Thank you, dearheart, thank you so much
Someone I care about quite a bit (who I won’t name, because it’s not my story to spread around the web or blab to others) has been through a rough patch recently. I don’t keep up with all the various internet sites as well as I probably should (as I’m sure many of you know from my sporadic comments on your blogs – I tend to go days without commenting, and then hit your posts up all at once, because I’ve been busy or life happens or whatever), but I recently discovered what exactly had happened, and while I was thinking about what I wanted to write privately to this person, I realized that what I would tell them were things that I myself actually needed to be told, and to understand on a deep level. So I’m writing this publicly, as a blog post, for myself, for you, for them, for anyone who needs to have this epiphany and hasn’t yet.
Where to start. I don’t know. I’ve recently come out of a depressive period. In fact, I think it was still lingering until a few moments ago, on the front porch, when I had these realizations, when I was thinking out what to say to comfort my friend, and ended up also comforting myself. So, thank you, dearheart, you know who you are, and I love you, and thank you so much for helping me find my way to this point of peace and content and happiness and clarity.
These things may be relevant: I come from a severely dysfunctional family – in fact, I think “dysfunctional” does so little to convey the very fucked up things I’ve been through, that the word is a bit of a farce when it comes to describing my adolescence and family dynamics. For a long time, a very long time, I felt like I *had* to go to grad school, that I *had* to be a neuroscientist. Then later, a therapist. Later still, a social worker. Only relatively recently have I realized that the voice inside me telling me I had to “make something of my life” wasn’t my *own* voice, but what I’d internalized from my father’s expectations, ambitions, perfectionism. And today, just now, sitting on the porch, I realized that even though I thought I’d finally let up on myself, realized that *I* wasn’t ambitious, and was perfectly happy with my job (which I could have gotten with “just” a high school diploma) – I’ve still been carrying around a bit of that internalized fatherly voice and sense that I haven’t made as much of my life as I could or should have. But now I see with clarity, *know* from the deepest parts of myself, that that? Is utter bullshit. My life is beautiful, and I love it, and yesterday, I told my husband, as I do semi-regularly, “I love our house, I love you, I love our life!” and I meant it, I did. But today, my eyes have been opened, and from now on when I say I love our life, I will mean it with even more of every bit of myself. My life is fucking great, you guys. I am happy, I am nourished, I am loved, I love, I get to have fun, I get to be authentically myself. I’m crying right now, actually, from the enormity of this realization, that I am *exactly* where I should be, where I want to be. That the path I’ve been on has ALWAYS been the right path.
And that’s my point: the path you are on is exactly the path you are supposed to be on. It might not be easy right now, but if it’s not, there will be a day where you can look back and see how this roughness led you exactly to where you were meant to be. I don’t believe in regret, I feel like it invalidates your previous choices, your previous experiences, stuff from your past that you may not have had total control over, or that you just hadn’t learned enough to do differently – but that’s exactly it, you have to do those things to learn what you need to *know*. So regret is bullshit. Invalidating all that stuff is bullshit. The rough parts aren’t easy, but they are just as valid as the easy parts, and they both add up to make you *you*, and help you along the path you’re meant to be on. I think that challenge is what makes us better people, because it gives us a chance to understand ourselves and have real empathy for others, who have also been through challenge. In my opinion, that’s the point of life: to be the best person we can. And it’s a neverending journey. When you stop, when you think you’re perfectly enlightened, you’re just fooling yourself and letting your ego persuade you, and not listening to your humility or your intuition or your heart enough.
I’ve been through some shit. I won’t go into it here, because I’m not trying to say the shit I’ve been through is better or worse than the shit anyone else has been through, or more or less valid; I’m not making a comparison. I’m just saying: we all go through shit. I’m sure there’s more shit waiting for me up ahead, and I am going to bloody well fucking hate going through it – but I’ve already been through quite a bit, and come out the other side not just a survivor, but fucking thriving and happy and a better, stronger person. I really hated those goddamn rough patches, though. Fucking suffering, and trying to find some strength or will when you feel like there’s none left and no reason to fake it.
I think “things happen for a reason” is not exactly the right phrase. I don’t think things always happen for a reason, so I won’t say that, even though it seems to go along with “you’re on the right path.” I don’t know how those two don’t go together in my mind, but they don’t – I can’t explain better than that. Or maybe it’s the possibility that you’re *on your way* to your right path. But then that just goes back to the whole “life is a constant process of bettering ourselves, and it only ends when we die.” A “it’s the journey, not the destination” thing.
Anyway, I’ve lost my coherent thread, I’m afraid. What I wanted to tell you, is that I love you, I have absolute faith in you, and you should have absolute faith in yourself and love yourself dearly. You *are* exactly where you should be, but maybe – like me years ago when I thought I had to strive for “greatness in a scientific field” – you just can’t see it clearly yet. You’re already on your right path, you carry it inside yourself, and wherever you go, whatever you do, will be more than enough, will be perfect, because you are already the perfect you. That seed, that core, is already in you, so believe in it, nourish it, don’t give up on it, and let it guide you through this. And one day, you’ll be sitting on a porch, trying to find just the right words to comfort a friend, and maybe you’ll find exactly the right words and maybe you won’t, but you’ll come to this realization *yourself*, like I did, that *I* am exactly where *I* need to be, where I’m meant to be, where I want to be.
