Have you ever asked yourself what makes a family? It seems that blood and marriage mean nothing in the face of misfortune. For better or for worse were just lines recited, because when the “worse” reared its difficult head, the responses were frightening. Family is made up of those who stay by your side in the face of adversity. Most importantly, family is love. Love is tested by everything that has happened and everything that has changed. Love gives us the courage to continue on with day-to-day life. Love is what makes us cry and what makes us hope. Love is what makes us reach out to strangers and, in turn, love them as family too.

I’ve also learned so much about friendship in the past two months. My best friends have showed concern, given me a shoulder and sent their prayers to whatever gods they believed in, all with the hope of giving some comfort to me, to my Mom, to everyone affected by this accident. I am grateful that people have been there for me, because I don’t think I could have handled this on my own. The fact that my friends will check in allows me to talk about how things are progressing, about how I feel and allows me an opportunity to vent. If I held all this in, I would die.

My own strength has been tested. I’ve had to be strong for my Mom because this is even harder for her. She is watching someone she loves dearly struggle, but she’s kept at a distance. It’s so difficult on her, and I play the role of friend and family. I must listen, advise, and—most importantly—love her, because she is my mother and she has always supported me and would do so if it was me in this situation. Still, it’s been difficult for me to watch her endure this trial. What’s hardest, though, is visiting SW. I try to keep my head while I’m there, but it’s so hard not to cry. He’s not capable of being the same person, but he is—somewhere in there—the same good person he was before the accident.

Watching the recovery process has been difficult. I haven’t been able to visit as much as I would like to, but each time I do, he looks a little bit better. Most of the time, he knows who I am right away. There are times, though, when he mistakes me for my Mom or knows who I am but can’t remember my name. One time he compensated by calling me Denise Jr. His tone is different, though; he sounds confused. You know that feeling when you have right after waking up in a strange place and not knowing where you are? From his tone, I’d assume that’s what a traumatic brain injury is like all the time. Lately, he’s been very sad that he can’t go home. He cries, and asks my Mom or his sister or me to help him, because we are family. And family helps.

But we are helpless.

I worry that SW will never be able to comprehend the sentiments behind what we’ve written. And I constantly wonder how long this will take, and how we will weather this storm. At times we can feel completely overwhelmed by what is going on in our lives, but we keep hoping things will get better.

Things were good. I didn’t realize how nice life was until everything changed and the emptiness filled its place. Little things catch me off guard, and I wonder if that will ever change. Will things ever go back to being good, or will good be redefined?

We just have to take it a day, a week, a month at a time.

Other times, it feels like my life is rushed and filled to the point of bursting. I feel like I’m barely clinging on to my sanity. I see people living happy, carefree lives and I envy them.

Perhaps the real situation is that everyone is somewhere between these two places. No one is completely carefree. We all have bills and deadlines to meet. Marriage, children, jobs, houses–they just compound the stress of life itself. In some ways I’m lucky that I do not have those things to worry about. My employment situation is glorified hobo and the white picket fence is a long way off. I won’t have to worry about a mortgage or diapers or contracts for a couple of years. Still, I have to keep telling myself that I’m working toward something or the day to day breathing becomes too much.

My dear friend and “little brother” wrote on my Facebook today that I have to be passionate about teaching. I think I am, but am I passionate enough? I really look forward to working with a classroom of my own, but I’m nervous. I’m more nervous about completing the process and jumping through the hoops of student teaching and Praxis testing, but it’s still just another stressful element in this path I have chosen for myself. And I’m always questioning if it’s the right path. I’ve had a good break from subbing due to PSSA testing and conflicting schedules, and I can honestly say that I don’t miss it all that much. I’ve already entered the mindset for my summer job, which might just be a necessary coping mechanism.

I wonder if I’ve missed my calling. I wonder if this is what I’m supposed to do. Friends–well, more likely friends of friends–would turn to religion here and pray for answers or something. I could consult my tarot cards. I could put my faith in what my friends tell me. I could believe in myself for once.

I’ve kind of hit a wall. I guess that’s what April is, and possibly always has been, for me. I think I was usually fairly frustrated by this time of year in undergrad, and most certainly in 2008 and 2009, I was slowly going crazy by this time of year. I want to be passionate about my classes, about subbing, about life–but right now I just keep asking myself two questions:

Is this real life? and

Can we go to the beach yet?

