To All the Girls Walking Down the Aisle Alone

               As another cross of the proverbial calendar marks the end of another Father’s Day, I collapse into my chair and begin to think on my upcoming nuptials. Within my palette of colors and whirling images of centerpieces, I envision a day of romance with the air of whimsy coupled at the peak. For me, everything is as perfect as it can be. The music I chose the first time I heard the song would play for the procession. All of the décor matched to my mismatched and sincere demeanor falls into place with each footstep of bridesmaid tucked arm in arm with a groomsman. All fits, except one piece, remains missing:

My Dad.

            I had the fortune of knowing and loving not only my father, who passed five years ago but my best friend’s (and mine by extension) father, who unexpectedly died in May.  My mother and my best friends mother will walk at each of my sides, holding their picture on that day. And though my heart is humbled at the kindness and love these women bestow upon me, I hold myself to the hollowness of a fatherless march.

            Father, for most girls, is her first love. He is the man who cradles you in their arms and protects you from the world. A father lifts you into the air and places you on their shoulders to let you feel like you and the clouds mesh as one. For those who lived life without a father, I cannot imagine the cave of sadness welled within you, or not. Maybe you have made your great despite whatever parental structure life granted you. I can only know my story, and to speak from the heart of grief.

            For all the girls who will walk down the aisle alone, know a few things:

You can hold back the tears, so it doesn’t ruin your mascara. It’s okay.

            The moment before you step onto the bed of petals your flower girls (or persons) have laid for you, take a deep breath. Allow the grief to subside, if you want. This is your wedding, and the process of grief bears a different person to each. But, it is okay to not cry. It is okay to cry. Just remember in a few steps, this part will be over, and the merrier events (like marrying the person you love) will wash over you.

You can dread that moment, but know that if it is a moment that your Father knew would make you happy. He is Happy.

            If your dad is a person you are missing, the bet is on that he wanted you to be happy. After the moment, as aforementioned, give yourself the breath of relief you needed. You made it. You love someone enough to pledge your life to him. And if that doesn’t make any dad smile, then call me a monkey’s uncle. (Or whatever cliché dad joke your dad made.)

It’s okay to reserve a seat, or a song, for them.

            Before my second dad passed, I did not want to do anything in memorial for those passing. The thought of my dad not seeing this moment caused so much pain I had no desire to reminisce on that day. However, in lieu of my second father’s untimely death, I forged a change of heart. I have a poster with a reserved seat for those who have passed. I also created a slideshow for all of mine and my fiance’s family who have gone on to better pastures before the wedding date. This creation allowed me to have a moment of grief in the midst of joy.

It’s also okay if you don’t want to.

            As I said, the different strokes line fills in completely here. Whatever gives a bride some semblance of peace on the day she wishes more than anything that her father could reappear, then so be it.

You have the strength of your dad within you.

            Your dad may not be with you, but the parts of him that reside in you, whether through learning or genetics, remain. He gave you more than a wide toothy grin and a strange love of hot dogs; he gave you the strength from all the love he poured into you.

It’s okay to say that this part of your wedding is going to suck.

            That second, as the song peaks to begin your walk, part of that might be bittersweet. Hell, I’ll be honest, it is going to suck. It will feel partially unreal. This is okay. Again, look at the person you love. Go full steam ahead with the one you love. You will make it.
You are not alone. 
The entirety of my catharsis in writing this article was to reach out to other brides or future brides who might have the same or similar situation. Grief begets isolation, and isolation begets loneliness, and by the end of it you feel like the only girl in the room dreaming her dad was there holding her hand. You are not alone in this moment. Reach out and feel your sisters in arms to help you through this period. 

It’s also okay to know that your wedding will be a great day. Just as dad would have wanted.

            The hollowness will remain, but the swarm of love by family and friends who are ecstatic at you becoming linked with another individual will give you the momentum needed to let yourself enjoy your day. You deserve happiness. You know deep within the well of sadness, your dad would have wanted you happy as well

….And there’s cake. Let’s not forget there is cake.

