angry whenever someone says that you must grieve or mourn a certain way and/or for a certain time period? my mother has been dead for 34 years as of march 1 and if you'd like to tell me that i should be over it by now, please meet me outside so i can fight you we can discuss this like mature adults. sure, there are days/weeks/months when the pain isn't as acute or fresh, but let's not pretend that everything is always puppies and kittens and unicorns and tacos and whiskey. it's not true for me and, if we're honest, it's not really true for any of us.

grief sucks. it's weird and complicated and the rules are ever evolving and changing even though grief itself seems to be a constant in our lives. it feels like it's never going to go away. sometimes it doesn't, really. sometimes, grief just shrinks enough so you can continue trying to live your life the best way you know how, but it's still there and will occasionally tap you on the shoulder like "o hai! let's have a good crying session at a really inopportune time because i'm an asshole!"

grieve however you want. whenever you want. anyone who says you have to get over it within a certain time frame is also invited to meet me outside so i can fight them we can discuss this like mature adults. if you're able to find some joy in the midst of your grief, whether it be enjoying the company of friends or remembering a lighthearted moment or going to a movie or just treating yourself because dammit you still deserve nice things, even better. if you're able, surround yourself with the people and/or things that you think will help you. if you'd rather get through it solo and just update folks when you're able to think coherently long enough to send a text or tweet or email, that works too. the world is going to shit, yes, but some semblance of it will still be around when you get back.

as always, i'm around if you want to talk/cry/scream/vent about or through your mourning, of if you just want some company while you sit silently, or if you want/need me to play enabler and help you eat and/or drink your feelings away, or whatever. selfish as it sounds - and maybe this is why people have a hard time dealing with folks who are grieving - this is about you and what you need to get through. it's definitely a "your mileage may vary" situation. what has worked for me may not work for you, and that's ok. you might not know exactly how to feel, or you may feel guilty that you're not feeling enough, and that is also ok. take a deep breath if you're able to, because sometimes breathing is hard when everything hurts and you just want to be still and not feel anything...not that i know anything about that whatsoever. nope, not me. totally well-adjusted and normal over here! 😜

reach out to your support system in whatever form that looks like for you. go online or use social media if it's easier/better than dealing with folks in real life. if anyone comes at you in a malicious way, ask them to meet me outside so i can fight them.

love y'all to the moon and back. keep trying to treat yourself the best way you know how. you deserve nothing less. 💜

85

my father would've been 85 years old today. if you've been around for a while, then you know that his birthday tends to be a rough day for me. hell, this stretch of february through mid-march does a number on me every year, what with all of the death anniversaries and birthdays and accompanying feels. my therapist actually brought it up a couple of sessions ago, and i realized that i'd been so busy and so focused on getting through january (seriously, january was like the longest month ever for a lot of us, right?) that i hadn't even turned my attention to february and march.

but here we are. daddy would've been 85 today. the last time i saw him alive was on this date 21 years ago. holy shit. does that count as a lifetime ago? sometimes it feels like a lifetime ago, and there are other moments where the pain still feels as fresh as i did when i got the call that he was dead.

i try not to dwell on how my life would be different if he was still alive. instead, i wonder if he'd be proud of me. if he'd support the decisions i've made along the way, even if he didn't understand them. i like to think he would. that he'd realize that he gave me the tools to navigate through life and how to adjust when things didn't go quite according to plan.

i hope he knows that. if heaven exists, i hope he knows that he did the best he could and that i'm doing the best i can.

i wish this for all of you, really. that the people you care about - family, parents, friends, role models - know that you are doing the best you can with what you have. and if you don't feel like you're doing the best you can, that's ok, too. doing the work is hard work sometimes, but we keep trying. that's the victory in it, i think: that we keep trying.

3 years later...

lori died 3 years ago today. it still hurts. a lot. so much has changed and so much has happened and not being able to pick up the phone and call her about it sucks. i went back in the archives and reread what i wrote after her funeral and i still stand by it. if heaven exists, i hope auntie lori's there having the best time possible.

my dear miss sharon jones

i haven't been feeling 100% lately. i've been in and out of migraine hell since friday, and my brain keeps doing that thing where i have ALL OF THE THOUGHTS about subjects that i don't really need to ponder all that much and then i can't focus on what really needs my attention. this morning, i woke up out of a nightmare around 5am and felt another headache coming on. if that wasn't bad enough, said nightmare sent me down a mental rabbit hole of things that happened back when i was in high school and led to a slew of anti-epiphanies. this is not an optimal way to start a morning, let me tell you. i really could've used that time to sleep, instead of tossing and turning and trying to get my brain to settle down.

needless to say, being at work today was challenging, especially since i have a giant project going into production tomorrow and therefore it's been a lot of emails and calls and IMs and feeling like i'm juggling 5011 balls in the air while simultaneously herding 5011 cats.

