Like I Wasn’t Going To Blog About Last Night

As I stress ate my grilled cheese sandwich and pile of fries, and watched the polling results with Andy and his sister Lindsey, I felt a numbness blanketing my mind.

And it wasn’t my first drink.

Election Fuel

It was the weight of the evening, the suddenness with which the past year seemed to come crashing to the fore of my mind, pushing everything else out of the way and demanding my attention.

But I had plenty of company.

Instead of the usually deafening conversational buzz, our favorite haunt was filled with quiet murmurs between patrons, each of whom sat rapt, their eyes glued to the small television hanging over the bar. But when a key state went blue, cheers erupted and drink orders soared.

The energy only increased at the LGBT Center of Raleigh, and plenty of us began to feel confident that the country was going to continue in the right direction, not be lulled into some comatose state by a pathological, self-aggrandizing liar and his misogynistic henchman.  

But the night was wearing on, and my second drink began tapping my stress-filled mind on its shoulder, asking it why it wasn’t in bed.

Still, the three of us refused to go to bed without knowing which way the swing states swung. So we left, side-stepped an opossum trudging down the sidewalk, and settled in at Lindsey’s.

Before I knew it, Rachel Maddow was silencing a commentator to announce Ohio’s polling results. I was suddenly wide awake. I squeezed Andy’s hand.

And nearly crushed it when Ohio went to Obama.

Cathartic Exhale

That’s when I started to exhale–the first time in months. 

***

There were so many “what ifs” on both sides of the coin regarding the election’s outcome. If he didn’t win, what would we do, where would we go? If he does win, will the next four years see the country move toward a fair, more equal future for us all?

And there, onscreen, I had the first bits of proof—the groundswell of support for LGBT equality in three (maybe four) states; the strong fights against bigoted, state-authored legislation; the election of Tammy Baldwin to the Senate.

My exhausted ADD-wired mind could barely process it all.

But I did know that certain mental lists—“What to pack,” “What to sell,” “Where to move,” “What to do”—were now in a shred queue.

***

Still, with so much going right in the election, there were low points paving the way, and even after the polls closed. With the election sliding in Obama’s favor, others more gracious than I are asking that there be a restoration of respect—specifically, a hand extended back to the Romney/Ryan supporters.

Knowing that a hand most definitely wouldn’t have been extended had the election gone the other way, I couldn’t disagree more.

My position on Romney/Ryan supporters hasn’t changed; those people who voted for two men who wanted to make my life, my family’s life, my friends’ lives, and the United States worse can continue to stay away from me.

Despite the stress, this election forced people to be accountable, to show their true colors—reveal themselves for the closeted homophobes, racists, and bigots they have always been, but have been too cowardly to show without a white man of their ilk leading the charge.

It taught me that more LGBT individuals than I care to imagine must be grappling with internalized homophobia. Because I simply cannot fathom any other reason why any LGBT person would have been content watching their rights, their children’s rights, their basic human dignities torn apart by this would-be Republican juggernaut. And I refuse to think the economy or foreign policy or any other issue can possibly trump your life and livelihood, much less those of the people you love.

I learned that, while I love where I live, I can always return when more sensible folks are at the helm. When there’s no question if the state government I support financially and socially will respect me as an equal. When I don’t have to spend my free time fighting, fighting, fighting instead of living, living, living.

***

If nothing else, this election has opened a lot of eyes.

It’s shaken many people awake.

It’s shown the naysayers that we will not back down.

It’s shown that reason, truth, and respect count for something.  

Bright Future

And if I’m going to count on anything these days, it’s that holy trinity. 

When Your Only Recourse To Bullying Is A Big F-You.

There have been a few moments in my life when I’ve realized my only recourse is to throw my hands in the air after washing them clean of toxic residue left by particular experiences.

I did after crying about the sting of unrequited love.

I did after deciding to leave graduate school.

And at 6:41 this morning, I did it again.

***

After two and a half years dealing with a constant barrage of hostile exchanges and unprofessional behavior in my office, I passed the threshold separating “Be the better person” from “Here’s what I really think of you.”

Once the tremors in my hands subsided, and the keyboard stopped smoking from my rapid typing, I exhaled for the first time in what seemed like 15 minutes. Onscreen was the end product of unmeasurable amounts of stress, anxiety, and anger.

It was the albatross loosened from around my neck.

***

I’ve had so many mentors in my life, each of whom has taught me the benefits of being the bigger person. Of following all professional channels to reddress workplace issues. Of taking the high road. Of invoking that voice of reason even when fear-mongers scream through bullhorns.

But it turns out today is not the day to do any of these things. Or be any of these people.

Today is when I face the fact that this horrible place has changed me. Has made me bitter. Has changed a part of who I am for the worse. Has made me realize I need to start healing, and stop tearing off the proverbial scabs and repeatedly licking my wounds.

Today is the day I send a response to the person who has made my time in this office absolutely unbearable.

[Name]:

Thank you for your email. It brings a few issues to the floor, each of which I’d like to address in detail. 

(1) If the — files are of such central importance, then I think they should be kept in your office, not mine, and in something a bit more appropriate than a rusted filing cabinet. Additionally, — has been mitigated for years, and while there is limited interest in it, I have yet to see anyone use these files since I’ve worked here; they take up space that is needed by the buildings team to process active projects. — has not been under the —‘s managerial purview in years. 

(2) There seems to be a double standard with regard to individuals moving office furniture at their leisure. Did you not switch offices without any prior approval? Did you ask everyone in the office if they would mind? The move you made was calculated and the implication clear-you wanted the “power” office in the facility. The cabinet I moved has been empty since — left, and its space is needed presently. As you mentioned in your email, there are plenty of other filing cabinets floating around —; we can always get one of those once a — is hired.

(3) You are not my — mentor, my supervisor, or my boss. You have no right to “track” my leave time on the hard copy calendar in the common area (which, by the way, is an OPSEC violation), and I do not want any of my PII on the —, on a phone list, on anything that is freely accessible by others inside or outside the office. Additionally, if you ever think I am faking an illness to avoid work or am doing so out of anger (e.g., after — left), please feel free to ask me rather than attempt to undermine my professional character. (By the way, I did in fact have pneumonia that settled in my lungs as bronchitis right after — left; I also just had strep throat, an acute sinus infection, two severe ear infections-one of which left me with slight hearing loss-and pink eye in both eyes a few weeks ago.)

