gone

it's gone.

yesterday, my cousin e-mailed me to let me know that the house that i grew up in in bakersfield burned down to the ground.

my papa built that house with his own hands. it stood for more than 40 years. my father walked through that house. our family gatherings happened at that house. more than half my life was spent in that house. it was the backdrop for so many things that i remember. things i really enjoyed remembering. and it's gone now.

secretly, ever since the house was sold outside of the family, i hoped to get rich somehow and buy that house back. maybe even buy back the whole neighborhood of a couple blocks and get it back the way it was. take care of it like anything you love.

what i really wanted was to buy my home back. that was the only place in my hometown that i considered to be home. i love my mom, and my mom loves me. of course, her home has been open to me and what's hers is mine. but that place that burned down to the ground? i took ownership of it. that was mine. when life became hard, that was the place of comfort that i would want to go back to in my mind.

even though the house itself was no longer a home once my grandfather passed away, it was nice for to be able to go there and see furniture in place where i always remembered it being. cousins moved in and out for a few years. some took better care of it than others. i had to divorce it from my heart after awhile though.

not two or three christmases ago, some family was living there and somehow all the life and love seemed drained from it. no lights were on anywhere inside or outside the house except in the couple rooms where people were staying. the house wasn't the hallways were cold. the family room was empty. the kitchen was dead. i cried then because i think i knew it was over. it was like seing someone you love dying and not being able to do anything about it. and that was the last time i was inside the house.

the house was put up for sale. someone else bought it, changed the color, took off the awnings, and did whatever else they wanted to it. i didn't ever actually see it in that state. after a certain point, it just hurt to much to drive down the street. and see the architectural equivalent of having the ex-girlfriend you couldn't hold on to dating some other man who isn't treating her right anyway.

my heart sank a little when i heard that it burned down. it grieved me like any other death. but at the same time, i was relieved. almost in the same way that, though heavily grieved, i was relieved when it was official that the my papa's (and thereby my own) suffering was over. and i find it more ironic that the house burned down on the exact anniversary date of my grandfather's death, 7 years later.

i think i avoided bakersfield in total because it hurt to see that place i loved in ruins. but it's over now. i hope no one was hurt in the blaze. the paper says there was about $50,000 of damage done. i hope they don't rebuild the place. i'd like them to level it and maybe build something else, maybe not. i don't think you can get more closure than this. so now, maybe i can work on establishing myself a home that no one can take from me.

it's alright.

a few more miles

i was sitting in the art department counselor's office on friday taking care of some paperwork having to do with graduation, and i got an odd feeling of deja vu while looking out of the venetian blinds in her office. it was like being back in 1997 taking care of paperwork to start school, and it really came to me that i'm almost done. there are only a few more miles to go. a few classes, a handful of assignments in each, and i'm done. i don't know what comes after that, but i'm not terribly concerned. there's just an interesting feeling one gets at the beginning of things and at the end of things. not quite sure what it is, it's part triumphant, a little regretful, poignant for sure.

clarity

why such a high price? why the drive? why am i always trying to understand everything around me? like a kid exploring the world around him where everything is new and foreign... they want to pick up everything. see it, touch it, taste it, tear it up, put it back together, and move on to the next curious object.

even now i'm amazed at the process of enlightmentment. when the light comes on and you say "oh! now i get it." they used to let me and my sister and my cousins watch the color purple as kids. that movie's pretty serious, pretty complicated and dramatic. i was six years old then. i don't know who told them that was a good idea, but i couldn't tell the difference. for all i knew, the movie was a comedy, 'cause we all cracked up laughin' at shug avery declarin' that celie "sho' is ugly" while lookin' like all that be damned herself.

i got into my teenage years and could finally begin to wrap my head around more of what was goin' on. i realized that the film had comedic parts, but beginning to know what's going on in the world brought some color to a movie that was largely black and white to me. of course, when you're a teenager, you learn a lot, really fast. it makes your head spin and by the time things settle (if they do at all), you think you know everything probably because you just learned three times as much in the latter half of your life-span as you had in the first half. you figure that was the finale and there's not much more of "it" that you have to "get".

well, here i am about to slide into 27 years old. and i just bought the color purple on dvd. un-cut, un-censored, and un-like the version i was used to seeing on TV as a teenager or even on VHS as a largely oblivious child. the film itself hasn't changed. everything is just as it always was, but i understand so much more about the nature of people and what causes folks to do things.

now as an adult, i watch the movie and i check for motive. why did this happen? what did mister have to do with shug? how did miss sophia manage to reconcile with harpo after he obviously had kids with squeak and how are they all paling to around together now like nothing's wrong? not that the answer to any of those questions unravel the meaning of life, but those questions sure weren't there the last time i watched it.