i got back to my desk after a meeting this morning and decided to catch up on instagram before i settled back into work. this post about sharon jones' forthcoming album broke me. i didn't actually cry at my desk, but i came pretty damn close. i did the math on the release date and realized the album will be out right before thanksgiving, which means i can spend the holiday eating and drinking my feelings with this as my soundtrack. is it weird that i'm looking forward to having time off around thanksgiving because i may just decide to veg out the whole time? no? good.

once a wildcat...?

i graduated from northwestern almost 20 years ago (holy shit i am the old) and while i always tell people that if i had it to do all over again, i'd go back to nu in a heartbeat, there are still some things that bugged me and continue to bug me about the school/administration/environment. enrollment and retention of minority and traditionally underrepresented populations has improved marginally over time, but i can still remember being downright giddy when a freshman class had 10% black people because omg we'd broken double-digits. (told y'all i was old.)

i still subscribe to the nu alumni newsletter/magazine and attempt to at least skim the alumni emails that land in my inbox. there was part of a note i received today that piqued my interest, so i followed the link and read about a new homecoming tradition at my alma mater.

instead of electing a traditional homecoming king and queen, there will be a single homecoming wildcat. it sounds kinda cheesy, i know, but this is what really sold me:

"The 12-person Homecoming Royalty Court formerly included six men and six women; the 12 top candidates will now be selected regardless of gender."

i will be the first to admit that i did not have the understanding or vocabulary to knowledgeably discuss gender identity some 20-something years ago, so as much as current me would like to be all "y'all should've done this way before now," i can't honestly say that because such a thought probably wouldn't have even occurred to me back then.

but here we are, in the year of our lord and savior black jesus 2017, and i am proud of northwestern for making a step in the right direction. here's to being a wildcat.

so this is august...

today is august 1st.

i am 10 days away from having an mri exam on my breasts. please don't panic (because i'm doing enough of that for all of us, trust me) - i have not detected anything amiss, nor have my doctors, but given my family history and risk factors, we all want to err on the side of caution. also i want to do it while i still have employer-provided insurance because god only knows what's going to happen with that.

after i made the appointment for the exam, i called quasi-landlord to ask if i could crash with her the night before so she could drive me to the hospital, because i realized that worry about the logistics wasn't something i really wanted to deal with. i also asked the staff to prescribe some sort of anti-anxiety meds for the exam because we all know my hospital phobia is real as fuck and no one wants me freaking the fuck out. also the exam is supposed to take 45 minutes (heh) and there's no way i'm going to be calm and still for that long in that setting. q-l says we can go have breakfast afterwards because she knows i won't be hungry beforehand and the meds will have me loopy enough to need something on my stomach.

let's talk about how proud i am of myself for 1) remembering to make the appointment in the first place and 2) reaching out to q-l for help. y'all know how forgetful i can be. i can also be stubborn as hell and feel as though i can do everything by my damn self and then i'm wondering why i'm so fucking tired and anxious and depressed. sometimes you gotta outsource some shit.

so, yeah. i haven't said much about the exam even though it's been on my calendar for damn near a month. i am actively trying (and failing) to panic as the date gets closer. i am super duper vigilant about breast self-exams and i've already had 2 mammograms this year, thanks to the first set of results being inconclusive. that was fun, let me tell you. i know in my heart of hearts that there is nothing wrong and that there should be no surprises when the exam results come back. this is not just me being ridiculously optimistic. i really do believe this.

and yet, my brain works in mysterious ways and sometimes it likes to overthink things and panic when there is no logical reason to do so. it's a blast. if, heaven forbid, something goes wrong, i know that i can pull together some semblance of a plan and go forward after i have my initial "omg wtf is even happening right now" breakdown. that's what i do. i freak out for a minute (hour, day, month, whatever) and then i get back to work. sometimes, though, my brain doesn't allow me to work through things in a sensible way and i wake up in the middle of the night unable to breathe because "what if they find something?" i am a goddamn ray of sunshine in those moments.

this month is also momentous for me because james would have been 55 this year and that is totally and completely fucking with me. sometimes i forget that he was only 46 when he died. when i'm really committed to wallowing in self-pity, i rage about how fucking unfair it is that he died so goddamn young and how dare he be taken from me and carol and everyone else who loved him when it's so obvious that we still need(ed) him around? if i allow myself to be honest outside of my therapy sessions, i can acknowledge how selfish i'm being and how i obviously had no control over when/how my brother was going to die and of course none of it is my fault. then i start feeling like a big bay because i miss him so much still that, again, if i allow myself to be open and honest about it, it physically feels like a part of me is missing. like there's a hole in my chest that can't be repaired. it stinks. i don't like it.

i was all set to get a tattoo (both daddy and james had the same first and middle initials, which made my decision easier) on what would've been on james' 55th birthday this year, until i realized it's the day before my friends' wedding. the tattoo will happen before the year is out, though. it's the only remaining item on my original "get your shit together" list. you may recall that the other items on the list were paying off my eviction, having fibroid surgery, and moving into my own place. all of those boxes have been checked and unpacked. i will somehow power through my dislike of needles and get this tattoo on at least one area of my body.

