Thoughts on Dealing with this Mortal Coil Before It Can Rightfully Be Shuffled Off

When people talk about suicide, especially suicide caused by long-term depression, you can generally split them up into two camps: 1) Those who say things like "how terrible that death was the only solution he knew to make the pain stop"and "we need people to understand how much they are loved." 2) Those who say things like "this is terrible that anyone should resort to a lazy and cowardly way to end their life" and "how selfish; they don't even think of the people they leave behind."

Now I'm not saying any of those perspectives are right or wrong. They both have a point and are a valid way of looking at suicide. Which is what makes understanding suicide and depression so confusing.

With Monday's celebrity suicide, the word "suicide" seems to be trending as much online as the late celebrity's name. Organizations like TWLOHA say their piece about how you are loved, yes YOU, and everyone should know that, don't end your life, YOU are LOVED. It's a sweet message, and while I respect TWLOHA and its supporters because I know they are doing good and hey, the more love going to those suffering from depression the better, but their words fall, as they often do for me, woefully short. The very tangible love of family and friends can mean nothing when someone is crushed by depression; the kind but bland love of a random stranger will generally mean even less. Individuals use this as a platform to talk about depression, which is wonderful in that it may help in the long fight to de-stigmatize depression (and other mental/emotional issues), but of course doesn't always help those struggling through it.

How should we look at someone who killed themselves? Are they a victim of an untreated illness, or worse, a victim of a system that treats their illness as a passing mood and misguided perspective on life? Are they a beautiful lovely loss to humanity simply by cutting their life short? Are they a strong brave individual who sought to solve their problems on their own? Are they a weak-willed coward who gave up when the going got tough?

And when you choose one of those ways to look at the situation, what does it say about those who don't kill themselves, who resist the urge? That's what always threw me off the most--as an insecure teenager, as an overachieving college student, as a graduate who sometimes can't see hope anywhere--should one be congratulating oneself for not ending one's life, or even harming oneself? Holding the blade to your skin...and only making one small cut and throwing that blade away...is that a small victory? Then doing it again, but this time not breaking skin, and then next time, only looking at the blade before putting it away--is that bravery? Is persisting in living because you're scared of dying a brave choice?

Or, perhaps the bravest of all are those who live with sadnesses and pains but never know the dull horror of sinking into depression. These people are not necessarily living better lives; they are just able to deal with it differently. Does that make them the strongest of all?

When I was a teenager, I couldn't find an answer to those questions. I was too afraid of physical pain to make self-harm a habit. Concluding that there are remarkably few painless and foolproof ways to end life, I convinced myself out of suicide again and again. I knew I was loved by certain people, but it didn't change the feeling I had when I looked in the mirror, when I was alone with my thoughts, or when I was inadequate where I wanted to be successful. I was in a horrible living situation and I was powerless to change it then, but I knew one day it'd *probably* get better. I knew the effect hormonal imbalances can have on one's mental state, especially as a teenager. But none of that was what kept me from destroying myself, either in small ways or that one big way. What kept me from something terrible was simply fear of physical pain. One day I told myself I was a coward for not doing it; another day I told myself I was really quite brave for continuing to tote the weary load.

Things are different for me now, but when life doesn't go well, there's that switch that goes on and my perspective becomes bleak and grey and I can't remember where the exit is. I can barely remember that I wasn't always in this rut. I don't know that it's bravery that keeps me going. I want to say it's cowardice, but that might be some lingering self-contempt.

I can't answer that for myself, so I certainly can't say anything about Robin Williams' suicide. I understand, but I don't understand at all. I think it was a horrible tragedy and maybe there was something that could have prevented his making that choice, but maybe there wasn't. I can't say "he had other options" because when you're stuck in your own head and no option includes getting away from yourself except for suicide...well, it's a struggle. I'm still shocked and saddened, because I loved him as an actor, and I still find his voice so very comforting to listen to. I know this is hardest on his family and friends, and the rest of us, just fans of his work and admirers of his self-presentation and sense of humor, are only feeling a fraction of what they're going through. It's hard to not feel like my sorrow is somehow encroaching and insulting theirs, which is just so much deeper because they knew him personally.

This news came at an interesting time, as I was struggling out of a fog of depression. What drew me out was not the love of my family and friends (though that has been appreciated, and I hate that I seemed like a sad-sack to anyone during those weeks--so sorry to everyone), but reading a rather depressing book, Edith Wharton's The Custom of the Country, which was gifted to me by a dear friend. It's one of those novels where the selfish heroine throws herself headlong into a money-grubbing miserable life that leads inevitably to ruin (I haven't finished it yet though, so it may surprise me), and it didn't exactly help the way I was feeling, despite the beautiful writing. But when my favorite character (not the heroine) committed suicide, it took me by surprise and jolted me out of my misery. I didn't want to just end all this, I realized. The pages after the character's suicide are empty of them, with only a few mentions to their name, which is not the way one likes to think of the world being after their death. Rather ironically, it lifted my spirits considerably.

