Biting My Tongue at Easter

I love my family. I really do. Not just because I have to, or because I've known them longer than anyone else. Well, partly because of that, but I also love them individually for the people they are. They are kind and loving people, and have good intentions toward each other and the people in their worlds.

That said, I've always been a bit of an odd duck in my immediate family. I was the teenager who bleached my hair and dyed it with Manic Panic, and collected tattoos and body piercings. Then, I was the young adult who started getting all these crazy ideas about social and economic inequalities, and all the little elements from quotidian life that supported such inequalities. Everything from the racist subtext of Disney movies to the sexist assumptions behind cliche relationship dynamics was increasingly interesting to me, and I couldn't help but point out these things at family gatherings. My intent was always to inspire discussion, but it always ended up devolving into a family chuckle about how I was just being contrarian and nitpicky, like always.

That's fine, I guess. I know that I tend to read into everything more than others may feel comfortable or interested enough to do. I know that my doing so can be exhausting to others (hell, it exhausts me sometimes), and that there's value in just enjoying each other's company and shooting the breeze on some superficial level, without having to excavate the conversation for the ideologies beneath. I also know that this tendency of mine earns me the distinction of being the "weird" aunt/sister/daughter, which I would wear as a badge of honor, except that it can be quite alienating in practice.

Still, I can't help but be uncomfortable remaining silent when my brother in law's mother pokes fun of him in front of me and my own mom, as he is working in the kitchen with great effort and skill to prepare Easter dinner for his family. I can't laugh along as she jokes with me about men's lack of domestic skills, and I politely point out that gender alone has far less to do with domestic prowess than practice does.

I squirm in my seat when my 19 year old nephew, fresh out of Marine Corps training, tells a story about how he was stopped at a suburban shopping mall this week by a security officer who thought he  was under 16, and thus in violation of the mall curfew policy. The security officer wouldn't accept his military identification as sufficient proof. "I just hate it when people have no respect for the military," my nephew complains loudly to us, and I shoot my husbutch a look that betrays my irritation. I say, "What -- did you want him to salute you?" and my mom elbows me from beside me on the couch. "Don't start," she says under her breath, but it doesn't matter. My nephew is still barking his indignation, and he doesn't hear me.

After dinner, several people are eating pie, when my sister, who has been holding her newborn baby for most of the last few hours, says to the room: "My husband didn't offer to bring me any pie." When my other sister gets up and offers to bring her some, she says: "No. I want him to feel guilty." At that point, I just can't anymore. I get up and quickly move to another room before I start calling out the meanness behind her banter, and how her attempt to exercise power in this way undermines genuine and mutually respectful relationships between men and women.

None of the comments in these scenarios were intended to be explicitly political, but they are nonetheless. The things we say, the way we treat each other, all matter. It is a reflection of our general approach to social issues and other people. Even casual comments or jokes that support stereotypes and social divisions have impact. In a sense, this banter has even more impact than an overt discussion of politics, because it is so easily trivialized and brushed off as meaningless.

Now, I'm not saying that we should censor ourselves in conversation with our friends and family in an attempt to achieve some kind of artificial political correctness. This is disingenuous and misses the point. I simply think that as a whole, we should be more open to examining the beliefs behind our words, the ideas behind our beliefs. This kind of conversation, especially when held among people with whom we are comfortable, helps us to become more thoughtful and introspective. It doesn't have to be contentious, and there doesn't have to be a winner. If we can figure out how to challenge each other and even disagree in the end without fighting and hurting feelings, how much would we all learn in the process?

I'll be the first to admit that I wasn't very successful on this front at last week's Easter gathering. I mostly bit my tongue and rolled my eyes. If anything, I probably came off as self-righteous and judgy. Maybe somebody should have called me out on it.

Here Come the Waterworks

I can always tell it's a therapy day because my eyes are still sore. I go every couple of weeks with my husbutch, to create a space where we can work on the things that we've decided we need help with: navigating parenting issues, staying emotionally connected as partners, communicating more effectively. Invariably I cry during therapy. I don't always know why, and I'm always trying to hold it back. Why? Because as soon as I let it happen, whatever we were talking about gets sidetracked, and the attention shifts to my tears. Why am I crying? Clearly there is something bothering me. What is it?