I need this.

]]> http://silverfire.net/life-in-cepa/is-this-real-life/feed 0 http://silverfire.net/life-in-cepa/for-whom-the-wedding-bells-toll http://silverfire.net/life-in-cepa/for-whom-the-wedding-bells-toll#comments Sun, 07 Mar 2010 18:43:59 +0000 Lindsay http://silverfire.net/?p=367 What is in the water? Everyone I know is married or getting married. Some people I’ve known since childhood are already divorced. There are babies everywhere. Why? And when I ponder these questions, why am I always lead to the “Is this real life?” spiral of career-related questions? Why does the happiness of others make me want to throw things?

I’m not going to lie; sometimes, seeing all these happy couples pushing strollers and planning parties makes me feel like a failure. A ton of my boyfriend’s friends are getting hitched within the next 18 months, and half my high school acquaintances have different last names on Facebook these days. I always thought that I would be like my Mom; she was married in her early 20s and had me when she was 26. Well, I turn 26 this year, and I have no plans to have a baby any time soon. I also thought I’d have a career and–at the very least–an apartment by now.

So what gives? I guess I’ve always been kind of a late bloomer. I’ve done things at my own pace all my life. Graduating from a liberal arts college with America’s impending financial crisis just over the horizon didn’t help me, either. I worked where I could and I don’t have a lot to show for it aside from anecdotes and a strong dislike for Republicans. I wasted my talent and my intelligence before deciding to start taking online graduate courses and substitute teaching, and now I’m working for the career path I should have taken all along. Am I upset that I made the choices I did? No. I loved working on campus publications. Even if print media is, essentially, dead, I still love designing and I’ve made some life long friends through my experiences with The Collegian and The Medium. Could I have stayed in the basement of Reid Hall until 4 in the morning if I was doing ed block at WAC? Probably not. As far as not having the career I thought I’d have at 25? I guess I’m at least working toward something now.

Living at home isn’t so bad, either. My boyfriend lives at home, too. The majority of my (unmarried) friends who don’t live at home live in shared houses with friends. If I had friends in this state and spare money, I’d consider such an arrangement. The economy is different than it used to be, and that is something we’ve all had to accept. The housing market is still shaky, and renting seems like throwing money away when the alternative is sharing space with someone who knows when to give me my space. You see, my relationship with my Mom isn’t always Gilmore perfect, but I have an entire floor of a house to myself when I need it. Some folks like Dan aren’t as lucky and don’t have as much personal space or as casual of a relationship with their parents. I guess I have to consider myself lucky, and remind myself that it could be so much worse before I let myself spiral out of cognitive control over housing and career situations when I see a wedding invitation.

There are just so many wedding invitations these days. If it isn’t wedding invitations, it’s pictures from the reception in the Facebook stalker feed, or–worse yet–drooling, seemingly alien lifeforms and people I never expected to breed holding them up for the camera with big smiles on their faces. This is the mess that sets me off, and makes me wonder where I went wrong. Why is my life not redefined by a permanent addition and a different tax filing status? Am I damaged goods after my craptastical 2006-2007 failed relationship? Should I be worried that Dan hasn’t asked me my ring size? How can those folks from high school still like each other enough to be married? One Facebook status, one text message, one piece of juicy gossip if and when I do actually have a night out with friends… That’s all it takes to set off these neuroses. It doesn’t help that sometimes people ask why Dan and I aren’t making more plans.

The fact of the matter is that I’m perfectly normal. Some of my favorite people from college aren’t married, and they don’t plan to be married any time soon. Dan and I have an excellent relationship that doesn’t need to move at anyone’s speed but ours. Quite simply, we’re not ready. We are both Virgos and we like plans and assurance, and we would like to take this whole thing slowly, thank you very much. I’m taking classes, working toward a career I will enjoy, and he might have a job with a salary, but he’s not exactly sure it’s where he wants to stay if the recession ever ends. I think that in the long run, he and I are more likely to be happy than some of my friends who rushed into things and made rash decisions. And although it sometimes sends me into an emotional tailspin, I’m really happy for those friends who made it work and are living happily ever after. More power to you; it’s just not for me–yet.

