Seven years, a thousand miles, and a few therapy sessions have passed since my five-month stint in Florida, so why did I still have a shaky heart and that slight lump in my throat and arising anxiety around the whole situation? I went to celebrate the high school graduation of my 17-year-old cousin/sister/bestie. That's a happy occasion. What was the issue? Sure, I didn't leave on the most pleasant note and I hadn't kept in touch very well and I harbored resentment about some real fucked-up shit I experienced there with the combined intensity of Little Boy and Fat Man. Alas, Buddha said, "Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned."
My uncle Lance picked me and my brother up from Jacksonville International Airport in a black 2010 Jeep, initiating small talk about a bridge under construction that has traffic going awry. I looked out the window for the majority of the 49-minute drive to their house; a bi-level five miles outside the small town of Middleburg. I missed the luscious greenery I associate with the east coast. (I did this nature shoot back in the day that still makes me smile *click me*) Okay, so here's the thing... I did feel nervous and suspicious and uneasy about my great return. "We have learned that trauma is not just an event that took place sometime in the past; it is the imprint left by that experience on mind, brain, and body," Bessel van der Kolk wrote in his 2014 book The Body Keeps Score. With that said, I was very optimistic and excited and eager to create new memories in the same place where I endured a barrage of discomfort. There were a few crucial elements to consider this time around including, but not limited to:
- I would be there for 5 days and 4 nights.
- I was there to celebrate a milestone in my baby's life.
- I was accompanied by my brother as well as my Uncle Ricky, whose presence always makes me feel safer.
- I am a seasoned, secure-ish 27-year-old as opposed to a meager, unsure 20-year-old.
I'm here to report that I had a decent trip, overall. There were only a few disruptions to my peace. I was in my cousin's room putting on make-up for her reception when my burly, lesbian aunt busted through the door, looking for a camera lens or some shit. Music played from my iPhone 11 Pro from wherever I tossed it on the bed. I don't know what was on, probably "Vice City" by Black Hippy or "Screwed Up" by Cousin Stizz.
"You're just like your daddy; always playing music," she said.
"Oh, fer sure! I love him."
"Ya, you need to not be disrespecting him the way you do." *Record scratching* Ummmm... I... What??? Alright, so let's just take a step back for a hot minute and address some shits. My dad and I have been on great terms for a solid, oh, three years. I FaceTime and call and text him all the time. I have forgiven him for all his misdeeds and shortcomings. Furthermore, I live in Texas and he's in Colorado. No beef here. My aunt is known for sticking her nose in places it just doesn't belong as well as being opinionated as fuck, but my dad and my relationship has always been and will always be the most sensitive subject to me. Soooo... yeah... I have zero clue where that came from.
"Would you be respectful to your dad?" I posed.
"I never knew my father. Are you saying you didn't know your dad? Really??"
"I think that... just because someone has a present father doesn't mean it's inherently positive."
"You just know one side to the story. You're not considering it from a subjective perspective." (There's this trite rhetoric with my paternal family that my mom "brainwashed" me and my brothers into thinking my dad was the villain of our story.)
"What do you mean?!" I exclaimed incredulously. "I lived it! This is not hearsay."
"What did he do that was soooo bad?"
"When I was in elementary school and we had every-other-weekend visitation with him, he'd always send his girlfriend to pick us up. And then he'd spend that time going out to bars! He'd come home at 2 a.m. and wake us up to wrestle or force us to give him a kiss. He'd—"
"See, that's your problem: you need to let go of the past. You just hang on to negativity."
"You brought it up!!! I'm not just sitting in here stewing about my dad!"
"The problem with your generation is that you think how someone treats you dictates whether you give them respect or not. In my day, we respected our elders."
"I agree with that entirely. My dad went around acting crazy towards me for YEARS. I refuse to give anyone respect if it's not going to be reciprocated. Got me all the way fucked up."