I am not advocating that book as an anti-depressant, obviously. It worked for me (this time). Last time, it was a week doing absolutely nothing in Ohio (thank you, Katie, for taking me out of my fog without even knowing it), and when I was younger it was a combination of changes. There is no one way out of it. Suicide is possibly the worst choice of all, but it's the quickest way out. Love can help, but it might not draw you out. As a Christian, I can't even say that believing in Jesus is a surefire way to happiness, because it ain't easy and many, many Christians are depressed (seriously, the Bible is full of them too!). Being busy can help, especially since depression is mind-numbingly BORING, but you will always have some moment alone to think and be miserable. Doing things for others is definitely something I can advocate, but sometimes it's hard to do that with your soul being pulverized under all the sadness. There are millions of things that can help and that won't help.

Try them. Don't end it. Talk to people. Stop being ashamed, and know that some people will look down on you for depression, but remember that those are not the people that matter most. I don't know if you're brave or a coward, but I know that depression does not automatically mean weakness. You can be strong under pressure. Find your own way out--not necessarily alone or without help, but find what works for you and gets you through each day, and what will maybe eventually heal you.

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Original image found here on Pinterest
Quote is Proverbs 18:14

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Yes, I Do Take Offense If You Say You Hate Girls

Edit: When I say "girl" here, I am mainly using the words as a generic word for females, as I use "guy" for males. I also use "girl," "woman," and "female" interchangeably because I didn't want to use only one term and "female" sounds too sterile to use very often. There is of course a difference between adolescent girls and adult women, but that's not my focus here.

The first time I heard a girl say, "No offense, but I hate girls. Girls only cause drama," I got to admit, I DID take offense. That was probably when I was a teenager, but I heard it more frequently as I got older, oddly enough--adult women are even more comfortable admitting that they hate their own gender than teens are. I try not to take offense, even though it is downright offensive, and akin to me saying, "No offense, but I hate Hispanic people. They're so uneducated and [insert negative stereotype here]." My being Hispanic wouldn't make it okay for me to be a racist jerk, and your being a girl doesn't make it okay to be a sexist punk.

To the women and girls who say that, I may have offended you by saying what I just said, and I'm sorry about that. Please try to not take offense and take that personally, because I'm trying not to take offense at your telling me you hate what I am and what you are and what both our mothers are. Even when the "I hate girls" has an addendum of "I mean, I love my female friends, of course," it still rankles me quite a bit. Again, imagine me saying that about Hispanics. I would sound like a massive jerk.

Not that I think all the girls who say that actually even hate girls or truly believe that 99% of the 3.5 billion women in the world are basically drama-crazed mean girls (who possibly are Regina George clones??). I'm sure many have been burned by shallow girls, and those who are very young may have not had the privilege of meeting many genuinely kind girls in their lives thus far. 

For the women who "hate girls", I assume that they were burned in the past and saying they hate their own sex has become such a habit that they don't think it's an odd thing to say to a bunch of females, some of whom are their friends.

I do have friends who say this. And I'm including them when I say that having such an abundance of female friends all my life has been one of the greatest blessings in my life.

Growing up with sisters might've helped (though girl-haters may have many sisters!), but I never saw any reason to hate all girls any more than to hate all boys. Girls could be mean, but they could also be kind--just like me, just like boys too, just like any human being. I didn't even think about the gender of my friends till I was probably a pre-teen. By then, I had spent years growing up in a church community of boys and girls. We all ran and screamed and accidentally hit one boy's dad's car with a ball, setting off alarms. One girl in our little gang wore a dress all the time, but she ran too, and later on we all played soccer on mixed-gender teams (my one sporting enterprise!) and no one thought anything of it.

As I grew older, I had crushes on the boys I knew best (if any of you are reading this, which I doubt, I had a crush at different points on all of you except one). But they were still friends. The girls were friends too and I never felt a need to choose, aligning myself to the friendship of a single gender. In middle and high school, I was part of a homeschool group, where there were strata of popularity and I was on a fairly low stratum, above the kids who smelled or who dressed like Mennonites, but definitely below most people. (I like to think that being the loser in a homeschool group proves that some people are innately popular or unpopular, and explains why some people are stars wherever they go and some will always be the geeks.)

