Here’s the thing about fighters. You can knock them down. You can kick them in the gut. You can make them swallow mouthfuls of teeth. But fighters? Fighters still get up and SMILE. Even if the grin is totally toothless.
The first time my brother tried to kill himself, my mother searched her memory for where she had gone wrong, where she had failed my brother so completely that he didn’t want to go on living.
Truth is, my Dad has never found anybody because of his personal preferences, you would think even he, after 35 years would be more open to looking at the inside of people, and not just the outside
“Do you think it is cancer?” As always he will say, “No.” “Will you tie a bandana on my head every morning if I lose my hair?” “Yes, every morning,” he says. “Every morning,” I repeat.
Even worse, Henning—not content with pushing the gendered hypocrisy of his ideas about sex, or even the shamey, rapey tone of his relationship advice—has let his opinions about girls wander even farther afield, sermonizing about their appearance, their tastes, their habits and mannerisms, the very expression of their feelings.
I read fierce essays about what it’s like to write while raising children, tweets from childless women who are sick of hearing about the plight of the mother-writer; I exchange messages with friends about how I should hire more child care; I do nothing because I can’t figure out how to take myself seriously.
I understand that there are limitations to our relationship, because no amount of telekinetic connection will ever add up to the inextricability of blood. Yes, it will come close. But in the end, it is not the same. I still believe that family is an abstract.
What if we embraced our bodies? What if we loved our bodies, belly rolls and wrinkles and grey hairs and our butts and our teeth? What if our bodies became our best friends?