On one hand, I can't fault ol' girl. In my professional opinion, I think it's a defense mechanism of some sort. Let me show you how smart/moral/right I am all while feeling insecure and inferior and inadequate. Or maybe she's just a self-righteous bitch and I'm making excuses for her because I love her. On the other hand, what it comes down to is ignorance in its purest form. She and I got into an altercation a few years ago and haven't been in contact since. She literallyyyyy has no clue how my dad and I interact or feel. Zero. None. Zilch. Not an iota. But wants to come out the cut with assumptions? Girl, bye.
Then, my uncle Lance (whose house I stayed at)... this fuckin' guy. I cannot. He's this staunch Republican who was raised in Utah and Nebraska that I have seemingly nothing in common with. He's pompous, annoying, over-bearing, and, quite frankly, strange to me. I was showing Uncle Ricky "The Social Dilemma", a Neftlix documentary on the societal implications of technology, when one of the producers asks, "What are you most worried about?" Former Facebook executive and Pinterest president Tim Kendall goes, "I think, in the… in the shortest time horizon… civil war."
"I don't think it will, though," Uncle Ricky mused. He served in the United States Army for 20+ years, has a bachelor's degree in security management, and is an intellectual. Even though I can appreciate his optimism, I disagreed. However, there was still thirty or so minutes of the show left so I told him, "Please hold all questions, comments, and concerns for the end."
No one:
Not a single person:
Not a soul:
No one on planet Earth:
Lance from behind us in the kitchen: "I'm not even paying attention."
Irked as fuck I go, "What???"
He's like, "The minute I saw Mark Zuckerberg it was discredited."
I was trying to show my favorite person a piece of art that deeply resonated with me and Lance hijacked it, for whatever reason, with his misplaced sense of egotism. A couple days later, I was trying to talk to my aunt, his wife, about arrangements for going back to the airport. In a vain attempt to make it clear who I was talking to, I stared into her dark brown eyes and positioned my body in alignment with hers. He kept talking over her and interrupting until he finally snapped, "Will you let me explain?!" My aunt retracted, unfazed by his curt demeanor, apparently acclimated to it. I was repulsed. I wish a man would.
The final disturbance wasn't a distressing event or issue, per se. The night before I was to fly back to Texas and Uncle Ricky was to drive three hours south to Sarasota we stayed up for a couple hours talking on the enclosed front porch. I'm a slut for warm weather so the 70° humidity comforted me. If it bothered my nino, he didn't let on. Before I could even get out my first words, tears streamed down my face. I'm unsure why I cried as I was on vacation in a tropical oasis with people who mean very much to me. Maybe it was the heat or the four-day drinking bender I was on or reconnecting with family I hadn't spent time with in years or the fact that Mercury (the planet of communication) went into retrograde. Regardless, I cried for the first time this year. My uncle was so kind and patient and understanding as I wept. I told him I felt like I was jogging in place. That I didn't understand how I grew up under the same roof as my brother yet he somehow learned how to save money and know his limits and was on the verge of buying a house in Fort Collins, Colorado. That I was at a freakin' complete stop when someone ran straight into the side of my 2010 Hyundai Accent and so now I'm looking into buying a 1999 Toyota Corolla. That his sister gave me $100 to buy my plane ticket and my mom charged the rest to her credit card. That I don't feel like I'll ever make progress in this life.
"You have to stop comparing yourself to other people," he said. "Everyone has their own journey."
Look, I'm not the same person I was in 2014. I have made gargantuan leaps and strides in terms of who I am as a person. The problem lies in the stagnation of my external situation. This is my current home:
I have a job that doesn't give me status anxiety. I have amazing people in my life who I love and who love me back. I truly have been feeling grateful lately. Going back to Florida seemed to reopen an old wound because I'm sitting here, a week later, feeling waves of variegated emotions that I'm struggling to process. I guess the wound didn't heal properly in the first place so it would be more accurately considered an agitation; a glaring red flag that I still have some inner work that needs to be done. In the meantime, I think I will listen to good music and soak up sunshine and keep on keepin' on. What's the alternative?
“Aging is an extraordinary process whereby you become the person you always should have been.”
―David Bowie
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