I was comfortable with guys, though the unpredictability of new guys definitely made me more uncomfortable than my old guy friends, for whom the predictability of the years could over-ride the mysteries of their gender. Yet, for several years, I did remain friends with that guy at summer Bible camp who was always trying to stroke my leg whenever no one was looking. The first time was on the porch and I could tell from the way he asked if I was scared that he wanted me to be scared, so I said no, and pushed him away. The second time was during a prayer at lunch when he knew I wouldn't jump up and make a scene, so I just got up afterwards and I believe I had another male friend switch seats. Of course, looking back on that and writing it, I realize how truly creepy that all sounds. Not all guys I knew were like that; that boy was a rarity. But guy friends are by no means perfect and I can't imagine relying solely on the male gender as if it were somehow superior to my own. 

Guys also make drama. I remember a certain relationship drama that the guys I grew up with blew out of proportion. For the privacy of my friends, I won't say too much, but I recall being surprised at how it was the boys who spurred on the rumors and fed the drama, making an issue with each other, and making many friends feel like they had to choose sides. The girls I spoke to had heard the gossip from the guys and mostly were spectators to the drama-fest. Not long ago, a teen girl I know was getting texts from a guy friend asking if she "liked" a mutual guy friend who had just started a relationship. She kept on saying no, but the texts continued, clearly driven by a hunger for drama. Finally, the texts got argumentative and they stopped, so the friendships all continued--a drama begun by a boy but defused by a girl.

I've known shallow girls, girls who put others down and need to be the center of attention, but I've known guys like that too. Those are just people who suck, to put it in the very nicest PG terms possible. They come in all chromosome combinations, all colors, all builds, all income levels, and even all ages. If only we could establish that one single group was made up of drama-craving monsters, we could, I dunno, exterminate them ASAP  quarantine them and put them on a strict diet of kids' movies that show mean kids getting what they deserve and nice kids winning. But sadly, drama-hungry slugs are found among every group of people.

If only all mean girls made their dark natures apparent at first glance with weird dead eyes and obnoxious graphic tees!

When I think of girls, I don't think of dramarama and gossip. I think of some of the most reasonable, strong, genuine, and earth-shaking people I've ever known. I know women who have wits that make you want to give them a standing ovation every single time they speak. I know women who are determined to reach their goals and nothing stands in their way. I know women who are so kind and loving that your head will drop in shame because they're speaking from their warm hearts. I know women who go about fighting for what they believe with astounding dedication. I know women who juggle a million different pursuits--family, career, hobbies, etc. with more skill than many do with a single pursuit.

I thought of women I've befriended in all those categories (and more)...and you know, sometimes I've found those women annoying. Girls aren't perfect, just like anyone in the human race. I feel like I shouldn't be saying "heyyy, girls are people" because WE ALL KNOW THAT but sometimes, reading crap articles on the internet about women, I really wonder how many people truly understand that.

Thus the creation of Asha (Yara) Greyjoy, possibly my favorite female character ever. Also, recalling women are people will make you a better novelist, I swear, but that's another post.

Incredible females in my life showed me not to be hindered by stereotypes. My mom was a stay-at-home mom, but she wasn't a delicate flower--she was fierce. She never said, "Wait till your father comes home!..." to us; she took care of discipline herself. She taught us every day and even when I wasn't using the best curricula, I was learning independence. She told me I would go to college and get a job, and yeah, sure I would hopefully get married and have kids, but the first time I heard that a woman's main purpose on the planet was to reproduce and that was the only way she'd be happy and fulfilled was from a man (not a relative) years later. Never from my mother. 

My older sister is strikingly well-behaved and so morally upright that it makes people apologize to her for swearing in her presence and used to grate on me, but she is willing to take controversial stances and argue for it in a way that always baffled her elders, whether they're more conservative or liberal than she. I've been known to say in debates, "My sister has a really good argument for why that's actually not wrong...let me try to remember it because it convinced me." She will cry "like a girl," but she's also the most emotionally strong person you will ever meet, because she can't be actually beaten down by anything in this world. My little sister is beautiful and slender, but she also has the sharpest humor and can match wits with anyone she comes across. She also can drop down from a standing position right into a military-style push-up and that is literally her idea of fun. At the same time, she is compassionate and forgiving, which is why she has such a consistently steady following of younger kids who can't even verbalize why they admire her.

A dear friend of mine from high school is the classiest young woman I've ever met, but she is also stubbornly opinionated and deeply thoughtful. I don't always agree with her and we argue or nearly argue often, but no matter what, I always respect that she isn't afraid to have her opinion. She's actually a little scary, and sometimes I think she has the intensity and strength to play a very regal sort of queen in a movie. I remember not long ago (I hope she won't mind me sharing this story) when she told me that she could never imagine agreeing to a husband's opinions if her own understanding stood at odds with his. This may not seem like a big deal, but in a Christian community, particularly from a person who appears very demure at first glance, a woman saying that her theological opinions are solid enough that she'd argue with even a wise man till she found strength enough in his ideas to change her own is absolutely major.

