The Longest Day

I start dreading this weekend as soon as the Mother’s Day cards appear in store aisles. It’s the Great Wall of Grief for me and I try to avoid it as much as possible.

And every year since 2003, my first Mother’s Day without my mother, I’ve tried to come up with a strategy for the day. Every year I seem to have a different plan but they ultimately have one thing in common – they fail miserably in helping me through the day.

I want to be alone. I don’t want to be alone. I want to say home. I want to go out. And so it goes.

Most every Mother’s Day begins the same way for me now. I wake up, open my eyes and remember the day and then I feel this sudden churning deep in my gut– sort of like that feeling when you’re in an elevator and it descends really quickly and you try and catch yourself.

And then I cry. Sometimes softly, but sometimes I sob. I think about going to Harrisonburg, VA and taking my mother out to brunch at the Country Club. I think about what she would wear. My mother never really owned any casual wear and she always looked so stylish and elegant when we went out.

I think about drinking champagne with her. My mother loved champagne. Years ago at an outdoor wedding, we both were in our cups – or flutes as the case may have been – and giggled together all the way home in the back seat while my father and my partner at the time shook their heads.

Mostly I think about what we would talk about over brunch. We never ran out of things to talk about.

We just ran out of time.

They say that the longest day of the year is the Summer Solstice in June. I would argue that it’s the second Sunday in May.

Afterword: Through the magic of Facebook, I was given a gift this Mother’s Day weekend in the form of a blog post from Kate Spencer, entitled How I’m Making Mother’s Day My Bitch. It is, in a word, brilliant. Brilliant.

May it be a gift to all of you missing your mothers this weekend.

The Marry Month of May

Wedding anniversaries are usually intimate affairs for two, but I recently celebrated my first one with my wife and six men.

I thought that might get your attention.

The celebration took place at a dinner party gathering of The May 5^th Club. You see last May, four gay couples from the Triad all got married on the same day – a Monday no less – across three time zones.

They say there’s no place like home but thanks to Amendment One, we all had to leave NC to marry the person we want to spend the rest of our life with. The four weddings were as different as the four couples but over the course of a wonderful evening together we learned that we all agreed on one thing – being married just feels different.

And we love it.

So I give you Four Weddings and a Squirrel (I’ll explain later.)

Mark and David

David and Mark

They got “maui’d” in Maui on the beach at sunset. I would say it was the wedding of their dreams but they would admit that they planned the vacation first. A few months before their trip, they were sitting at dinner in Asheville one Saturday night and Mark said, “You know, we should get married when we’re in Hawaii.” And that was that.

David has a dear friend who lives in HI who helped them arrange the details and served as their witness. They had a traditional Hawaiian wedding including the blessing of rings sprinkled by a Ti leaf dipped in ocean water gathered from a Koa wood bowl. Koa is a treasured hardwood that represents integrity and strength – a fitting reflection of David and Mark.

They both confessed to tearing up “a little bit” at the blessing at the end of the service but their favorite part was the “after”– a celebration dinner that went on for hours.

“Mark feels like home to me,” said David.

As we sat around David and Mark’s table at our dinner that night, I think all of us felt at home.

Mark and Kem

Kem and Mark

Some trips down the aisle are longer than others and that was certainly the case for Kem and Mark. They had been fast friends for years and after Kem divorced his wife of 32 years, they eventually started going out. “It just kind of made sense to start dating my best friend,” said Mark.

I asked them when they knew it was getting serious between them and Kem smiled his gentle smile and softly said, “When the first thing I thought of every morning was him.”

Mark is the analytical one in the relationship and when the Edie Windsor ruling came down in 2013, overturning The Defense of Marriage Act, he began to think strategically about getting married. “The possibilities became real and I knew we had to get ahead of what was happening here in NC,” he said.

They were married in Seattle because as Kem noted, “We wanted to get as far to the left of NC as we could.” They chose a beautiful B&B in the Gaslight district and were touched by the warm reception of so many strangers at the inn. “Everyone wanted to come up and hug us,” said Kem.

After the ceremony, they drove two hours to Vancouver for their honeymoon and that’s when it hit Mark. He turned to his best friend and said, “This has been a perfect day. We’re married.”

Joey and Chad

Chad and Joey

I work with Chad and when he was interviewing for the position a year ago this past February, he told me he was engaged. When he accepted the position, he reminded me that he would need a little time off for his wedding. I said, “Sure, when is it?” “May 5^th,” he replied.

