Life as Art

Where do I start with this story… with our story? Just tonight, I was sitting with all of them. For hours we sat there bouncing between each of our respective past, future, present experiences. I was captivated by finding the nuances of each of our stories and how they fit together. Between tearful recollections of our individual stories and exuberant imaginations of what future reunions would look like, and then being completely consumed by what is happening in the moment and feel the satisfaction/validation/beauty of what was transpiring right in front of me.

I might get into the origins of how all of us came together someday, but the lore in itself is just so complicated and full of so much history that it would likely be better described in a comprehensive autobiographical account. For the purpose of this blog, here’s the pertinent information:

I am in Louisiana to attend the wedding of my youngest sibling (that I know of), Jonathan. I met two of my younger brothers, Jonny and Ryan, when I was in my mid-twenties. We have several relatives who we don’t really talk to, but the three of us connected rather well over the past several years.

Wow. That is such a simplified explanation, I don’t know if it’ll suffice. But, to reiterate, the origin story is not the point of this post. So what’s the objective? Hmm…

I am moved to write in this moment – at 1:40am the evening before Jonathan’s wedding – because I don’t know if I’ve ever had this feeling before. Every time I try to find a word (accepted/belonging/loved/at home/etc), it seems to not perfectly describe the feeling inside of me. I think I just have to describe what happened and maybe you’ll feel the same thing.

I remember learning around the age of 4 that I had something called a “father”, and I learned he lived in Oklahoma and he was not interested in knowing me but that he was someone worth knowing. I learned my mom loved my dad, that this feeling wasn’t quite reciprocated, and that he never gave either of us the opportunity for him to love me because he died before we could track him down (another story for another time). What an elusive motherfucker!

A number of years later, I met a sibling, an uncle, some grandparents. I was eager to meet them but then when it finally happened, I only returned home still seeking the sense of family I only knew the absence of. I was unimpressed with their lack of sincerity when they’d say something like, “I have been praying to Jesus for you”, “You woulda been your daddy’s little princess”, or, “Dad was [insert some trait that is the antithesis of impregnating an adolescent while married and then denying, abandoning, and evading a child he would have adored if he had been willing to meet her]”, or whatever enabling placations I had been offered. Although, it didn’t stop me from yearning for something that had never existed – my little-girl brain imagining an alternative universe where the older man really did love the teenager he had an affair with.

After a number of years, failed attempts to connect by independently driving myself as a minor across the country on 11-hour road trips only to be met by becoming the assigned babysitter to toddlers and newborns for entire summers, my older sister continuing to ditch meeting up with me after I had driven so far, and gobs of relatives demonstrating the aptitude of our entire bloodline to hide in plain sight, I had somewhat given up on trying to become anyone’s family. I accepted I was born a nebulous pariah; a child-mistress’ problem left floating through the universe. Nothing felt like home for a long time.

Then, my older brother called me up one day and told me to look up a couple of names on Facebook. I think I was 24 or 25. I landed on Ryan first. Then Jonathan. My then-husband was deployed at the time so I had plenty of time to fixate. I looked at the shape of their smiles and eyes, the color of their skin, the expressions that all seemingly replicated some part of me that cannot be defined with words. We were the same in some way… or was I just making that up? I’d spend night after night after my kids were in bed imagining what it would have been like to know them, and I fantasized what it would be like when I finally would. Then I did.

It’s difficult to describe what it’s like to feel so connected to a couple of specific human beings and then when you’re actually in front of them, all you can see is the space between you and them. Ryan and Jonathan showed up with their girlfriends at the time. They had already connected with each other, they were teenagers, and were in a completely different stage of life. I had 3 kids and a husband. They were adolescents. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t lowkey heartbroken to not feel that connection immediately. That was 15-ish years ago.

It’s difficult to build on that when the three of us had vastly different lives in literally three different corners of the United States. Somehow, the way things transpired brought us to the moments we had tonight. Over 15 years, we learned more about each others’ pasts. But more importantly, we became a part of each other’s stories. I think my younger brothers and I would all agree this can be attributed to Ryan’s continuous efforts to be the first to call after several months, show up in the worst moments, to be the realest when shit has been fucked, and to do this with some weird vibe that feels mostly unthreatening while also being the most transparent. I have not mastered that last skill.

Somehow, the three have us have survived the genetic prophecy that we’d kill ourselves and our own spirits in some way, and instead sought a new legacy. We’re all in some various stage of this and we all likely take a backward step. But tonight, I felt the energy of whatever it is we all behold. I observed it manifest itself in the way the Universe had probably intended when it created that energy in the first place.

So tonight, I was sitting there with Jonathan and his Jay, Ryan and his Dara, and my daughter G. There were a number of moments where I exclaimed some fact of my life, some fact of how I felt, behaving with complete inhibition. Something inside of me would go, “Whoa. You are not editing yourself in any way.” My heart would jump as though I had gone too far/said too much/been too emphatic. Then, as soon as that moment would come, there would be a response by someone else in the room that would shoot down whatever fear I’d had that I’d done something inappropriate. Instead, there’d be an eruption of laughter, a finger pointed at me with, “Oh my God! Yes!”, or some other validation that I had been seen/heard/understood. There would be moments when I’d look at my brothers’ mannerisms or their wives would respond with a time in which their lovers were just as abrasive/direct/unaware that they’d cross an emotional boundary, just as I have been equally guilty of.

As I’m writing, I’m thinking of several moments since my arrival on this trip that would further confirm whatever this feeling inside of me is. But it’s not just about these moments in time.

What it’s about? Why am I writing? This is intrinsic to our biology, my very existence. I never want to forget what it feels like to belong in the deepest sense. It feels like cavemen sleeping in a cave together with a fire at their center. It feels like holding your baby to your chest skin-to-skin. It feels like satisfaction of placing the last piece of a jigsaw puzzle into its home. It feels like twisting your key at your front door after a long time away – every second being a second too long, because while the vacation has been good, it’s not the sense of being home- before the lock finally rotates, you turn the knob, and you push the door open. You don’t even walk in yet but the second your arm extends, you pick up the scent of Home.

Ryan. Jonny. Dara. Jay. Thank you for bringing me home.