Happy Father’s Day to all Dads, near and far. 

First Class Podcast - Episode 2: E3 2017 Wrap Up

To My Best Friend In Laws

                As we prance past our teen years and into the twenties, we encounter and mingle with people. Some skin will never again clasp together in passing to give us the ubiquitous, “High Five” as every person we interact with becomes a friend, or acquaintance, or the all ever present stranger.  Our twenties are filled with people, and as we mark our friends, as so we mark our family. The general idea of family is those related to you by blood or by marriage. However, as is my case, we leave out the stuffing to the Thanksgiving Feast of Family: The Friend Family.

                No, I am not talking about the group of people you hang out with and call “fam” who come in and out like fireflies to a lamppost, just looks for the next big thing.  I am speaking strictly of the friends who are so intertwined in with you that sometimes people cannot tell the two of you apart.

                In your twenties, you either marry or you friend. Most of those friends will be the ones aforementioned, but if you were as lucky as I was, you will get to pull the unicorn out of the hat and get a true and true Best Friend for Life, the real BFF. When you have an absolute best friend, the one who is actually there for every up and down; you live together, you eat together, you get terrible haircuts together, there is this inclusion and molding of two families exclusively thought to just derive through marriage. You exchange presents with each family on special occasions, you know their cousin’s birthdates, you’ve been to weddings and vacations so many times that you know what size clothes everyone wears.

                This, this type of friendship surpasses all inflections of just “friend” and moves into the category of family. It’s the J.D. and Turk effect when you found a lifetime friend. And, when you’ve found that friend, you’ve also found their family.

via GIPHY
                My best friend and I cemented our friendship on the mossy green lawn of a Fall Out Boy concert. We went through religious upheaval, spiritual awakenings, scientific findings, and became to one another the adventure seekers and dreamers needed to grow into somewhat adults through our twenties. During this time, we also both became acquainted and then known to one another’s family. I learned their hardships and they learned mine. We adopted each other as our own.  We became more than friend, we became kin.

                To me, they are my Best Friend In-Laws. Maybe not by virtue of actual “law” as with marriage, but by societal construct of what that term means. The Holidays are a big event of conjoined togetherness. And though it is hard to understand as a bystander, it is not hard to see that family is in itself a blossoming definition.

                So, thank you, Best Friend mother In- Law, for showing me to love another person and to endure with kindness above everything. Thank you, as well, Best Friend Father in law for loaning yourself to me as my father has now been placed back to the earth, and someday soon walking me down the aisle as we join our next set of family together as well.

               

                Thank you, Best Friend In-laws, for not only raising a daughter to whom I have shared the hardships of the catapult of fried cheese and responsibilities that is adulthood, but for also holding my hand through every fated event. I cannot thank you enough for being the chatty, lively, bunch of people I have grown to love.

                And for all Best Friend Families, carry on.

                

A Tale of Two Faces; Living with Social Anxiety

                “And then, there was a knock on the door…” a line that denotes the air of suspense among readers and viewers of the novel horror/mystery genre. The next part would read, “I wonder who that could be?” chimed Clementine (or some other absurdly dramatic name.) Or, in film, Clementine’s eyes would dart to the door as chilling music serenaded the audience onward into a fit of fear. Of course, these inflections are used by authors and film makers to incite that breath freezing, hair raising dread that instigates the shock factor needed to brew something scary.

                Living with social anxiety is much like living in a suspense story. When, “there is a knock on the door” regardless of if you were or weren’t expecting someone, the throat swells, and hair stands like needles. It doesn’t matter that no one is going to be saying, “Here’s Johnny!” or hacking in the door with a hammer. They’ve come, and the possibility of what could go utterly and terribly wrong during the opening up of the door to speak swarms around until you are breathless, and the screaming chasms in your brain are so overloaded you can’t hear or think straight.

