I’ve spent all day having my mind slip back to that dream. It’s almost 4 o’clock, and it’s still on my mind. And, I think I figured out what it’s all about.

I’m 29 years old. I turned 29 on July 15 this year. On August 1, I found out that I landed my dream job: Community College Sociology Instructor – FULL TIME, not adjunct anymore. This job comes with a livable salary, health insurance, dental insurance, and vision insurance. Plus a host of other random benefits. These are things I’m not accustomed to. As an adjunct, I got paid about $1400 a course, with no pay f

or the time I spent out of class working. I worked it out one time – it’s around $6 an hour of actual work, even though the posted rate is close to $30 an hour. I have retirement benefits, and a future I can start planning for. PLUS, I have my dream job before age 30. That, in and of itself, caused much anxiety. I barely made it through the interviews because I put so much pressure on myself to be stellar. Not just me, but a stellar version of me that would impress anyone. I threw up a lot. I had diarrhea for WEEKS. I would finally get the anxiety to ease off before bed each night, and then I woke up with a nervous feeling in my tummy before I could even start thinking about the fact that I was nervous. It was that far down in my psyche. It wasn’t going to be shaken. It still isn’t fully shaken. I wake up with that nervous feeling still, and it’s been a few weeks.

But, back to that dream. I’m that baby. The two days before the milk came – those are these days: Before my first paycheck, when we are relying on my mother, who receives unemployment right now and lives with us, to support us financially. That is, until August 31. On August 31, I get my first real paycheck. A half paycheck anyway. The half paycheck is about 3 times what I made last month. It feels a lot like waiting to drown in the milk that’s now pouring out from the universe in the form of money. Having grown up really poor, this feels awkward. I’m sure I’ll choke a few times. It’s also weird to be living in this space where I know I’m “making” enough money to support myself, my partner, and my mother when her unemployment runs out, but I don’t have it yet. I have the tits to feed the baby (the full time job), but those tits are holding back on releasing the milk.

This is where I office.

I don’t know why I felt the need to post about this right now, but this is a huge transition in my life, and it feels good. But it also feels extremely awkward. It’s not often us trailer park kids get our dream jobs, and it’s rarer that those dream jobs are in any form academic. Us “nerds” were so ostracized as children, and not just at school. Middle class “nerdy” kids didn’t get picked on at home because their parents supported their academic achievements and their parents made sure their friends were similar in interests. In the trailer park, nerds like me are few and far between, and our parents don’t have time to carefully choose our friends. We get the friends in our neighborhood. I’m not blaming my mother for the outsider-ness I felt, though. She was too freakin’ poor to worry about who we hung out with on a regular basis. She had to put food on the table. But, the experiences I had certainly make this world feel a bit foreign to me. It also makes having a regular salary that I can count on being there feel really awkward, too.

Yesterday, I went to the James Elbert Hall reunion in Hickory, NC. There were people I knew there. There were interesting tidbits of information floating around the reunion. But, mostly, it was an event where I felt like I was crashing someone else’s party. The wife said she felt like she was the non-Jew crashing the bar mitzvah for the rugeleh. I get that. There were some people there I had never met, and they certainly had interesting stories to tell.

My favorite part was learning that I am descended from a man named Philo Cecratus Hall. Seriously. That’s his real name. My aunt Sylvia remembers him. He was her great-grandfather. She is my great-aunt, sister of my grandfather. When she was a child, she stayed with grandma and grandpa Hall a lot. She and her aunt Helen slept in the room with grandma and grandpa Hall. Philo slept in the next room down. He was an old man who went to bed early. But, after everyone else went to sleep at night, he would wake up, don a sheet, and begin making ghost noises to wake up and scare the shit out of all the children in the house. This is my bloodline. To my imaginary future child, I issue a warning: This will happen to you before you hit puberty. I can’t help myself. For myself, I remember that my mother used to let us watch horror movies when we were young. She’d wait for a really tense moment in the movie when everything is quiet and suspenseful, and then she’d goose us and yell “boo!” I can’t wait to do this to a child. Really.