When I was around 12 years old, I remember being in family therapy. I don't remember why, exactly, and I don't recall what we discussed, but one memory is particularly salient to me. Once I asked my mom if I could see the therapist by myself, as I felt like I needed help sorting out my own feelings. The therapist and I sat in a room alone, and I remember her asking me questions about school and what I wanted to see her about. At some point I started crying, unable to hold it back or put into words what was making me cry. The therapist asked me questions to try to get to the source of it, but I had no words. All of my energy was going into trying to hold back the tears, afraid that if I started talking, I would cry even harder. Eventually, having gotten nowhere, the therapist ended the session by saying something to the effect of: "Come back when you are ready to talk." I never saw her individually again.

I cry easily, and not just when I'm sad. I cry when I'm angry, or frustrated, or sick. I cry when someone tells me about something powerful, or when I see people yell at their kids. I cry when I think about something terrible happening somewhere, even if it doesn't involve me. I cry when I witness childbirth, or a moving expression of love. I cry before my period starts, overcome with the feeling that nothing is right or will ever be right in the world.

What is the big deal about crying? Why does it make me feel so uncomfortable to cry in front of others? It doesn't feel good to hold it back. As I've told my nine year old daughter (who struggles with articulating emotions), crying is like pooping. It's normal and it's healthy. When you have to do it, the best thing is to do it. You can hold it inside, but that will make you feel bottled up and probably a little sick. Recently, a friend put it more elegantly when she said that crying "is a way to bleed out the things that pollute the heart."

Yet, I do hold it back. When I cry, I suddenly lose credibility and strength in the eyes of others. I appear to be irrational, overcome with emotion, and anything I say gets a little lost in translation. My crying itself becomes a problem that needs to be solved. It creates discomfort in others, who either feel the need to "make it better" somehow, or distance themselves from it (usually this happens figuratively, by them "checking out" of the conversation somehow, as it's rather impolite to run from a crying person). Either way my words aren't heard, which is especially frustrating when I'm crying because I've become discouraged or angry while trying to communicate my point.

And, it's frustrating during therapy, for the same reasons. Yes, I know that part of the point of therapy is to explore one's feelings more deeply. When I cry, it probably seems like a perfect opportunity to turn the crying into the focal point, in an effort to excavate and find the source of the pain. But it usually happens when I'm in the middle of talking about something, and I simply feel strongly about it. I would prefer everybody to just ignore my crying and listen to what I'm saying.

My husbutch has gotten a lot better at this. It used to freak her out when I cried, either because she didn't know why I was crying, or didn't know how to fix it. She has come to realize that my crying is not a problem to be solved, and has become better at just being present when it happens. Just listening, or just holding me. Sometimes I just need to cry.

I am grateful for this safe space within my relationship. I am also well aware that my femaleness affords to me the luxury of crying in the first place, within the bounds of socially acceptable behavior.  It pains me to see this right to cry assaulted in our boys and men, though it is getting better. It does make me wonder, though, how different the world would be if we all felt free to cry when we needed, as acceptable as laughter. I think we would feel a little less constipated.

Love motivates us more than fear.

Note: The essay below is my submission this year to the Great American Think Off, held every year in New York Mills, MN. This year's philosophical question up for debate is: Which motivates us more, love or fear? As I always do, I chose love.

I spent almost a decade of my life with an alcoholic man. I knew it early, but by the time it really sunk in, I was already in too deep. During that time, my life was on pause. As the partner (and later, wife) of an alcoholic, my role was clear, and it centered around him. I paid all of our bills. I bailed him out of jail, pawning our possessions to get the money. I helped him through treatment. I visited him in prison. I cleaned up his puke in the living room. I searched for empty bottles every night after work. I paid bar tabs in the middle of the night when he was belligerent and out of money. I called the cops on him, and called hospitals and jails when I didn’t know where he was. I lied to my family about how bad it was.

At the time, I did all this under the misperception that I was driven by love. Looking back now, I realize that I was stuck. I didn’t actually DO anything during that almost-decade of my life. I maintained, enabled, treaded water. I lived in a constant state of tension that can only be described as fear. I was always afraid he would start drinking, and when he did, I was afraid he would steal my money or get arrested. I was afraid to leave him, because I was afraid he would fall apart if I did. I felt like I was the one holding everything together, holding him together, and that if I didn’t stay exactly where I was, everything would collapse. Of course I cared for him, and I wanted him to get sober. I wanted it for his and my own happiness, but I can’t say that my decision to stay in the relationship despite the ongoing harm done to both of us was an act of love. It was an act of fear.

Fear paralyzes us; love moves us.

