it's a long story.

I started "cleaning" our computer-slash-music-slash-drawing- room the other day. It wasn't particularly messy. Slightly cluttered, perhaps (it's only 11 x 12), but fairly clean. It is, however, a treasure trove for the past--for both me and mine. 

I didn't know when I started that I would be traveling through time.  What I found was a decade's worth of stuff, then two, which became three and so forth until I arrived at (or descended to) 1857. The family history on my mom's side, courtesy of my Uncle Allen begins:

"1. Benjamin Smith was born in Vermont. He married Elizabeth (Eliza)." It continues, "Notes for Benjamin Smith: Benjamin Smith's occupation listed as Chair Maker."

Benjamin's first born son, Lorin, arrived on January 15, 1857.

Grampa, sometime in the 80s, weaving seats for our chairs

And so begins one half of my documented family history. That isn't to say we were a close family.  I barely knew my great grandmother, who had long been living in Florida. For years I was afraid of my Grampa. He worked a lot, was grumpy when he came home, and only had patience with us for the few hours we could sit quietly with him in his den watching television. This changed as we got older, particularly when I had reached my 20s, even more so after he was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin Lymphoma. We built a coffee table together, stained it, it's been in my living room since.

When I was about six or seven, my grandmother had a benign tumor removed from her head, which caused some nerve damage and other complications. In the end, the somewhat botched surgery left her with only half of her hearing and an eye that would never open on its own again, but worse, it destroyed her zest for life. From that moment and for years afterward, she would sit on the couch and cry at the sight of me. All I could do is sit down by her and say, "Don't cry, Grammy." I wasn't old enough or wise enough to offer any other words. I did know that she was incredibly sad, because her life was upside down, and because it would never again be entirely right-side-up. I know now that she was also extraordinarily vain--I think maybe the change in her face and the closed eye really bothered her. She also developed a deepening sense of hatred. Especially for my mother--although this disdain had hatched long before the surgery--after she had a still-born birth. The distance between them only grew wider after my mother and father divorced. This hate she was growing inside her extended also to my grandfather, who took care of her and deflected her abuse for the rest of his life. Even during my grandfather's last days, my grandmother took special care to criticize my mother. After he died she took my mother out of the will my grandfather had drawn, save $1,000, and moved to New York state with my uncle. I never heard from her again. And no one knows exactly how they used the nearly $1 million he had saved for their retirement. She never went into a nursing home, and died three and a half years after my grandfather in a small bedroom he had sectioned off in his house. Curious.

Possibly taken at South Street, Fitchburg

My grandfather on the other hand, favored my mom. He was strict, and pretty stern with both of his kids. I'm pretty sure my mom lived with some fear, but he did love her. Unconditionally, and as well as he could. He worked hard, built the house they lived in, and tried to teach her everything he knew. My uncle never would accept any of it from him, but that's another story, and another family as far as I'm concerned anymore. He liked ham radio and computers. He was technologically savvy, and when he would finish with his computers he would give them to us. I've been using a computer since he gave us his Commodore 64 in the 80s. In the mid-90s he bought me my own computer with a modem, and so began my internet adventures. Thanks, Grampa!

Charles C. Smith

After my parents divorced, we moved back to Massachusetts with my father. My mother stayed in Louisiana with her boyfriend, and soon after that my father's girlfriend moved here from Louisiana to be with us. Both couples married a year later. We kept in touch with my maternal grandparents, but my sister and I had little contact with our mother until we grew old enough to keep in contact with her for ourselves. Sometimes I missed her, and other times I'm not sure what I felt for her. I didn't understand why she was gone, and I never liked the tension between my father and her when there was opportunity to talk to her or visit. My father hated her. He hates her less now. Sometimes I can't imagine being in her shoes; being so hated by the people who should hate you least, if not love you unconditionally. I'm a firm believer in loving the person who gave you your children, come hell or high water. I think I'm just a firm believer that love has a place in every interaction and relationship regardless of circumstances. Everyone has a dark side, and everyone carries a little torch of something wonderful inside of them. I always look for the latter. 