The rest of the conversation went like this:

Me: (shriek) Oh, my God, I’m getting married on May 5^th!

Chad: (shriek) Oh, my God, that’s crazy!

Me: We picked May 5^th because it’s the anniversary of our first date.

Chad: (louder shriek): Oh, my God, that’s why we picked it, too!

Me: Where are you getting married?

Chad: DC.

Me: (louder shriek) Me, too!

Chad: (even louder shriek) Oh, my God!

I’m sure my staff thought we were being taken hostage in my office with all the noise.

It took two proposals for them to seal the deal. Chad proposed to Joey over dinner out one night in a very casual way. He simply said, “So, I think we should get married. What do you think?” To which Joey replied, “No, that is not a real proposal.”

For Joey, it don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that bling. He wanted Chad to put a ring on it.

Fast forward to the summer of 2013 and Chad and Joey were walking around DC, one of their favorite cities, when they stopped in front of the White House and Joey said, “I think we’re ready, let’s get married.” They were going to do it on the spot but soon learned about the three-day waiting period for a license in DC.

Chad and Joey’s best squirrel

So they decided to wait and do it up right on the anniversary of their first date. They were married in a wedding chapel in the morning and then took a long walk around the city. They once again found themselves in front of the White House and staked out a private space in a nearby park and exchanged their own vows with each other. Their witness was a lone squirrel who chewed loudly on a nut while they poured their hearts out to each other.

Chad’s favorite memory of the day is watching Joey methodically getting ready for their wedding in their room at the Mayflower Hotel. He watched his soon to be husband delicately lay out his shirt, tie and suit – stopping to wipe his eyes after he placed each item on the bed.

I love this story.

Oh, and by the way, Joey got his bling and then some.

Joy and Addy

Addison and Joy

I wrote about our wedding in a blog post last summer and although I never tire of hearing the story, I can understand that you might.

Joy and I had been planning a blessing at our church for months. We knew we didn’t want any part of a “pretend” wedding in NC but when it became apparent that legally married same-sex couples would be afforded federal benefits, we decided we should have a civil ceremony. We thought we would go to DC and have our dear friends, Phyllis and Tom, DC residents, be our witnesses at the court-house.

Phyllis would not hear of it and insisted that we be married in her fabulous apartment near Dupont Circle. Phyllis is my mentor and one of my dearest friends on earth and I learned early on that you never argue with her. And really, why would you?

And so we had a beautiful and intimate wedding surrounded by a few dear friends and approximately 2,000 cherry blossoms. Seriously, Phyllis and Tom’s living room looked like the Tidal Basin in May.

And we were both astonished by how completing overwhelming the moment was. We knew we would be happy but to be held in the center of a circle of so much love and to say words to each other that we never dreamed we’d ever be able to was utterly thrilling.

We really did feel different. We felt more. More connected, more loved, more permanent.

More.

The irony is not lost on me that as we all look forward to celebrating our first anniversaries with our spouses, the Supreme Court is weighing the decision on same-sex marriage perhaps once and for all.

I lost all patience on this issue a long time ago and I can only hope that love will indeed finally win when the Court’s decision is revealed in June. Whatever happens, I know of eight sweet hearts who will forever take the Fifth.

The May 5th Club

Rewriting some wrongs

“I lost my reputation. I was publicly identified as someone I didn’t recognize. And I lost my sense of self.”

Those are the words of Monica Lewinsky spoken last October at a Forbes conference. She was speaking out for the first time on cyber bullying.

I know something about this and these could be my words, too. Je suis Monica.

Monica Lewinsky

I wouldn’t blame you if that made you giggle. Lord knows I had many laughs at Monica Lewinsky’s expense and I feel rather ashamed about that now. She was a 22-year-old woman who made a mistake almost all of us have made at least once – getting involved with the wrong person. The difference is that most of us are not shamed and humiliated about our mistakes on a global stage.

I paid a heavy price for some wrong choices, too.

Several years ago, I went through a private breakup that became very public for reasons that I’m certain that I will never completely understand. It’s a long story, as they usually are, and the particulars aren’t really important now but the plot is very simple. Someone made up some awful things about me, got a few other folks to believe them and set off a wildfire that scorched every inch of my life – my family, my friends, my work, and my soul.