At the reunion, Lin and I sat at a table with my grandmother (Norma), my aunt (Diedri – mom’s sister), my brother, Clifton, and my aunt Sylvia. The great-aunt, the grandfather’s sister. We were pretty insular during the festivities. But, I saw my babysitter from when I was a child sitting a few tables over. So, during a quiet moment, I found my way over to her table to introduce myself. “You know, I can’t listen to Bon Jovi or the Bangles without thinking about you.” To which Jennifer replied “Me, either.” Hugs abounded. She’s quite fantastic. She has a 16 year old daughter and a 13 year old daughter, both of whom brought their boyfriends to the reunion. So terribly cute.

After eating, there was music. My cousin Robin is married to a preacher named Tom. I don’t know how far out our cousin-ship goes, though. I remember meeting Robin as a child. And her daughter, Amanda. Her son, Josh, was apparently a hellion who has turned his life around and now sings country-ish music about fishing with his grandpa, my great-great-uncle, Bruce. Bruce is married to Maxine. Robin is their daughter, and she looks just like her mother. When I walked into the reunion, Robin was the first person I saw. She said “Hi, Tammy. You look great!” She was not the only person to call me by my mother’s name that day. In our family, daughters look like mothers. Sons look like fathers. It seems to be a rule in our family’s bloodline. Robin’s son, Josh, began to play his guitar, so Lin and I slipped out for a cigarette. Alvin Hall was out there, as was James Miller. I’ve known Alvin all my life, but not well. I’ve seen him at every family funeral since I was young. He was smoking, too. James joined us and said “I finally found the reject crew.” I understood what he meant when he explained that he had been married four times, divorced three, and widowed once. He now has a live-in girlfriend that he dated in high school, and they are raising her 12-year-old grandson. Families, in my bloodline, are not always so easy to figure out. I don’t know James Miller. I’ve never met him before this reunion. But he is part of me somehow. He is a black sheep after my own heart.

I met a man named Ed Hall who came up to our table to speak with my aunt Sylvia. I introduced myself and we began talking. I also introduced Lin to him. With Ed, who is an architect, and lives in Lake Wylie now, I had two long conversations about love, life, and how most people don’t realize their lives are good until it’s too late. He and I bonded over our realizations that love found us at the right time, and recognizing the amazing-ness of it makes each of us feel like we will die tomorrow because it’s too good to last. We admitted to each other that our deepest prayer is that it won’t end so soon.

As we were preparing to leave, a woman came up to us. Her name is Rella Reid. She set my gaydar off instantly. I had never met her in my life. But, she walked up to me and said, “I just wanted to say that I’m really glad your other half is here. Mine would be here, but she is on call.” And suddenly, I was reminded of how ballsy it was of me to take my wife to a family reunion. See, I live in this bubble-world where my partner’s existence and her presence in my life is just a force of nature, like the sun rising or the wind blowing in the mountains. I don’t think about that world of my bloodline. I don’t think about the old folks I haven’t seen in years who remember me as a small child and think of how I might turn out. Queer probably didn’t enter into their images of my future. There aren’t many queers in my bloodline that I know of, at least. If there are, no one talks about it.

I had forgotten a crucial thing about my family: They are still that crew from in and around Bethlehem, NC whose worlds revolve around the garden, the grandchildren, and the guts to do what’s right. Showing up to the reunion with my wife in tow like nothing was different or odd about us must have felt strange to them. At least at first. By the time they actually met Lin and spoke with her, they knew the same thing I know now: The person God put on earth for you can be found, you just have to accept it. I come from a long line of people who got married and stayed married. We sang hymns at our family reunion, which was held at the church I grew up in. I have never heard a more awful rendition of “God be with you til we meet again.” No one was on key. No one knew that particular tune. But, everyone said “tresspasses” during the Lord’s prayer, and the Amens resonated through the fellowship hall.

I guess I learned one important lesson from this family reunion: My bloodline is strong, resilient, and in love with life. I come from this. I happily accept and embrace it.