Six years in, I gave birth to my daughter. For the first several months of her life my husband didn’t drink, but I was afraid that he would. Eventually he did, and my fears magnified. I still had to go to work every day, and he was at home with our daughter. While away from home, I constantly worried about whether my husband was drinking. Was he feeding her and putting her down for naps at the right times? Was she safe? I worked close to home, and sometimes I would show up on my break just to make sure everything was okay. Sometimes I suspected he was drinking and couldn’t find the empty bottle to prove it. My daughter was always okay, but I would return to work no less afraid.

One day I came home to find my husband drunk and passed out on the bed. My one and a half year old daughter was standing in the middle of the living room in her diaper, alone. I will never forget the solemn, blank expression on her face. That was the last time my daughter was left in my husband’s custody, and I put her in daycare with money I didn’t think I had.

I wish I could say that was the day I left him for good, but that was still a few months away. What finally made me leave was falling in love with a woman I worked with. Though she didn’t end up being “the one,” my love for her helped me see new possibilities for myself. It made me realize how important it was to be happy, and that I could only control my own life.

This fact alone freed me from the fear that I was the only thing propping up my husband. Fear had kept me there, but leaving him was an act of love. Love for my daughter, who I knew needed stability and comfort to thrive. Love for myself, in my decision to reinstate myself as the steward of my own happiness. Love for my husband, even, who was not prevailing in his struggle with alcoholism, and perhaps needed the opportunity to find his own strength.

Fear is still present, and always will be. I’m afraid of failure, both in my relationships and in my expectations of myself. It doesn’t motivate me, however; it stagnates me. When I let myself become mired in fear, I cease to move. Love helps me find my way out, and keep moving forward.

(Dis)connecting

Last night after my daughter went to bed, I was hanging out with my partner in our bedroom.  This is our daily routine; we retreat to the bedroom like clockwork after bedtime, and usually watch something (a movie or streaming tv show) on the laptop while lying in bed (I know, I know, this is a big no-no according to relationship gurus. Let's set that aside for the moment.).  After we watch our stories, we usually wind down by reading for a bit, and then we turn out the light. Often, instead of or before reading, one of us will interact with our phones (check email, Twitter, Facebook, play a game, etc).  Last night while I was doing just that, my husbutch leaned over and said teasingly to me: "My wife's a Facebook junkie."

My first reaction was pure defensiveness. I pulled back, and said something like: "You don't know that... That's rude... I don't judge your phone time..."  She didn't really respond, and we were still in uneasy silence when we went to sleep.

I was annoyed because I felt judged, and because I felt that she had no right to do so, given that her own attention is frequently attached to her phone as well.  This morning, however, I was still thinking about the exchange, and wondering where my defensiveness was really coming from.  Am I a Facebook junkie? More generally, am I addicted to technology?

I used to be in awe of my ex-girlfriend's sister, who would stay with us occasionally, because she frequently didn't take her phone with her when she left the house.  She would just leave the house without it (and without a purse or any other baggage -- nothing but keys), and not seem to give it a second thought.  She even left her phone turned off for hours at a time.  She was the only person I knew who didn't seem to need her phone or view it as an extension of herself. And while I often teased her incredulously -- how could you not have your phone?? -- I was deeply very jealous of this non-attachment. I knew that if I left the house without my phone, I would feel an underlying anxiety all day, of not knowing what's going on, not being connected.

Ironically, when I don't have my phone, or when I purposefully set it down or turn it off, I notice a lot. I notice other people on their phones as a default activity, from people on the bus to people standing in line. I notice kids talking to their parents, who reply with distant non-responses as they scroll or tap with their thumbs. I notice that everybody seems to have walls up, blocking out the world by occupying their ears, eyes, and fingers with technology. When I quit smoking, one of the hardest things for me was figuring out what to do with myself on break. I used to enjoy going out to smoke on break, partly just to get outside. Smoking was something I could DO outside. Without it, I wondered, what would I do outside? Stare into space? Watch people as they walk by? I found that I could just "be on my phone" during these times, and not feel weird. I was doing something.

Not only does being on the phone make me feel like I'm busy doing something; it also sends the signal to others that I'm not available for conversation or requests. Checking my Facebook feed makes me feel more connected to the truncated lives of the people I know or used to know, and also allows me to be alone in public, protected from the actual presence of strangers. I've been known to pretend to be having a conversation on my phone when in public, in order to avoid other people approaching me. I suspect I'm not the only one who does this.

