In a difficult conversation today, someone that I love said to me, “Your (sic) the person stuff happens to.”
What the actual fuck? I am still processing what that actually means. And, I’m not going to go into context or detail about this person, because at the end of the day, this isn’t about them, it’s about me. I will say..it is someone I love, but our paths are very different. And maybe our differences are too big for the things that could have tied us together.
But, being told that you are a person stuff happens too….well, yes…I have had some shitty stuff happen to me. In the last thirty plus years…I have struggled to process how to heal from being the child of parents who were unequipped for healthy parenting, and for whom, circumstances far greater than me, life ended much too young. I struggle with what it means to be a victim of sexual abuse. I struggle with the choices made by others that set destinies that are not my choosing…but, I have never thought of myself as someone that things “happen to.”
Several years ago, I was facing a difficult situation at work with a student. This student had missed several, several days. And after finally getting ahold of his mother, I had a conversation, in which the mother and I agreed on things we could both do to help her son, and we had a plan. The next time I saw the student, I talked to him about the conversation between his mother and me. He understood that we both wanted him to be supported. A few weeks passed, the plan was mostly working, and the student went M.I.A. again…after another couple of weeks, and unreturned phone calls from the mother, I sent an email to the attendance clerk, begging for any information on this student. What I got back from her took my breath away….the mother of this student had died a few weeks before, from breast cancer. And, for all the district knew, the student might be living with the father. After gathering my breath, and clearing some tears, I attempted a call to the father. The only number we had for the father turned out to be a bank in downtown Billings, Montana.
The conversation with the father was not good from the start, his first question, after I identified myself was “what the fuck do you want, calling me at work?” I patiently explained to the father my concerns about his son, my student, and asked what he would like me to do to support the student. The father’s response was to inform me the student’s mother had died in the last few weeks. I acknowledged that, said I was truly sorry for the situation, and explained to the father that I had spoken to the student’s mother several weeks ago, and also explained our previous plan for supporting the student. After a long pause, the father said…”didn’t you hear what I said, his mother died?” I replied, yes, I had heard him. And I was doing my best to plan with HIM, the current, available parent, any plan for supporting the student’s success.
When I tell you I will never forget this conversation…it is because of what happened next. The father said to me…”Can’t you just give him a break? Can’t you just pass him? I mean, what kind of cold bitch are you? I told you, his mom died.” I took a deep breath, and said “Sir, I know that you don’t know me very well. If you knew me better, you would know, that when I was just a few years younger than your son is right now, my mother died. And no one ever gave me anything because of that. I didn’t get to graduate high school because of it. I didn’t get into college because of it. I didn’t get a degree because of it. I didn’t get my first job because of it. I have never been given anything because of it. And no one really cares. I can’t just give your son a passing grade because his mom died. So, if you would like to talk to my administrator, I invite you to call him. Have a nice day.” And I hung up the phone.
I was transported right back to that moment today…to feeling that pit in my stomach, that gulp of ache in my throat. I hate that I don’t have the family I deserve. I know the immature parenting of broken people put me in a position in which I am not always good at being a partner. But, I have never once thought to myself…pity me. Feel bad for me because after all, I am just the girl that shitty things happen to.
I am not that person. I am as responsible right now for the good in my life, as I am for the bad in my life. I am an expert at picking impossible relationships. At 16, watching Julia Roberts portray Vivian in “Pretty Woman”…it wasn’t the shopping spree or the happily ever after that would stick with me…it was the part where Edward says…”My special gift is impossible relationships.”
I knew it then, as much as I know it now….I pick impossible relationships. I have lived with the ghost of my mother for longer than I ever had her physical person. I sunk myself into someone who, while is a wonderful human, was not meant to love me. I have fallen in love with people who are truly unavailable…and I don’t mean my unrequited love of the brown Micheal Jackson at 11 years old. I mean completely unavailable to me, no matter my dreams or wishes or wants, unavailable. I admit it. I make terrible choices.
But, I also choose. I have chosen to not live the life that so many around me don’t have the want or desire to choose. For the second time, in less than four years, I have moved…thousands of miles away from most people I know. I am in a city that would chew me up and spit me out….if I let it. I chose to live in my truth, at 40 years old. To embrace the things that were most unique to me…the need to wander, and to adventure, and to talk to strangers, and to throw off the expectations of marriage and motherhood…I chose to be the woman that I am today. With all the scars and the tattoos, and the smile, and the wrinkles, and the freckles. I am choosing to live MY truth, to love and to run, and to lay in my bed on a Sunday morning with coffee in my hand, and no clothes on.
I choose. To eat what makes me happy, to drink beer because I love the taste, to touch and explore the limits of passion…and to streak, even though so many people around me wonder…what is the matter with her?
I don’t know much. I don’t have good answers. But I do know this. I am choosing to be happy, to live with joy, and with passion, and to be a good person, even when the world says there isn’t good left. I am choosing good for me.
As much as I am the product of dysfunction and bad choices made by others…I am also the beautiful result of my own choices. I am not the girl, nor the woman, that life just happens to. I choose to be me, to be the woman that is okay with going to bed alone, running on rainy days, being someone that is not every one’s cup of tea…because at the end of the day…I choose me. I choose love. I choose my life. I choose.
I’m so grateful that I can.
Take care of you, and choose the things that bring you joy.
And, happy almost November…birthday month, here we come….
GratitudeThroughChange 