I can’t, however, ask my students to reveal themselves and open themselves up to transformation without doing the same for them. If we are creating an open atmosphere for learning, then there has to be mutual trust. If I keep that barrier between student and teacher firmly in place with no leakage, then they have no reason to treat this course like anything but another class where they memorize shit and spit it back out. I hated those classes as a student, and I do not want to be that teacher. Of course, having just read Paulo Freire, I’m still on a bit of an idealistic kick. Really, though, this is just me. There’s no point in engaging in any social interaction if we don’t come out on the other side just a little bit different. I teach with this philosophy. I don’t, however, tell my students this up front. Instead, I teach with this in the back of my mind and the front of my mind simultaneously without letting it slip and then watch as transformation unfolds in front of me. It’s absolutely fucking incredible. Whoever said chocolate is amazing has never had a student tell them they learned to think from them. There is no high like that one.

I say all this to go somewhere completely different. But, like always, I felt the need to give some background info. So, on the first day of class, I give them 10 minutes to ask me anything they want and I will answer honestly and, mostly, without hesitation. I, of course, filter myself, but there are ways to reveal enough without revealing too much. However, I find that revealing certain details about my life is important because it’s inspiring to my students. I can be an example of where they can go if they just understand the world around them and understand the obstacles in their paths. On the first day of my social diversity class, one of my students asked me if we could schedule another “open forum” or “ask Porscha time” later in the semester. Tonight, we had that time. The student who asked wanted to know more about me from experiencing my classroom before asking questions, but she wanted to know she could. I think fostering this kind of dialogue in a classroom is amazingly important, so I said yes when she asked. OF course, then I had to open myself up to whatever questions they might ask.

Tonight, I got one I wasn’t ready for. Usually, they ask things that aren’t really important. Tonight, I got one that I had to lie to answer in a way that wouldn’t reveal too much of my own pain and hurt. The student who outed me on the first night of class raised her hand. She said “What’s the hardest thing you’ve ever had to do?”

That’s a really loaded question. I could tell, by the way she asked it, that she expected me to talk about coming out blah blah blah. Honestly, though, that was NOTHING in my life. There are so many other things that have shaped me. So, It old her about having my mother involuntarily committed. That’s one of the hardest things I’ve done. I don’t know if there are levels of hard, so maybe I wasn’t lying. But, it was one I could give that was honest, heartfelt, serious, and relatable.

Then there’s the actual hardest thing I’ve ever done: I told my mom to be happy.

That was a loaded statement. I have developed a relationship with her again. She was going to therapy and getting help for herself, and I made the deal with her that as long as she makes and continues to make good decisions for herself, that I would be a supportive part of her life. That, however, is a loaded promise on my part. I don’t expect her to make the decisions I would make. I just ask that she thinks about her actions before taking them. It’s not a lot to ask of most people, but for someone with a mental illness and an impulsive history, it’s HUGE! I also realized at some point that I have to give her credit for being able to make progress in a good direction for herself, not just the way I define positive progress.

But, back to why that’s loaded and the actual hardest thing I’ve ever had to do.

So, Mom called me to talk about a lot of stuff that’s going down. She, for the first time in almost a year, mentioned her husband, Daniel to me. They’re still married, even though she kicked him out last Thanksgiving. If you read the letter I actually sent and the letter I will never send, then you know that he’s a thorn in my relationship with my mother. I kicked her out of my life because I told her (after 14 years) that he molested me when I was 12, and she left him. For a full year before removing her from my life, I listened to her cry to me about losing him. I listened to her talk about how she missed him and how he was and is her best friend, and never once ask about the emotional crap that slung in my face. So, I reacted like the 12 year old girl who was finally dealing with telling her mother that big secret she’d been living with. That’s the thing about trauma – it marks itself in us like a tree ring, and until we really face it, then that particular part of us is stuck at the time period when it happened.

So, even knowing that this was a source of pain for me, she mentioned him in our conversation. And what was I supposed to do? My immediate response was an “I’m going to vomit” feeling. But that was the 12 year old.

She began to tell me that he had been calling to check on her every day since the last time she was released from the psyc ward. That’s impressive for this guy, actually. He wasn’t that attentive the many years they lived together. He told her it sounded like she needed a vacation and if she wanted, she could come stay in the guest room at his place at the beach and have that vacation. He would even give her gas money to get there. She wants to go. She needs a vacation. But she’s torn. She begins to cry and tells me she doesn’t want to lose me again. She’s going through some serious shit, but in one of those rare moments, she’s thinking like a parent. She’s actually thinking about the impact her actions have on her children. This is MAJOR progress for her.

