Much has changed in the past five years–I could make some declarative and sentimental statement about how life is “fixed,” but to me, it’s never quite that way. I will tell you this: human beings are far more adaptable than we give ourselves credit for.
When she heard he had died, I think the loss for her was in a sense much more immediate, like that kiss itself. A way of tracing back that was gone forever.
To say my aunt has a hard time letting it go would be putting it lightly—the mansion is her shrine to her past. But I love her and respect her maybe more than I do the other women. Because she is kind. She is the kind one. She is the crazy one, but she is the kind one.
Abuse can appear in so many forms. Coercion and manipulation, put-downs, controlling account information and finances, controlling food, diet and medicine. It can be physical, emotional, mental harm and includes secrets that hold control and power over you.
When I read that the Ebola virus had reached Lagos, a city of over 25 million inhabitants (most of them impoverished), I braced myself for news of unimaginable human suffering in Nigeria. With its corruption, economic inequality, weak infrastructure, and burgeoning terrorism, I didn’t see much cause for hope.
Most who have crossed the ocean of cancer often end up with some PTSD, and I am not immune. A smell, taste or even a certain item of clothing, can trigger a memory of a dark day, sending me into a spiral of depressive thoughts.
Part of me, the part that likes to play, wants to write about how my grandfather loved to gamble. The more honest part of me, the part that has sat through too many therapy sessions to count – the part that has spent the last eight years sober, knows my grandfather was addicted to gambling.
I never kept track of the men I had relationships with. I married and divorced one of them and haven’t kept track of him, except for what my daughters tell me. There have been others. I have no idea where they are. Friends have come and gone. Sometimes I’ve known where they were and sometimes I haven’t. My roommate and I lost touch for years. It’s only recently that we reconnected. But since that night, when the Greek thought he could fly and called me a kyke, not a day has gone by that I haven’t known where he is. I’m sure a competent shrink could have a good time analyzing that.
Happiness is not always the answer. Being human is the answer. An essential part of the human experience—or at least how I want to experience being human—is to accept and allow every kind of emotion, healthily process it, and then lovingly release it.
Today is December 1st. The start of the new month. The last month of this year. And today is the day a very important movement launches. It will be a small movement at first, but it will grow. And my hope is that it will grow to be so big that it isn’t a movement at all, it is just the way things are.