My mother, high school

I'm not that much like my mother, although my father would disagree. Like her, I can cook, as could my grandmother. My grandmother was a baker in the Townsend school system for 20 years, and retired in 1980. Back when they baked things for school lunches from scratch. Her baking was known all over town. I'd venture to say she was the best around. This talent passed on to my mother, and nowadays I find that I enjoy cooking more than I enjoy writing. I don't understand how something like cooking can be weaved into one's DNA, but it would seem that way with us. My step-mother can't cook, my father did because he had to (which means it tasted exactly like he was doing it because he had to), and I scarcely saw my mother until I was in my 20s. My mother is also creative, although more crafty than artsy. She has a very deep singing voice that carries. That's really where it ends. And in the end, I suppose that's a lot of what really counts. 

My mom, on the right. No, not the collie.

for good measure.

I missed laughter. I missed song. I think I missed out on an entire year of my life after "the sickness" came on. Slowly, but surely it's all coming back to me. Or I'm getting back to it. I don't really know which it is. Aside from the occasional near-return of the weird and random symptoms that to this day remain unattributed--the vertigo and dizziness being the worst of it--I'm getting by. Oh, and the face swelling. That one's pretty alarming and uncomfortable. 

There's a list of things I've been doing to 1. be happy, and 2. be healthy. The food, yeah that's a given. It feeds both of those things.  I haven't given up anything I can't live without. I gave up gluten, and I eat more vegetables via smoothie. I eat breakfast every day. I smoke less, and when I do it's not in the house. To be happy, I pause in my travels to get flavored iced coffees when I need a little boost, or a hot chocolate for the cold days. Sounds small, but I hadn't allowed myself even that little two-dollar luxury in a long, long time. I watch crappy television sometimes. I make chocolate cake every other week. And as of this week, I sing a little song with a friend. 

Soon, I hope to be making more music. Practice has been going better than it was in that the vibration in my ears stopped triggering the vertigo, and I don't feel quite so weak in the diaphragm. It may not be music to everyone's ears, but I love doing it and it makes me feel happier. 

Other things I'm appreciating in the new year--my cats, my boyfriend, and our new-ish apartment and living arrangements. None could be more perfect. Except for one of the cats, who recently was diagnosed with hyperthyroidism. Recently, as in, today. I'm just glad we know, and that we have a shot at getting it under control before it got worse. So happy that I opted for the blood work now, rather than later, as there were no real symptoms except that he was farting a lot, which may not have had anything to do with his diagnosis.

And speaking of happier, I also hope Spring makes an early return this year. With two months to go, even the tiniest amount of sunshine has been invoking the fever in me. 

in with the good.

Phew. New job, new year. I hope that it's just the beginning of a long string of gratifying, and if I'm lucky, happy events. 

I've been incredibly busy, both at work and at home. Too busy to play around on this here internets. Sometimes I feel drained, but most of the time it's been satisfying. Speaking of satisfying, a conversation with a friend over some super nachos prompted me to pull my personal-size blender from the back of the shelf and start making "green" smoothies. Sure, I've made smoothies before, but never with the green stuff. With my new busy schedule, I figured I could use a good, healthy boost. 

I've always been able to cook without a recipe, so after browsing a few recipes online, I started planning my own. So far I have an apple crisp smoothie, and a simpler pineapple-banana recipe. As for the green, I've only tried spinach, but I have every intention of branching out. I haven't taken any pictures either, but describing them is easy. They're green and smoothie-like. Simple. And packed with vitamins and antioxidants. So instead of rambling on and on about the new year, change, and a bunch of crap about the holidays, I'll just go ahead and give y'all the recipes for said "green" smoothies. Trust me, they don't taste green at all.

Apple Crisp Smoothie
1/2 Macintosh apple
1/4 frozen banana
4 cubes pineapple
1 tbsp honey
1/4 tsp cinnamon
approx. 1 cup of raw spinach
1/2 cup rice milk (soy or almond would work, too)
1 1/2 tbsp instant oats

Pineapple-Banana Smoothie
1/2 frozen banana
6 cubes pineapple
2 strawberries
1 cup of raw spinach
1/2 cup rice milk


Pretty much, add all ingredients to blender in this order and blend until smooth. Next week, how to build a cat shack out of a cardboard box--special guest, my goofy boyfriend.

love you more.

It's all part of it, this dying. That sentence may or may not be mine. I feel like I've read it somewhere before, yet Google defies me. Either way, the sentiment is mine. Every day our bodies die a little. Our teeth are full of cavities, our hair sheds, our skin sheds. Some of us bleed. And all of it amounts to tiny little cells, which make up our tiny little bodies just dying. We don't have to be six for it to be too soon. I learned that this week, because the very same day, someone I've known since I was about six--just days after he was born--was taken too soon. It took a long time for the obituary to show up in the paper. The media didn't know. It just happened, like the world turns, like the geese fly south for the winter. 