So, I told her to go.

That single moment was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. Sometimes, telling your mother to do what makes her happy is the hardest thing you can do. But a good one all around. When she came back from that trip, she told me he apologized for all the things he had done wrong in his life (he’s about to die, we think, so he’s hitting that life-changing stage) and that she knew it didn’t erase it or make it better, but that he was making an effort. In those few days, she hung out with my stepbrother’s toddler son. She’s missed that kid. She loves that kid. She hasn’t been able to see him in over a year. That was not fair on my part to ask of her.

She also got to process some things in an adult way with the husband she’s separated from. The 12-year-old me that reacted by kicking her out of my life couldn’t realize how important that was for her. Before she could move past the place where she was circling around in her brain for answers, she had to actually deal with shit. Just like I had to deal with that 12 year old.

This, however, is not something I can reveal to my students. It is, though, something I can write about because writing about it makes me feel better – whether or not any of y’all read this.

The choice you want the person to make.

and

The choice you hope with all your heart they won’t make.

I’m writing this post because, obviously, I just gave someone an ultimatum. Here’s the back story.

You all know about my history, I think. My childhood was full of beatings and verbal abuse. My mother’s life has been filled with the same only because the men who beat us were her boyfriends (or her husband).

My mother has been separated from her husband since Thanksgiving of 2008. I cut her off on Thanksgiving of 2009. However, I didn’t completely cut her off. That is often easier said than done. I really wanted her to change, and I knew I couldn’t keep dragging myself down the road she was leading me on. So, I cut her off.

I may have mentioned before, but last summer, she started seeing someone new. His name is Mike, he’s 42 (10 years younger than her), and a complete douchebag. When she brought him up to visit, she had spent the 2 months before that telling me how different he was from all the other men in her life. Ha.

“He doesn’t drink.”

If this is true, then why did he step out of your car at 11 am in front of my house with an almost-empty 40 that he’d emptied on his way here?

If this is true, then why does he have to go to jail in a few weeks for a DUI and spend 60 days behind bars?

If this is true, then why did he drink a case of beer by himself the day you came to visit?

I’m seriously confused about your idea of what “doesn’t drink” means. Does it mean he doesn’t drink liquor? I remember, as a child, you telling us that liquor made people mean, but beer was okay. Faulty logic, I understand now, but I believe you believe that. So, a case of beer plus a 40  aren’t drinking, right?

You can see the problem here, right? This logic is completely off. By a long shot, actually. So, here’s where we get to me giving her an ultimatum. You knew this was going that direction, didn’t you?

Tuesday morning, I woke to a phone call from my brother at 9:30 am. I like to sleep in. My schedule is wonky this summer, so I work until 2-3 am most nights of the week. You see why sleeping in is important, then, I assume.

“Mike beat the shit out of mom.”

No surprise, but heart-thumping seconds waiting to know she’s okay.

“Is she okay?”

“She says she’s fine, but…”

I don’t remember the exact words, but here’s the gist of the story (pieced together from my brother and my mother at this point):

She took him to the liquor store. Remember, liquor makes people mean. Later, she had laid cool whip on the counter to thaw so she could make a pie (this is from her). At some point, he wanted to go out (to the bar, of course – a redneck dive, and I’m not really sure which one), and she did not. So, they started arguing. He threw the cool whip on the floor and told her she wasn’t leaving until she cleaned it up. She told him she wasn’t going to clean up his mess. He started beating on her. In the head and ears, of course, where you can’t see bruises. This is a sure sign he’s abused women before, because it takes some time before they learn how to cover their tracks.

At some point during the argument, he pulls a knife and tries to stab her. When he misses, he pulls a gun. She runs out of the house, and he follows. He starts beating on her in the front yard. At some point, he has pulled the turn signal/headlight knob off of the steering column. This is another sure sign he’s a chronic abuser. It takes a while for them to learn not to let their prey get away. These are all things I’ve seen before – their names are Al and Daniel. One fathered my youngest brother, the other she married years later.