(4) If we want to talk about curation, we should address the multiple projects —, —, and I uncovered in the back vault that have been inappropriately curated for the past eight years. Entire projects have been accessioned incorrectly; if I’m not mistaken, this is why you go to — prior to their final storage in this facility and/or at —‘s storage facility. None of the individual artifacts for the projects can be relocated should they need to be, and each of the catalogs is a mess. Additionally, the “database” you keep for the — component of the program is a Word document, not a database; nothing in it can be queried for data usage/calls. There is no real temperature regulation in the back curation area, especially since the door to the common area is kept open at all times. Also, it is a basic best practice not to eat in a curation space; it attracts bugs and drinks can easily be spilled, damaging documents or equipment. A milvan/conex does nothing to preserve the —; these objects are corroding, rotting, and molding in these archivally unstable storage containers. The — Disaster Plan was last updated in May 2002 (when I graduated high school). Each of these issues seems to be a more pressing one than berating me about the location of the — files.

Your email is symptomatic of the targeted harassment you’ve shown toward me since the hostile interaction you initiated earlier this year when no one else was in the office (re: my tasking). Quite frankly, I am tired of your scare tactics, your immature demeanor and attitude in the office, and your unprofessionalism. You have repeatedly shown systematic aggressive communication with attributed intent (e.g., intentionally leaving me out of buildings-related email traffic-e.g., the cupola thread-regardless of if I respond to the thread or am the POC); repetitious manipulation of work (e.g., your attempts to take the — webpage management from me; micromanaging buildings projects/inserting yourself into them when you are not the SME); nonverbal aggression (e.g., your refusal to communicate with me directly or acknowledge my presence; your distribution of Suicide Prevention Awareness cards to everyone in the office-even those not present-and intentionally skipping me; antagonizing me about furniture rearrangement that facilitates my productivity in my office); and social ostracism (e.g., asking everyone else in the office if they’d like to eat in the back and intentionally skipping me).

Former staffers and others outside this office share my concerns and thoughts on these issues, so I am not alone in this assessment; I am merely the only one left who has the courage to stand up to workplace bullies like you. Others who have “pushed back” against you and your behavior have met similarly unprofessional ripostes and treatment. I have to deal with harassment, bigotry, and generalized discrimination every single day of my life, so I know what it looks, sounds, and feels like. Everything that you do to undermine my abilities and professionalism in this office, and every way that you act toward me, falls within one of those categories. Your callous behavior is reprehensible, and I am tired of taking the brunt of it.

If you take issue with anything that I do in this office, I ask that you be professional and address it with me directly rather than revert to passive-aggressive emails after I leave the office. The fact that you cannot speak to me, or acknowledge my presence in the office on a daily basis, speaks to your unprofessional, disrespectful behavior that has long pervaded the office.

Respectfully,

Matt

***

Today is the day that my mind is clear.

My conscience clean.

Nostalgic Trek[kie]

I nudge the Klingon Bird of Prey an inch or so closer to the USS Enterprise to make room for the mint condition Star Trek puzzle—still in the plastic!—and wonder if my DragonBall Z VHS tapes and action figures will fit on the same table.

It’s then, as I step back to survey the tableau, that I realize why I hadn’t lost my virginity in high school.

Sighing, I cross out the puzzle’s ten dollar price and scribble in five.

Then take stock of my parents’ liquor cabinet.

***

It’s an oddly disconcerting feeling to pull out boxes from your parents’ attic and closets, haul them onto the front lawn, and know they’re not coming back inside. It’s not a holiday, and these aren’t temporary decorations. They’re “Everything must go!”

Especially that unfortunate Easter basket cornucopia overflowing near Laura’s New Kids on the Block beach towel.

Having been empty nesters for several years, our parents decided to downsize and retire to their hobbitesque, off-grid, semi-subterranean house in the Alabama woods. It’d always been a dream of theirs, as long as Laura and I could remember. But I’d always assumed it was a distant dream, never to be writ into the landscape, only in their minds.

But now, it was real. And it was time to clean out our childhood home, box up its interior décor and ship it out to The Shire or the front porch to sell.

Once I start packing a trunk with the essentials, I loiter among the remaining books, cars, and furniture stacked hoarder-style on the porch. I step over the rope tied between the columns, the sign Dad has taped to it reading, “If you can read this, you’re in range!”

Various stages of our childhoods and their associated recollections drip off table edges and pool in massive fifty-cent piles.

Trolls with homemade haircuts. Stacks of anime books. A crumpled My So Called Life poster. And then I trip over a pile of plastic marine mammals I’d begged my parents to order.

From a science magazine.

They’d been some of my favorites.

And had made cameos in the play session that ended my childhood. 

***

It’d been a hot day in the Serengeti, and plenty of creatures were hauling their dehydrated hides to the last watering hole for miles. Unbeknownst to them, though, G.I. Joes were camped along its banks. And they hadn’t eaten in days.

Tired, weak animals + famished G.I. Joes = massive carnage. Just as Ace and Chuckles attempt to ambush a dithering polar bear, the ground trembles.

An earthquake? How delightfully unintended! Especially since it’s not my doing.

But whose? Cobra looks pretty suspicious, eyeing a partially submerged seal from his dandelion perch. But it’s not Cobra.

It’s Le Sabre. My neighbor’s blue, airship-sized car.

I freeze, hoping that, like a T-Rex, Mr. Still won’t notice me as his car crawls down the gravel alley between our houses.

But he does.

And waves.

I stare. Mortified.

And that’s how my childhood ends: with a wave of a gregarious, geriatric neighbor.

He drives on, and I look back down at the mud hole and see a bunch of toys. Toys for which I’m now too old.

I’ve been spotted. Playing. Like a kid.

Sure, my parents have seen me splash around in the same mud hole on countless occasions, but they’re under parental obligation to let it go. Now, I’m exposed.

And that just won’t do.

I stoop, gather everything, and clean it off before walking back inside.

I quietly close my bedroom door and begin parsing my collections. Every last toy is packed into spare containers with little fanfare. In one box, Micro Machines and Matchbox Cars. Lincoln Logs and Tinker Toys in another. All plastic animals in an old laundry basket. Pound Puppies, a Cabbage Patch kid, a generic Teddy Ruxpin, and a Care Bear stuffed into garbage bags.

With almost frightening speed and tact, I strip any semblance of a kid’s room from my walls, leaving an empty shell with former toys’ dusty outlines.

Mom passes by. Then walks back, looking perplexed.

“What’re you up to?”

“Just packing.”

I toss my Pog collection into a plastic bag, and shove it into a box.

She hesitates momentarily, then walks on.

***

Memories like these resurface as I run my hands along the mounds of stuff.

Laura’s creepy dolls remind me of the haunted houses we’d construct for one another, playing the lead character in our self-directed horror movies.

A broken Easter bunny candy dish summons the day Mom screeched, “You break everything I love!” after Dad propped his feet on the living room coffee table and broke off the bunny’s ears.