It was the worst time of my life and that includes a seven month period when I watched both of my parents take their last breath. In short, it almost killed me.

I learned how quickly perception can become reality, particularly on Facebook. And I learned that trying to stop it – the sheer force of a cyber beat down – is like trying to mop up a tsunami with a dish towel.

I would tremble when I logged on to Facebook – fearful for what I might see. I was the butt of running jokes online, jokes made by people I had considered friends – people I had hosted for dinner in my home. I was called everything from crazy to cunt. Yes, that word. I can remember seeing it attached to my name and feeling the color drain out of my face while my heart pounded like a bass drum.

Lewinsky says that we are living in a world where “humiliation has become a commodity.” I guess that makes the Internet the Dow Jones.

You’re probably wondering why I just didn’t abandon Facebook, the source of so much of my torment. There are two very disparate reasons. One, I felt like I needed to protect myself – to know what was going on as best I could so that there would be no surprises. You see, I learned early on during my ordeal that what you don’t know can indeed hurt you. The other reason will strike you as ironic – I desperately needed the connection to people and community not caught up in the storm.

“The moon is a friend for the lonesome to talk to.” ~ Carl Sandburg Photo: David C. Smith

There were surprising connections, too, from folks that I had never considered close friends. David was foremost among those. He lives in another city but always seemed to know when I was starving for an ounce of compassion. He would send a brief in-box message that was perhaps most beautiful simply because in that moment of utter aloneness , I knew that someone was thinking about me.

I began to write some very personal essays during this time. I was lost but was finding my voice again through my writing. I had a column in my local newspaper and strangers began emailing me to tell me how they connected with my stories. They felt heard through my writing and that was such a balm for my own healing.

Hemingway famously wrote that “the world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong in the broken places.” This has been true for me. I did get stronger and over time, the din of the bullying eventually ceased. It wasn’t dramatic, more like the end of a candle when the melting wax eventually extinguishes the flame. It put itself out.

The memory of it can still startle me at times. As Lewinsky said in a New York Times feature a few weeks ago, “It lives as an echo in your life. But over time the echo becomes softer and softer.”

She’s right.

I’m in a very good place these days. I have a wonderful wife who loves and celebrates me every day, an abundance of good and genuine friends, and work that inspires me. Maybe that’s why I can finally write about what happened to me.

I believe in resurrection and I believe in myself.

Lewinsky ended her recent TED talk by saying, “You can insist on a different ending to your story.”

I’m grateful I could write mine.

Change of plans

Cinnamon toast

I’ve been home all week sick with a nasty virus that feels like the flu but isn’t. It’s been a rough couple of days, but hopefully I turned a corner today. I finally took a shower this afternoon. Progress.

What sucks the most about this unfortunate turn of events is that my husband and I had to cancel our vacation Monday night when he came home from work to find me shivering under the covers with a 100F degree fever, and we realized there was no way I could get on a plane the next morning or even a few days from now. I was heartbroken and cried — did I mention I get weepy when I’m sick?

Our original plan was to fly to Arizona for a few days where I was going to attend a conference for work while Andrew caught up with an old friend from college. Then, we were going to drive to California to visit my parents for the remainder of our trip and celebrate my birthday a few days early. My mom was heartbroken too when I told her there’s been a change of plans. She too cried. It runs in the family.

I know we can’t always prevent ourselves from getting sick — things happen, right? But I can’t help from blaming myself this time. The week leading up to our trip, I worked. Too much. I had a long list of items to check off my list so that I could leave for two weeks with peace of mind. It was a very stressful week and I worked all day Saturday and Sunday to meet my self-inflicted deadlines. But it came with a cost. My health. Continue reading →

Facing my fears

Photo by Carla Kucinski.

Public speaking terrifies me.

It frightens me more than heights or roller coasters or swimming in the ocean — all of which are real, deep fears for me.

I will never jump out of a plane or dangle from a bridge on a bungee chord, suspended above a rocky river. Nor will you ever see me riding Six Flags’ Goliath – I can’t even handle the ferris wheel. I am not adventurous in that way, and instead get my thrills from discovering simple things like a new cupcake shop.

I realize that the basis of my fear is a little thing called death. But there’s a deeper layer rooted in the fear of surrendering all self-control and putting my trust in whoever is at the switch. There’s a “letting go” that needs to happen, and I am not a “letting go” kind of gal.