                Today, it’s a knock on a door. Tomorrow, it’s a parking lot. Or a grocery. Or the gym. As a kid, I took solace in writing, using the pages of a notebook and a pen to masque the overbearing amount of pressure I felt being amongst my own age. In school, I hid in the library during lunch, reading or doing homework, as to not face the daunting task of finding a seat in the lunchroom. As an adult, I don’t eat around people I don’t know, and I use my phone as a buffer in new or uncomfortable social places. Even then, I hold myself in and completely controlled until I can muster enough strength despite myself to talk or run to the nearest exit to have a good home spun panic attack.

                I feel like, most of the time, I live with two faces. My first face is warped by an overwhelming fear and dread of people. When you meet that face, you might become suspicious or think I am hiding something. You might call me rude because I don’t engage the way society thinks we should all gather. You might call me controlling, because I keep everything in order to make sure that people don’t dislike me, even though that never seems to work. You probably, at this point, don’t really like me. To be fair, you aren’t meeting “me” at this point, the rude and controlled face you are meeting is that of Social Anxiety.

                Once that face can melt away, you get to see the real me. You get to see that I don’t want to live with two face, but I am forced to because of my own anxiety. You learn that there is a kind person that tries to overcome the clasp of the iron mask that is social anxiety, that keeps this face hidden. You might even realize how much effort I put into trying and failing to interact with people. But, all of that only comes after you learn to see past the first face.

                For the last time, I’m not shy. I’m really not shy. Is a crippled runner a couch potato? I can be bold, and adventurous, and even outgoing in right circumstances. And for the most part, most of those faced with living with social anxiety can be, too.

                I live my life trapped in two faces. All I, or anyone facing social anxiety, ask is that you understand. 

Keep On, Lovelies

                Loss. It’s a word that represents a deficit to something; a defeat. The letters assemble and at the sound of it we feel an emptiness swell at the pit of our inner being. Most individuals face a loss at one point or another, trickling down into the abyss of sadness that surrounds the very name. In the wake of seeing a loss in terms of a person, any and everything else seems tainted by mediocrity. We are the living, circumstances be damned.

                A dear person to my friend family lost the battle to depression.  He left to the world younger siblings and family members who are not quite able to fathom what this particular loss means. This isn’t an ailment or accident. It’s not something that comes with a cure. You can’t summarize the feeling in a chart or a graph. He was battling his mind, and it is the cruelest sickness of them all.

                As someone who has fought the battle with depression for almost fifteen years, I look at this young man and see valor in his fight. If you have never experienced a sadness in yourself so twisted, it alienates you from your own self into feeling like the true person you are, it is not easy to understand. The sadness can trample swiftly over the feelings of pleasure you once had. It clogs your very soul.

                One day, I hope we begin to treat depression like we do cancer. In today’s age, we still perceive it as mind over matter, when it is in fact yourself against your own self. You aren’t battling antibodies, you are battling brain wires that cannot be rewired alone. It is a war without an end date, and it is certainly not selfish when a person can no longer fight.

                So, today, if you are fighting, I urge you to, “Keep On.” Give it one more go. Write one more story. Paint one more picture. Talk to one more friend. See one more sunrise. And, if you can, if you need it; seek help.

                For those now grieving, remember the victory. Keep on with the memory of an individual who gave a valiant stride into this murky and dismal world. The loss is beyond any phrasing or words. 

Keep On, Lovelies, Keep on.

To The Church That Left Me Behind

                I boast that the years are behind me. That every last bitter tear has been swept into the hollow cubicle of emo pop punk and an assortment of eyeliner. Yet, in this moment as the grasp of the fickle reality of the pure hypocritical irony clouds the essence of mature forgiveness and retreats into the teenage mutant dream, clutching onto the Chuck Palahniuk novel and cowering to the floor, I become angered at the idea of a “new church”.