as a matter of fact, there were so many new questions and observations and little crumbs and whisps of data that i was just absolutely unable to perceive before that it's almost like a brand new film to me.

i understand a little more this time around.

can you remember when you were just
6 years old
with a trusting heart accepting
everything you're told
anyone bigger must have been right
even if they were wrong
you'd take what was given
you didn't know better
all your little mind could comprehend
was goodness and truth
even when the baddest things were
being done to you
ain't it a shame how you pay
for your innocence
when you take what was given
you didn't know any better 'bout

loving, cheatin, people leaving
dying, living, losin and forvigin
growin, sayin no and, being who you are

What about the time when you became
16 years old
with an unsure heart believing
some of what you're told
wanting to be someone different,
but there's pressure to be the same
so you'd take what was given
you didn't know better
all that you could think about was
what you should or should not do
every single insecurity was magnified for you
and suddenly you began to feel all the contradictions
but you'd take what was given
you didn't know better 'bout

loving, cheatin, people leaving
dying, living, losin and forvigin
growin, sayin no and, being who you are

Now here you are a little older than before
you really been through it and you might go through some more
but if there's one precious thing you've learned,
it's that you can't just take what is given,
cuz now you know better

- Mondo Grosso featuring Amel Larrieux, "Now You Know Better"
(CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE SONG. THE LINK'S ONLY GOOD FOR 7 DAYS, SO IF IT EXPIRES, JUST LET ME KNOW, 'CAUSE I THINK EVERYBODY SHOULD HEAR THIS SONG.)

all this said, it's amazing how i'm a little more at peace now. i understand a little bit more of what's going on in my world. and i feel more at ease. more in control. there's something generally discomforting about feeling like your world is spinning haphazardly by no rules into nowhere. you can breathe easier when you just have a half an idea of what's going on.

if you love me like you say

i don't know when to give up. maybe i'm not supposed to. but it's not like i stopped wanting to know. or my curiosity was sated by just going without an answer for so long. but i believe (and maintain) that my relationship with my mother is strained because in a sense, by nature of being a working mom, an absentee one. the way i understand it, she worked because she loved us (my sister and i) so much. she didn't want us to be on welfare. she didn't want us to grow up poor the way she did. that was probably priority number one.

i told her one of the reasons i rebelled against her so hard as a teen is because i feel like she positioned herself as my enemy. always so haughty and obstinate. we rarely agreed on much and there was hardly a stronger purveyor of feelings of being misunderstood. i heard her say she loved me, but for all intents and purposes, i sure feel like i could have done without that love.

i never saw her working. i never saw her sacrificing. sometimes it seemed like i almost never saw her at all. what a catch-22 that her absence was due to her love for me, and yet communicated to me the opposite.

me and my mother had a confrontation on the phone a couple weeks ago, and in her usual modus operandi, she excused herself from the head and brunt of what i was concerned with. instead countering that she loves me, that has always loved me, that i have no idea how much she loves me, and that i may never understand... maybe when i get older.

i suggested to her "we should read a book." before i could follow up that sentence, she answered, "i don't need to read any books. you just need to..." and of course she proceeded telling me what she thinks i need to do. i'm so used to tuning out things that i've heard before, that i don't remember what she said at all.

i was gonna suggest she read the five love languages. why? because apparently all of her oh-so-all-encompassing larger-than-i-can-understand love is, albeit undoubtedly genuine, also sadly, frequently, and tragically miscommunicated. why should you put so much work into all this "love" if its net effect is almost nothing? that's an over generalization. i don't think her love is "in vain". but it just seems like such a waste and a contradiction no less. that lady has always been the conservative one who taught me her ways of making every resource count... not doing double work... doing what's necessary to get the most you can out of your time... your money... your ability. why not your love?

it just seems to me that if she loves me like she says she does, it shouldn't be so hard for me to perceive it.

it reminds me of her own account of her and her mother's interactions. she said that her mother never verbally said she loved her, but she always knew she did. or maybe she said it when she got older, while she was sick and my mom was taking care of her. i think that's the case. but how momentous and memorable and impactful would it have been if grandma had really brought the message home for my mom before she died?

apparently though, my mom finds no fault in that. at least it seems that way. i on the other hand see this as a problem. i'm still having a heck of a time trying to explain it to her so that she can understand it the way that i actually mean it. i hope can succeed in it though. i think my mother and her mother's relationship was probably at the apex of accomplishment compared to how they once might have interacted. my mother has seen to it not to make the same mistakes that the previous generation did, but instead made a brand new set of mistakes. fortunately hers are much less rough around the edges than grandma's i'm sure. it seems like it's up to me to start working out the previous generation's bugs so that i'll have less issues to deal with when my own kids come into being. tired as i am, i think it's still worth fighting for.