james would have been 55 and lori would have been 56 this year. did i mention how much this sucks? because it really does. of course their birthdays are a day apart because god in his infinite wisdom wanted to make sure that i could suffer in concentrated chunks of time vs. spreading that shit out. i'm ok with that part, actually. i tried explaining this to my therapist during my annual february/march doldrums and i'm sure she thought i was protesting too much at first, but when i broke down the schedule of dates and how/why they have such an impact on me, i think she came around.

my mri exam is on lori's birthday, which is the day before james' birthday. my friends' wedding is two days after the mri exam. i didn't have the birthdays in mind when i scheduled the exam but i was thinking of the wedding, since i was already taking that monday off as a recovery day (because drinking), so i figured i might as well get an extra long weekend out of it.

with that said, my current approach to this month is to make it to this wedding without completely losing my shit. if i survive the next, oh, 2 weeks or so, then i should be able to get through the rest of august relatively unscathed. hopefully. *knocks on wood* *crosses fingers* *prays to saints* *lights candles*

on: not losing recipes

i spent a good chunk of today going through my paper recipe files. i currently have three large binders filled with recipes that i've clipped or printed or typed up. before today, i hadn't really looked at those binders since 2011. i'd been accumulating recipes since then in a couple of overflowing manila folders (and on my laptop, but let's not discuss that right now), so i decided it was time to file those away while reviewing ones i'd previously saved.

it was interesting to me to see how my taste have changed and/or evolved over time. i wound up tossing dozens, if not closer to a hundred or more, of previously saved recipes into my recycling bin. there were dishes that i knew good and well i'd probably never get around to trying. dishes that had ingredients that i don't like and couldn't easily substitute for something else. dishes that probably sounded good to past me, but current me was like "um, no thank you." dishes i'm not really sure why i saved them in the first place and since i'm in no danger of running out of ideas, away they went.

i found a couple of recipes that i'd made from memory just in the past couple of days, including a sauce i used for my crockpot ribs today, and some other old favorites that were relatively heavy in my rotation. i'm actually kinda excited about revisiting some of them and trying out some new ones, all the while hoping that i get the knack of this electric stove sooner vs. later.

on: the lord's prayer

*blows dust off of blog login credentials*

o hai hey hello wassup y'all? 👋

i took a lyft home from the bar tonight, as i do almost every sunday evening. yes, i went to the bar on easter sunday. #sundayfunday is part of my routine and since my therapist said that going out is good for my self-care, i see no reason to deviate from this.

so i'm riding along in my lyft (with a quiet driver, black jesus be praised) and all of a sudden, the lord's prayer pops into my head. not just the "standard" version that you may have been taught at church and/or can still recite from memory. i mean more like this.

i've not sang in a church choir on a regular basis since 1994, and yet i found myself softly humming this version for the rest of my ride home. if you think my falsetto during karaoke is ridiculous, you should've heard me in high school. some of my fellow sopranos and i would grab on to each other or hold hands to help each other reach for those high notes. there was a reunion concert at 1st c. back in late january and during rehearsal, some of us found ourselves falling right back into that same habit of holding on to each other so we could try to hit those seemingly impossible notes.

i wish i could tell you how or why this song came to me. my ride wasn't particular arduous and i don't recall anything else happening along the way that would've necessitated a prayer or otherwise going to church as the case may be. maybe i was just feeling a bit nostalgic since i didn't go to church today. maybe i was thinking about recent events in cleveland and other places and the ongoing fubar-ness that is the current administration and the universe decided this was a song i needed to revisit for the first time in god only knows how long.

may we all feel that our prayers and/or the desires of our hearts be received and understood, even if they do not immediately come to pass. amen.

"now if i give you the funk, you gon' take it..."

saw a documentary about parliament funkadelic recently. some former band members were present for a q&a session after the screening. i felt bad because holy shit there is still a lot of righteous and totally justified anger there. i think a couple of them are coping/dealing better than others, but the tension was palpable.

also, i learned that p-funk's "give up the funk" borrowed heavily from david bowie's "fame,' which i hadn't really considered previously but it makes perfect sense. i don't know how i failed to make that connection before but now i can't stop listening to them back-to-back. it reminds me of how i reacted when sjb told me that cee-lo's "bright lights bigger city" and michael jackson's "billie jean" are sorta kinda the same song. i actually have a playlist that's nothing but those two songs and i still listen to it occasionally and my mind is blown all over again.

i left the q&a before it ended because the aforementioned tension was getting to be too much and the folks in the audience giving monologues or soliloquies instead of just asking their question and shutting the fuck up were pissing me off. i wish james had been able to see it, though. did i mention that this screening was on what would have been james' 54th birthday? i think he would've dug it.