The neighbors come out of their houses to see if she wants a phone to dial 911. None of them, however, actually make the phone call. So, he beats on her until his landlord comes out of her house next door to his. She walks into his house, gets mother’s keys, and tells Mike he has 10 days to get out of the house. She also apparently says, “Has he been drinking again?” Yet another sign he’s an alcoholic.

At this point, my mother uses a screw driver to turn on her headlights and hides at a friend’s house. The friends take her to the magistrate’s office to file charges against him. She files 6 charges. The cops arrest him and release him after he makes bond in an hour and a half.

The next day, she has been talking to him on the phone a lot and forgives him. Not 24 hours later and he’s forgiven because she “sees a good man in him” and “he would never do this again.” These are also words I’ve heard before – over and over and over again. I’ve learned not to believe them.

So, when she drops the charges and starts seeing him again, I issue an ultimatum. I gave her this choice because it was only fair for her to know what she was choosing and what she would lose for making that choice. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. It was hard because when you issue an ultimatum, you know you’ll either be ecstatic or hurt. In this case, there was going to be work no matter what the answer, but I knew what she would say beforehand. Most people who issue ultimatums do.

Here were her choices:

1. Mike

2. Me

I would remain a part of her life as long as she let the charges stick and refused to see him again. If, however, she dropped the charges and started seeing him again, I would not be part of her life anymore.

She chose him. No surprise there, really. She’s a really broken woman. I feel really bad for her, there’s no question about that. I hurt every time I think about what she’s going through.

However, I can’t remain a part of her life and be her rescuer at every moment. She MUST learn to take care of herself. And, she must want my help before it can be effective. As long as I keep rescuing her when she fucks up, she gets to make mistakes over and over and over again with rewards at the end.

So, there’s my story. Next time you think about giving someone an ultimatum, remember that you know the answer before you give it. Also remember that there’s work to be done no matter what choice they make.

1. People leave.

2. People say they’ll stay, but they leave.

3. People can’t handle when others go crazy.

4. I like to chase off the people I need.

5. I don’t really need some people. I just think I do sometimes.

6. My brand of crazy is more than neurotic. It might even be psychotic.

7. People lie because they think they’re not lying.

8. People want to keep promises. But they can’t.

9. People can’t be believed when they say they won’t leave.

10. The clues I notice about the future should be heeded as warnings, not written off as paranoia.

These are the things I have to learn to remember. Oh, and #11: People sometimes stop talking to you for no reason – they just stop.  And #12: Some people can’t handle being wrong.

Story 1 (the unremembered one): When I was 2, she and some of her friends were taking tequila shots in the living room. She was putting a drop of tequila in a shotglass with some sprite and letting me take shots with them. She got drunk enough to forget to mix the sprite with the tequila, so I just took a few full strength shots. I’m not laughing here.

Story 2 (the one I remember): When I was 4, mom had to break me of a pot-smoking habit. I had no idea what it was that I was doing, mind you. All the adults were sitting in a circle passing a joint and I’d be sitting on her left. Of course I was next in line. When I started asking for it instead of just sitting quietly in the circle, she decided it was a problem. She also decided that she had to break me of the habit. How do you do this, one asks? Well, you roll up a paper by itself and give it to your toddler to smoke. She chokes. She never asks again. Still not laughing.

I can hear her laughing as she tells these stories. I don’t have a problem with alcohol or pot, for that matter. I’m also not an addict of any sort – well, except for my facebook addiction. A (mostly) harmless addiction, for the most part. I’ve been really angry with her for a long time (probably all of my life) and I think most of it is surfacing now that I’ve cut her out of my life. Not talking to her means I don’t have to push it all down and pretend we have a decent relationship with one another. We don’t. We never have. She thinks we did.