Avoiding human contact with strangers is different than avoiding it at home with my partner and child, however. I want them both to know that I'm really there when I'm there, and if I'm staring at my phone, I'm not there. Being there means listening with my whole body (as I tell my daughter): making eye contact, being still and present. What would it look like if we all did that, all the time? I try to remember my life not too long ago before I owned a cell phone, and although I had less external distraction back then, I can't say that I was necessarily more present with everybody. There's more to being present than not fiddling with technology. It's about listening without judgment, without thinking about what I'll say next. It's being open to whatever or whoever is in front of me.

This is the heart of what I want in my heart. I feel like it's the answer to any question I have, whether it's about being a better parent, partner, employee, friend, or human. It feels both simple and impossible. Putting down the phone is certainly not the whole of it, but sometimes it's the least I can do.

Now that gay marriage is legal, mine doesn't feel real anymore.

On August 20, 2011, my partner and I were married.

It was a gorgeous event, held at the Peace Gardens in South Minneapolis. We had a group of about 50 friends and family in attendance, arranged in a circle enclosing us. We had a full ceremony, complete with readings, musical performance, handfasting, vows, and a family promise. We exchanged rings, had professional photography, and held a reception afterward where we got so drunk we missed our early honeymoon flight the next morning. We got married.

Sure, not everybody viewed it as a "real" marriage. Sometimes we told people we were married, and they would say, "Oh, where did you get married?"... the implication being that it must have been in another state where gay marriage is legal. "Right here in Minneapolis," we'd reply, and if a little more clarification was needed, we'd explain that though it wasn't "legal," it was most certainly "real." What is a marriage, if it's not about making a public declaration of our love and lifelong commitment to each other? Most of the time, people understood the logic, and that was that.

Gay marriage became legal in Minnesota last May, and the first gay marriages started to happen on August 1. It was an exciting moment in Minnesota, where we pride ourselves on being ahead of the curve on social issues. Minneapolis was recently deemed the "gayest city in America," after all. Newly legal gay marriage was made even more exciting by the Supreme Court's rulings against DOMA and Prop 8. Suddenly, shit was getting REAL in Minnesota, and the rest of the country seems to be, slowly, following in step.

Yay! Gay marriage is finally legal! Yes, there are more important issues, but as Macklemore said, "it's a damn good place to start." Suddenly, all my coupled gay friends who have been together for years were planning their long-overdue weddings, and my single gay friends were half-jokingly posting Facebook statuses about how they were looking for their future spouse. It was a part of the human narrative that was now part of our narrative too.

Except I wasn't ready to celebrate just yet. All this meant that I could be legally married now, too, but after discussing it with my husbutch, that didn't seem like the wisest choice. For one thing, when we married two years ago, we got all the legal paperwork secured that we could, to afford to us as many rights as possible that are automatically granted to straight married couples. We got living wills, health care directives, and powers of attorney. As far as the supposed tax benefit afforded to married couples, this turns out to be low or nonexistent when both parties earn roughly the same amount of money, which is the case for us.

Perhaps most impactful is the fact that if married, my husbutch would have to include my income when reporting her household income for her income-based repayment student loans. You see, her parents are highly conservative, evangelical Tea Party republichristians with lots of money, and didn't help out my husbutch with her post-secondary education at all (due to both her gayness and the fact that she refused to go to a Christian college). So, my husbutch put herself through both college and law school on loans alone, and as you can probably imagine, the total is now gargantuan. She's a solo practice attorney to nonprofits now, not a particularly lucrative area of law, and if she were to report my income as part of hers, her payments would soar to an amount that would put us in the poorhouse.

Just about the only benefits we can see to getting married now are related to the always-present possibility that one of us could die at any moment. If that happened, the other wouldn't have access to the deceased's social security, and would have to pay taxes on the value of our jointly owned house. Yes, those things would be cumbersome and unjust, but neither of us is planning to die soon.

So, it doesn't really make sense to get married, at least not yet. Some day I'm certain we will make it "official." In the meantime, I've had to struggle with suddenly feeling like my marriage isn't a "real" marriage anymore. Before gay marriage is legal, my marriage felt completely real. I wasn't expecting that to change, but our decision not to get legally married right now has made me insecure, like our relationship isn't as committed or loving or permanent as those of our married friends.

Of course I know this isn't true, and  I need only use the logic I've used in the past to "explain" my marriage to people. My husbutch and I have made public vows to each other, and more importantly, we are privately committed to keeping love present in our hearts and home. So when our (usually straight, gay-positive) friends ask us, "when are you getting married?" we can continue to respond with: "we are already married."