My oldest friend (who isn't related by blood) is a stay-at-home mom now, and yeah, she cooks dinner for her husband and she takes care of the house. But she will also break down for you why she hates gender stereotypes and why they're damaging to individuals, relationships, and our culture. When she talks, her husband, a considerably more reserved person, listens and looks at her with respect. She is ready to look at tradition and separate what's right from what's wrong, without holding back for tradition's sake. She listens to my career dreams and my ramblings about single guys, and she has advice at times or just hears me out. She also matches my extraordinary levels of nerdiness, as was proven in a recent event that I'm actually not going to share because I'm still stunned that she and I actually DID that. Growing up, she was a second older sister, and never made me feel silly or small.

I could go on and describe more women in my life, but honestly, that was really tiring because it's hard to document awesomeness. My point is that among my female friends are some truly wonderful people who don't deserve to be hated for the stereotypes of their gender, but actually admired and sought out by people because they will challenge you and make your life better and more interesting.

This is why I've decided to not be offended by girl-hating girls. I feel sorry that they don't know the people I know. There are billions of incredible girls out there--more than I'll ever know. More are being born every day. I know toddler girls who are already wonderful little people.

Knowing how amazing my gender can be challenges me every day to be a better person. If you, as a girl, can honestly say, "I hate girls," what are you saying about yourself? You're better than most? That's a little egotistical, not to mention statistically improbable, so let's be generous and say that you include yourself as a drama-seeking little rat. In which case, are those really the standards you want to set for yourself? There's more to attain to, and lumping your whole sex in as sharing a singular flaw deserving hatred is hardly going to make you a stronger and more excellent person. It's going to make you shrug your shoulders and not try too hard. If girls can be awesome, you can too. So let's not only try to be a little more careful about slinging our "hate" around, but let's strive to reach our full potential as human beings. Gender won't hold you back, but your misogynistic gender stereotype probably will.

Written for Ink Spots Blog Initiative prompt #3: What did you have more of growing up: guy friends or girl friends? Why do you think this is and how has it affected you? 

Currently listening to:

Disney's Lilo and Stitch Soundtrack
"He Mele No Lilo"

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Kitty Konsumerism (Or, Brittany Likes Stuffed Cats So Much, Someone Should Buy Her a Real Cat)

When I want something very badly, images of what I'll do with it and how incredibly awesome my life will be once I get it are all that fill my mind. Eventually, one of two things happen. One, I get it and do what I planned, it's great, and eventually I accept it is a normal part of life. Or two, I never get it and the desire fades--luckily, I've always been resilient enough not to get bitter about not getting whatever I want.  There are ways to deal with the disappointment of not getting what you want.

I don't know where I first heard of or saw Hello Kitty (maybe one of those weird Hello Kitty cartoons where she somehow speaks without having a mouth), but from ages six to nine, I was obsessed with having a Hello Kitty doll. I loved drawing her and I loved the occasional Hello Kitty paraphernalia I would find at Korean stores near the ballet studio I went to. But in the 90s, Sanrio stores were not common at all and I'd actually never seen a Hello Kitty doll, though I assumed they must exist somewhere. 

HERE. THEY'RE ALL HERE.

So I mostly resigned myself to not having one and I took Albert, my stuffed white cat, whose inscrutable frown had always marked him as male to me, and put a pink hairbow around his head. Albert remained Albert (where on earth did he even get that name in the first place?), but occasionally, when I was in a Hello Kitty mood, he donned his bow and I imagined he was the Hello Kitty I wanted.

By the time I was nine, the Hello Kitty phase was beginning to pass in favor of a Pokemon phase. Not that I could play Pokemon well, mind you, but I loved the show so much and begged my mom for the Pokemon puzzle I found in a store mostly so I could draw the characters from the box. In that same store there were shelves of Beanie Babies, those floppy awkwardly shaped stuffed animals that so many stores used to tempt children in frothing fits of need by filling cases of them at child-level near the cash register, not far from the candy. In one of those cases, I found a striped grey-and-black cat and was suddenly consumed by a NEED to have it be MINE that is probably only comparable to Frodo and the One Ring, or Bella and Edward, or my current self and any food containing avocado.

It may not look like much, but hey, I never expect understanding for my unhealthy obsessions.

My mother said no, and at home it was all I could think about, as my mind replayed fantasies of me sitting on the stairs landing by my bedroom and dangling her over through the bars of the railing. The possibilities of our future together! I pleaded for that cat. I knew her name already from her ear-tag (Prance) and there was a little poem about her that seemed to tantalizingly promise that YES, this cat was basically fuzzy bean-filled happiness and I would not be complete without it:

She darts around and swats the air

Then looks confused when nothing's there

Pick her up and pet her soft fur

Listen closely, and you'll hear her purr!