And then there’s the column Laura and I had given Mom for Mother’s Day, which we broke that morning while she and Dad prepped for a celebratory lunch at Golden Corral. The reddish wood glue we’d glopped onto the broken pieces seeped out of the cracks, and the column chunks thuded to the floor just as Mom came into the room to tell us it was time to go. She looked from us, to the column, then shook her head.

After that, even I couldn’t finish my imitation seafood salad.

I notice an object I’d previously dubbed “Santa Javelin” in the “maybe” pile. During the initial sort, Dad offered to chuck it out the back door like an Olympic disc-thrower.

“How far do you think I can launch this thing? To there?” he’d pointed, past the mud hole, toward our backyard pet cemetery.

Sensing her beloved decoration’s imminent demise, Mom ran from the living room, grabbed it, and reaffirmed, “It’s dual-purpose, though!”

Then proceeded to flip the pencil-shaped figure front-to-back, showing the Christmas Santa painted on one side, a Halloween witch on the other.

I failed to see the significance.

“But it’s fugly.”

“What’s ‘fugly‘?”

“Nevermind.”

***

Every little thing teems with memories, and we watch strangers cart each one off to new lives, to make new memories.

***

By the time I’ve filled the trunk with childhood relics, I’ve passed through multiple life stages–remembered the conflicts, the tears, the joys, the changes. And as I drive my trunk-o-childhood back to North Carolina, I reflect on how “home” destabilizes and reforms throughout life.

How it’s contorted by experience and embodied by the people we love.

So as I shift the trunk into the guest bedroom, I peruse its contents one more time, removing the Matchbox cars I’d so loved. The same ones I’d wheeled along my cheek as a tired toddler, my eyes growing heavier and heavier with every roll. The ones I’d returned to time and time again to escape into a world of fantasy.

Vrrroom!

I empty them onto the dining room table, carefully select the choicest ones, and pile them inside a massive vase, up to the rim.

But before I top the pile with one of my favorites, I thumb the green Mustang across the tabletop, listening to its metallic wheels squeak, filling the room with a nostalgic echo.

And I quietly hum.

Vrrrrooom!

Dracula, Darling

I don’t understand the appeal of horror movies.

This realization washed over me after the Are You Afraid of the Dark? version of Sleepy Hollow left me sobbing hysterically in a kitchen corner, watching my mother drive off into the night. And all I had was a geriatric dog staring at me, wheezing and licking my hand.

Still, Dracula was my first crush. In fact, my fascination with The Monster Squad villain bordered on an obsession. I couldn’t stop watching him. And despite my repeated attempts, I couldn’t quite pinpoint his appeal–why I felt compelled to watch him execute his misdeeds every Halloween.

I’d ruled out his cane; his cape was fantastic, but that wasn’t it. And as much as I’d wanted his hearse, it wasn’t his ride driving me to sit at the edge of my seat, eyes glued to his dark form cutting across the television screen. It was just him—his eyes, his dark, devilish, brooding persona. Those three virginal girls he’d locked away didn’t know how good they had it, and I became intensely envious of them. I might not have known what qualified someone as a virgin, but if being one was the only qualifier for Dracula’s attention, I desperately wanted to be one.

I contemplated this conundrum as I waited in line to see Deep Impact. But this exceedingly important mental exercise was interrupted by three preppy boys from my sixth grade class.

In addition to being experts at social ostracism, they also specialized in mind-reading.

“Hey, Matthew. Are you…” they paused for emphasis, “a virgin?!”

Momentary silence ensued.

“Well, are you?!”

I sounded out the word in my head, drew from the facts I’d know on the matter, and came to an indisputable conclusion.

“Of course not.”

After all, I wasn’t a girl like the ones Dracula favored.

They rolled their eyes, laughed, and walked away.

“Fools,” I muttered, “I’d be so lucky.”

But fifteen years later I knew with absolute certainty that I wasn’t a virgin. And I wasn’t gazing inquisitively at Dracula, imagining him in my arms.

Instead, I was sitting on my lidded toilet reading Nietzsche. Sure, I would’ve preferred to have spent Halloween watching my dark knight bloody the bejesus out of small town dopes. But I was too preoccupied with Nietzsche’s ruminations about death, forgetfulness, history, and cows. That, and the retaliatory, tortuous acts the neighborhood’s little hellions were exacting on my defenseless porch plants–all for not squeezing a bag of dollar store candy out of my monthly graduate student stipend.

At least I’d remembered to bolt the door. Because, really, kids nowadays don’t even bother dressing up, and candy isn’t the endgame; cash will do, as will your grandmother’s brooch. You never quite know if the seemingly innocuous Jonas Brothers trio on the front porch is concealing shanks and razors beneath their pails. And I really don’t want to take a chance and end up waking in an ice bath, wondering where in the world that damn kidney has gone.

Hell, for me dressing up for Halloween was a major undertaking–the closest I’ve ever come to religious devotion.

***

It’s 1988: my first Halloween. I can almost taste the chocolaty goodness. Glee isn’t exactly the most apropos descriptor for how I feel, but it’s close enough.

Hot, too. But mostly gleeful. Ecstatic even.

Jaded, Laura stands nearby, diligently rearranging her multicolored bracelets and smudging her bright red lipstick. She’s totally outrageous, I think, just like Jem! But the anticipation is killing me. Need. Chocolate. Now. The urge is intense. So much so that I feel it surging inside me, lurching up and down, up and down, in sync with my excited, hyperactive hopping.

And then I puke. Inside my plastic Mickey Mouse mask, out the mouth and eye holes.

I’ve completely shamed Mickey and might not get my candy! What a disaster! Jem is displeased.

A hose-down and perfume bath later, I’m strolling out the door, pail in hand, ready to make a night of it. Aside from the crushing disappointment of our massive Peanut Butter Kisses haul, our group treks home, with only one more stop to go.

But we don’t make it to the door. The group breaks, scattering and screaming–running from a werewolf. A quiet, even-keeled man most days of the year, our neighbor has really made a 180 this year. Bedecked in full, furry regalia, he’d popped out and charged us with pee-inducing snarls. How pee-inducing? Well

But a wee bit of wee is better than the full-on drenching that awaited a friend of mine, who dared set foot on some religious zealots’ Spartan lawn across town. With Bible in-hand, and garden hoses in the others, they made sure it was a Halloween he remembered.

***

A few years later, I plod to my CCD class’s Halloween party. My padded feet make sounds like compressed plush toys and my overstuffed black tail drags behind. Along the way, churchgoers point and smile, laugh even.

Actually, there’s a lot of laughing and pointing. With my artistically-rendered cat whiskers and nose matching my black cat ears and gloved hands, I’m a shoe-in for best costume.