Perhaps the economy’s forced extended adolescence has my growth as a person stunted. It’s not that I don’t want to live on my own, to be able to have my own dinner parties or to own my own living room furniture. I do want these things; I just can’t figure out how to get form point A to B quickly enough, and I’m disappointed that it’s taken me this long to get anywhere close to establishing myself. But even some of my friends who have taken adult steps like getting married or establishing careers seem to live in a vacuum where age is nonexistent.

I’m hoping that my birthday weekend gives me some clarity on this. I wish I could offer further laments, but I can’t find the words to express what I’m feeling. In a way, I guess I am older; Dan and I are going to a bed and breakfast on the Eastern Shore for the weekend. There’s been talk of bird watching. We want to relax rather than attend parties at my alma mater. We’d rather have glasses of wine or a craft brewed beer than all-you-can drink Beast Light. I just hope that this experience–an adult vacation–makes me feel more grown up or offers me some time to reflect and figure out how to get to a point where I feel like an adult. I’m sick of feeling trapped in limbo. I’d like 25 to mean something.

The real inspiration for this post is not to talk about impending hang-outs, but one that has already taken place.  A little background for you?  From sixth grade through high school I adored this boy (we shall call him R).  I never dated R, and with the exception of one drunken make out session, nothing productive came out of my nearly-a-decade-long crush.  He graduated high school with me in 2003 and bounced around to several colleges before he found one that “stuck.”  He’s slated to graduate in 2010.  We haven’t been tight since we went to Bonnaroo–a group trip where I was Susie Sober and spoiled everyone’s fun by being slightly annoyed at the rampant drug use among the 80,000 people who were not nearly as dedicated to Radiohead as me.  So anyway, R is home from Utah State right now, and I wanted to “catch up.”

After some unproductive barhopping, I agreed to follow R’s text message to a garage in N-town. A few years ago, I sat in the very same barn. Back then, it wasn’t as well insulated or decorated. The smoking den it is today was only in its infancy. Now there is a Super Nintendo and some band posters. The boys were drinking fancy microbrews. Back then there were some cold, cold chairs and a leftover New Years’ keg, complete with R doing kegstands. The scenery has changed slightly, it’s true.

The people have not evolved.

In high school and even during the first bit of college, I wanted nothing more than to fit in with this crowd. R, who hated me for getting mad at him about smoking weed in high school, passed me my first joint. He let me experience parties. He provided an element of danger. But once I got to experience all these things, I realized they weren’t all they were cracked up to be. Pot didn’t make R cool or uncool–it just drained his wallet. His spontaneity lost its novelty when he showed up to Tom Petty rolling.

Now, here I was, a year and a half out of college and sitting again in this barn watching R with his new girlfriend (another pseudo hippie who seems mostly to embrace the marijuana smoking aspect of the lifestyle above the friendliness or social freeness often espouse). Could this be the social high of my December? Would this musical gathering be the “coolest” I get for 2008? How is this even fun?

While there is nothing wrong with a group of college kids or Matthew McConaughey sitting above a garage smoking weed, drinking beer and passing around musical instruments, I just don’t think it’s my scene. The majority of these boys are done with school; the major exception is R. But it’s not like R is their fearless leader in small-town Boho lifestyle. They’re all equally aimless, and they all seem perfectly content with how they are living. While the various percussion instruments, guitars and even the mandolin were interesting to me for about five seconds, I found myself nearly having a panic attack. The situation itself wasn’t bad; there are certainly worse places I could be on a Friday night. But being there made me realize how badly I didn’t want to be there.

My mind raced back to the beers I had and how I should just give it all up. Sometimes, in these panicky moments, I think in the extreme. Then I remembered that I kind of enjoy a nice beer with a steak, and that at 24 years old, drinking doesn’t really make me “bad ass.” This, I thought to myself, is what being around people from high school does to me. I freak out. I thought about my impending drinks with my big city friend and how the only interesting anecdote from my month will be small town gossip and my impromptu pot-and-beer-fueled garage concert.

Thankfully around this point, my friend realized I was uncomfortable and offered to leave with me and come back later on her own. There are benefits to having a friend who has known you since second grade, but the very fact that we ended up there in the first place shows one of the downsides.

By the way, this is a cry for help.