I’m angry, too, because these two stories are just representations of a host of situations my mother put me in – situations where children should never be. I’m realizing, too, that parts of my personality have been shaped by these events, and while I think I’m fucking brilliant sometimes, most of the time I’m sad, depressed, and feel lonely even though there are people surrounding me. I have good days, don’t get me wrong, but each one is colored by some kind of darkness. I think it’s just the fear that I’ll miss the mark somehow. I keep trying to be the right person for every situation and there’s just not a right way to do things. I know that in my head – when I’m able to think rationally. The problem is, I speak and act before thinking more often than I don’t. I’m working on it, but really – things just spill out of my mouth and I just do things. One morning, our kitten was standing on the counter trying to eat the bacon off of my plate while I was putting syrup on my pancakes. I drizzled her with syrup. I didn’t think about it – I just did it. I’m not sure if it’s insanity or if it’s just something entirely different. I thought it was funny, don’t get me wrong, but I have no idea why I did that. It reminds me of a postcard I got from CA Conrad once. He wrote about his partner making glitter pancakes for breakfast. They were literally pancakes with glitter in them. Thing is – that sounds completely rational to me: If you want sparkle in the morning, add some sparkle to breakfast. Duh. But there’s nothing normal about me or CA Conrad. For him, it’s what makes his poetry so brilliant and mind-bending. For me, I’m not sure what this kind of random instinct is. Some would say I have a creative brain. Others would say I just don’t understand the rules. Thing is, I understand the rules. I can play the game if I need to. I just don’t like to.

And that paragraph was a bunch of ridiculous rambling that makes no sense. I’m glad I refuse to edit these posts. I get to see my own stream of consciousness unfold in front of me as my fingers type faster than my brain thinks. Back to the original point, though. There are situations in which you should not put children. Here are my questions about each of these stories:

Story 1: Why was I awake while they were drinking? Why a drop of tequila in the first place? Why not plain sprite? Why not hire a babysitter or just not party around your children? Really, mother? Did you want me to be a miniature version of you? That’s something you sure as hell didn’t get.

Story 2: How do you not notice that the hand next to you grabbing the joint is smaller than yours? By smaller, I mean significantly smaller… How, exactly, do you forget that it’s your child you’re passing a joint to? And, why a plain paper rolled like a joint? Could you not just say no?

And, the biggest question of all: Didn’t you realize YOU had a problem if your kid was taking tequila shots and needed to be broken of a pot-smoking habit at age 4? Seriously, woman. The problem is not mine. It’s yours.

Done now.

TPQ

Then, I notice a missed call on my phone. From my friend who lives in Denver. She called to say that last night everyone in her house confronted her about calling the landlord because one of her housemates is literally MAKING crack in the house. The house is separated into apartments. I called her back and she was in a hotel eating breakfast from room service. Overcooked bacon. Yum. She’s afraid to go home to her apartment. Her parents live in Knoxville. The rest of her life is really here in Asheville. She was afraid to call the cops because she didn’t want her housemates to flip out on her. No cops showed up last night, so it’s not clear whether the landlord believed her. The dude is cooking crack in his kitchen. Seriously – this is a problem. I told her to get some mace, get her shit, and get the fuck outta there quick. She can sleep on my floor if need be. Long drive from Denver, though.

Then, Lin cooked breakfast while I worked my tutoring shift. I see a new message in facebook and check it. SHIT. A close friend of ours probably has a brain tumor and leukemia. He’s 41. FUCK ALL.

Then, we check our bank account. We’ve been waiting for one of my paychecks to process and a check from Lin’s dad to come through (our Christmas present – we’re buying a washer and dryer), but none of it was going to clear until the 12th. With $112 in the bank account, we were a bit worried because they’re about to turn our cell phones off. I realize that sounds terrible, but we only have cell phones and we use them for business. Plus, we pay for my mom’s line on our account, and I really don’t want her to call about that. I sent her that email. I haven’t heard from her in a week and a half now. I worry about her, but I need this space. Anyway, we check our bank account, and Lin’s dad deposited a lot of money (cash) in our account this morning. Banks are open on Saturdays up north. Thank goodness. So, we’re not broke anymore (at least until the carpenter and plumber cash their checks). But still, there was a cushion on top of that. Beautiful.