This was so much more necessary than a Hello Kitty. A Hello Kitty doll was a character already invented and crafted by someone else, and although new stories could be imagined around her, she wouldn't be entirely MINE. Prance was a blank slate for any story I wanted. I don't know how many times I visited that store, clutched that Beanie Baby and insisted that I have it, but it was more than once. I also don't even remember the day I got it, though I do remember that swinging her by the tail through the railing was about 150% as satisfying as I expected (no idea why).

Prance could be anyone. Obviously, Albert being a male cat and with his transvestite Hello Kitty days in the past, was automatically her boyfriend, but somehow never a husband because Prance didn't settle down. Most of the time when I played with her, she was in high school (teenagers were literally the coolest people I could imagine....

In this drawing, she is actually in front of a high school with her classmate Albert. Yes, her shirt says Girl Power. It was the 90s; shut up.

...and moonlighted as a superhero (because of that magic rock she's always holding).

I was not particularly gifted at designing costumes, obviously. Also, cut off next to her is Albert. Check out those Pokemon-inspired toothless mouths!

Throughout everything, I never called her any name but Prance (she was so much luckier than Albert!!), but she fit into dozens of "stories" my brother Steven and I would play. With three colorful rocks, a toy garbage can, Prance, Albert, and Steve's stuffed sunglasses-wearing dragon, Drago (seriously, ask him about Drago next time you see him!), we had a whole story about crime-fighting teenaged animal-people. Being 1 1/2 years older, I always led the play, and the plotlines were mine, especially when I followed out my fascination with tragedy by saying, "Let's play the END of the story." I'm sure Steven dreaded those (Melissa always refused to play those when she had played), but he went along with it, being a very easy-going and happy-go-lucky kid (believe it or not). So everyone died, or it was all a dream, or they had to give up their memories to save the world, or some other contrived sad ending.

Despite my morbid story-telling, Steven followed me along on other stories starring Prance, Albert, and Drago. There was a medieval one that was short-lived enough for me to not remember any of it, but long enough for me to draw a lot of it.

Someone was probably being killed, thus the tears.

Eventually, we created Tech-Lin, a story about a town populated by our combined hordes of stuffed animals including my Puppy Surprise and his Sonic the Hedgehog, as well as Prance, Albert, and Drago. Because I was the boss of everything, Prance was undeniably the main character and the hero of every storyline. She had to be the one to fight the villain.

She had wings for some reason and there is something seriously wrong with her wrists. Also, she became a redhead? (She still carried a broadsword, which sadly isn't pictured here.)

Albert was usually high-minded and a know-it-all, but not half as tough as Prance (don't let her cute outfits fool you). As for Drago, like most characters Steve played with or as, he was the comic relief. This is the boy who used to tell people he'd be Timon from The Lion King when he grew up, after all.

There's still time for him to make that dream come true.

All that to say, Steven wasn't the most discerning. He and I don't have all that much in common now, even though we're the closest in age, but we did spend years communally imagining whole worlds and characters based on the toys we had. And before then, when Melissa and I had played together, she led the stories we imagined and all my ideas were subject to hers (the price of being younger sibling). When she stopped playing with me (I was about eight and she was twelve), I turned to Steven, who till then had been an occasional playmate, but mostly was relegated to playing in the corner while Melissa and I played our games. Steven was my first audience as I tested my storytelling abilities beyond imitating Melissa's ideas. I could try out a tragedy or alternate universes or characters who straddled the line between good and bad (Melissa always hated those guys because they were massive jerks) and he accepted it as the "reality" of the story.

I don't think we played like most children; I understand that now. We had particular stories that we called "shows", and Steven and I took mine and Melissa's use of the word "shows" even farther--we played commercials at random segments. Playing was performing, while my writing was still a private activity only shared with Melissa, who has consistently read all my writings since, barely literate, I wrote my first story at 6 or 7 (I so regret throwing that out!). But through playing I learned how to craft stories and how to build characters, something that my writing skills still weren't quite strong enough to explore. I didn't have the patience to finish even a lengthy scene, much less an actual story, till I was about 11, but I could happily play all day.

Imagination is a powerful thing. So I guess that little Beanie Baby did change my life. Thanks, Mom, for buying this little brat the stuffed cat she insisted she needed.

Art by Steven, showing how what looked like a dead-eyed fat-headed animal (top) could be transformed into a moody animal-person wearing a communicator on her ears and with a microphone extending around her face so she could keep in touch with the team (bottom).

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We Were All Young (and Hopeless) Once, Weren't We?