But with every plushy step, every point and laugh by the passersby, I start feeling ill. Maybe today’s the wrong day. But my parents wouldn’t have dressed me up on the wrong day. Not a chance.

Just to err on the safe side, I sneak up to the classroom and peek around the corner. And there, in the class of 15, not a single kid is dressed up.

Panicking, I race down the hallway with my change of clothes. With no time to waste, I clip on my tie, throw my costume in a bag, and run back. Stopping just short of the classroom door, I take a breath and walk in as calmly as possible.

Laughter erupts.

I must’ve forgotten to zip up.

No, that’s not it.

In fact, I’d probably prefer my dong hanging out over the alternative. Everyone, including the teacher, is pointing at my painted face.

That’s what I get for using a bathroom without mirrors.

For the rest of class, I sit face-in-hands, muttering the answers to the teacher’s questions through my fingers.

“What’s that, my little kitty?!” she laughs.

“Jesus…Christ.”

Me-ouch.

***

It’s officially the last costume-clad Halloween of my childhood. But I don’t know that yet.

Halloweens past have induced more panic than excitement this time of year. But I still cobble together a costume, mostly because I scored a Skeletor-esque mask with green, blinking eyes. The time expenditure required for mask assembly isn’t really worth the effort, but I work diligently. After all, everyone I know is going to be at the Halloween festival a few blocks away.

Fully costumed, I begin my short walk to the festival and plan to hit up a few houses along the way. But it seems that my obsessive-compulsive habit for being early isn’t playing in my favor. Save a few pumpkins and bumble-bees toddling along with their parents, I’m the only one even close to eleven-years-old out at this hour. Instead of going back inside like a normal person, I decide to bide my time, wait out the youngsters.

Fifteen minutes later, my courage is shot—none of my friends are showing up. And I can’t muster the gumption to ask for candy. So I stand alone–the scrawny kid walking around with a blinking skeleton head, without a candy wrapper in sight.

Time to cut my losses and go to the festival.

When I arrive, the strollers easily outnumber the middle-schoolers, and I’m at a loss.

Again.

Dejected, I turn to leave. But then I spy the ubiquitous fishing game where you’re guaranteed a bag of crappy candy. And while my Halloween-tinged glasses are blinking green, I grab a rod and cast a line over, if for nothing else than nostalgia for the times of reliable, costumed friends and full-size candy bars.

I wait for the tug and the overly enthusiastic attendant clown to yell, “Looks like you have a bite there, son!” Despite my lackluster Halloween spirit, his overly emphatic enthusiasm makes me smile and I pull the line back over.

It has nothing on it.

“Whoopsie! That one must’ve gotten away! Try AGAIN!” the clown cheers, muttering to someone behind the faded blue curtain with iron-on goldfish peeling off of it.

Blushing mightily, I comply, get my candy, and skulk away. By this point, the blinking lights are becoming seizure-inducing, and I’m feeling queasy. But I keep munching on my pity candy.

Soon, though, the lights take their toll. I lose my bearings and smack into trees and lawn ornaments. After accidentally hugging a tree trunk, I hobble away with one eye light hanging down to my chin, reminiscent of a beaten, bedraggled Johnny Five. Utterly defeated, I snatch off the mask and throw it into a nearby garbage can.

Once I get home, I retreat upstairs, park myself in front of the television, and search desperately for my Halloween sweetheart.

***

I wish I can stay in costume, swim at the bottom of my vodka tonic forever. To return to the rigors of another week of graduate school is scary enough, much less without alcohol.

But having just received my first graduate paper back with a grade equivalent to a smack across the face, a turd in the soup, I require a little liquid solace. I try to tell myself that it’s a learning experience, that it’s just one paper.

Still, hearing about the rave reviews my peers received on their lemur papers makes me tip my cup back, beg it to swallow me, be my rabbit hole. When I lower my cup, the Mad Hatter stands next to me. But it’s all makeup, an illusion.

And it’s at this point that I wonder if me being in graduate school is more of a delusion than illusion. Why in the world did I think this was a good idea? And how did I think I could pull off leopard print?

Loaded and waxing philosophical in my Tarzan costume, I suddenly realize I’ve fallen for it: graduate school, a devilish trick, indeed.

Because if I’m to have life sucked out of me, I’d prefer the source to be a certain someone.

His deeply set disdain for mortals and all.

Quotable Friends

Eyeglasses are my porcupine quills: indicators that you should venture elsewhere—far, far away from me.

And yet, bastards still poke, poke, poke.

Like the coworker invading my self-quarantined office.

“Wow, you eat a lot of yogurt. You eat that entire container in a day?”

I sharpen my gaze on her reddened cankles and slowly work my way up to her bloated face.

“There are worse things to eat.”

Point taken. She leaves.

***

But on the cusp of one of the most divisive elections in recent history, there’re plenty more who just don’t take the hints. Popular bloggers and prolific writers have penned articles of the “De-Friend Me” ilk, targeting Facebook and the “Friends” list we all like to think we regulate.

Still, I’m a curious being. So I pulled up my “Friends” list and searched “Mitt Romney” and “Paul Ryan.” And lo and behold! I found “friends” who’ve “liked” them. And I mean like them like them, not “liking” them to glean the latest drivel from the far right.

And sure, I wasn’t surprised by a few. I mean, c’mon. Like I really thought those people from high school I’ve been meaning to delete—who’ve stayed in the same small town, who’re still beating their bibles with as much conviction as the “good ol’ days”—are about to stand up and do something proactive for the future.

Bubye and good luck, y’all.

Still, there are the stealth supporters–friends you suspect will welcome you into their home, treat you nicely to your face. Then fill in the Romney/Ryan bubble on their voter form, and justify your continued marginalization by citing economic turmoil or foreign policies.

And yes, don’t we all wish LGBT rights weren’t topics to address in a presidential election, to sway someone’s vote? It’d be wonderful if they weren’t issues of concern. But they are.

So when my life is dragged out for public consumption, and my civil rights are contorted into “benefits” that I’m not “qualified” to receive, pardon me for getting a tad defensive.

For a lot of “friends,” it’s fun to have “the gays” in your fold, even if you’re quietly homophobic. Because having friends like them garners you certain attention, makes you feel special. But all you’re doing is appropriating part of someone’s life for personal gain.

You smile when they babysit your kids, buy you a drink, say you look nice, organize your wedding, treat you with respect.

And still you turn your back on them in the voter booth. There, within that tiny space, you align yourself with the same side pushing to disenfranchise the majority of Americans who don’t fall within a particular income bracket; whose skin isn’t the right color; whose first language isn’t English; whose health isn’t perfect; whose lives are just as disposable when they’re deployed as they are upon returning from service; whose bodies are “temples for God and country” and not for personal use and protection.