                After I write this and allow myself to regain the perspective I fought to achieve after years of study on various religions, I hope I won’t have to go back to this feeling. Yet, right now, in this flash of an instance, I’m petty, I’m jaded, and I’m mad.  The anger seizes me like the embrace of a scorned lover, heated for the cause.

                The news broke on the launch of a new name and new perspective, citing from the story that, “…[In the church] the music is “edgy.” Suits and ties have been traded for casual wear, and the congregation is dotted with piercings, tattoos, and “crazy” hair colors…”

                Mic drop.

                ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME??????

                Clearly, people change. I did. But seriously? It took you a decade to figure out that this wasn’t your “sin”? That the characterization of clothing, makeup, adornments, and hair color are in and of themselves not innately evil? Where the fuck was that when I was being called “falling away” from God? Where were you when I was being told that my outer appearance wasn’t worthy?

                That’s right, you were questioning my bracelets and wondering if I was “giving myself” away to boys. That a man wouldn’t want me as a wife after that. This is what you said. You never noticed the actual scars from the knife on my arms after you said this. The fact that I had stopped eating indefinitely. You never thought about the fact that my dad was dying. Or that my sister was dealing with mental issues. You never stopped once to ask, honestly, how the fuck I was?

                You just kept telling me I was changing on the outside. Of course I was!

                I didn’t fall away. I was pushed/shoved/carried off the ledge with a band of people holding pitchforks and scoffing. I wasn’t allowed to figure things out. And when I did, my only realization was that a God of mercy wouldn’t allow his people to torment others at His name. At the hands of God’s people, I am an atheist. You could not have shown me the light more.

                Church was probably the worst break up I have ever been through. I was confused, hurt, and untrusting. After all, I believed in the cause. I fought for it with every breath. I did everything I was supposed to be considered, “good enough.” And I was left disgraced. It took years to build myself back up to a stronger person.  What doesn’t kill you makes you realize you have to learn to live again.
              It's a catastrophic conundrum when the church is the monster under your bed. When pews haunt your dreams of the condemnation stitched within the fabric. The shreds of myself that wanted a human race to understand grace replaces itself with that of grimace. This is the only sovereign thought I can offer myself to appease the ever enduring woe of being abandoned by a people who say they "are no respecter of persons."

                I will never enter heaven, if in the least likely scenario where it exists, and I’m at peace with that. It’s an unlikely percentile, but I would rather find an eternity of torture than endure another moment claiming myself to a lot who could treat people so poorly. I like to think this is the reason you changed. You won’t admit that Christianity is a never ending evolution of culture for people seeking to believe. Yet, this is entirely what it is.  Fit to a mold. A need to recapture those you’ve cast to the fires fueled this change of pace, and an embrace with the alternative.

                As a person who believes in freedom of choice in regards to theism, I hope for the best. My jaded heart will mend to the person I was a few articles ago. I wish you well on your endeavor for your cause. I have faith that this trend of openness will continue.

But as for me, in the true 2007 style, for this millenial…

It’s too late.

               

Information take from: http://kokomoperspective.com/kp/lifestyles/church-relaunches-with-new-name-vision/article_6309f10a-16c1-11e6-84e0-270883007f21.html

                

A Dead Man's Game

Racked and riddled

Engulfed and infectious

Leeches sputter and descend

Full of my own decay

Rot falls to a vulture’s feed

These maggots brace the light

A dismal diamond design

Hanging on my ends

I’m the corpse of my own shadow

The breath of a hitman at my bedpost

Betting on my mortality

Dice rolling on the beat of a throb

We all eat our own disease

The vice of a stranger

Cradling the weight of happiness

In the clutch of a dream

We are laughing insanity

Breaking bones on the backs of revolutions

We don’t cocoon to take flight

We bury the dead in closets

Our skeletons in sheath

We are cancer

Careening forward