I am so utterly sorry that you’re going through the shit you’re going through, but thank you so much, because without you, I wouldn’t have had this moment of clarity, of utter happiness and peace with myself. I have a good feeling that we’re all going to be alright. 
Love, Kathy
Edited to add: Made this private for a while, while I mulled over whether I really wanted it public. Have decided it should be public. My reason for making it private was I was worried that it might come off as a bit crazy – but then making it private for that reason flies in the face of my decision to be pretty much completely open about my own mental health issues in order to help break down the stigma surrounding mental health issues (“being crazy”), since we all have them, it’s just a matter of degree. I *was* in a bit of an ecstatic, manic mood when I wrote it, because, and here’s the somewhat shorter version for those of you who couldn’t follow or are slightly confused:
A dear friend of mine is going through a rough patch, and kind of down on themselves. As I was thinking about what to tell them to cheer them up and try to help them understand that this would pass and they should let up on themselves because they’re fucking rad, I understood that what I would tell *them* also applied to me. In other words, this friend unknowingly helped me to make a “breakthrough”, in a matter of moments, that my therapist has been trying to get me to come to *for years*. That’s how it works sometimes. Actually, that’s how it usually works for me, when it comes to realizations/breakthroughs about myself. I’m incredibly perceptive, usually, about other people, but I have a huge blindspot when it comes to insight about myself. My therapist has been telling me outright that I’m awesome and should give myself credit and am right where I’m supposed to be, and should stop listening to my father’s voice in my head and start listening to my true inner voice, and I get it on a rational level, but haven’t been able to actually get it on a fundamental, emotional, subconscious, *believing* level. My friend broke through that wall for me, and now I *get it* on that core level, I *believe* that I’m not just okay, I’m perfect the way I am, I’m on the right path, all that stuff my therapist has been telling me and trying to get me to believe. So I wrote this post to thank my friend (for unknowingly, but nonetheless, facilitating that breakthrough), and to have it written down to remind myself (for the next time I’m down on myself, or anxious, or whatever), and also for any readers who, like me until yesterday, need to keep hearing it/reading it/having it laid out for them until it breaks through and finally resonates for them.
Madeleines!
The madeleine mutilation at work today was mostly a success. I came home with a half-full bag of the truvia ones, and six assorted real sugar ones (which have disappeared by now, oh gee, how’d that happen?).
First, you need a madeleine pan. Preset your oven to 375. You’re going to spoon the batter into your buttered (or non-stick-sprayed) pan by about a teaspoonful. I pretty much eyeball it, but you don’t want the molds filled all the way up, because the madeleines rise during baking. Bake them in the oven for ten minutes. Let them cool for about ten to fifteen minutes (seriously! when they’re done they have a tendency to come out looking a little undone, but they firm up; if you overcook them a smidge, they’re still pretty good). And then eat the shit out of them. Or give them to people. You know. But don’t just throw them away because they are the awesomest cookie EVER. I think they last pretty well, too, and are supposed to be best when they’re a couple days old (according to the professor who introduced me to them and gave me the basic recipe – we read Proust in class, so she brought in madeleines), but they don’t last very long in *this* household. ETA: I should mention that I have a 12-mold, non-stick pan, and the recipe yields about 2 dozen cookies. So I bake each batch of batter in two batches of baking (awesome sentence, that). Which also means I took 144 cookies into work today. Yeah, get there. But I’m testing recipes for a surprise I’m planning, so….I’ve got some more recipes to test, and will probably be doing that again. Except not for another week, at least. I’m kind of madeleined out at the moment.
Basic recipe:
Mix 2 eggs, 1 tsp. vanilla extract, 1 tsp. lemon juice, and 3/4 cup sugar. Melt (um, my recipe says to softened but not melt the butter, but I always just melt it) one stick of butter (or 1/2 cup, it’s the same thing; margarine also works) and mix that in, too. Then mix in a cup of flour. Boom. There’s your batter.
Now for mixing it up a bit: I stick pretty much to the basic recipe, and switch out extracts and juices. For the Truvia ones, I used the basic recipe but used 3/4 c. Truvia instead of sugar. Now, stevia is much sweeter than sugar, so I probably should’ve adjusted the amount, but I forgot, and the end cookies were good. They also have a weird (but not unpleasant) cooling sensation. Other sugar substitutes, I don’t have experience with, but they’d probably work out, with more or less tweaking of the recipe. I will say, however, that while the Truvia madeleines were still delicious, they were not as mind-blowingly awesome as the real sugar ones. Now for the different flavors – same basic recipe, but instead of the vanilla extract and lemon juice, you use:
Lemon madeleines (rated really high at Greg’s department, and are tasty):
1 tsp lemon extract
1 tsp lemon juice
Cranberry orange:
1 tsp orange extract
3 tsp cranberry juice
And now for my two favorite flavors! Cherry almond and mojito (and mojito wins by a smidge).