If you find yourself voting for that kind of national legacy, I hope you’re proud of yourself.

Because I’m not.

And I’m too goddamned tired to entertain “friends” from different “walks of life” if that means having people around me who think I’m not entitled to have the same rights that they enjoy. Who can’t see that “Romney/Ryan” signs translate to “Hates Gays, Loves Misogynists.”

But that’s reality.

And I wonder if dealing with this bullshit is worth it. If Andy and I wouldn’t be better off packing our apartment and moving to a country where we aren’t defined by gender identity and treated as “others.” Someplace where we can just be, and be respected.

It’s my hope that my true friends will have my back during this election. But if you’re planning to vote for Romney/Ryan, don’t expect to have any semblance of a relationship with me, regardless of how long we’ve known one another.

I’m not just talking “de-friending” me on Facebook. 

I mean, don’t speak to me. Don’t wish me well. Just leave.

I’ll understand.

I just wish you could, too.

Calling Doctors of Interplanetary Craft

Oh, genetics.

How I love thee. What fun you’ve had constructing an immune system from defunct parts, every conceivable recombination long past warranty.

Making me grow up envying Tiny Tim’s health, rolling my eyes while watching him hop around on his little crutch, being all like, “Look at me, I’m sickly.” *Cough cough*

Dramatic little poseur.

“Look, you know you catastrophize illness. It’s not like you won’t recover from this,” Andy, the voice of reason, chides.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I protest, rearranging my black lace garb and reaching for my smelling salts.

Sickly

Fine.

I acquiesce.

Perhaps I do read too much into illness. But I get it naturally.

Aside from the fact that my pediatric file was about six inches thick, and I do actually get sick fairly often, I’m sure my paternal grandmother’s robust hypochondria-informed catastrophizing is hard-wired into my DNA.

“How’re you doing today, Mom-Mau?”

“Oh, my eye hurts. I think it’s The Eye Cancer.”

That was an actual conversation.

But rarely is it the case that the malady we think will take us down actually does. This has been true with every family member who’s passed, including Mom-Mau.

And I’m sure I’ll be no different.

I’ll probably dab my nose with a tissue, look up at a beautiful sky and curse my luck with my latest plague, glance over and see a new antique shop across the street, start crossing, and not even hear the Prius coming, because it’ll be in electric mode. I’m not saying Andy will be behind the wheel, having grown exhausted from 40 years’ worth of my crazed malady ramblings. But he does have a Prius.

It’s probably no help that, while infirmed, I watch movies I really shouldn’t. Like earlier this year, when I had some bizarre pneumonia-bronchitis combination and watched Contagion.

Or yesterday, when I watched Outbreak. And then started feeling worse halfway through. Which meant I had the virus in the movie–not my doctor’s sinus infection-strep throat diagnosis–and the Army was going to “clean sweep” my apartment.

Fine. I didn’t really think that was going to happen. But I did start feeling bad about myself, about missing work, being lazy, gross, and completely useless.

So I watched Mommie Dearest. After which I ran to my closet, ensuring I had no damned wire hangars!

But then Andy came home with dinner after a ridiculously hectic work day, and I felt much better. Mostly because all I’d had for sustenance was Gatorade.

Kidding!

So, I channeled my best Rene Russo, smiled at him, coughed, and mentally chided myself.

You’re fine. Now that you’ve got all your antibodies. 

Those Days

We’ve all had those days.

You know.

When you have horrendous nightmares and wake up with a sore throat, a harbinger of a future week of infirmity. When you swear it was 2 AM two minutes ago when you got up to take Ibuprofen and Mucinex, but now the first of your three alarms is going off. When you find some ginger tea in the pantry, make a mug full, and scald the top of your mouth with the first sip.

Tea and tissues

When you think about the other day when you couldn’t remember your age and were left wondering what you’ve done with your twenties. When you think about performing a PIT maneuver on the incompetent Sebring driver hovering in your blind spot, just so the burning embers of the ensuing wreckage will shine in your eyes—give them some dimension this somber Monday morning. When you find yourself on the side of the road crying “I’ll never let go, Jack!” as Celine Dion bellows about how her heart will go on.

When you finally get to work, see the pink mold growing on the office wall, fight the urge to vomit, and realize you have a massive rust stain on your sweater.

You know, those days.

Not that any of that happened this morning.

***

So then you think the day will pick up. It won’t be so bad. Cheer up, buttercup! And all that bullshit.

Your coworkers filter in. One of them blows up the bathroom, and another chatters your ear off about purple or penguins. Still, you try to be optimistic. Even when the rust stain doesn’t rinse out. Even when it’s easier to cry and give up.

Because, after all, the new hire is coming today. Perhaps they’ll be a sociable savior, a respite of sorts from the spineless amoebas with whom you work. Then you see pleated pants. An unkempt beard. Detect the slight inadequacies specific to a socially-inept anthropologist.

You fight the urge to eat your feelings. And then convince yourself it’s the only alternative.

So you lip sync the chorus of “Bleed Like Me” as he’s introduced by the office’s Numero Uno Nutbag (NUM).

And imagine yourself somewhere else.

Blushing Pink

After flipping over the sixth pillow and finding an $85.00 price tag, I start searching for the clearance rack. If this swanky décor boutique even has one.

So I smile and peruse and pick things up and try not to drop them because everything is bloody expensive.

And then, behold, the clearance rack!

But I know even before puttering over to the dark corner where all things stained and forgotten are banished that I’m not here for a chipped vase–even if it’s only $55.00!

I’ve been thinking about these “Mr.” bowtie hand towels since I first saw them with Andy. I was so despicably close to snagging them then, along with two “Mr.” mustache-laced highball glasses, that I really want them now.

But, there’s a catch: “Mr.” towels are tied to their “Mrs.” complements.

Because, sweet readers, it seems only straight couples can have these particular hand towels.

But just for bitchy shits, I give it a whirl.

“Excuse me. Is there any way I can switch these two so that there are two ‘Mr.’ towels?”

The smartly dressed employee walks from behind the counter, smiling as she does.

“Oh, hmmm. I thought each was sold separately. I doubt there will be an issue. But let me just check with the owner.”

She disappears into the back, and I imagine some Oz-like character with a pompadour dictating his will to his employed peon.

“NONSENSE! Absolutely no gay hand towels for the flamboyant one! Look at his sweater for bejesus-sake!”

She reappears. But I already know the answer.

“Well, the owner says that we don’t have enough in stock to split them, but to come back later. There might be some then.”

And I just might not have the money in my pocket.

I smile and thank her, since she seems genuinely sorry.

But then I redirect my attention to the overflowing display. Then do some quick math:

Overpriced towels+Empty store/Potential customers on the outskirts of downtown=Bullshit.

