The only heart in this room that is holding steady is the one on my wrist. The tattoo I got for my 22nd birthday. I had drawn it on there for months before I actually got it to make sure that I really liked it there. At the tattoo parlor, the artist told me to place it a little lower because when I fold my hand down, my skin wrinkles and over time it would ruin, break essentially, my heart tattoo. So I took his advice and over this years this is the only heart that has survived.

When I was younger, I told people, confidently, that I would fill this heart in when I got married. As I get older, I just let people comment on it’s quirkiness. It’s not a uniformly shaped heart, it’s obvious that I drew it. I don’t dare talk about why I would fill it. It doesn’t seem as likely anymore, at least to me. To people who know, they all say that I will get married. That these worries are silly. They don’t get how I can’t see myself as they see me. Believe me, I wish I could.

But as I approach 30, everyone else’s worry is weighing me down. I understand it, but I don’t want to hold it along with my own worries. Right now, I want to figure out what to do with all these cracked hearts. I don’t want to throw them away, they mean something to me. The hearts are still pretty, the hearts are still hearts. My heart hasn’t cracked into a million tiny pieces. And it won’t, even though some days it feels dangerously close. And I know I need to stop pushing people away because someday they might stop pushing back to stay where they are.

Days like today feel like failures in my happiness project, but days like this are inevitable. My goal was to be happy every day, not all day every day. And my day is still young, there are actually a lot of things that I can do to bring a little happiness my way – from my guiltiest of pleasures (anything Twilight, I know, I know) to creating things I can share with my love ones (currently, I’m crocheting about 4 different cowls for Christmas presents). I’m cooking brunch, a healthy one at that, so I can smile as I scarf down all this yummy food. I can talk to my brothers, who I adore, or my mother, who I admire. Or I can work on my dissertation proposal or comps reading list, not fun activities but it feels good to get anything done on them. Or I could get back and bed and daydream, or I can keep writing.

e.

But it starts before I even got here. My mother and father don’t agree much on the details of how they met but from what I can gather, my mother came to California, met my father and they fell in love. Like for real love, they got engaged and bought a house. Then my father messed up big time (“groupies” according to my dad and drugs, bad combo) and my mother left him. After she had me, she moved back to Connecticut. And since my father loved both of us, he followed. Since he didn’t know anyone in CT, he couldn’t get drugs and so he got clean.

For a while we all lived together with my grandmother. My mother’s work required her to travel a lot, so I spent most of my early years with my father and my grandmother. Eventually my mom was able to spend more time in CT, enough to buy a house and we were a “regular” family. I’m not sure what happened, but my father moved out but we still hung out all the time. I was the ultimate daddy’s girl and it was awesome. He spoiled me rotten and I loved it. Whatever I wanted I got and I got used to it.

When I was nine, my mother told me she was going to have a baby (with her husband, not my dad). That’s when my father decided to tell me that he had just had a baby with some woman I never met and that I had a six month old brother.

Somewhere along the way my dad started doing drugs again. His visits became more sporadic and when we hung out it was sometimes with real shady people and sketchy situations. I was also getting older, so I was more aware of what going on, but for the most part everything was cool.

Then my dad started going to jail. The first time was devastating. I remember hiding in the closet and crying. But after that, I began to look forward to my dad going to jail because when he was in jail he called and wrote all the time. And when he was out, he was gone.

During another stint in jail, the woman he had my brother with had a little girl. She was born addicted to crack and was placed for adoption. I only met her once, the day after she was born. And then she was gone.

Though I was getting frustrated with my father around this time, I was not done with him. I figured eventually he would clean up and get his life together. He had kids and all these mistakes had costs. But my father couldn’t clean up. My breaking point came when he missed my high school graduation. Later he told me that he was high and didn’t want to see me in that state. But I didn’t know then and that was the first time I cut him off.

Through all of this, mother has always remained calm. She never says anything negative about my father and his shenanigans. And whenever I talk crazy about his, she reminds me that he is my father. I’ve always admired this about her because if some man was driving my children crazy, it would be all over for him.

I don’t remember how, but we reconciled. I didn’t trust him and I barely liked him but I still loved him. My mother made me invite him to my college graduation. He came and was so proud you would have thought he had anything to do with my success there. It infuriated me.