Written for Ink Spots writing club prompt #1: What media (books, movies, TV, comics, music, etc.) do you feel had the greatest positive influence on you growing up? With examples.

I don't consider myself a musical person. Not just because I experience similar troubles learning to read music as I do trying to understand mathematical equations (do-re-mi is as deceptively intelligible as addition, but take all that further and solfege and binomials are all a foreign language to me) or that I have a difficult time staying in harmony in choir if I don't have a stronger voice to follow, but also because music is not a big part of my day-to-day life. I have friends who can't go more than a day or two without music, but I can go weeks without realizing it.

This is not to say that I don't love music. I do. I am often committing to choirs (why, when the struggle makes it hard to enjoy it at times, I couldn't say) and I always sing to myself (private concerts while I make breakfast!). I love live shows and can't resist moving in some way to live music (yes, even during hymns as you might know if you've ever been in a nearby pew when I'm at church). Music affects me emotionally and can make me cry, but definitely is less likely to than a book, movie, or show. Yet when I thought about a form of media that had a genuinely positive effect on me, my first thought was of a particular album I received for a Christmas present in 2004.

I think I finally just "got" this cover...the joke is "nuclear family", isn't it?  Huh.

I was 14, and I was going through an awkward pseudo goth-punk phase that involved haunting Hot Topic and actually wearing a mesh-sleeved shirt. This was a tricky phase to go through when your main socialization comes from Christian communities like church or a homeschool group, because it definitely labels you as the oddball (among others who are oddballs in their own way, ironically). I had a burned copy of Good Charlotte's Chronicles of Life & Death album from a friend and had watched the music video of "Predictable" so many times that I still have most of it memorized. I had put The Young & the Hopeless on my Christmas list that year, and I don't remember anything else I got that year--just my older cousin handing me the gift at my uncle's house.

When I opened it, my cousin nodded approvingly. "That's a good album."

I looked up at him--tattooed and pierced--then at the inside cover of the album where the band members were tattooed and pierced and kind of laughed. "Is this what happens when you listen to this music?" I joked to my sister.

But that night, driving home from the Bronx back to New Jersey, I put the CD into my discman (2004, remember?) and gave it a listen. I expected something like the Chronicles album, which was the kind of dark music I was into, but this was something I'd never heard before. I'm not saying Young & the Hopeless was particularly well-crafted or that it was genius in any way. But in that moment, I listened to each song with the disbelief that something like this existed...someone had actually written down and sung about what I was feeling and thinking and what it had seemed like no one else could ever understand.

The gist of the album is in its title--the songs vary in story, but the message is one of fear, anger, and hopelessness, particularly that hopelessness that exists only for the young. It's that hopelessness that well-meaning campaigns like It Gets Better or To Write Love On Her Arms (TWLOHA) can't really get at. It's being fully aware that you have so much time for things to get better and that maybe your living situation will indeed get better, but feeling like you can't last even that one year to get to that better place, much less the several years to adulthood and freedom. It's knowing that sure, someone may love you, and maybe many people do, and yeah, people would miss you if you were gone, but you just hate yourself so much that living as you for any length of time is just a sickening thought no matter what.

The chorus of the title track of the album goes like this:

'Cause I'm young and I'm hopeless
I'm lost and I know this
I'm going nowhere fast, that's what they say
I'm troublesome, I'm fallen
I'm angry at my father
It's me against this world and I don't care
I don't care

Listening to those words, while leaning my head against the dark window on the drive home Christmas night, I was suddenly not alone. It was such a relief, I was almost crying, but couldn't because even in the dark, someone else might see. I hadn't known how to voice this, but two punk kids from Maryland had and recorded it. They knew what it meant to be a broken wreck and still be condemned to live and carry on. They knew what it felt like to be spiraling downward and to feel like the whole world was in some plot against you. Most importantly, they knew what it meant to be angry at your father.

Good Charlotte's front men, Joel and Billy Madden, were the products of a broken family, with a dad who had just up and left, leaving them to struggle with poverty and a sense of worthlessness. In their early twenties, they broke into the music business, which was having a punk revival of sorts. I was the product of a shattered family that had been shoddily put back together in 2003 and was limping along, pretending to be okay, when in reality, we were slowly rotting and dying. Nestled in suburbia and deeply religious, we kept up an excellent front. But my father was a disturbed man, steeped in secret sins and living under a narcissistic delusion that he was the wronged hero of some tragic story. As I got older, I understood that abuse doesn't have to be physical, that emotional and verbal abuse is real, that constant threats to your person are not unimportant, and that living in fear is not normal. I look back now and see that all of the worst days were when my mother wasn't home, like the day he grabbed me by the neck and shoved me against a door. It was my fault he did that, I believed; after all, I'd yelled "Don't touch me!" just moments before when he'd tried to grab my arm. Of course, he was only grabbing my arm to keep me from running out of the room after he'd thrown handfuls of CDs at me.