That’s just today. Add a few weeks of this shit happening, and you see what I’m up against right now. I have no idea what the universe will throw at me next. But, I guess I’m ready. ::crosses fingers::

This is really hard for me to write. Before you go any further, I need you to know I love you.

I need a break from you. I realized as I was leaving for Ira’s house and you asked me to buy a bag of pot for you that you came here because you needed to – not because you thought I needed you. That made me realize that my entire life has been about you. There are a lot of things that I’m angry with you for right now. Mostly, I’m angry because you are always more concerned with yourself than with anyone else. I know this sounds selfish of me, but I need some space from you in order to reclaim my life for myself. Every time I talk to you, I’m reminded that you’re still friends with the one person who hurt me most in this world. When someone molests your daughter, they can’t be your best friend anymore. I know you’ve been obsessed with him since you were young, but at some point, you have to look past that obsession and see him for who he really is. He’s not a nice person. He doesn’t even mean well. I hate him. I’m angry with you for still loving him.

I need you to respect that I have to have boundaries in my life. I can’t come running every time you have a fight with Cliff. It’s always the same fight. You have to be strong enough to work on things for yourself. A circle doesn’t have an end, Mom, and you keep going around in the same direction. Every time I drop things and run to you, I’m giving up a piece of myself to enable you to remain in the same situation. Perhaps if I stop dropping my life to work on yours, we can both get somewhere.

I know that you need love in your life. I also know that in order to find it, you need to love yourself first. I know you don’t right now. I can’t fix that for you. There’s work you have to do. And you have to do it on your own. I can’t keep making it easy for you to not do that work.

I’m not saying I’ll never speak to you again. I’m also not saying that I don’t love you. I’m saying that because I love you, I need a break. I sincerely hope that you find love in your life. I hope that you learn to love yourself. When that happens, I’ll still be here. But, without this break, neither of us will make any changes in our lives. And we both need them.

Love,

Porscha

1. Some people still call it an “urn” when they want something to put coffee in. This is confusing when the person on the other end of the phone is the mother of your newly cremated friend.

2. Falling backwards out of my chair really did hurt, Ira. Thanks for the push. And the laugh.There are gnarly bruises on my spine and the back of my arm. Plus, a concussion and whiplash. You were right, okay?

3. Some people make promises they know they can’t keep. They’re not trying to lie, though. They just really hope they can keep one this time.

4. I have abandonment issues. This is a long story that doesn’t even make sense to me.Lin tried hard to understand it last night (or was that early this morning) and she gets it. She’s also tremendously encouraging. She doesn’t think I’ll get hurt. So, reconnect, she says. What could be the harm?

5. Lin tries really hard to understand complicated shit. And she’s fucking funny when she does. Wit anyone?

6. Around 4 am it is necessary to throw the covers back to let the heat out of our bed. Lin produces it in mass quantities.It’s also sometimes necessary to eat nachos in bed at 2 am.

7. Sometimes at 4 am, it’s necessary to get out of bed and smoke a cigarette. Right now, this is a really cold necessity, especially when I leave my bathrobe lying on the chair.

8. Sometimes we can’t explain why people mean so much to us – even when they’ve newly arrived (or returned) to the scene. Sometimes we shouldn’t try to, I guess. But y’all know me, I love crunching numbers looking for an explanation.

9. Sometimes we have to deal with one thing before we can get to another. So, I’m putting one foot in front of the other. And, in honor of Ira today, I’m pressing my lips together and blowing. I never could whistle.

10. Everything but one fell apart in my world this week. I’m holding on to Lin for dear life right now. Without her, I’d crumble.

I can’t forgive you for needing me more than I could ever need you. I can’t forgive you for never thinking about anyone but yourself. I can’t forgive you for still being friends with him. Is he so important to you that everything he stole from me can’t make you hate him? Did you leave him just because you thought it was what you were “supposed” to do? You’ve never done anything else a mother is supposed to do. See, a mother truly hates the person who molests their child. They don’t remain best friends with them and talk to them on the phone every day. A mother thinks about her children first, not her next dimebag. See, these are the things that mothers do. These are the things you’ve never done; these are the things you could never do.