difference a day makes

“my feelings hurt / but you know i overcome the pain / and i'm stronger now / there can't be a fire unless there's a flame / don't cry” - seal

right around 24 to 36 hours ago, i wasn't feeling too terribly hot. i got down pretty low. i didn't set a record, but it hadn't been that bad for awhile. God must be on my side, 'cause those were perfect weather conditions for a cold front of heavy depression to sweep in and rain on everything. God must be on my side. other people's prayers must be working. 'cause i don't feel like mine are that fervent. and i certainly don't feel i count much as righteous these days. not to term myself a hapless, helpless heathen. according to the Word of God, Christ is my righteousness and furthermore, my strength in weakness. if God says it, i'll side with it, but i'm just making note of my feelings... and the fact that they seem to have changed. 'bout time.

turn over a rock

it's been a dizzying ride recently. i've been actively trying to confront pain from my past in order to free myself up for whatever God has in the future. there have been plenty of days where i wished i had shrunken back from the task and just let things be. but once you turn over a rock and let scatter the roaches beneath, it's almost impossible to coax them all back into their previously comfortable (and more importantly out of view) place if you change your mind.

these days, layers of repressed anger are the roach of choice that i would like to bury back under the rock. the process of catharsis sometimes leaves me tired. and while my physical and emotion strength is drained, i'm apt to forget that the goal in the big picture is a good one. as my usually spirited gait and ebullience temporary give way to more of a muddy trudging through and straight-face at best, i constantly question whether it's worth it. but for faith, i wouldn't have a positive answer.

"death whispers words of defeat in my ear
my God I draw near
my God I draw near" - john reuben, "draw near"

God isn't absent though. nor is he inert. though i have cycled through points where i wasn't going to make it. God never forgets about me and in his own time... just in time... he gives me something i can use to steady myself, lift my head, and keep breathing.

forgiveless

oh hell yeah, i'm still mad.

i've had some candid conversations with my mother about things she did and said when i was a teenager that were hurtful and patterns of behavior that did more harm than good. and yet, i don't think much has been resolved. not that i recall. i don't perceive things clearly when i'm angry, so there may have been progress that just now slips my mind.

even though i know my mother prays for me incessantly... i know she wants the best for me... thinks most highly of me... blah blah blah. all great things. really. they're lovely. i don't much feel loved the way she's continually glossed over my deepest concerns. i have expressed these things in about the most succint way i know how and they've been met with different responses over time... disbelief, apathy, resistance, dismissiveness. in context of how she loves me oh so very much, she finds it to be a slap in the face that i feel this way. she feels she did the best job in parenting that she possibly could have. therefore. she doesn't feel the need to apologize for anything.

well, not quite anything. anytime, i talk about how i'm habitually nocturnal, or have problems showing up on time, she bemoans that as her fault.

she blames her genes.

i roll my eyes.

it really burns me up that she has so much concern for these things that i really could care less about. and the things that i feel she is responsible for (read: had some control over), she feels no shame about. she was combative, quarrelsome, oppressive, self-righteous, and domineering. to her credit, i believe when i mentioned this to her, she said something to the effect of "i'm sorry if i did anything that made you feel that way", but it just wreaked of patronizing insincerity. it's as if some conglomerate company's negligence caused you injury of some sort, and just to try an appease you and avoid any further legal action, they send some cold, dry cousin of Ben Stein's to inform you that "the company feels very badly that someone hurt you and hopes that you get well soon."

the thing that ires me is that she takes no responsibility for it whatsoever. she doesn't even feel that she's done anything wrong, and when i try to encapsulate for her how miserable of an experience being forced to live with her was, she either blocks it out or just doesn't understand at all and launches into some "i just don't understand how you feel that way"-flavored speech.

have i not hammered home how much i loathe being misunderstood? does she not know how frustrating it is to have these substantial feelings weighing down on me and then in confrontation have her convince me that it's "just the enemy" playing me against her or it's all in my mind or it doesn't really exist at all? that wasn't some flighty nightmare? that was a span of over two years that actually happened! you can't just use the jedi mind trick and make that go away.

now she's 50-something and concentrating on enjoying life and being healthy and keeping her blood pressure down and focusing on the positive things.