Even while I blamed myself for when situations got really bad, I couldn't shake that anger that built up inside me. But I couldn't voice that anger--after all, my dad was funny and nice and just generally likable. Sure, he wasn't perfect, but the year before when he moved out temporarily, I had learned that yes, no one is perfect, even your parents. It wasn't fair to just always be angry, I felt, but I couldn't get rid of it, nor could I act on it. Hearing a song that just straight up admitted as an aside, "I'm angry at my father," was the closest I could get to a helping hand. It helped steer the anger that I had already turned against myself and begun to translate into self-harm into an avenue that was safer: anger at someone who was cruel to me and to others.

Back then and even now, there were adults who would criticize music like Good Charlotte's for the very reason that album and that song struck me--they were horrified by music that openly expressed anger or hopelessness because they thought it would influence or encourage kids to be angry depressed messes. As an adult now, I can understand that fear, even though it just annoyed me as a kid. Adults know how impressionable kids can be and worry about that. Many well-meaning folks think that maybe positive music would be better for a depressed kid--maybe it will lift them out of that dark place. And that does happen. But there are levels of pain where optimism can't do a lick of good. What's most important in those situations is to accept the situation and its feelings as reality, to recognize that this happens to many people and YES, your situation is better than some, but ALSO worse than others. Anger is a normal human emotion and has its place. Better to recognize that anger than stifle it and pretend it doesn't exist.

"The Young & the Hopeless" tackled the questions that no one I knew was asking:

And if I make it through today
Will tomorrow be the same?
Am I just running in place?
And if I stumble and I fall
Should I get up and carry on?
Will it all just be the same?

The answers to those questions in my life were yes, yes, and more yes. "Tomorrow" was actually worse. It wouldn't get better for another seven years, when my family moved away from my father and I was able to fully cut off all ties to him. He had ceased speaking to me when I was 19, the year I started college, because I didn't open the TV cabinet fully when he yelled at me to do it for him one evening. I ran in place, because I couldn't change my situation for a long time. I got up when I stumbled; I carried on. Even now I'm not free of the past and talking about things that happened leave my hands shaking. This is an improvement; there was a time when I would just start shaking all over and forget how to breathe. I don't hate myself and I don't want to die anymore, but while I'm being honest, I'll admit that when things get hard, my mind still slides quickly to self-disgust and the longing to just end it all.

Ironically, the song's opening verse is the most hopeful:

Hard days made me, hard nights shaped me
I don't know, they somehow saved me
And I know I'm making something
Out of this life they called nothing

This glimpse of hope meant a lot to me back then--maybe all this had meaning. Maybe hard times would make me stronger--being thought of as strong was infinitely important to me--and all of this was FOR something. My life, which felt worthless, could be something good. That little hope of purpose carried me through even as I was hopeless most of the time.

It turned out to be true. If I could go back and change my life (be more open about what was going on, stand up to my father more, hate myself less, etc.), I wouldn't. It did happen the way it happened for a reason. Those experiences broke me, making me at once weaker and stronger than I'd've been without them. Most importantly, it made me capable of being sympathetic to others. When I was a counselor at a high school camp post-high school, I realized that I could relate to the troubled kids. That realization brought me to tears of relief. I could do good with the bad I'd been given. I wasn't worthless; I had purpose. It's why I work in education, and why I have such a hard time answering the question of why I want to work with kids. I usually say something like "Um, I love kids a lot. Of all ages. They're great. Yeah." because explaining it for real takes too long and I doubt it's what most people want to hear about.

Now, to conclude, I will confess that Good Charlotte was new to me, but their message was run-of-the-mill. They weren't the first to voice them, they weren't alone in doing so even at the time, and now I'm sure others are sharing those feelings through music, though the Madden twins themselves eventually sold out and became fame-hungry, money-grubbing, hiphop wannabes.  It was a right time, right place sort of experience. I listen to that song now, and all I feel is a stirring of the residual feelings and some nostalgia. But oh back then. That clutch at my heart, my jaw dropping, the tears coming to my eyes, and the elation of being understood by someone and told that I wasn't alone at all.

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So This is the New Year...

For the past 2-3 years, I posted as my FB status the lyrics to Death Cab for Cutie's "New Year":

So this is the new year.
And I don't feel any different.

....

So this is the new year
And I have no resolutions
For self assigned penance
For problems with easy solutions

To me the New Year has never filled me with hope or the desire to make promises, I guess. I've actually never been too fond of New Year's. As a kid, it just meant staying up late and getting to drink some sparkling cider or maybe champagne if you're lucky. I often fell asleep and had to be awoken at 11:50 to watch the ball drop on TV and count down. Not terribly memorable really. I've forgotten most New Year's Eves I've celebrated.

