Land Mines

The light in the kitchen doubled as the door eased forward and the scent of my father’s cigarettes filled the room; he was home from work at the usual time. He carried a garment bag over his shoulder, smiling sheepishly at me while clutching his cigarette between his lips. “Why are you just getting home now?” I asked, the confusion clear in my voice. His mother passed away that morning, and I received the call seven hours earlier. I stood with the full room between us, my feet rooted but prepared to retreat, not yet sure of the mood he might be in.

“I had to go buy a suit for the funeral.”

He was too calm, too cheery for this occasion.

I had long since grown accustomed to trying to make my way out of the house by four o’clock each afternoon, in anticipation of his typical state of anger. For fifteen years I had observed his explosive temper, and although I had learned to take it in stride, it was still something I feared being faced with.

2014: A Retrospective

I've been trying to think of a way to do justice in tribute to 2014. It was probably the most positive full year I've had in my adult life, so I want to reflect that.

It wasn't the year that everything was perfect. It wasn't the year that I never cried. It wasn't the year that I just "finally got over everything." It wasn't the year that everyone liked me.

It was the year that I figured out how to stand on my own feet again, maybe not straight and tall, but on the ground. It was the year that I decided I'm worth it, and I can (and am going to be) okay. It was the year that I started to see that it's okay to cry, to hurt, to not be over it yet, to ask someone to be there for me without being rejected or insulted. It was the year that I started to give less of a shit what everyone thinks of me. It was the year I started to understand what "love" truly means. It was the year I started to fall in love with myself.

It was the first year, in maybe ever, that I could confidently call "my year."

Survival and Aftermath

Nineteen years ago on this day, when I was just barely eight years old, my mother ended her life with an impulsive and literal pull of the trigger.

November 25th, when I was younger, was a day that I missed her almost mercilessly, shedding tears every year, racked with sobs that shook my heart into my ribs, for nearly a decade. Today, the pain of not having my mom here is still ever-present-- contrary to popular belief of the uninitiated, that is not a void that can ever be completely filled-- but the pain of her loss has been very nearly replaced with the pain of all that I endured and lost in its wake.

Today, my heart aches in a way that never really stops, but I choose to reflect on where I've been and how far I have come.

I love my mom. She gave me life, she passed her magnetic and gregarious nature down to me, as well as the way my eyes crinkle when I smile. Like I said, I will always be all too aware of her absence, as those around me talk about, receive calls, draft texts, and see their own parents. I will always love her. But in this last year, I have gained a new emotion that I did not experience toward her at all in the eighteen years prior.

Anger.

Almost anyone who knows me thinks first of my strength and resilience. This is not an incorrect appraisal of Ash, but what you have observed has most likely been around 90% facade. Strength is not taking everything in stride and just being okay with it; it's only partially endurance. It's mostly an ability to feel what you feel, which I have lacked for most of my life when it comes to pain. When you have spent an enormous portion of your life fighting to survive in any aspect, you learn that emotions have to come later. You can't stop to take a breath or process what has happened when you still have to fight. You learn stoicism when your heart feels like it's surrounded by razors that on fire but you have to keep moving anyway.

I say this because what I'm about to say may come as a surprise to you.

The last nineteen years broke me.