Strange Love

My mother and I don’t talk at all. We only see each other at funerals. Although we tend to be cordial to each other when we see each other, the effort has become almost too much for me to continue to consider. I hear her criticisms second hand from other family and I accept that she is not fond of me at all.

The relationship with our parents should be a special one. Our parents raise us and see fit that we have the things we need to be self sufficient. Anything beyond that I have always believed to be optional. I have made peace with parents not being perfect. Children do not come with how-to pamphlets, and although there is a lot of literature available for child rearing, parenting is mostly about “winging it.” There is not one method of love, appreciation, discipline, or education that can be canned and spoon-fed to children. As children grow, they change, so what may have worked two years ago is an impossible feat today.

It makes me sad when I hear of broken relationships between parents and their kids. I suspect the saddest one of all is my own broken relationship with my mother. I’ve spent years trying to gain understanding about how our ship sank, but we communicate in silence with little recognition of what our roles are to each other. One day I had to walk away, and when I did there was the tenacious residue of guilt. I speak to my dad at least once a week, but my mother and I don’t speak at all, not on birthdays, not on holidays. I have grown content with that.

There is no easy way to walk away from anyone, especially a parent. Out of respect and love we continue to communicate with our parents even as adults because we value our families and seek their love and support. I love both of my parents in ways that probably don’t resemble anything “Huxtable like,” but it is the kind of love I have learned to give. We don’t exchange “I love you’s” when we speak; we’re suppose to know that we are loved. I guess.

The relationship between my mother and I is toxic, which is my I excommunicated myself from her. It is not so much that it’s easier, as it is necessary. Who she chooses to be does not offer anything positive to who I choose to be. In order for me to grow and continue to evolve, at least now, we are best served as separate entities. There is love there—a strange love. It is a love I don’t understand, but I reserve until she is ready to accept it, and I am ready to give it.

Why I DON'T Like Extremists

I had a conversation with my homegirl last night and she helped me realize that I was not insane.

I was grateful.

I tend to attract people who are pretty radical in their politics and beliefs. Although I am pretty passionate and forward thinking about a lot of current affairs, I am hardly radical about any. There are extremists in every pocket of our community, and for as long as I can remember, I have always disliked them. People will have you believe that extremist is synonymous with Muslim these days, but any rational person knows that is a big lie.

Extremists worry me because they lack balance. They also seem to lack the sensibility to see both sides of the coin, even if they believe their side is more superior or logical. They also startle me because their tactics and beliefs often encourage division. They can be very adamant and forceful in spreading their ideology, sending you to hell over your sexual partners, dosing your fur coat in red paint all in the name of chinchillas, shooting up schools in the name of racial superiority, strapping bombs to themselves and others in the name of Allah, disregarding and degrading men as proof of dedication to the rights of women, etc.

I am a lesbian, and a feminist. The two labels are not synonymous, although some will have you think otherwise. There is no particular way to prove my dedication to feminism aside from my support of a women’s right to choose and be who and do what she wants. I’m not married to any specific feminist philosophy, because from what I understand there are a few. As with any movement, there is in-fighting, which philosophy is better? Are you a real feminist? Bullshit like that. It had me questioning whether I was a true feminist. Am I any less dedicated to women’s rights because I can’t recover a long list of feminists who have made their mark in the world? Am I any less dedicated to the women’s movement because I can’t recite verbatim some of the work of Audre Lorde, June Jordan or Angela Davis, all of whose work I have collected and read?

This is really not about feminism though, this is more about the assholes who think they are creating a better world by smuggling their beliefs in the naive heads of those who don’t know any better. We all have our immovable core beliefs that help us maintain our shell, but the flexibility to understand and respect beliefs that are not compatible with our own breaks the cement of division.

…so I dislike extremists.
Maybe I’m jealous, who knows. But I’m not all of one thing. I recognize the need for balance and the fluidity and evolution of life itself. To berate and demonize those who don’t believe as you completely disrupts life’s flow—my flow.

One Hand, Two Fingers.

I’ve been trying to change the way I think.
When I was younger I was a pessimist. I naturally clung to anything that would defy the possibility of success. I got down in my blues as if they were the only thing to sustain me. I believed that if I and whatever god there was in the sky, pitied me strong enough, eventually all the things I wanted to have or happen would magically come to fruition.

I was wrong.
There was no amount if pity and self loathing that would fix anything that needed to be fixed. Even as a Christian, in prayer, I was riddled with doubt. I’d get on my knees and state the obvious. “Lord, I’m broke.” “Lord, my mother hates me.” “Lord, the kids in school are fucking with me.” After prayers there was no victory, just long sighs and pieces of hope.

This shit went on for years.
Years.

It was in those years that I embraced a false sense of peace. I didn’t know what peace was, but I always thought because I prayed, or because I was a Christian, I had peace. That’s what I heard—as a kid, from my dad, from other preachers and missionaries, but even as I would sway to, “this is the church of god in Christ,” I had no peace. I didn’t know anything about that.

I don’t know what people do for peace. Peace, I suspect is subjective. You can’t give pain to get peace, I just don’t think that is a logical exchange. There are some people who do it everyday though, they seek peace in ways that may hurt others. They use vocabulary that negates peace all together, but they wait on it in tears and on knees. I found peace when I realized that my proclamations of the obvious and drowning in my own self created reality did nothing but suck the esteem and drive right from my spirit. I realized a little later in life that pity cannot be traded in for peace. It was an addiction. Addictions are dangerous, even when there are no third party chemicals involved.

My musings about positive thinking and affirming realities are a bit repetitious, but it is very imperative and very relevant. That is what I hope most people in this world will begin or continue to understand. I have spent 80% of my life outside of a peaceful state, so although a lot of this is to inspire, most of it, selfishly, is simply my own inspiration.