With public speaking, you have to surrender yourself to the audience and hope that they will be engaged and kind and forgiving. It also requires being in the spotlight, something else I do not enjoy. I prefer to work behind-the-scenes.

My earliest memory of this fear was in preschool. A few times a year, our teachers would make us perform a bunch of songs for all the parents. When it was showtime, I was the kid in the back row rubbing my eyes, crying. There’s a photo of me holding hands with another little girl with a Kool-Aid stained mouth, trying to comfort me. Situations like that overwhelmed me even at such a young age. When there’s too much stimuli, I shut down or meltdown.

So then what would possess me to voluntarily get up on stage two weeks ago and tell a personal story, without notes, to a roomful of strangers? Fear. Or better yet, confronting my fear.

This is me with Jeff, the creator of The Monti, after I performed my story. Jeff is an incredible storytelling coach and helped me craft my story every step of the way. He also believed in me, which helped me believe in me, too.

For a few months, Jeff Polish had been trying to get me to tell a story at The Monti, a storytelling event where people from the community tell a true 12-minute story based on a particular theme. Jeff is the creator, and an all-around good guy. He also looks a lot like Ray Romano. Jeff launched The Monti in Chapel Hill in 2008 to a sold-out crowd, and occasionally he would bring The Monti to Greensboro. That’s how I became a Monti junkie.

As a writer, I love a good story. But live storytelling, I discovered, offered a much deeper connection than words on a page. Every time I attended a Monti performance, my face would hurt from laughing and my eyes would burn from crying. Each story moved me in a different way.

The night I walked away from my first Monti I thought, “I want to do this.” Followed by my second thought: “But I’m terrified.” For years, I attended The Monti as a spectator, trying to envision myself telling a story and thinking that over time I would muster the courage to step onto the stage. But fear paralyzed me.

It took three invitations from Jeff before I finally said “yes.” The theme “Animal Instincts” spoke to me, but aside from that, I’m not sure why I finally agreed. In fact, it was almost like someone else had spoken “yes” for me. But once I committed, I knew there was no turning back. I was all in. And I was petrified.

Someone told me recently that sometimes life throws challenges at us, stretches us beyond our comfort levels, to prepare us for something greater. I did not realize until now that in the months leading up to my Monti debut, I was tested in ways that I had never been tested before — and it all revolved around public speaking.

Six months before The Monti, my aunt asked me to deliver the eulogy at my grandpa’s funeral. I cried so much throughout the funeral service that I worried I wouldn’t be able to pull myself together. My entire body trembled. But when I stepped up to the podium and looked out at the mournful faces gathered in the church, waiting to hear my words, the tears stopped, my voice was steady, and I just did it. How? I’m still not sure.

Two months later, a colleague asked me to present at a conference. I was afraid, but I said yes. Two months after that, I had to give a group presentation to the president of the college I work for — and all the directors. Afterwards, people told me I was a natural and to walk in my gift. Me? I kept glancing over my shoulder, thinking they were talking to someone else.

That’s me debuting my story on The Monti stage. It’s kind of surreal looking at these photos. I still can’t believe I got up there. Photo by McKenzie Floyd.

The day of my Monti performance I felt like I was going to throw up. It started at noon, and only got worse the closer it got to showtime. Jeff assured me this was normal. In fact, when I saw him that night, he actually seemed proud that I had reached this critical point in the Monti storytelling journey. This is what’s supposed to happen.

That night, I told a story, a love story about my first dog Yoshi — our beginning, our middle and our end. It was just me, and a mic and roomful of listeners. And it was the most vulnerable place I had ever stepped into. Willingly. But when I took the stage and I spoke my first line, all my fears evaporated. It was like someone flipped a switch inside of me, and it felt incredible.

When I returned to my seat, Addison leaned over and told me to look around, “Everyone is crying. Not a dry eye,” she said. I scanned the faces in the room, wet with tears. In that moment, I experienced the power of storytelling. That night my words connected with the people in that room and they felt something. And I felt something too, an overwhelming amount of gratitude. I was grateful for an audience who was kind, attentive and open; for friends who cheered me on that night and surrounded me with support and comfort and lifted me up; and for Jeff for seeing something in me that I didn’t until now.

Photo by McKenzie Floyd.

Bookends

Two writers. One blog.