Sadly or thankfully, not many people will notice, relatively speaking. It's good on one hand, in that no one will passive aggressively attack our way of grieving. Our way of behaving while we face a loss. No one will criticize us for a lack of respect because we posted a funny joke when we could have instead been publicly sympathizing. Because Facebook, even if you did know that someone else was dying last week, you ain't the judge of me. 

The way I see this person is this. He did what he wanted to do with his life. He did it well. And he deserved at least 33 more years to keep doing it. We had lost touch over the last few years, but the last time I saw him I felt lucky that we had the chance to reconnect as adults, especially considering how close we were as kids. It really was as if no time had passed. 

That's the trouble with time. In no time at all, it becomes yours. It's all part of it.

dislocated.

I woke up yesterday with a full heart, feeling like it would be a good day. My mystery illness was mostly at bay, and my anxiety was at a low. I can usually tell how these things are going to treat me by the time I've had my third sip of coffee. That doesn't mean I can tell whether or not something over the course of the day is going to trigger it. This is mostly true, because outside sources are unpredictable, and I am not psychic. I also have always in my pocket the ace of all anxiety spades--an alcoholic parent. Sometimes it's fine. Other times said parent will ask you to take him to the grocery store, but then turn it into an all day excursion to the emergency room. And maybe said alcoholic parent will have a dislocated finger from falling and blame it on a neighbor's dog, which he was supposedly walking. When you pick him up, he might slip on the bottom two stairs as you're leaving his apartment. Sans dog. He'll then try to get out of your car without taking off his seat belt, which you then have to release. And when he finally gets out of your car in the emergency room parking lot, he will slip again. Sans dog. 

While you're checking in to the emergency room, the triage nurse will ask him, "How is your pain on a scale of one to ten?" 

You secretly wish that thing went to fucking 11, and that he was feeling it. After all, his ring finger is bent in half, saying left while the rest of his fingers are saying straight ahead. He will say, "Well, right now it's a zero."

"You, sir, have a high tolerance for pain," the nurse will say. And you will glare at her and think to yourself, "Yeah, bitch. It's called vodka."

About an hour later he will ask you to go see if they can give him that Motrin they offered him earlier. Then, a convict in shackles with a "DOC" coat on will come in, escorted by two corrections officers. He is throwing up blood and has swollen legs and hematuria, whatever the bloody hell that is. And even though you have no idea what he did to be in shackles, you hope he pulls through whatever it is. Damn you, big heart. 

At that point, I'd reached my "see things I don't need to see" quota for the day. While I'm sitting there, two hours into the stupid ordeal, my phone rings. 

I recognize the number from work, and I know it's the phone call I've been waiting for. For three weeks. I answer, screaming baby in the next bed over, and they tell me I got the job. Great news, laced with the sinking feeling that my alcoholic parent has once again made a happy thing bittersweet. I hate that word. I hate that I didn't feel happier about it in the moment. That instead of calling my friends and family to tell them, I was texting them, while my alcoholic parent began a drunken rant about how he hates that everyone is constantly staring at their smart phones and their tablets and their video games. And I thought, "Yeah Dad. You can suck it."

Because even after I spent four hours of my day off at the emergency room, he said, "You really don't have anything to worry about. This is no big deal, just a broken finger." 

By now, I hope y'all get the gist that it's bigger and uglier than a broken finger. It's a broken person, who in spite of the fact that you're just his little girl somewhere deep down and buried, has no idea that it's a big deal that is slowly breaking your heart into tiny little pieces.

I'm happy that I got the job. I'm happy that after all of this, I was able to open a bottle of wine and start the long process of getting back to playing music, thanks to a little push from a  friend. I wish that those were the only two things that happened yesterday. 

I woke up today with a half-full heart, my mystery illness somewhat aggravated, and my anxiety a four on a scale of one to 11. Manageable. I start work full-time Monday morning. What this really means is that I will have health insurance that I can nearly afford, and vacation, which I will try to not spend in an emergency room. It also means that I can go to college for free, which may turn out to be the biggest deal of all.

Important Account Documents Enclosed.