I stand there a minute more, silently accusing the towels of their misdeed. But that makes me angrier.

Don’t blame the towels, Matt. Blame Oz.

So I buy some random Deco-like tray reproduction and leave.

Fair Trade?

Yeah, that’ll show’em.

***

By the time I run more errands, mourn the fact that my favorite camera shop is closing, and circle back to The Target to print off some photos, I’m fairly well pickled with resentment.

But as I take my frustrations out on the photo kiosk, muttering “No gay towels for me!” I select a photo of me and Andy from Pride.

I stop.

I take in the moment.

I own it.

So I let the pickled jar of resentment burp a little–no, I don’t fart–swallow my frustration, and revel in the fact that I’m happy right now. That I don’t need some goddamn towels to tell me that I have a boyfriend whom I love, someone who makes me want to come home. That I should stop having some stupid pity party over cheap cotton and get over it.

And I do. I grab the photos and start searching for conditioner.

“Excuse me! Sir!”

Great. Now the kiosk Nazis are going to shake me down. And I’m not old enough to be called ‘Sir.’

But when I turn, I see the guy who’d been standing behind me, waiting patiently as I’d muttered and punched the kiosk screen.

I’ll go ahead and admit I’d prejudged him–fratastic and vapid with a few pretty girlfriends (at least from what I could see blown up on the kiosk screen, from my perch next to an old pumpkin display); basically, many of the traits I associate with the proverbial bigoted Bubba.

“You forgot this.”

It’s another copy of the Pride photo.

I thank him, turn, and blush a little. And that gets me angry, too.

There’s nothing to be embarrassed about. And, clearly, he doesn’t give a shit.

Wait.

He. Doesn’t. Give. A. Shit.

If he’d wanted to, he’d have tacked a smirk, or sigh, or epithetical comment after “this.” But he didn’t. Because he was printing out moments of his own life. He had his own life. Why should he care?

Exactly.

***

With bags in-hand, I toss everything onto our bed and get changed. And there, pushed against my closet wall, hangs one of the first shirts I bought specifically for a gay college party.

Not a fun-gay party.

A gay-gay party.

The Pink Party.

I’d only been out for a little while when I got the invite through a friend’s friend. Having little in the way of man-snagging clothing at that particular point, I’d run to The Target in Tuscaloosa, Alabama to find something pink.

Anything.

I think I was probably contemplating a Bratz tee when I saw the fairly ho-hum pink-and-gray striped shirt.

Mine.

Pinky

So I was prepped for the party. I was going to be with The Gays.

Somewhere along the line, I ended up on a couch with my friend, and we giggled as we watched two guys totally suck face on top of the kitchen island. (Yes, I think I even said ‘Suck face’ back then.)

And they did so without worry–like it was normal.

Because it was normal.

Oh.

But then I got tired, and slightly despondent that I’d decided to wear my battered Adidas, and left with my friend. Right before we left, though, a guy gave us each a shot.

I’d had a little to drink already, but did a little equation:

Sober stranger with a shot+Unknown party host+Unfamiliar apartment complex+Driving home=Take the shot.

About five minutes later, I remembered I’d always been terrible at math. And gullible to boot.

“Ay ThiNnnk there-uh mayuh Bin somMMmmmethinnn in Dat shottttt.”

I was totally fine to drive.

And then I drove over an entire roundabout. I didn’t just hop the curb. I mean I drove right through the center of it–planting bed with pansies and all. How my Pontiac Sunbird ever made it is still a blur.

That, single reader who stumbled upon this blog, is the reason why I never drive after a stranger hands me a drink.

Kidding! No strangers and drinks. And no drinks and driving. Alright, PSA over.

Regardless of the roofie dollop, the party was fun. Because I was out.

I was OUT.

The Out Matt.

I was myself. For the first time in a while.

And it felt a whole hell of a lot better than being drunk.

Have Shovel, Will Travel

As the progeny of a wildlife biologist and forester, my sister and I often had nontraditional childhood experiences that in no small way shaped our interests in, and love for, the outdoors. Being highly allergic to almost every blooming plant and grass, and hypersensitive to poison ivy, and prone to cancerous lesions from sun exposure and bouts of numbness from a defunct circulatory system make me the least likely candidate to be an outdoorsy person. Much less an archaeologist.

Archaeology when it was fun

But here I am—lesions and all.

Okay, so I’m not a mass of boils. Still, you get my point. Genetically, I’m predisposed to a warm and cozy indoor office environment, not the exposure an archaeologist faces while traipsing through the wilderness, excavating archaeological sites.

***

Sure, being an archaeologist sounds romantically Thoreau-esque. But after bubbly poison ivy welts weep their itchy discharges down your arms like lava flows, barbed-wire fences rip through your pants and flesh, allegedly disconnected electric cattle fences jolt back to life as you climb them, leaky CamelBaks douse your backside with your only water source for miles, and dog-peter gnats nip at your ears, eyes, and face while cicadas scream from the July heat and humidity, you scoff at the idea that you ever thought this line of work was even remotely romantic.

Back-bending excavation

That said, archaeologists either really have to love their work to keep with it or, early on, cynically resign themselves to their lot.

I’m of the latter ilk.

Granted, archaeology didn’t choose me. I chose it.

Mea maxima culpa.

***

From my field experiences, I found a month and two weeks to be the amount of time away from home-base I could stand without completely losing touch with reality. Returning to a motel room and eating cold canned soup and beans day after day for weeks on end instead of sitting down to a fresh salad in my Deco-decorated apartment got old really fast.

Even if the motel afforded me guilty pleasures like Project Runway and House Hunters.

In the field, sustained human contact was confined to the eight- to ten-hour workday, with the closest thing to after-hours carousing or bonding consisting of field cohorts yelling “Touchdown!” or “Homerun!” from neighboring rooms, and me screaming from my room at a misguided, pretentious fashion upstart, “Tulle and Paisley?! Too much pattern!” or oblivious first-time buyers, “House Two! Pick HOUSE Two, you fools!”

***

All too often, though, the hovel serving as my home-away-from-home became not a place of refuge after a long day shoveling dirt, hauling cobbles, and troweling profile walls, but the impetus for a frantic bar search.

And insult was added to injury when I found myself in a dry county, in the middle of nowhere, as I did on one particularly memorable excursion.

“Described as ‘homey’ and ‘comfortable,’ the motel seems to be just that: stone façade, barn-red metal roof. But I should know something’s amiss when I have to venture to the front of the house-office and enter a glass vestibule. The glass reflects the sunlight brilliantly, but prevents me from seeing inside. The only thing I make out is a small sign that reads “Ring Bell.”