The next few years were strained. I was going through my own stuff and didn’t want to deal with my father’s. I can’t remember now what happened, (I’m sure it had something to do with the truly awful man that I was dating) but I decided that I needed to deal with my father and our issues before it ruined any chance I had at obtaining and maintaining a function romantic relationship. So I wrote him a letter. It said three things: 1. You don’t know me, you haven’t made an effort, so I’m going to tell you who I am, 2. You’re either in or out. I’m not going to continue to chase you around and beg you to act like a father. You either do it on your own and leave me the hell alone and 3. You are not going to be the reason I don’t get married.

To be honest, I didn’t expect an answer. But my father, ever full of surprises, wrote me back and sent a packet of other stuff. He said he was sorry. He said he had been clean for a year and was diagnosed with PTSD. He had been in therapy and was back to drawing again. He sent me all the information he had about my sister. He sent me info about veteran benefits for children (way too late as I was 25 but it would help my brother). And he said I was right. I was finally able to forgive him.

He started to call me. If we had plans to meet, you better believe he was there. And for that I am grateful.

Our relationship now is not perfect but it’s much better. I have accepted my father for who is. I can see who he is. And I am ok with that. He’s never going to be Bill Cosby.   He’s never going to be the man to financially bail me out of situations.  But he is the man who will come down to to New York year after year and move me to different apartments, even mice filled ones that scare both of us. He’s the man that tells me I’m beautiful, smart, funny, insert positive adjective here when I need to hear it. He’s the man that helps me calm down because he’s incapable of not seeing the bright side to a situation.  He’s the man that makes me laugh.  He is my father.

e.

Anyway, another flaky potential roommate and the threat of only having one day to decide if I want the apartment, lead to lots of tears and me signing the lease on the new place.  I’d get the keys on Monday.  That Friday I had drinks and a packing party with Mo, which meant that we got drunk and did not pack.  Saturday I went to a bartending class and actually started packing.  Sunday my mom came down and Stacey came over, so we actually did pack.  On Monday, I got the keys and my Mom and Chris helped me move many, many boxes over.  Upon entering the apartment, it seemed even smaller than I remember, I start calling it Teeny Tiny.

On one of our numerous trips between my old apartment and new apartment, my old super asked where I was moving.  Oh I’m moving into 565.  ”Oh you’re in the small apartment?” My mom laughed, I cried.  And so it continued.

My new super sees me and asks which apartment I’m moving into, the small one?  My mom laughs some more, I cry again.  Damn, does everyone know that I’m moving into the smallest apartment in the world?  Weak.

But it’s yours!  Everyone’s response is “but it’s yours.”  And I know that that should be enough.  And that in spite of a kitchen the size of my dresser, I should be happy because it’s mine and because I have been going on and on about how I didn’t want another roommate and wanted to live on my own again.  But this is not what I wanted and these are not the terms I wanted it on.  I’m moving because no one wanted to live with me and I’m moving into an overpriced shoe box.

But it’s mine.  And two weeks of funky attitude later, the place is growing on me.  There are quirks I’m going to need to work with (the fire alarm goes off any time the stove is set over 350) and sacrifices to be made (only a tomato, a pepper and my basil made the cut from the awesome garden I had).  I’m viewing furniture placement as a challenge a la design star. And I’m finally being forced to purge the obscene amounts of paper I have in here.  Pretty early on I recognized that living in the apartment would be a really large test in being happy with what you have.  I also recognized I was utterly failing in that regard and that was frustrating.  Having what you want and still being unhappy is the worst and I didn’t want to be one of those people always searching for more when I knew I already had enough. Slowly but surely I am growing to love this pace and am excited about it’s potential.  And in the end, I know I’ll look back at this whole experience and have a hearty laugh.

e.

As you can see by my expert paint skills, the ride took forever.  An hour of being scared out of my mind by cars zooming by – ok that’s not true.  We spent a large chunk of that time on a bike path, but still.    The ride home took more than an hour I’m sure as by the time we made it to Ave A, I was dying.

My body hurts in places that have never hurt before.   I’ll be icing for days.  But it was worth it.  After we got out of Prospect Park, I rode home alone.  I made it down Classon – a street with no bike lanes – all by myself.

Now to grow a pair when it comes to men…

peace,
e.

p.s. Shout out to Manny and Drew who were very patient with my slow riding and constant whining (and screaming *shame face*).