In the 90s there was one at my uncle's. That was probably the one where my baby sister vomited on some guy's sweater and lots of weird old people I didn't know kept kissing me even though they smelled like beer and wine. Adults looked a bit teary-eyed about Auld Lang Syne, which I didn't get. That was probably '96. The most memorable New Year was obviously the new millennium....

I thought a technological apocalypse sounded sort of awesome.

We rang in the New Year just the six of us at the TV and everyone had this big fuss over the possibility of the worldwide technological disaster. All the computers would just be too confused by the year 2000 or '00 that they would just quit on us. I'm not sure how many adults around me believed it, but they talked about it a lot, and because I lived among Christians, in the end all anyone could do was pray. And, if you were my paternal grandmother, stockpile canned goods and bottled water. So we prayed, the ball dropped as we counted and life went on. We played with silly string, the six of us, and I guess it was fun. (It's hard for me to really dredge up nostalgia instead of apathy.)

The New Years blur after that. They passed. I never made resolutions, not that I remember.

Most were spent with immediate family, an event that you HAD to endure because what else would you do? Count down with a clock alone in your room? I sat there and writhed through the awkward TV hosts and musical performances, mumbled the count down, clinked glasses, drank the stuff, and got hugged or kissed. As I got older, it was less writhing and more just going through with it. It's just a ritualized human tradition, not anything embarrassing.

It wasn't that I never thought a new year would be different than the last. They usually are, especially when you're a teenager. So much changes. I didn't fear it would be worse or hope it would be better. I never felt that I could really influence it to go in any direction. All I could do was do what I wanted, which I would do whether the year was 364 days, 365 days, or 500 days. Most of the time I never anticipated the big changes.

You don't know the year you meet the best friend you always prayed for, you don't know the year your father will leave your family (or that it's only the tip of the iceberg), you don't know the year you'll realize how much you truly dislike yourself, you don't know the year a boy will tell you to your face he likes you very much, you don't know the year you'll know who you are and what you must do, you don't know the year you will finally cut yourself off from your father, you don't know the year you stop and look back and begin to grasp all the bad places you've been through. All you can know is how old you'll turn and maybe some tentative plans for school or travel or work.

I've had so little control over what happens to me. All I can do is steer things as best as I can. I try to be a good friend. I try to not be bitter, but to be nice and move on as best as I can. I try to work hard for what I want and not depend on others. I think I've succeeded somewhat.

This year does feel different though because there are at least two big changes coming my way. Inevitable college graduation comes June 2013. That scares me a little because that is the beginning of the rest of your life. Yes, I hope to get a master's or a PhD at some point, but that's whenever I want to and can afford it. After this anything can happen. Which leads me to my hope to move out of my mom's house and probably out of New York.

I always said I didn't want to live at home after I was a college graduate. Sometimes people get a little funny about that--they assume you leave home for a specific reason like maybe a far-away job or more importantly, MARRIAGE. Well, I don't have a job offer or a marriage offer at the moment, but I feel like it's right for me. My ideas about what home meant got the floor pulled out from under them a long time ago and there comes a point when things can't be repaired or even just redone entirely, you just need to relocate and rebuild elsewhere.

I wouldn't call either of these big changes in my life "resolutions." One is happening, as long as I stay alive and get my work done. The other is happening if I work hard enough to make it happen and if some other things fall into place. I hope....which means for the first time, I DO have a hope for the new year.

Lots of people on Facebook were saying they hoped 2013 was better than 2012 because 2012 was terrible. Maybe they're saying that because of personal hardship or tragedy. Or maybe because of Hurricane Sandy or the shooting in Newtown, CT. I don't know. To me, 2012 wasn't the worst year I've lived through (not sure what year that would be) any more than it was the best (not sure what that is either). It could've gone more extreme in either direction. I spent a month in London, which was incredible. I also had what I have to admit was possibly the worst Thanksgiving weekend I've ever had (that is saying a lot). I do hope that whatever the people I know are going through gets better this year. I hope that there won't be a natural disaster here or a mass murder.

But it won't necessarily get better for everyone. And even if there are no natural disasters or mass murders in the US next year, they'll be happening elsewhere. I can hope and pray otherwise, but it's sort of like praying for night to not come or for the ocean to stop being wet. It seems impossible.

I'm trying to effectively conclude this, but all I'm coming up with is more thoughts to chew on. I don't know how to bring this whole post to a fitting end. So I'll just stop here. I have the year to think about all this and figure stuff out. Maybe even to go back in a few months and edit this post to be more structured.

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