There is an enormous amount of information at my fingertips. By at my fingertips, I mean contained on my iPhone, which my sister convinced me would be awesome. Also, it was nearly free (if you consider $35 for an Apple product free-ish), so I bought it. Occasionally, I'm glad that I did. Like when I'm running out of money in my bank account and I need to make sure that I'm not going to overdraw when I need to buy cigarettes. But who am I kidding? I'd buy them anyway, and pay the effing $25 fee if it really came down to it. 

Ugh, but I digress. The problem with all of this information is that it can be a number of things at any given time. Things like, upsetting, useful, engaging, inspiring, disturbing, and saddening. There are more. The way my phone operates, it's usually a number of these things allatonce. Bad for the psyche, unless I'm trying to find my way out of the proverbial paper bag. Except that iPhone's navigation blows monkey chunks. Not that I don't feel awful about the people in China working under terrible conditions to get these things to us. I do, SNL, I really do.

Some of this information is important. Like when I need to know about prescription drug interactions. Or when I need to know what time I'm taking my parents to the airport. When I need my mom to tell me, "Everything's going to be o.k." When I need a reminder that my appointment with the therapist takes place this Friday at 10 a.m. Yes, some things are important. But Verizon, you are misled. I decide what's important here, and Account Documents are not one of those things. And National Grid, you hold a higher rank than Verizon, but still, no cigar. End rant. 

I've been feeling emotional for the past couple of days. Just when I thought things couldn't seem more upside down, another thing would arrive--by phone of course--to wreak havoc on my perspective (and my false sense of control). I have also applied for a new job, which is making me incredibly nervous. I've been part-time for almost a year. I've been biding my time, waiting for the right opportunity to pounce on something full-time, and it's here. I'm worried that the increase in hours will do me in. I'm also worried that I won't get it, which under the circumstances, could put me out of even a part-time job. So I'm waiting, like an old lady at BINGO. 

I'm also dropping my mom off at the airport for a two-week vacation, which leaves my alcoholic dad alone with his demons for the same amount of time. Do I worry when this happens? Every fucking year. As for my anxiety, I'm putting it to rest the best I can. Instead, I'm going to feel a whole range of emotions in the healthiest way possible. As opposed to suppressing them because they're not convenient--for me, or anyone else.

just a tiny...

bit of compassion travels a long way. Everyone needs a little, every now and then. 

Life can take some pretty serious downturns when you least expect it. Sometimes it's due to circumstance or bad luck, but more often it's due to a sudden inability to make appropriate choices. Has your vision ever been clouded? Have you ever felt more optimistic about an outcome than you should have, or been too confused or afraid to make the right decision? I have. I could say it's unfortunate, but it's not. It's human. I am human. I should be o.k. with that, but sometimes I'm not. Sometimes I take everything terrible I've ever actually done, then add some terrible things other people tell me I've done, and stew on it. Season it with a little bit of stuff I think I should be doing right now but I'm not, and there it is. A perfect recipe for feeling like a lonely, abandoned, inconsequential human. 

Even right now, just writing this I hear the faint whisper of criticism telling me that I'm not being human the right way, or that I'm once again submitting to the anxiety that keeps me from really connecting with the people I care about. That I'm batshit crazy, and I deserve every bit of terrible luck and heartache that comes my way. I hear it, but I know deep in my gut that none of that is true. A broken person can in fact mend, and that's what I've been doing. 

The truth is, it sucks to be human. You have to feel things, and you're stuck with this innate desire to be searching for the meaning of said things. Sometimes you have to suck up all of your nasty, ugly pride and forgive. Like when someone you love dearly can't wrestle their demons and win. Even when you know they never will. Sometimes instead, you have to carry your guilt like a wet blanket that because you can never be forgiven, never dries.

I'm not sad anymore. I'm still anxious, despite the little pink pills that are supposed to make me less so. A year ago, I didn't want to go out anywhere, nevermind someplace where I'm not comfortable. And I wouldn't have dared to go it alone. I did all of this and more over the holiday weekend, and I'm satisfied with that, if not happy. It's small progress. Or is it? Compared to last year at this time, it's a giant leap. 

Now that I'm doing better on my own, I've been reaching out, looking for friendly faces in a world that seems to have gone mad. I'm finding some, and it's good.

Life is hard, because by nature we want to live it for as long as possible. We don't have to make it harder, but we do.