Cherry almond:
1 tsp almond extract
3 tsp cherry juice
Mojito:
1 tsp mint extract
2 tsp lime juice
And there you go. Happy baking! (And even happier eating.)
TiLT: On-time edition, what! (6/2/11)
-THIS, SO MUCH
-Debbie Reynolds’s auction catalog/collection – so many pretties, so many awesomes, love it!
-sequined guitar straps (you can kind of see the sequins’ reflections in this pic – sorry I couldn’t get a better one) – this belonged to the guitarist in Jews and Catholics, who we saw play at the Pinhook with Adam Thorn and Tina Sparkle – and that whole show was amazing
-blowing a grrl’s mind the other night at the Pinhook. I was very amused (since I tend to think of myself as somewhat boring, and therefore not very mind-blowing). Here’s how it went down: we were talking about dance parties, and watching people dance, and I’d already mentioned that my husband worked at the Pinhook. Then I mentioned that in the late nineties, I used to go to Legends regularly, and she was like, “(head tilt)…Isn’t that a gay club?” “Yes.” “…but you just said your husband….?” And I was like, “….yeah.” And her friend immediately got it, but she didn’t, so then I had to break it down, all, “My husband’s straight; I’m queer.” And then she looked kind of gobsmacked. Not in a bad way, just in a befuddled way. She was a lesbian herself, which made me a bit confused because surely she’s at least met bisexual people, if not people on all parts of the spectrum? Anyway, it tickled me that, me, at 31, could still blow minds. Also, it just underlined for me how fucking farcical DOMA is, since it boils down to: 1-you’re not defending marriage (divorce, single parenthood, abusive marriages, etc, etc), 2-queers are getting married (me, for instance, or, say, couples in a poly relationship, or lesbians/gays in Canada or states where it’s legal), so really, 1-DOMA is a joke, and 2-you’re just being a dick to *some* of “the gays”, so obviously you’re failing in *your* goal of being a dick to all the gays, so you might as well just QUIT IT. But this is TiLT, not soapbox time, so I’ll step down. On with the fun stuff!
-Adam motherfucking Thorn! Rocks it hard! According to Adam, Greg and I have seen him in all his musical incarnations – starting long ago with Tapeworm Love when he disemboweled a hugeass teddy bear at the Noble Street house. Which was hilarious. And messy. (Pretty sure that was the same night I fell out of love with screwdrivers.) Anyway, he played a show at the Pinhook (the same show with the sequined guitar strap) the other night, Saturday? Friday? Saturday? Let’s go with Saturday, and it was *fucking amazing*. “Nonstop Thinking Machine” makes me lose my shit. (Because it’s awesome, and catchy, and great, and makes sense, and also because *I’m* a nonstop thinking machine so…yeah, a little bit of narcissism-induced-liking there. I won’t lie. But also the line about getting closure is something I need to *know* on a cellular, non-rational, deep-self level, because, yeah, issues there; so I like it because it’s a good reminder. And catchy as shit.)
-Tina Sparkle – did I mention that was an awesome show at the Pinhook? Did I mention *the Pinhook* is awesome?
-LONG WEEKENDS! Fuck yes! Because that also means extra napping and extra laziness!
-crafting for others (STILL, and ALWAYS)
-planning surprises
-when some dude biked past me and Greg on campus and yelled out, “Sweet hair!” Thanks!
-seeing bats and fireflies at night, on the same night! (I been waiting for them fireflies to come out, and they finally did last night. Do bats eat fireflies? Is that why I’m not seeing many this summer?)
-MADELEINES – per Robyn’s request, I will be posting recipes later, so I’ll save the pictures for that post, and leave this TiLT text heavy, muahahaha
-unicorn tattoos
-a Smuckers car (I don’t know – it was like the Weinermobile but it was for Smuckers. And the roof was painted like a Smuckers jar lid. It was pretty sweet. Wish I’d taken a cellphone pic at least. Oh well.)
-”Mary Jane’s Last Dance” (which, apparently “someone” was a little drunk when she wrote that down, because I actually wrote down “Rosemary Last Dance”)
-a hippie grrl in a gorgeous velvet-trimmed skirt walking barefoot in downtown Durham at about midnight
Edited to add: have fallen into a hole of this site, holy shit, so awesome, so inspiring, so weird, so lovely, so grotesque, so amazing. Sometimes I forget how much I love art, and all types of it. I guess because what I usually just come across in my day is kind of….meh, or shit I’m not into. (For example, was discussing Sasha Grey’s Neu Sex today – I mean, I guess it’s art, if she says it is, but it’s not shit I care about.) But then I find sites like Nihilsentimentalgia09, and remember/realize that there’s plenty of art out there that I *adore* and am amazed by. Maybe I don’t trip over it constantly in Durham, or my house, but it’s there if I look. Or, better yet, if I start to make the stuff I like myself. There’s an idea…