But then a cloud bank passes overhead, and I find myself staring into the Zoo of the Future’s geriatric Homo sapiens sapiens exhibit.

An elderly woman sits in a wingback chair, the arms of which are covered with doilies. She peers ahead to a large television where Wheel of Fortune’s Pat Sajak grins widely. Near the back of the house, an elderly man shuffles with a plated sandwich—pimento cheese, no doubt —from the dining room to the kitchen.

And I just watch. Until I feel like some perverse voyeur.

Then, as any curious person would do, I ring the bell. A loud, long-lasting, arcane musical bellows from within, and the elderly woman rouses herself out of the chair, slowly turns toward the window, and approaches with a thin smile, out of which I can almost hear, It puts the lotion on its skin.

Once she gets to the front desk, she pushes out a bank teller drawer.

“Talk into the drawer. It’s the only way the sound can get through.”

Bending down, I yell into the drawer, and inform her I’m the first of my crew to arrive. She scans a large ledger on the counter.

“But, it’s Sunday.”

“Yes.” Pat, tell her what she’s won!

She seems surprised.

Flummoxed, I repeat my crew members’ names, that we have rooms reserved. We go back and forth until she gets it, and then asks me to fill out a registration card.

“There’s been a booking mistake. My husband took down the reservation.”

When I slip the card through the drawer, I clearly see my name printed in the ledger as “Marakey.” She pushes my room key back out.

Room 112 it is.

“It’s the one there on the end,” she says, pointing to the end unit facing the road.

I thank her, turn, and step into a mud hole. Auspicious signs abound.

I unload everything into a room overstuffed with mismatched eighties bedroom sets and decorated with fiercely disturbing wildlife paintings. My attention turns to the headboard, which features a Sharpie-scrawled, upside-down message: “J.C. loves B.B.” I can only imagine the sex act that facilitated it. And I wonder if they were at all disturbed by the stuffed wood duck staring down from above.

Waking up the next morning with a crick in my neck kicks off a quintessential first field day: we get lost; we get the truck stuck; we get drenched by rain.

Naturally, I return to find my room completely empty.

At first I think I have the wrong room. And then I think I cleaned my room that well and my stuff is just ordered in dresser drawers.

But, no.

Nothing is left. Except my groceries, which I’d tucked away in a TV cabinet.

Marvelous.

Panicked, I yell to the crew chief. He and I venture into the house-office’s vestibule to alert the owners and get some answers. This time, the elderly man sits at the front desk. He pushes the drawer out and I explain the situation.

But he’s not getting it.

“Yes, the man in Room 112 moved into Room 111 this morning.”

I tell him I’m the one in Room 112, that I still have my key, and that I didn’t known about the goddamn move. He gets flustered and says to check Room 111.

I think I must have one of those faces you can’t help but believing.

He walks over with me and opens up Room 111. All of my belongings are arranged in the exact places they’d been in Room 112. Even an upside-down cup on a paper towel had been moved between the rooms.

I shudder.

Barring the creepiness of the whole exchange, the room swap actually plays in my favor. The room is larger, less-cluttered, and doesn’t reek of mold.

Score!

***

But then we left for a week. Two weeks later, my luck wasn’t as good.

As evidenced by a few journal entries:

“I miss Room 111. Little did I realize how good I had it there. After emptying nearly an entire bottle of Febreze in this room, the mold and water stains are still laughing at me. With a gurgle of agreement, the toilet occasionally joins the other icky things in making even the most mundane task challenging.

“For instance, my shower experience was a nightmare. I cringed when I opened the door to the claustrophobic, mold-ridden shower which, incidentally, had a rusted light bulb-cord combination dangling from the unpainted plywood ceiling. I had no shower shoes, so I threw down a bath towel as a barrier between me and the shower floor funk. When I turned on the shower, only two jets sprayed—the rest of the holes must’ve been blocked, with what I don’t hazard to guess, nor want to know. I angled my body under both jets. But doing so caused me to knock into the soap-caked shower caddie. The whole caddie slipped down the showerhead’s neck, and the showerhead detached from the wall; it ripped open a small hole, out of which scurried a large silverfish that all but greeted me with, “Hello! Welcome to Hell!” When I jumped back to avoid my unexpected showermate, I smacked my ass into the nasty tile wall. I screamed.

“Now all I want to do is throw myself face-down onto the bed and bawl my eyes out with dramatic flair. But there’s a stained, heirloomed, floral piece-of-shit comforter that’s covering two stained sheets. Stains no doubt left by a Mr. Mayberry, the author of a sweet-nothing found etched into the nightstand’s inside drawer, no doubt with a shank: ‘Michelle. Love You. It Ben Fun. Mayberry.’

“Juxtaposed with the faux wood paneling, the comforter is supposed to make the room seem homey, but any semblance of hominess is dashed when a foreign pubic hair is found sticking out of one of the comforter’s brocaded rose blossoms. Mr. Mayberry’s, I presume? In order to fall asleep, I wear a toboggan, a down jacket over a fleece and an undershirt, and long sweatpants tucked into two pairs of calf-length socks. But all that doesn’t keep me from actually feeling things crawling on me throughout the night.

“And when it’s not creepy-crawlies keeping me on pins and needles–which are probably stashed between the mattress and box-springs–Bubbas keep racing up and down the alleyway outside my door, as if recreating a Dukes of Hazard episode. Four gunshots are interjected between the revving engines and squealing tires. Three in rapid succession; the fourth, no doubt, the finishing shot.

“When I wake up un-infested and bullet-free, I’m greeted by two slugs slowly sliming across the room’s water-stained, mildewed door. And, to top everything off, my body is keenly aware of my surroundings—I can almost hear my bowels rumble to me, ‘Like hell I’m letting you use that dripping, broken-down toilet, which was probably used to dispose of a fetus.’ Fuck. It. All.”

***

My contempt for Harrison Ford and his pack of lies has been mitigated slightly by capitalizing on my rather atypical job.

For one, it makes me seem butch.

Alright, fine. At least it’s a conversation starter.

“A who?”

“Ar-chae-o-lo-gist.”

“Say what?”

“Like Indiana Jones.”

Ohhhh. So you dig up dinosaurs?”

“No, those are paleontologists. Have you even seen Raiders of the Lost Ark?”

“So, you don’t dig up dinosaurs?”

“No, dead peoples’ things mostly.”

“Do you at least wear a cool hat?”

“No. Mostly raggedy, stained clothes and boots.”

“And you go to school for this?”

So maybe it’s just a failed exercise. Still, the moniker gets people talking. Real archaeology means you’ll be hunched over your desk for hours, putting artifact tags into archival bags, or using a high-intensity magnifier to separate fish vertebrae from soil residue; all of that and then some, instead of wielding a golden statuette in one hand, whip in the other, and beautiful, buxom arm-candy clinging to your biceps.