“In our anger or pain, we may feel that we should withhold our forgiveness, until our injurer repents. But consider this question from another angle. Making our forgiveness dependent on another's repentance is not very helpful. It sets us up to be a victim, not just once, but twice! By making our forgiveness so dependent, we hand considerable power over our lives, to the one who injured us! Hanging on to a grudge is like keeping a [dinosaur] in our living room. It's a painful creature from the dead past which we choose to keep alive in the present. The truth is, it really is within our power to choose otherwise, and particularly with God's help!” - from “Eight Forgiveness Questions To Ponder”

And then again, what if it is just me? What if I'm just seeing everything through the pubescent hindsight of an angst-heavy teenager? What if I'm just doing a shameful disservice to my loving mother? What if it's like she says? What if I'm just spoiled and selfish and that's all there is to it? What if it really doesn't exist? What it it's just something that I choose to believe in retrospect? What if I'm the piece that doesn't fit and I'm the reason why our relationship has suffered for over a decade now?

I don't know, and thinking about the whole thing is making me tired. It's draining on her to have to field the questions, and it's draining on me to keep posing them. And as bad as I feel like I need this reconciliation, this closure, I seriously wonder if it would just be a better and more peace-economical solution to just try and forget it and like Ma says "let God have it."

late

“i keep stalling out
i just can't keep up
there's alarming doubt
am i good enough
but you keep comin' around
to remind me
it's still far from over.”
- mute math, “stall out”

i have a problem and i am out of control. i cannot seem to show up on time for anything. ever. there's a point that's usually approximately 30 minute before i have to be somewhere that will take me 30 minutes to get to where i decide whether or not to leave. inevitably i always decide that whatever i'm doing that normally has to do with personal busywork of little importance normally overrides. sometimes it IS important. but why couldn't i have done it hours prior? is this a disease? what is wrong? this is robbing me and i'm becoming increasingly concerned. i mean, what the hell happens, predictably, every single day at just the right time such that i can not be punctual?

normally i expect to be late to things i'm inclined against. for instance, anytime i would have to make a trip back to my hometown, it seems like everything else that i would rather have done became of paramount importance, because i didn't want to go in the first place. finally, hours later, i had either cancelled my visit or severely cut short its length due to “matters beyond my control”. but now it's begun to affect things that i care about, and i need help. like any other problem, i'm loathe to write it in a public place where perhaps potential clients and employers could read it, prejudge and disqualify me, but at this point it's becoming more of a problem to smother it under a pillow and deny that it exists that to just put it out there and get on the road to curing it.

it's either be punctual or be prepared. one or the other and rarely ever both. this first became an obvious problem last year. i was taking a design class where i'd obtained an unusually high personal stake in my performance with the assignments. if i conquered, it was exhilarating. if i faltered, it was near crushing. i loved the time spent even when the work was nerve wracking, so why was it so hard for me to prioritize things and prepare such that when 6pm rolled around, everything that needed to be done was done?

i asked my pastor about it (she also happens to be a part-time professor at the same university) and she shed some light on the subject. she let me know that many professors consider it an affront for you to walk into their classroom late. some of them lose their place in their lecture and consider the disruption more than odious. some of them take it personally that you don't care enough about what they're saying to be there when it starts and stay until it's finished.

this was news to me. why was this news to me? i think the roots of this however are selfishness. just today i decided i needed to eat more than i needed to return to my class within 15 minutes of the start of our break. my assignments weren't quite done, so i delayed leaving for a previous class until the next class's requirements were prepared.

and then there's the tunnel vision. say for instance, it's 2am and i'm in some artistic mode where i'm fully ensconced in whatever music, art, or frivolously pointless task i'm focused on. at that moment, accomplishing what is in front of me is more important than the very real factor that every hour of sleep i sacrifice after a certain point is a likely hour that will be cut away from something else (because it has to be of major importance for me to cut my sleep short).

most of all, there's my pointless day job. when i know that showing up at 11am instead of 12pm would at best result in me sitting at my desk for an hour waiting for the paint to crack, and at worst result in me getting pointless busy work that someone else didn't want to do, getting me to leave the house at 10:30am is like trying to push a sitting elephant over. you might as well give up.

in a perfect world, i would love to be able to say. i had this problem. but i prayed about it. God answered me in 6-8 weeks. and praise the Lord, i've got the victory manifested in the natural, amen, halleglory. that ain't the case here. i'm not “fixed” yet. i'm not “all better”. i'm still having to exert great effort just to keep things running. and all this exertion is making me tired. i'm afraid that this type of thing could be my undoing. i loathe to say it, but my hamartia. the thing that keeps me from being a storybook worthy hero. the thing that just barely disqualifies me from being “amazing”.

“mark was pretty talented, but...”

“yeah, mark had potential and could have been a lot, but...”

“it was lookin' pretty good for him, but then...”


i don't want to be tragic. so what do i do now?