I’m sitting in my bedroom hiding from you right now because you’ve always made me feel like a coward. I’m not a coward, though. But I am. I’m writing this on my blog and posting it for the world to see, but I’ll probably never say these words to you. The best I can muster is to ignore your presence and try to pretend you aren’t really here right now. I found my best friend lying dead on the couch yesterday of a massive heart attack. You want to help? Stay home like I told you I wanted. Respect my wishes for once. You can’t do this, though, because you see me as an extension of yourself – born of your inability to love yourself. You needed me to love you but I don’t. I never could. You left me to fend for myself. Thank god(dess) for people who cared enough about me not to feed me to the wolves. Or worse, the alcoholics you love so much. And instead of listening to what I wanted and needed just once in my life, you came to my house and made everything about you. Because you’re here, i have to think about how to entertain you and what you might need and I can’t focus on the thousand things I need to accomplish. You saw my to-do list. It fills an entire white board in the office. I was behind on it before I found my friend on his couch. I need to focus. I need my safe space. My home is my safe space. And instead of having my home to myself and my wife’s attention right now, I have you to deal with. I’ve sent you off to the bar with my wife and a friend who is doing me a serious favor and you have no clue that it’s because I need safety. I don’t feel safe around you. My bones know that if you had a choice between my life and yours, you would throw me in first. If given the choice, I’d throw myself first for anyone. But I want to have the choice, you see. That’s what you miss when you make decisions without thinking about what I need. Even when i tell you what I need, you ignore what I say. I don’t say things to hear myself talk. I know you do. Maybe you just don’t understand. maybe you can’t.

I’ve never trusted you. I’ve never believed that you would protect me. I gave up on that the first time a fist hit my face. When I thought I had it back, I gave it up again when the fist was yours. And now I have a lot more to give up. Some call it building a wall, but I’m drawing a boundary. There are things you have that I don’t need. In fact, I don’t need you. I can’t deal with your problems anymore because I’m not your friend. I’m supposed to be your daughter, not your therapist, okay? Mothers help their daughters, not the other way around. I’ve given everything I can to help you through some really hard spots in your life and every time you turn around and use me or my presence in your life to gain something for yourself. You parade me around as your little lesbian daughter. Guess what, mother? I’m not a lesbian. I’m a full-on queer person (gender unidentified) whose identity is more than you can comprehend. But I can’t tell you this because then I’m not just another badge of suffering you wear. Don’t pretend I don’t know that you carry my queerness on your shoulder for everyone to see. Feel sorry for me; my kid’s a queer. I get it, okay. I get that you need something to bring attention to yourself. I get that you need attention and that you suck everything positive out of everyone you encounter.

Looking back on my childhood, I can’t remember a time when I honestly thought “I love my mom.” This is really sad, actually. It’s heartbreaking to some, I’m sure, but for me it’s just life. I feel guilty for saying it. I feel like I should be crying while i write this, but each word brings me power. I feel empowered by writing these words here, even knowing you’ll never read them. I’ve been trying to make a decision for a long time now and I think I’ve come to a conclusion: My boundaries do not include you. You bring things into my life that I can’t handle. In order to keep mysef healthy, happy, and sane, I must cut you loose. You’re free. So am I.

I hope you find peace some time in your life. I wish that you could be happy, truly happy, if for only a moment. I wish you could learn to love yourself. When you do, I might just be here. I might be able to be your friend. But, I will never be your daughter. You killed that when you called me from the emergency room to disown me. You threw me away so easily because you were angry. You haven’t treated me the same since then, and I’ll never look at you the same way. I look at you and feel sorry for you. I know when I see you in a bad place that I enable you. I feed your addiction to drama. I feed your addiction to attention. You’re like the five-year-old who knows that doing something bad will bring someone’s attention. Whatever it is you’re missing, I can’t give you. I need to find the things I’m missing because I can’t let you hold me down with you. If I’m going to find what I’m missing, I have to make room in my life. Right now my life is like it’s always been – too focused on you and your problems. Without you in my life I’ll have room to let someone in who will actually love me. I don’t believe you do. I don’t believe you can.

I hope you find someone who loves you. I sincerely hope that person is yourself. I hope you find peace.