I mean, the closest I’ve come to wielding a whip sensu Indiana was getting a riding crop to the nuts during an angsty teen fight with my sister. And she won.

Lab Days

But misconceptions about archaeology, and anthropology in general, are perpetuated for multiple reasons. Not the least of which is anthropologists’ inability to interact with people.

As professionals whose jobs hinge upon their abilities to engage people on a daily basis, anthropologists fail miserably. When it comes to social interaction, the rules we budding anthropologists are taught fly out the proverbial window during the most mundane salutation between professors and graduate students.

But I can see how it can be difficult for some professors to talk about anything other than themselves, how great and informative their work is for The Discipline, and the potential their work has to reform entrenched paradigms.

Seriously, though, guys and gals of the professorial persuasion, hear me.

Stop masturbating each other at the drop of a hat and realize that ninety-nine percent of what you say doesn’t resonate with your intended audience. Mostly because you’re too damn proud to take a few steps down from the Ivory Tower and make your subject-matter relevant for your undergraduates, much less for the general public.

***

But particular experiences did teach me one thing about interacting with academic anthropologists: mentally file professors’ non-academic interests under “Break Open in Case of Socially-Awkward Emergencies.”

This proved valuable on multiple occasions. Like when I was tasked to set up a departmental picnic and was stuck with two married, socially-inept professors an hour before the party.

Once I’d exhausted commentary regarding how great the food looked next to the hosts’ pot-bellied stove, I mentally scanned through the files I’d compiled for each of them.

“Is that a Fiestaware platter I see under that baklava?” I oozed, remembering that I shared a love of Fiestaware with the hostess.

And then we were off. Before I knew it, I’d gotten answers to the when, where, and why of her Fiestaware collection. Not wanting to completely exhaust the Fiestaware file just yet, I briefly recited my own Fiestaware’s lineage before turning to the host and asking about a particularly beautiful drugstore apothecary cabinet sitting in their living room.

And then we were on to antiques.

By the time we got to a story ending with “And so when he turned the loveseat on its side to get it through the door, the commode’s marble top fell out of the cushions and shattered to pieces,” people began trickling in and I bolted for the booze.

Usually, though, social situations involving two or more anthropologists rarely end that smoothly. Oftentimes, awkward silences last for minutes, inappropriate topics are broached to fill the silence. Or, as I once witnessed, a professor begins to shake like a Chihuahua who piddled on the family’s Persian rug.

All of these are cues to pack it in, cut your dialogical losses, and leave the bumbling bonobo of an interlocutor to hash out their neuroses in private.

***

But working outside the Ivory Tower didn’t shield me from awkward interactions. On many occasions I’d attempt to bond with my fellow shovel-bums.

I had little success.

Like when I thought it’d be a hit to sprint to the top of a steep hill, twirl around, and get a laugh out of my crew.

“I feel like Julie Andrews, like I could just break into song and collapse on the verdant hills!”

Silence.

“Well, er, I guess. If you feel like it.”

I’d missed the mark. Or my audience didn’t care.

Worse yet, they might not have ever seen The Sound of Music. But I found the last realization too troubling, and redirected my focus to the upcoming hills, full of cow-pies and horse flies.

And when I couldn’t rely on my fellow crew members to chat, jovial Bubbas, each of whom were positive they knew everything I didn’t, felt inclined to proffer said knowledge to me–the guy digging in the dirt.

Noticing us swatting at hoards of gnats hovering above a test unit, one such DOT worker imparted a pearl of wisdom.

“Ya know how to get rid of those gnats, don’tcha? Well, what ya do is reach back into your drawers, pick out a dingle-berry back there, wrap it up behind your head, and all the gnats will go to it and not yer face!”

By the time he’d uttered ‘behind your head,’ I’d thrown up a little in my mouth.

Twice.

***

Regardless of the constant trekking, intensive physical work, low pay, and nonexistent benefits, I got to see picturesque farms, rolling hills, and breathtaking views, and experienced warming sunrises and cooling breezes.

Scenery like that let me escape into myself, think about life and what I wanted. And while it turned out that what I wanted was nothing like what I was experiencing, I still counted that realization as revelatory.

Because with each revelation, each hurdle cleared, I was that much closer to figuring out what exactly it was that I wanted out of life.

And even if I fell, I could still dust myself off and try again.

Except when the hurdle happened to be an electrified cattle fence. Then, I’d just smiled through the pain.

Even if I straddled it.

Reading the Leaves

The leaf landed so stealthily that I didn’t notice it resting on my hand until Meadow and Dave exchanged vows.

Because that’s when I nudged Andy’s hand, smiling as I did.

***

Life chapters before that moment, I was walking with my paternal grandmother, feeling the autumn breeze on our shoulders and watching the leaves glide down from above.

We’d been talking about nothing in particular when a browned leaf grazed my hand on its downward track. And when I shook my hand in response, Mom-Mau took it with her gnarled, arthritic one and squeezed.

I looked down at her, and she smiled up.

“That’s a good sign, a leaf falling on your hand. A good sign of good things to come.”

Her aged brown eyes danced mischievously, focusing not on me but the past–perhaps a younger version of herself experiencing life before it changed.

Before a lithe, smooth-talking Italian named Edward asked her out for a date and stuck her with the bill; before they found themselves dancing across a battered lodge floor; before they tied the knot; before the war; before my father’s birth; before the trials and tribulations life doles out tested their resolve; before they found their faces aging, the laugh lines growing deeper from the corners of their eyes; before their grandchildren were born; before we celebrated their fiftieth wedding anniversary; before his chest pains increased in regularity; before that day in the hospital when everything changed; before she said her final goodbye.

Then, as quickly as the leaf had floated from my hand to the ground, the spark faded, receding behind Mom-Mau’s deep browns like a wave from shore, bringing her back to the brisk day in which we found ourselves. To a different kind of comfort, a different life.

A few years later, I held her hand again. But for the last time.

***

So, as they exchanged vows, I raised my camera slightly and snapped a blurry photo.

Reading the Leaves

But the most meaningful part wasn’t the photo, or the leaf caught within the lens; it was Andy’s leg resting against mine. Acknowledging how time continues to unfold and reveal so many moments, each of which is but a blip on my life’s radar–an anchor to experience.

And like that moment so many years ago, I had someone by my side whom I loved deeply, whose love I never deserved–for which I never asked.

A type of love that just is.

So I let my eyes dance for a moment, glancing back through the memories, through the experiences that brought me to this moment with him. Knowing life changes without warning.

Tied Together

Knowing, above all else, there is living ahead.